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26th January 2000 Archive

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  • Young DeCSS developer rudely arrested

    MPAA overkill crosses the Atlantic

    Norwegian police, leaping to action at the bidding of American commercial powers, raided the home of 16-year-old DeCSS developer Jon Johansen on Tuesday, arresting the lad and confiscating his computers for evidence. Following several hours of questioning, young Johansen was charged with gaining unauthorised access to data and …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 06:57

  • Charlie can surf

    Day trade while you work

    Surfing for fun at work is acceptable at work to the vast majority of employers, a new survey claims. A poll of 1400 US employers reveals that 82 per cent "condone Web surfing in the office". It beats giving staff more holidays, we suppose. Of the 82 per cent of employers who accept the practice of non work-related Web surfing …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 08:41

  • FTSE 100 spurns Net job seekers

    E-potatoes not welcome here

    Brits are flocking to the Net to look for jobs but hit roadblocks when they arrive at most FTSE 100 sites. Thirty per cent of Britain's biggest companies fail to advertise recruitment opportunities on their Web sites, missing out on the huge gene pool of job-seeking surfers. Twenty five per cent of corporate Web sites target …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 09:01

  • PCs on the way out for information appliances

    Nat Semi advances the old 'NetPC' argument again

    The dominance of the PC market will decrease as information appliances take hold said Thomas Rothhaupt, National semiconductors' European Information Appliances Marketing Manager in London today. The PC could soon end up as marginalised as the mainframe computers of the 60s are today, he claimed. The mainframe saw its hay-day in …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 10:55

  • Britain unveils Net Time grab

    GeT this...

    Britain formally launches its bid to become the Internet's timekeeper today when industry and government join forces to launch Greenwich Electronic Time (GeT). The Government, the London Internet Exchange (LINX) and Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) are all supporting the scheme which was announced by Prime Minister Tony …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 11:11

  • Inside-IT opens channel portal

    George Evans' new venture

    George Evans is to launch his latest venture at the Computer Trade Show in Birmingham today. He is relaunching his Send-IT-Now! business as an online Yellow Pages for the Channel. Inside-IT.com will offer IT news -- including technology features and product reviews -- and an online directory to pinpoint manufacturers, …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 11:14

  • Ad sales drive RealNetworks revenue doubling

    Net media company announces stock split, NetZip acquisition too

    Streaming media specialist RealNetworks yesterday saw its revenues more than double on the back of increased advertising sales during its latest completed financial quarter, Q4 1999. For the three months ended 31 December, RealNetworks notched up sales of $43.5 million, up from the $20.6 million it made in the same period last …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 11:54

  • AMD appoints Motorola man president

    Ruiz named as Jerry Sanders' replacement, too

    The ties between AMD and Motorola were strengthened yesterday when Intel's arch-rival in the x86 arena appointed the ex-head of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, Hector de J Ruiz, to the posts of president and COO. At the same time, the company named 'the DJ' as the man to replace AMD chairman and CEO Jerry 'Colonel' …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 12:40

  • Qualcomm sees Q1 profit soar

    But a well stuffed channel could clip its wings

    Wireless technology developer – and one-time handset maker – Qualcomm, has posted Q1 results that pipped analysts' expectations at the post. Turnover for the three months ended 26 December 1999 was up 19 per cent to £1.1 billion, from $941 million in the same period last year. Profit stood at $192 million, which equates to 25 …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 12:57

  • MS: Neptune consumer Win2k not cancelled, just not happening

    Win2k-based consumer OS slides into 'probably not' territory. Or not yet?

    Microsoft has now confirmed that its Win2k development efforts have been merged into a single effort, covering both business and consumer markets, codenamed Whistler. The news, broken a few days ago by Paul Thurrott of WinInfo, effectively means that last year's triple-forked roadmap has been junked, but Microsoft's spinmeisters …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 12:57

  • Sony profits down but still beat expectations

    Strong yen, ailing PlayStation profits hit hard

    Sony saw its profits fall more than ten per cent during its most recent fiscal quarter though the results weren't as bad as the company and analysts had anticipated. The Japanese giant posted a consolidated operating profit of Y164.2 billion ($1.55 billion), down 10.2 per cent on last year's figure, rather less than the 20 per …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 13:06

  • £2m Bill Gates domain sale is off

    Online auction house gets all ethical

    It looks like one man's dream to make millions out of Bill Gates has come to nothing. Back in December we reported that the domain billgates.co.uk had been registered for Teddington-based businessman, Peter Bohn. Bohn was, apparently, planning to sell the domain for a stonking £2 million. According to The Times, the domain had …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 13:28

  • More MS fudging from Win2k speed trials

    Previous statements regarding superiority of NT4 now inoperative...

