1st November 1999 Archive

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Clinton fears Orwellian IT future

Gigolo-in-chief acts to protect medical data

President Clinton announced a proposed rule to safeguard electronic medical records from abuse by employers, insurers, banks and law enforcement during a White House press conference Friday afternoon. Seizing upon the worst fears of jaded health-care consumers in a wired world, the President boldly declared that "Americans …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 00:06
Chipzilla pauses to think about Rambus Ink

Much internal gnashing and grinding of teeth at Satan Clara

Reluctantly, very reluctantly, it appears as if chip giant Intel has really revised its buffalo stance on Rambus. Reports are now suggesting that the towering giant, tired of appearing in the Monty Python Silly Walk sketch which is Caminogate, is now closer than ever to admitting defeat and will stop forcing Rambus down the …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 08:07
MS Halloween author said to have left for Linux startup

Come on Vinod, update your Web site - it can't really be a 'blast' to work on proxy server...

Writing on the first anniversary of the leak of the 'Halloween' documents, open source partisan Eric Raymond claims that the author has recently left Microsoft to join a Linux start-up. If true the move should make for a interesting, not to say awkward, future career for Vinod Valloppillil - his written output a year ago was …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 10:00
Joy of Cex claims Microsoft X Box sneak peak

There's much less to this than meets the eye

Check out UK games retailer The Computer Exchange and its cheeky little Web site The Joy of CEX. Web master Mat Simpson reckons he's got an "exclusive sneak peek at the design of the (Microsoft) Portable X-box". It amused us. ® Related story Microsoft's X-Box PlayStation 2 killer resurfaces

Business 1 Nov 1999, 11:00
Taiwanese levy swingeing duties on US memory firms

Micron named as key culprit

Reports said that the Ministry of Finance in Taiwan is set to impose punitive import duties on three US memory companies. Back in March, Taiwan took similar action, in response to alleged anti-dumping by US firms. The tariff will amount to a temporary 62 per cent duty on Micron Semiconductor, Micron Technology and Chip Supply. …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 11:04
Reader claims breakthrough on S370 CuMine compatibility

Yah booh sucks Intel

A reader, Diego von Deschwanden, has claimed a breakthrough with the knotty problem of whether current Socket 370 mobos will support flip chip PGAs (that is, when you can get hold of them). Diego writes: When Intel launched the FC-PGA, we all asked ourselves if our present Socket 370 motherboards with PPGA Celerons would support …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 11:23
Guillemot grabs graphics pioneer Hercules

Picks up debt-ridden remains for $1.5 million

Graphics card company Guillemot has bought what's left of graphics trailblazer Hercules, which collapsed this summer, for $1.5 million. Not a lot, you might think, for a business that recorded revenues of $20 million last year, but such was Hercules failure to keep up with the new wave of 3D companies -- 3dfx, Nvidia, S3 et al …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 11:33
Ideal appoints new FD

Lundy takes hot seat as Miesagaes moves on up

Ideal Hardware has made Steve Lundy its financial director. Lundy, former director of risk management and operations at the distributor, is replacing Simon Miesagaes. Miesagaes will keep his existing positions as a director of Ideal and group financial director at parent company InterX. Lundy, who joined Ideal in 1989 as …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 11:49
Japanese site confirms S370 CuMine delays

But it has some pictures…

A shop in the Akihabara district of Tokyo is displaying pictures of Intel's Coppermine S370 flip chip product and the Via-Cyrix Joshua processor. But in the case of the former product, while Intel made an "announcement" of the S370 Coppermines last Monday, no product will be forthcoming for some time, according to the shop …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 11:49
Akamai stock grows 50x on first day of IPO

Shareholder Apple makes as much money as it did selling Macs

Net acceleration specialist Akamai saw its stock price quintuple on Friday, its first day as a public company, as an initial sale price of $26 closed at $145.19. That left the company worth over $13 billion and its founders multi-millionaires. Which was, of course, the whole point, but who can blame them for that? The IPO also …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 12:09
MS steps up congress lobbying in run-up to trial verdict

MS on Trial Two million postcards shipped to the shareholders

Microsoft has cranked up its "Freedom to Innovate" campaign by sending out two million copies of a letter and mail card along with its annual report. The move, which comes in the run-up to the release of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's findings of fact in the antitrust trial, can probably be seen as the commencement of Microsoft …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 12:12
How Dell is really an Intel distributor…

There's motherboards and there's otherboards

In the last eighteen months, we've seen Compaq and IBM hastily re-arrange their business models in a desperate bid to stave off competition from the company they consider the Great Satan of Hardware, Dell. To help to do so, Compaq, for instance, re-negotiated deals with fifteen suppliers in Taiwan so they could compete, on a …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 12:15
ic24 cherry-picks Virgin Net execs

Key staff quit to join rival service

Virgin Net has denied that the company is on the rocks following the shock announcement that five of its key people have deserted the operation for a rival ISP. Those jumping ship include three directors and two key editorial staff. Ex-Virgin Net editorial director Rebecca St Johnston is now MD of content at ic24, the Mirror …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 12:21
Intel thinks we're all animals

At least we're not vegetables or minerals

Did you know the nickname Intel has for trade and technical journalists within the lair of Chipzilla itself? They describe us as animals. This apparently refers to our animalistic habit of snapping at the heels as the mighty and now seemingly witty Chipzilla lumbers on... ®

Business 1 Nov 1999, 12:39
Mobile phone boom expected for festive season

I'm dreaming of an Orange Christmas...

