2nd November 1998 Archive
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Sony claims MR breakthrough
Hard drive firms already sampling heads
Japanese wire Nikkei Net reported over the weekend that Sony has made a breakthrough in producing the largest MR (magnetic resistance) heads for hard drives in the world. According to the reports, it has already delivered samples of 4Gb heads to hard drive firms, suggesting that it is close to producing the units in volume. If …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 07:56
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NEC, Toshiba shift from 64Mbit to 128Mbit DRAM
Notebook demand the reason
Reports said that DRAM majors NEC and Toshiba have decided to move from producing 64Mbit to 128Mbit parts earlier than expected because of unprecedented demand for notebook PCs. They will shift production of the memory chips, which are more profitable, towards the end of next year rather than the year 2000, according to the …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 08:07
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Singapore gets network boost
3Com to plunge $70 million into the island
The beleaguered island of Singapore got a boost late last week from 3Com, which has decided to invest $70 million in a manufacturing plant. The factory will be located in Changi industrial park and will make network interface cards (NICs), USR modems, hubs and other products in 3Com's range. The site will also include a customer …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 10:10
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ST, Microsoft to work together on CE
Système on a chip gets boost from software satan
ST Microelectronics (ST) said today that it has teamed up with Microsoft and will support the CE operating system on its single-chip STPC family. ST said that it will work with Microsoft to develop CE for the STPC family and ensure that software development kits work on the platform. The move is a further development in ST's bid …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 10:20
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What's that iMac all about then…
intro
This just in from leading US satirical Webzine, The Onion...
Business 2 Nov 1998, 10:26
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2 November 1998: DRAM prices
Our daily DRAM update from Dane-Elec
Prices kindly supplied by Dane-Elec Click here for more stories
Business 2 Nov 1998, 11:26
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Philips to shut down a third of factories worldwide
Will it shut down its monitor factories?
The thorny question of whether Philips will now bite the bullet and shut down its CRT monitor operations has re-emerged after Cor Boonstra, the company's president, said it will shut down a third of its factories worldwide. Reports that it was exiting the CRT monitor business, quickly denied by Philips, were first published in …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 11:59
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Diamond Multimedia forms MP3 lobby body
Group wants to make friends and influence people in the music biz. Good luck -- you'll need it
Diamond Multimedia and four other digital audio specialists have joined forces to oppose the music industry's stance on the MP3 digital audio standard. Operating under as the MP3 Association, Diamond, plus online music publishers GoodNoise, MP3.com and MusicMatch, and hardware vendor Xing Technologies, will promote the MPEG- …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 12:30
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EU considers its own case against Microsoft
Van Miert seems to be considering opening a second front
Rumblings from Europe indicate that the Commission is growing restive over the Microsoft case, feeling that it has not been sufficiently consulted over European companies that may have been harmed by the 'Beast of Redmond'. Commissioner Karel Van Miert has openly indicated that any competition law complaint about Microsoft's …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 12:34
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Aztec goes Savage with graphics card
Card comes in two flavours
Aztech said it had introduced a high performance graphics card using the S3 Savage 3D technology. The product, the VGS3D, comes with 8Mb of memory, a 250MHz Ramdac with gamma correction, and offers 24-bit z buffering, 128-bit dual rendering pipelining, and special effects including anti-aliasing, reflection, and atmosphere …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 12:51
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PC World takes on Dell with mix ‘n’ match scheme
Shoppers invited to design own PCs
Buying a custom-built PC just got easier, according to PC World, after it launched an in-store system that enables shoppers to choose the exact configuration of their machines. Aimed at second-time buyers and those with enough confidence to decide between the 864 different permutations of machines and monitors available, the …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 12:55
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C-Cube unveils DVD recording chip
DVexplore aimed at consumer PCs with DVD-RAM drives, but where are they?
Recording DVDs could soon become a consumer PC technology, thanks to a new chip from C-Cube, DVxplore. The chip can encode video from analog or digital camcorders in MPEG 2 format -- the standard DVD encoding technology -- and save it on a PC's hard disk, a CD-R or DVD-RAM disk. According to C-Cube, it also allows the encoded …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 12:55
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Big Blue Micro to fab out 3Com Pacific chips
Deal worth $10 million for launch next year
Israeli newspaper Globes has reported that IBM Microelectronics has won a deal from 3Com to produce fast communications chips for the networking company. The deal is worth $10 million. The newspaper said that the new chips will appear next year and is codenamed Pacific. The chips will be used in 3Com switches and will be able to …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 13:05
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Microsoft cheeses off corporations
Thin client pricing all wrong -- official
Basilica, the St. Albans, Herts-based corporate reseller, has backpedalled on its claims that critical press reports are responsible for putting off companies from investing in thin-client solutions. But Nick Gorringe, R&D manager at Basilica, did admit that customers are being put off by Microsoft and Citrix licensing …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 13:15
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General Magic spins-off handheld business
Waves wand, pulls semi-independent operation out of hat
General Magic has formally ended its affair with the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) concept it helped to pioneer by divesting itself of its handheld computer division. The division will become a quasi-independent company called DataRover Mobile Systems (DMS) after its main product, the DataRover 840, a data-acquisition device …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 13:25
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Elderly citizens to get free ThinkPads, on one term and condition
It's true....
IBM ThinkPads are at a premium and cost quite a lot (certainly we paid quite a lot for the ones we bought). But Big Blue has now instituted a scheme where people aged over the age of 75 get one free. There's a snag. You have to be blasted into space and be an ex-astronaut...won't sell many that way, will they? On the other hand …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 15:13
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Compaq shows off set of Cabletron Ethernet gnashers
Why doesn’t Compaq just buy Cabletron and get it over with?
Giant PC player Compaq-Digital has introduced a range of dual speed Ethernet switches aimed at terrifying its networking opponents, it said today. The products come from the joint venture it has with Cabletron Systems which it signed earlier this year in a bid to beef up its product offerings. Cabletron bought a chunk of Digital …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 15:44
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Intel rolls out $699 thin server challenge to Microsoft
A 486 and an embedded OS - so who needs Exchange?
Intel's first true 'thin server appliance' is to ship on 25 November at a street price of $699. With its thin server strategy, announced in September (Earlier story), the company intends to embed cheap, single purpose devices in networks, automating small businesses simply. The new InBusiness eMail Station is aimed at businesses …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 15:48
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Sun, IBM slim NC expectations
Nowadays, NC equals Niche Computer
IBM and Sun have admitted that widespread acceptance of NCs among corporates is no longer on the cards -- assuming it ever was -- and are realigning their strategies accordingly, claimed PC Week US. The premise is that many of the two vendors' big league corporate customers are themselves re-evaluating their IT strategies, …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 15:50
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German Net boycott goes ahead
But Deutsche Telekom cut prices anyway
Yesterday's boycott of the Internet by users in Germany may well have had its desired effect -- before it even took place. A Frankfurt-based Internet club called Dark Breed had been calling for fellow German users to avoid using the Internet on 31 October for the last five weeks. The group's complaint was that the German …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 16:20
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How the Microsoft machine crushed Apple – Tevanian
The Apple exec's testimony provides a case study of how the Microsoft 'standards' script operates
Last year, Steve Jobs announced -- to a background of boos from loyalists -- Apple's alliance with Microsoft. This week Apple senior VP of software engineering Avie Tevanian testifies that the 'alliance' was a lie, a deal struck at gunpoint to Apple's severe disadvantage. So what's the real story? The course of today's …
Business 2 Nov 1998, 20:07