    A sharp-eyed techie working for a major OEM (he understandably wishes to remain anonymous) draws our attention to further fudging in the Windows 2000 benchmarks exposed here yesterday. He also directs us to the NT versus Win95 product comparisons Microsoft ran at the time of NT 4.0's launch when - tsk - the results were …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 13:54

  • Datrontech opens online service

    Computer Trade Show gets first glimpse

    Datrontech UK launched its ecommerce site in Birmingham under police guard today. The distributor was aiming to net between 15 and 20 per cent of its business via the Datrontechonline.com site by the end of the year, said newly appointed MD James Morgan. However, the half million pound investment drew the attention of more than …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 15:37

  • DoJ says MS guilty of monopolisation and exclusionary deals

    MS on Trial Reply says MS case avoids the real issues

    Microsoft has been following the legal maxim that when the law is not on your side, argue the facts, but when you don't have the facts on your side, argue the law. That was why Microsoft cited 112 cases in its proposed conclusions of law last week (and 51 cases in its defence against the states). The Joint Reply by the DoJ and …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 15:42

  • DVD/CD site knowingly undersold

    Could do better on pricing

    The online CD and DVD-ROM market is largely ignored by high street and online retailers alike, Romsdirect director Fergus Shields reckons. Romsdirect.com launches officially on 1 April with 35,000 titles for academics, professionals and consumers. Shields says: "When you look at online software and entertainment sites will see …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 15:48

  • UK's bid for Net time standard is delayed

    Bong! Don't you people own a watch…?

    The formal launch of Greenwich electronic Time (GeT) was delayed by 13 minutes and 14 seconds today in a move that doesn't bode well for the new global Internet time standard. Despite having three Caesium clocks at their disposal, the GeT consortium still couldn't kick-off the briefing on time at the Royal Opera House in London' …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 16:10

  • IT Network beefs up Where to Buy

    Offers streamlined approach to purchasing

    The IT Network is boosting the "Where to Buy" facility on its Web site. Punters are currently faced with a long list of suppliers when they have chosen the product they want to buy. From next month the choices will be categorised into direct-selling vendors and authorised resellers. Customers will also be able to choose from …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 16:32

  • Sun gives free access to Solaris 8 source, strings attached

    But the company is not pretending Solaris is Linux

    Sun has set itself up for some more brickbats from the open source world by opening up access to source code and giving away - sort of - the latest version of Solaris, Solaris 8. The move will inevitably be seen as a bid to steal Linux's clothes, and equally inevitably will be sneered at because it doesn't even come near making …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 16:53

  • Western Digital serves up Caviar for Compaq

    HDD with chequered past to be used in PC with chequered past

    Compaq is to include the ill-fated Western Digital Caviar hard drive in its Deskpro and Presario PC ranges. The Caviar was dubbed 'Cadaver' by some wags after being beset by failures last year. Its range has been bolstered by the addition of a 10.2GB drive. The Caviar can withstand shocks forces of up to 65G and still keep …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 17:01

  • Rambus yields fall to 10 per cent, disties claim

    Channel says Rambus is dead

    Rambus yields have slumped from 25 per cent to less than 10 per cent, according to dealer and distributors attending this week's Computer Trade Show. Andrew Mackenzie, head of memory broking at Rambus licensee Memory Corporations, said: "Rambus is dead. The yields are low because Intel is trying to force through the technology …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 17:04

  • Upgraders to Win2k face graphics drivers gotchas

    Switch from Win98 to Win2k and you might get a severe performance hit

    Windows 98 users keen to upgrade to Windows 2000 next month might do well to hold off while graphics drivers get more battle-ready. According to Microsoft's compatibility lists, scads of video adapters meet the Windows 2000 logo programme requirements, but it would be a mistake to think that this means they'll all run properly …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 17:27

  • Digital music threat forces Virgin to moot store closures

    Just an empty threat from a protectionist

    Virgin Megastores today threatened to pull out of music retailing if the major recording labels fail to stress their support for traditional record stores over the emerging digital music market. The rather lame threat came from Virgin Megastores' COO, Simon Wright, cited in today's Financial Times. Wright fears that the majors …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 17:29

  • SGI open sources OpenGL Sample Implementation

    Linux gets free access to closest thing to 'official' OpenGL implementation

    SGI has released its OpenGL Sample Implementation (SI) under an open source licence. Of course, this isn't the same thing as releasing OpenGL itself as open source. The SI appears to be technology that supports the OpenGL API, much as Mesa, the open source alternative to OpenGL, does. SI and Mesa do what OpenGL does, but not ' …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 18:07

  • Intel cancels Pentium III supplies for February

    This is a real problem US and Euro disties say

    Intel has told distributors across the world that it cannot supply Pentium III parts in February. One major European distributor told The Register today that it has lost its February backlog allocation of 15,000 Pentium IIIs. Each part would have been worth $150 to its bottom line. The European position was confirmed by an …

    Business 26 Jan 2000, 18:17