22nd December 1999 Archive

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Infoseek porn exec gets porridge for Xmas

Judge refuses to let him home for the holidays

Ex-Infoseek exec Patrick Naughton will not be allowed out of jail for Christmas, a US judge has ruled. Naughton was arrested in September for trying to solicit sex with a 13-year-old girl. Child porn pictures were also found on his laptop. Last Thursday he was taken away from court in handcuffs after being found guilty of …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 07:42
UK book minnow throws book at Amazon

You can't sell our books

A pint-sized UK publisher is suing Amazon.com for claiming to sell its books. Liverpool-based The Toby Press is taking legal action against the online giant after it advertised Toby books on its Web site. Toby sells its books solely through its own mail order catalogue or via the Toby Press Web site. Until recently, potential …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 07:46
Mary Meeker: Net bubble will burst in early 2000

Scary stuff from world's highest paid dotcom analyst

Net sage Mary Meeker has warned that the online bubble will burst for many Web companies in the New Year. The Morgan Stanley Dean Witter top analyst believes that a whopping 90 per cent of listed Internet companies are overvalued. "I think there will be an ecommerce shake-out in the first quarter of 2000," she told financial …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 07:46
MS moves for dismissal of Priceline's shakey patent suit

Like a lot of recent patents, it's probably built on sand...

Expedia, the Microsoft travel subsidiary, has asked a federal judge to dismiss the patent suit brought by Priceline.com in October. Earlier this month, Expedia added a name-your-price feature for airline tickets similar to the disputed hotel room service that Priceline wants shut down. The basis for Microsoft's request is that …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 09:54
Lessig moves reveal MS fears over IE-Win98 tying

MS on Trial Or maybe it just doesn't think the court should have friends either...

Microsoft quietly filed a brief on 9 December asking Judge Jackson to fire Lawrence Lessig as an amicus curiae (friend of the court), following his invitation on 19 November. On Monday, the judge ordered that the objection be overruled. Close examination shows that Microsoft is evidently rattled by the Lessig re-appointment, …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 09:57
Intel is an absolutely fab company

There's nothing quite like it for ROI

Chip company Intel may have had a bit of an annus horribilis on the old execution side in 1999, but there's one for thing for sure, it delivers like no-other on the old return on investment (ROI) front. That keeps the shareholders happy, and all you need to do is to look at its performance over the last 10 years to see that it's …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 10:36
Readers race to rescue on email front

Gotta 20MB PowerPoint file queueing? No problem

Many of our readers have kindly responded after we reviewed some email software called The Bat earlier this week. You may remember that La Registra was clogged to the gills by the unexpected present of a 20MB PowerPoint presentation that downed us and Windows 98 towards the end of last week. As well as a number of emails …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 10:52
Intel grabs 3D Labs portfolio

It's for the cash, company claims

US wire Electronics Buyers' News is reporting that 3D Labs has licensed its entire patent portfolio to Intel, in an effort to raise some hard needed cash. According to the wire, the licensing deal will be worth around $7.5 million to 3D Labs. Intel already has a small share holding in 3D Labs of 1.5 per cent. The story suggests …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 11:20
Nvidia sues S3 in patent clash

Yes, but which patent? Neither party is saying

S3 and Nvidia are at each others' throats today, following the launch of legal action against its rival by Nvidia for alleged patent infringement. The suit was filed last week with the US District Court for Northern California in San Francisco and assigned to Judge Vaughn R Walker -- the judge who presided over Apple's 1988 GUI …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 11:55
Palm keeps 3Com in profit during Q2

Network, comms product sales down 12, 14 per cent - Palm sales up 77 per cent

Sales of Palm Computing handhelds held 3Com's profits up for its second quarter, keeping at bay the effects of serious decline in sales of the company's traditional comms and networking product lines. 3Com yesterday posted profits of $130.9 million, down on last year's $133.4 million. Take into account the sale of investment …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 12:16
Crazed Microsoft antagonist runs for president

Florida lawyer now trying to get ignored on a national scale...

Andy Martin, who first came to some modest attention in IT circles when he founded a pressure group five years ago called the Committee to Fight Microsoft Corporation, is campaigning in New Hampshire to become the Republican party candidate for US President next year. He's a Florida-based public interest lawyer, legal activist …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 12:18
Intel cuddles up to Jedec SDRAM standards

Mama and Papa of U-turns...it's a new generation...people in motion

Sources said that Intel has an important meeting with industry standards body Jedec at the beginning of next year. Jedec is a semiconductor standards body which brings together a number of important manufacturers to agree specifications for future technology. One of those future technologies is SDRAM and double data rate (DDR) …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 12:19
Top MS exec charged over in-vehicle firearm innovation

Drive-by game shooting? Grief, Joachim...

It's Christmas in Seattle, and the good folks of Washington State are engaging in traditional festive activities. Like blazing away at wildlife from the comfort of your own four wheel drive, apparently. Hello Microsoft OEM chief, star of subpoenaed emails and antitrust trials Joachim Kempin. Also now, it would seem, a noted …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 12:20
Y2K-watch Web site warns of economic collapse

We're all doomed... maybe

Armchair Armageddon watchers looking to see the New Year in with a Y2K bang can find out whether the doom-mongers were right by checking out a fiery Web site just seconds into the new millennium. Inferno2000.com is to rig up connections with what it claims are 2000 of the most important Internet servers in the world, including …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 12:28
Texan site reveals Intel's Y2000 plans

Ride 'em cowboy... the 820 cedes to the BX...

Young Kyle Bennett at Hard OCP has got his mitts on some internal Intel roadmaps for the year 2000. And very interesting reading they make too. Some of the information, in the form of an Asia Pacific presentation, we knew about already, in particular the 866MHz Pentium III being released at the end of Q1, and which we've already …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 13:01
Palm colour-screen IIIc to ship February

Just a sop to Sony, IPO-interested investors though

Palm Computing's first machine to be equipped with a colour display will ship in February as the Palm IIIc, according to sources close to the company cited by CNET. The fact Palm has been working on colour support is no surprise, but this is first time hard details - if a name and ship date can be named as such - have leaked …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 13:08
Schoolboy passes the Novell test

Azlan sponsors (another) child prodigy through CNE exams

A Kent schoolboy has passed one of Novell's top engineering examinations, notching up his second IT qualification this year. Fifteen-year-old Mark Wickings gained the Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) certificate, Novell's equivalent to the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), after a 22-day training programme sponsored by …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 13:50
Man jailed over Net pedo lies

Teacher defamed on bulletin boards by ex-pupil

A man who used the Net to allege that a former teacher was a paedophile was jailed yesterday for two-and-a-half years by a court in Ireland. The defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, spread the malicious rumours using bulletin boards and email during a six-month period between December 1997 and June 1998. Although …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 13:50
Mesh pre-announces its PIII 800 PC

Lots of brave talk, but no sign of any actual chips...

UK system builder Mesh Computers is claiming it will be among the first to launch a Pentium III 800MHz PC in January, despite still not receiving a sample of the chip from Intel. The London-based company said orders for its Millennium 800 PC would be taken from the second week of next month, with deliveries starting one week …

Business 22 Dec 1999, 13:50