h4Prescription-only recipe for widespread offence/h4 pThe Advanced Medical Institute has refused to withdraw billboard ads for a nasal spray for "male sexual problems", despite an Advertising Standards Authority edict they must come down since they're punting prescription-only drugs..../ppa href="http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/609/?td=btmtl"Free Download - The emReg/em Guide to Storage and Storage Platforms/a/p

h4Cancelling the trial? Better check yerself/h4 pThose who've been enjoying Apple's much-extended MobileMe trial should take care when cancelling accounts, to prevent the cloudy ghost coming back to haunt them and swiping all their contacts and appointments..../p

h4'Rip-off' numbers go free/h4 pBT has today cut the cost of calling 0845 and 0870 to zero for many of its customers, following a consumer campaign against companies profiting from premium rate lines..../p

h4Time to dump that Rolex?/h4 pWatches that let you make voice and video calls sound like something from a James Bond movie. Or an LG catalogue. The Korean electronics giant has a a href="http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/30/lg_wristwatch_phone_at_ces/"wristwatch phone/a in the works and yesterday confirmed it is launching the high-tech timepiece at some unspecified time this year..../p

h4Replica 'scope celebrates four centuries of heliocentrism/h4 pAstronomers are celebrating 400 years since Galileo made his famous observations, which were fundamental in proving the heliocentric hypothesis, by pointing a replica of one of his original telescopes at the heavens to recreate his original stargaze..../p

h4Forgers fuddled by non-Nano/h4 pApple's failure to launch a dinky "iPhone Nano" has caught forgers off guard, leaving Far Eastern manufacturers with forged versions of a product that doesn't exist..../ppa href="http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/609/?td=btmtl"Free Download - The emReg/em Guide to Storage and Storage Platforms/a/p

h4Virgin: 'What did you say about my mothership?'/h4 pThe "mothership" intended to carry beardy biz kingpin Richard Branson's planned space tourism rocketplanes to launch altitude has hit technical problems, according to reports..../p

h4Your Shannon Water, tears strikeof joy/strike that flow/h4 pDell is closing its Limerick manufacturing facility, with the assembly plant's functions due to be transferred to a Polish plant in Lodz..../p

h4Shareholders need to know about sickness/h4 pStock market-listed companies have a duty to inform shareholders if an executive's illness threatens to affect the firm's performance, a company law expert has said. That duty does not bind unlisted UK firms, he said..../p

h4It's the national security, stupid/h4 pJonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, has said it needs access to communications data to strengthen national security..../p

h4We're losing wood, give us $5bn/h4 pStateside pornographers have asked Congress to stump $5bn "to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America" amid the increasing economic gloom which is apparently sapping Yanks' will to get their end away..../pa href="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/jump/reg.rss.4159/main;sz=336x280;ord=1234567893?" target="_blank"img src="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/ad/reg.rss.4159/main;sz=336x280;ord=1234567893?" border="0" alt=""/a

h4Laptops for developing world credit crunched/h4 pOne Laptop Per Child - the non-profit organisation aiming to give kids in the developing world their own laptops - is laying off half its staff and cutting salaries for those who are keeping their jobs..../p

h4Improving but must try harder/h4 pConsumer electronic goods are a little bit greener than those sold a year ago, according to a new a target="_blank" href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/green-electronics-survey-2"report/a from Greenpeace..../p

h4Ultimate Xmas dad challenge/h4 pAn autonomous British robot submarine has just set out on a mission which will see it plunge deep beneath Antarctic ice shelves. Interestingly, the "Autosub" has no truck whatsoever with li-ion, fuel cells, stirling engines, hydrogen peroxide or any other trendy undersea power system: it runs on ordinary torch batteries, 5,000 of them to be exact..../p

h4USAF to jazz up jet juice use/h4 pAn American high-tech jet engine design bureau, owned by UK-centred firm Rolls-Royce, will design key power systems necessary for the electricity-heavy combat aircraft of tomorrow. Future fighters and bombers are expected to use huge amounts of electricity to power such things as directed-energy rayguns and/or cyberwarfare electropulse systems..../p

h4How to reduce your desktop management costs by 40 per cent/h4 pstrongRegcast/strong Tune in at 2PM GMT today for our first Regcast of 2009. The Register's expert panel aims to help to cut your PC desktop costs, with this live, free, webcastic extravaganza..../pa href="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/jump/reg.rss.4159/main;sz=336x280;ord=12345678922?" target="_blank"img src="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/ad/reg.rss.4159/main;sz=336x280;ord=12345678922?" border="0" alt=""/a

h4Not great, not bad/h4 pSanDisk has revealed missing details about its a target="_blank" href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/06/sandisk_netbook_flash/"pSSD gen 2 netbook/a flash product, showing it's not as leading edge as it seemed, but could be ideal for netbook use..../p

h4Can you wait a year?/h4 pstrongMacworld Expo/strong a href="http://www.microvision.com/" target="_blank"Microvision/a, the Redmond-based creator of mobile display systems, chose Macworld Expo to unveil a prototype of its latest - and smallest - laser-based projector..../p

h4More polish so you don't spit/h4 pstrongReview/strong Microsoft has a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/08/ballmer_ces_windows_7_beta/"officially released/a the first Windows 7 beta. While it's been one of the web's worst kept secrets, Microsoft was still keeping quiet about the details and timing of the final release at the time of writing..../p

h4Zune-phone free future/h4 pSteve Ballmer has stressed the relevance of both Windows and the PC in an increasingly fragmented world of computing devices and web access, while introducing the next version of Windows..../pa href="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/jump/reg.rss.4159/main;sz=336x280;ord=12345678922?" target="_blank"img src="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/ad/reg.rss.4159/main;sz=336x280;ord=12345678922?" border="0" alt=""/a

h4But will bring one to market no matter what/h4 pstrongCES/strong Panasonic wants the consumer electronics industry to come together and join it in the development of a standard for full HD 3D TV..../p

h4Vaio P dubbed an... ahem... 'lifestyle PC'./h4 pstrongCES/strong Yes, Sony did it: today, it unveiled an 8in netbook - or "ultra-portable PC", as the consumer electronics giant would rather you called it. It also used the term "lifestyle PC"..../p

h4AOL owner/Lehman landlord admits $25bn write-down/h4 pTime Warner expects to report a red 2008, thanks to a whopping $25bn impairment charge for its cable, magazine publishing, and, yes, AOL businesses. This would be the media giant's first annual loss in six years..../p

h4Shamed by government crackdown/h4 pThree of China's most popular search engines have apologized for being slow to remove links to pornographic material, following the a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/05/china_net_campaign/"government's pledge/a on Monday to crack down on "vulgar" content on the web..../p

All our coverage in one place

h4(More) suspicions of price fixing/h4 pAt least four makers of microchips have confirmed they were raided by European Commission investigators seeking information of collusion in the market for chips used in smart cards..../p