16th September 1999 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Steep memory hike unlikely to affect retail PC prices

Profit margins too small to absorb increase

The sharp rise in prices of 64Mb DRAM, the most commonly used computer memory chip, will have a relatively small impact on the retail prices of computers, industry sources say. Analysts predict that at worst, some low-end products could be affected -- because profit margins are too narrow to absorb the DRAM price increase. Spot …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 07:38
Athlon price cuts confirmed for 4 October

Battle between Intel-AMD set to get rougher, tougher

We have now had independent confirmation from a number of PC manufacturers that AMD will, as we reported yesterday, cut its Athlon prices on 4 October. But the cuts this time are from a position of strength, rather than weakness, according to independent vendors of the products. Athlon products are selling well, in Europe at …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 08:00
Intel's Vancouver, Cape Cod mobos to cost around $130 each

You can buy 'em with or without Creative Labs stuff

A dealer has now supplied us with prices and more details of the 133MHz front side bus motherboards Intel's Pentium III/533B and 600B will slot into it. The CC820 (Cape Cod) and the VC820 (Vancouver) mobos use Intel's i820 chipset and will be available at launch next Monday. You can buy them with or without integrated Creative …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 08:22
Intel gets heavy over Intel name, sues firm

Intel short for intelligence, Intel short on intelligence

Chip giant Intel has taken legal action against a US firm for an alleged breach of its trademark. It filed suit on the 10th of September against Inteltech Enterprises Inc, in a US district court in Denver Colorado. It is unclear how much money Intel wants for the alleged infringement of its trademark -- that is its name. Earlier …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 08:37
Today's Hardware Site Roundup

We take a brief tour round the wibbly wobbly Web

Kyle Bennett takes the Alpha cooling system for a spin over at HardOCP. There's also an interesting cooling system for an Abit mobo on his site. Has he ever played around with overclocking a Compaq Alpha microprocessor, we wonder. Would it need a chimney? Anand, over at AnandTech, takes a look at the Enlight EN-8950 Extended ATX …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 09:18
Via completes IDT x86 deal as fresh legal action looms

Chipzilla not a happy gorilla

Chipset, and now x86 company Via has announced a definitive agreement for the purchase of IDT's Centaur business. IDT will get $51 million for its WinChip intellectual property, a statement from Via said. The transaction will be completed by the end of the month, with Via's CEO, Wen-Chi Chen, saying that the deal will give it a …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 09:44
Lav me tender, lav me true

We reveal the ultimate geek gadget

Well, we thought we come across some cool geek gadgets in our time, but this one takes the cake. Or, rather, takes away the cake when the user has... er... finished with it. For now no self-respecting Net surfer, Perl jammer or Quaker need ever break away from the kill or the code for those embarrassing visits to the little boys …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 10:51
Overclocking – just say no

The physics don't work

You don't have to look far on the Web or in the more geeky IT mags to see loads of "mine's faster than yours" stories where awfully clever people are overclocking systems to within an inch of their lives. Celeron 300As are one of the overclockers' favourites and it isn't unusual to see boasts of these poor little processors …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 10:52
Carry your DNA on a smartcard

Brave New World just around the corner

This will be a familiar tale to most sci-fi buffs, but doctors in Europe reckon that within 20 years, we will all have our DNA profiled, and carry it with us on a smartcard. As the end of the Human Genome project swings into view -- completion is expected in 2003 -- the scope of our knowledge is rapidly expanding. Scientists …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 10:54
UK investors flock to online trading

E Trade UK sees trading figures sky-rocket

Investors have ploughed more than £8 million into the stock market through E Trade UK in just six weeks, the online trading company has revealed. According to E Trade UK, it now accounts for just under 0.5 per cent of all trades in individual shares -- excluding unit trusts -- on the London Stock Exchange. At this rate, trading …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 11:22
Student not guilty of copyright theft over links to MP3s

But linking to pirated files could still count as aiding and abetting, says court

Seventeen-year-old student Tommy Olsson was yesterday acquitted by the Swedish court on charges that he promoted music piracy by linking to an allegedly illegal MP3 archive from his Web site (see Student sued for site's links to MP3 files). Olssen was taking to court by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 11:27
White knuckle SDRAM ride gets scarier

Updated Trading grinds to halt as typhoon hits HK

Reports reach us that prices of 128Mb synchronous memory dropped by a staggering $30 plus over the last 12 hours. But prices of the 64Mb parts have stayed relatively stable, with no significant cuts during the same period. US firm London Computers Inc was last night selling 128Mb parts for $168 on Buy.com, with others trading at …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 11:29
Falling sales hit Psion's results

It'll be better in H2 - but will it really?