Santa will deliver four million mobile phones to the UK this Christmas, piling pressure on vendors not to repeat last year's stock shortages. Sales are expected to rise 60 per cent on last year's fourth quarter, which saw BT Cellnet run out of handsets in the pre-Christmas rush. Vodafone AirTouch also admitted that it "struggled …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 12:50
Y2K bug eats Japanese PM's backbone

'Run away, run away,' cries Y2K ad

In the global game of millennial chicken being played out by the world's governments, it looks as though Japan has been the first to lose its bottle. Just prior to Hallowe'en, and with the dreaded date now just two months away, Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi has cracked. Ads taken out in the country's national newspapers …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 13:12
UK games sales to top £1bn in 99

Record growth expected in Q4

UK sales of computer games are this year expected to exceed the £1 billion mark for the first time. Revenue for the first three quarters of 1999 was £538.6 million, which is expected to double in the run up to Christmas. Last year's fourth quarter brought in £401 million of software sales in the UK, bringing the full year total …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 13:46
Official: Brains are better than computers – but not for long

Scientists develop better Web search program

We may be looking at the 1GHz processor but the human brain is still better at data processing. Not for long though. Two Korean-American scientists have developed a computer program that mimicks the way the human brain recognises patterns in images and text. They hope the program will improve Web searches and data processing by …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 13:48
BT blamed for CallNet collapse

Switch off the lines, ISP told

CallNet0800 -- the ISP that promises to deliver "no catch" toll-free access for Net users in Britain -- suspended telephone registrations within hours of going live this morning because too many people were trying to sign up to the service. Frustrated Net users who wanted to take advantage of the offer were left hanging in limbo …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 14:03
More Taiwanese mobo makers get jitters after Intel suit

FIC a big supplier to Compaq, it emerges

The lawsuits Intel issued at the end of last week to FIC (First International Computer) may be the first in a legal broadside against other firms. Lawsuits filed in the US, UK and Singapore, also name FIC affiliate, Everex, a US-based maker of computer systems. The suits appear to be based on the two companies' use of chips …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 14:25
RealNetworks caught secretly swiping users' jukebox data

If you thought your Leonard Cohen habit was a secret, you were wrong...

RealNetworks has been caught surreptitiously grabbing information about the preferences of users of its RealJukebox software. The software, which is available free and is used to play music CDs, also tells RealNetworks who you are and what you like listening to. Until this was exposed by electronic privacy expert Richard Smith ( …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 14:28
LG Philips plugs £70m into TFT

Thin is in, says South Korean joint venture

The joint venture between LG Electronics and Phillips, LG Phillips, is to invest 1.4bn won (£70 million) into a new production line for its next-generation TFT LCD screens. At the official launch of the new venture, president and CEO Koo Bon-joon said he expected production to increase from 3.8 million units to 4.5 million, with …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 14:33
Nvidia drives into pro 3D market with Quadro

First product of SGI tie-in

Nvidia today unveiled its entry into the graphics workstation market, the Quadro, based on the company's 256-bit GeForce graphics chip. The part's name comes from the GeForce's QuadEngine set-up, transform, lighting and rendering technology, which, thanks to its support for OpenGL, is as applicable to professional graphics as it …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 15:03
i820 still waiting to bottom out

Still on target for this Q, says Intel

A senior Intel PR executive today confirmed that the company is still working on a solution for the problem with Rambus memory that caused it to withdraw its motherboards a month back. Howard High, in charge of Intel public relations at its HQ in Santa Clara, said that his firm was still ironing out one or two problems but was …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 15:20
Silver surfers hit out over PC rental scheme

Don't leave out the elderly, UK gov't told

The campaigning charity Help the Aged has won assurances from the government that elderly people will not be left out in the cold as the country embraces IT. The charity was responding to the government's latest batch of promises to get Britain wired for Net revolution. In a deal that would make 100,000 cheap-to-rent PCs …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 15:26
Intel Santa Clarifies Via legal pursuit

Puts ball in Taiwanese and other firms' court

A senior representative at Intel US has now spelled out the most recent actions it has taken against companies alleged to infringe its patents. Chuck Molloy, a representative at Intel US, said that the firm had taken action against FIC, KMS in the UK; against Aquest, Jet Systems, Jetway and Via in Singapore; and against FIC …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 16:24
Bill Gates devil numerologist can't count

...but the great man may still be possessed

Hey there, David MacCormack writes. I'm sure 1001 anal retentive people emailed you telling you "how wrong the Bill Gates is the devil - - whacky numerologist 'proves'" story was (Five, actually --Ed). I had a friend who jumped at it, and another with a pretty nifty reply. I thought you might enjoy it. Joe Geyer says By my count …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 17:35
US, Russian militaries join hands for Y2K horror

Early-warning glitches may end 'civilisation' as we know it

We can all sleep off our New Year's Eve excesses with a bit more ease knowing that the American military intelligence apparatus is "highly confident" that the Y2K rollover will result in no accidental launches of nuclear missiles anywhere in the world. Whew. Now for the bit that will disturb your dreams: they are "concerned" …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 18:03
Register experience shows why Levi's was right to scrap online sales

One leg shorter than other

Mass customisation. Isn't that something the Internet is supposed to be good at? Not if you're Levi Strauss, the jeans manufacturer, which is scrapping online sales. Levi was an exponent of mass customisation - you could order made to your measure jeans from the Web site. Sounds good in theory, but in practice, the execution …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 18:14
Microsoft buys voice recognition firm

Promotes telephony access to the Web

Microsoft has acquired speech-recognition specialist Entropic for an undisclosed sum. Microsoft already has a $60 million investment (some 7 per cent) in Lernout & Hauspie whose activities overlap to a certain extent, but it was enough to make L&H's share price dive 7 per cent on Friday after the news was known, and to open …

Business 1 Nov 1999, 18:26