2nd August 1999 Archive

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Atlas coughs up $13m for Acorn spin-out

Oldest start-up

Element 14, the DSP chip design house set free from Acorn, has secured $13 million in what it calls "first-round" financing. The Cambridge, UK-based company says this is the biggest sum invested in a European silicon start-up. It plans to produce its first DSP chips in Autumn 2000. Element 14's funding was led by Atlas Ventures …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 08:51
ZD loves ZD – true

Nepotism R'US

Nice to see Ziff Davis' increasingly tragic ZDNet got voted one of the top five computing web sites by, erm, Ziff Davis' PC Magazine. Come on Register readers -- tell us what your favourite web sites are, you can even include ZDNet if you like...

Business 2 Aug 1999, 09:21
Palm to offer iMac-style organiser

Palm IIIe Special Edition to sport translucent case

Palm Computing will announce a 'special edition' of the recently released Palm IIIe organiser tomorrow, The Register has learned. Sources close to the company said the device will match the spec. of Palm's entry-level machine but take a lead from Apple's iMac with a translucent case and cover. There has been hints for some time …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 10:00
A spoonful of email makes the medicine go down

A doctor on every desktop

Hell is other people – especially when they are snivelling in doctors' waiting rooms. But queuing to see your GP could soon be a thing of a past (so long as you can afford to buy a PC and a modem). Under new proposals, GPs will be able to offer consultations over the Internet, and deliver diagnoses and prescriptions by email. …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 10:02
Free-ISP boom brings Easynet rich pickings

Group's telecomms division sees boost to sales

At least one London-based ISP has joined the rarefied ranks of Net companies that can actually claim to make money. Easynet Group posted profits of £252,000 for the first half of 1999 against a loss of £495,000 for the same period last year. Turnover increased to £12.8 million for the first six months -- an increase of 80 per …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 10:47
Sun preps Net box-oriented CPU

Microprocessor Architecture for Java Computing to debut later this month

Sun Microsystems confirmed this weekend that it is developing a processor architecture for the emerging Internet appliance market, and that it will formally launch the chip later this month. The CPU design, dubbed the Microprocessor Architecture for Java Computing (MAJC) and apparently pronounced 'magic' -- what will these Sun …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 11:14
3dfx touts T-buffer for next-generation games

Advanced 3D technology to offer movie-standard special effects

3D graphics specialist 3dfx unwrapped new technology on Friday which it promised would bring a new level of photorealism to computer games and graphics applications. Dubbed T-buffer, the technology essentially adds a stack of optical effects which developers will be able to incorporate into their software to make rendered scenes …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 11:41
Energis buys into European telco market

Sees future in pan-Euro services

Energis has paid £60 million for a slice of the European telco network as part of its "entry strategy into Europe". The National Grid progeny said the acquisition of the entire share capital of the Unisource Carrier Services (UCS) group of companies from Unisource NV was part of its bid to gain a foothold in the emerging pan- …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 12:01
StarGig.com seeks to dominate Net music

Takes lead from MP3.com -- IPO to follow shortly

Terry Ellis -- manager of Jethro Tull, co-founder of Chrysalis Records and erstwhile Bob Dylan interviewer* -- is attempting to break into the Internet music business with his own version of MP3.com, the US company that successfully helmed a $300 million IPO last month. StarGig.com will provide a forum for unsigned bands to …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 12:04
Telecomms performance hard to pin-down

Immature sector keeps analysts guessing

The telecomms industry is defying the will of the prophets it seems. Stockbrokers and analysts are struggling to make accurate predictions about the fast moving industry according to research released by AQ Publications today. AQ measures the accuracy of analysts forecasts on an ‘accuracy quotient’ scale with a top score of 100 …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 12:10
Filtronic fixes sights on former Fujitsu fab

But will only buy UK plant if UK government helps foot the bill

UK telecoms equipment company Filtronic announced today it will buy the Newton Aycliffe, County Durham semiconductor plant Fujitsu shut down last year -- but only if the government stumps up part of the cost. Filtronic refused to say how much it was paying for the plant -- Fujitsu wrote off $490.4 million to pay for its closure …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 12:25
NTL fires first volley in Net calls price war

Cable co removes distinction between local and national calls

Cable operator NTL has cut the price of Net access in the UK to just 1p a minute. The new 24 hours a day flat-rate fee is part of a package of new measures announced today by the Hampshire-based company. Among them is a simplification of its tariff structure, a move it describes as a "breath of fresh air". From today, all calls …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 13:33
US govt views Y2K rollover with fatalism

It's all going horribly wrong -- shucks...

It was with calm fatalism that the US Senate Y2K Committee listened to discouraging expert testimony last week. No one in the room doubted for a moment the Millennium Bug will initiate a major, worldwide cock-up yielding, at best, an opportunity for Alpha Geeks everywhere to learn from inevitable and widespread system failures …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 14:29
Intel StrataFlash ‘surpasses’ Moore's Law

Chipzilla founder "not impressed" -- Give me back my Law, demands Moore

Intel Corporation today announced a 3V 'StrataFlash' memory chip with threefold performance boost over its previous version. Using 0.25 micron lithography, the memory enables both code execution and data storage on a single high-density 128Mb chip. "We surpassed Moore's law with our 2-bit-per-cell multi-level cell technology," …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 14:40
Gates' charitable foundation: gift or PR gambit?

Opinion Do we spy a hidden agenda here?

Perhaps Bill Gates' father reads The Register because he told the Sunday Times in yesterday's edition that Bill Jr would be giving away his $100 billion fortune, which in fact is not news at all. We pointed out last Thursday that Gates was not winning in the foundation stakes. Our challenge that Gates should funnel his loot into …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 15:17
Avoid MS Word, US appelate judges warn lawyers

Use WordPerfect, Illinois court told

MS Word has been condemned by three US Court of Appeals judges for giving an incorrect word count. Rule 32 of the appeal procedure requires briefs to be no more than 14,000 words (and reply briefs 7000 words), but the hapless party to an otherwise irrelevant case in the Northern District of Illinois was castigated for a false …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 15:26
SGI selects Linux over IRIX for IA-64

Too few apps, too expensive to port, company exec admits

SGI has as near as damnit admitted it will not be porting its IRIX OS to Intel's upcoming IA-64 platform -- instead, the company will standardise on Linux. "Given the resources we have, we have to focus on just one [OS], and that one is Linux," SGI's strategic technologist, Hank Shiffman, told PC Week UK. That will leave SGI's …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 15:52
AMD succeeds in producing copper K6

It's a warm up for the Athlon

The director of AMD's Fab 30 in Dresden said today that the company had succeeded this month in producing a K6 using its copper technology. But success with the K6 in copper is merely a warm up for production of the K7 Athlon, according to Hans Jeppe, who runs the facility, He confirmed that the fab was capable of producing 5, …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 16:07
Ciscom ‘hate email’ employee back in court

Six months ago he hacked his ex-employers system to send hate emails, now they want £5k training costs back

A Ciscom employee found guilty of hacking into his former employer's system to send abusive emails, has found himself in court for the second time in five weeks. Neil Campbell appeared at Shrewsbury Employment Tribunal Office last Friday. He was ordered to pay his former employer, TNS Distribution, over £5000 for training costs …

Business 2 Aug 1999, 17:06