Psion's habit of not updating its machines too frequently seems to be catching up with the company at last. Announcing its first half results yesterday, the company conceded that sales had been poor, and cited continuing start-up costs for Symbian as a further explanation for it doing no more than breaking even. Sales dropped 12 …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 11:34
Palm preps upgraded Palm V

Palm Vx expands organiser's memory to match much cheaper Handspring Visor

3Com's Palm Computing subsidiary is set to release an updated version of its sleek Palm V organiser next month. The Palm Vx will ship on 4 October, according to company sources cited by US newswires, and feature more memory (8MB, up from 2MB in the standard Palm V). Palm is expected to drop the price of the current Palm V to $ …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 11:48
Microsoft is Judas – unofficial

Christian group gives MS key role in modern day Last Supper

The Register gets accused of attacking Microsoft just for the sheer hell of it, but recent events have made the hacks of Vulture Central seem like trusty servants of the Great Satan. The software titan has –- along with an unholy host of other major multi-nationals -– been depicted in a reworking of Leonardo da Vinci's Last …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 11:50
New IT stock listing ignores AIM

Big names and not-so-big names will make up the 170 runners and riders

TechMARK, the London Stock Exchange's soon-to-be-spawned technology market, will start with at least 170 companies listed. Companies without a three year trading record will be allowed to join, although they must then provide quarterly reports. The companies listed on TechMARK will be drawn from the FTSE 100 right through to the …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 12:01
Yellow Dog Linux supports G4 PowerPC

AltiVec optimisation in progress

Mac software developer Terra Soft Solutions (TSS) said its Yellow Dog Linux distribution is compatible with Motorola's PowerPC 7400 CPU aka G4. The Mac-oriented distribution of the open source OS is currently available in a server-oriented version, dubbed Champion Server. It was recently updated to release 1.1 to add support for …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 12:11
ESS wins Diamond sound deal

Up to six speakers attached to PC

Diamond Multimedia has signed chipmaker ESS to supply the sound chips for its next range of PC sound cards. Diamond is ESS's only Western customer at present, and the relationship is being touted as exclusive. In 1998 ESS had the number one spot for PC Audio market share, according to Dataquest. The company's technology is …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 12:24
AT&T-BT wireless merger to spawn new heavyweight?

Analysis Together the companies could spark TDMA-GSM convergence

The new buzz around Bell Atlantic-Vodafone negotiations had hardly started, before the merging of the wireless operations of AT&T and BT replaced it as the most high-profile attempt to attain truly global mobile coverage. Interestingly, these two possible deals highlight many of the hotly debated issues among mobile operators. …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 12:35
3dfx to take on S3 texture comp. in open source move

FXT1 better than S3TC, company claims -- and it's available to all, not just Windows guys

3dfx this week unveiled the latest new technology to be added to its upcoming Voodoo 3D graphics chip, codenamed Napalm. In a move set to tackle rival graphics specialist S3 head on, 3dfx announced its own texture compression technology, FXT1. And in a bid to grab mindshare from S3's S3TC, the company said it will release the …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 12:44
Sony delays PlayStation 2 so kids can still sit tests

March release neatly avoids January, February exams

Sony has coughed to the real reason for the delay behind the release of the PlayStation 2. It's nothing to do with hardware, it's nothing to do with software, it's nothing to do with chips. Instead, it's everything to do with shoolwork. According to a report in today's Times, Sony executive Ken Kutaragi told the press at the …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 13:17
US surfers want free ISP access

Survey from Alta Vista proves Alta Vista to be on right track

Some 350,000 US Net users have signed up for AltaVista's subscription free ISP FreeAccess in its first month of operation, the company said today. As if to prove a point about the popularity of this new model ISP the search engine-come-Net access provider published research which reveals that a staggering 78 million adults in …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 15:28
UK police to target online pervs

Initiative follows the lead of the FBI

Scotland Yard is targeting Net paedophiles with a monitoring service based on a scheme being used by the FBI. The FBI's Innocent Images squad has led to several successful sting operations. The Home Office reports that over the last two months there have been six arrests of men who were cruising chat rooms trying to attract …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 15:37
Ellison spills over beenz

Splashes out with own cash to back Net currency

Larry Ellison -- deep-pocketed head-honcho of Oracle -- is one of a handful of investors to have ploughed $20 million into the UK company behind the Web currency called beenz. Although Ellison's personal contribution is being kept under wraps, it's believed to be a sizeable wedge. "As an entrepreneur, I have an appreciation for …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 16:11
US Embassy backs Comdex with spam-fest

What follows is a lovely explanation of when a spam isn't really a spam at all

The US Embassy in London has denied sending unsolicited email to hundreds of journalists and IT professionals advertising this autumn's computer show Comdex in Las Vegas. In the email sent yesterday, the American Embassy tried to flog its International Visitors Program offering "benefits not available to the independent …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 16:14
US to free 128-bit crypto for export

Announcement due later today

The US government will later today announce plans to relax the controls the country has long imposed on the export of strong data encryption technology, a White House spokeswoman has told US newswires. Of course, that could imply little more than reducing the list of nations to which strong encryption may not be exported. The …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 16:32
West ready to bail out Y2K-hit third world

Loans will be made available -– but you gotta repay 'em

The G7 group of nations have clubbed together to offer short-term loans to developing countries that could be hit by the Millennium Bug. Officials from the Western world are concerned that disruption to these unprepared emerging market economies could domino into the rest of the global economy. The fear is not so much of a …

Business 16 Sep 1999, 16:42