News and Analysis Results
How Free Press breaks the citizens' network
In 2003 the journalist Ron Suskind captured one of the quotes of the decade when he cited an unnamed Bush administration official as saying: "When we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality, we'll act again, creating other new realities." On the web today, "political activism" has become a virtual …
Hollywood bets on biometric DRM + P2P
Some of you may recall the quixotic crusade of inventor Gary Brant, who we interviewed last year. Gary proposed integrating biometric DRM into a portable MP3 player, and was unabashed when several hundred Register readers wrote in to say what a bad idea it was. Not one reader, in fact, endorsed the idea. But Brant's …
GoogleNet - the ultimate embrace and extend?
We've been reading stories about the "end of the internet" ever since the internet was exposed to the public more than a decade ago. Telcos, media companies, infrastructure hardware providers, and operating systems monopolists have all taken their turn as the villain in this particular drama. So far not one has succeeded. But …
Malware, spam prompts mass net turn off
Both beginners and veterans are finding the Interweb experience so repellent that they're disconnecting in droves, blaming malware and spam. Despite an overall increase in numbers of humans connected to the internet, the mass turn-off is beginning to hit ecommerce in the United States. "Instead of making life easier — the …
Stalling net must dump TCP/IP and overlords
A report that looks at why adoption of the internet is stalling worldwide has concluded that major changes are needed. New governance and new protocols must be introduced, or else the net's best days will be behind it. Although it shouldn't be, today's internet is expensive and cumbersome, excluding most of the world's …
MS Trusted Computing back to drawing board
Microsoft's extravagent silver-bullet to cure piracy, rid the Internet of worms and viruses, and possibly bring about world peace won't now appear in Longhorn, the next version of Windows. Despite their apparently contradictory headlines, both eWeek and CRN corroborate that Microsoft's promised software support for the Trusted …
Victory for CPRM: SD cards overtake Compact Flash
It's three years since we first heard of CPRM (Content Protection for Recordable Media), the digital rights management technology, but it's only in recent weeks that it's taken a decisive edge. CPRM is designed to restrict the movement of digital files (which could be content or executables) according to rights set by the …
“I poisoned P2P networks for the RIAA” – whistleblower
"Gobbles", the German hacker who improbably claimed to have infected peer-to-peer file sharing networks and to "0wn" your computer this week, has confirmed that his brag was a hoax. That much, you probably suspected, as Goebbels (as we must now call him) failed to offer a shred of evidence in support of the notion that the RIAA …
RIAA invites comments
According to an official statement issued by the Recording Industry Association of America today, "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner … do you eat cheese?" Which is pretty bizarre even by the standards set by the RIAA's recent communications. Of course, this hasn't been issued by the RIAA at all. It's a defacement, only a …
Net radio's treasure mulls CARP crunch
New Yorkers will need no introduction to WFMU, the most lauded of public stations, and one of the Internet's greatest treasures. Rolling Stone magazine has voted WFMU, which broadcasts from New Jersey, the best radio station for four years running. It isn't just the thirty strong roster of music loving DJs that makes the station …
Disney has Microsoft captive
AP's Suzanne Plunkett has exposed the relationship between the entertainment industry and the technology industry, in a dramatic new photograph. The relationship, which has been marked by shadowy backroom politics and draconian technology, is thrust blinking into daylight. And as we suspected, it's a highly uneven contest: …
O geeks, what has become of us?
Tom Steinberg is a founder of voxpolitics.com Guest Editorial Meet a man with a pony-tail, a pasty complexion, and a faded black t-shirt emblazoned with a logo involving the word *NIX, and you will normally be able to guess his techno-politics pretty easily. For a start, he's going to resent attempts to record his emails, hate …
‘Six million crystal tubes’ in China's first CPU
China's first CPU - the existence of which was first reported a year ago - has made its debut, according the People's Daily. The Dragon boasts the power of a 486, according to an earlier communique issued by the Chinese Ministry of Technology, and thanks to a charming mistranslation we learn that it features "six million …
Dell Computers are American – official
After a long and tortuous process of deliberation, US Customs has decided that Dell's notebook computers are American. Even though in one of the computers under examination, the chassis is from Taiwan, the hard disk from Thailand, the floppy disk drive and power supply are from China, the CD-ROM is from Japan, and the memory …
Where art thou Stuckists? Intel reveals share denial PC scheme
It was a schizophrenic Intel that faced the world at its Developer Conference in San Jose yesterday. In the morning keynote it touted its new multimedia "adaptor" platform, with glossy lifestyle videos explaining how our "digital media experience" would become "more convenient". In the afternoon it explained why it was …
Boycott Hollywood for Thanksgiving?
Re: The Stuckist Net - what is your post-Palladium future? A quick note before we start. There's a real Stuckist Art Movement, and it was the inspiration for us appropriating the term. Charles Thomson who coined the expression has written to us. They'd like to avoid confusion that it's a "Stuckist"-blessed project. Now the …
Rebranding Fair Use – your answers
Re:Vote against a paid-for Pigopolist pol! We asked for more attractive terms for digital rights, as "digital rights" and "fair use" don't seem to be very effective. The word "GeekPAC" sucks too, so could you do better? (Some campaigns are designed to grab five minutes' attention, and although sincere, GeekPAC looks like it …
The Stuckist Net – what is your post-Palladium future?
"Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!" - Tracey Emin [to Billy Childish]. The copyright holders who dominate the entertainment oligopolies in the United States could risk ceding the nation's technological lead, once and forever. How so? Well, we now see that the Pigopolists intend to restrict the open …
Vote against a paid-for Pigopolist pol!
Bought and paid-for representatives of the entertainment oligopolies in Washington could find themselves facing challenges back home. A 26-year old will oppose Howard Coble (R) as a single-issue candidate. Well, not strictly as a single issue: Tara Grubb is the Libertarian Party candidate who says she'll campaign on a single …
A Stuckist Net – you want in
Register readers are dreamers - but not schemers. That's the conclusion from your response to our story, The Stuckist Net - what is your post-Palladium future? - asking how a non-Palladium world might be sustained if the biggest names in the computer industry continue to capitulate to . We suggested that in India and China are …
Dirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide
Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores
Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala
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