2nd March 2000 Archive

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US judge OK's online voting in spite of racial bias

Jeez, has Mary Robinson heard about this?

Some Arizona Democrats will enjoy the luxury of voting from their houses, offices and local Internet cafes in next week's Democratic primary election, in spite of a lawsuit filed to block on-line voting on grounds that it discriminates against minorities. US District Court Judge Paul Rosenblatt denied a petition to block the …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 06:16
MS, Lotus execs and mother in mutual death threat claims

The software wars are a lot tougher in the Philippines...

The Philippine Daily Inquirer Infotech section reports unseemly scrapping between the heads of Microsoft Philippines and Lotus Philippines. Death threats are alleged on both sides, and the Lotus MD, Victor Silvino, has filed charges against MS MD Darren Lockie, claiming "grave threats." The threats, according to Silvino, took …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 09:20
InterX directors cash in £75m worth of shares

While upping ante for share placing

Certain directors and former directors of InterX are selling more than 2.4 million shares in the company. This will gross a useful £75 million or so, based on yesterday's closing price of 3100p. Aside from the enormous good fortune of the sellers, there doesn't appear to be too much to read into this: the six main executive …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 09:46
Palm stock goes on sale, nets $1.09bn

But the real fun will come later today when public trading begins

Palm's IPO went ahead yesterday, netting the company a cool $874 million and leaving it at the end of the day valued at $21.3 billion. A success for Palm, certainly, but not one in the same league as recent Internet and Linux IPOs. Or is it? Yesterday's stock sale saw 23 million shares hit the market at $38 each, up just a …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 11:14
Enthusiastic analyst pushes Apple stock to new high

New desktops, notebooks the basis for a "strong" quarter

A glowing report from a US financial analyst propelled Apple's stock price to a new all-time high of 130.75 yesterday. Kevin McCarthy, the Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette analyst and not the star of the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, predicted the Mac maker will ship a staggering 1.05 billion machines during its current …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 11:48
Unsaturated low fat diet for European PC vendors

Wibbly Wobbly Web fuels sales

Consumer PCs are selling faster than business PCs in Western Europe thanks to the Web stampede, according to IDC. Cheaper and more attractive hardware, as well as the rush to get onto the Internet, will drive PC sales in the home user sector up by 20.7 per cent in 2000. This compares to 18.5 per cent in the education sector, and …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 12:03
Infiniband to boldly go where no IO gone before

But probably a bit later rather than sooner

Pointless bickering about the future of IO is pointless, Paul Santeler, VP of enterprise servers at Compaq told us yesterday. Ultimately, he said, all of the industry players had to get together for the sake of the customer to agree a standard to take people forward with their servers. However, the Infiniband specification, …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 12:20
IBM boffins unveil 0.08 micron chip process

Electron beams replace light to boost chip transistor counts 1000 times

Scientists at IBM working with colleagues at Nikon have developed a new technology that promises to boost the number of transistors built into a microprocessor by a factor of 1000. The technology, called Prevail (Projection Reduction Exposure With Variable Axis Immersion Lenses), uses beams of electrons to etch the transistors …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 12:28
Nude Surfers gather in London ‘cyberlounge’

Gay, transgender theme nights too

Friday is butt-naked night at Nutopia, a screamingly trendy new "cyberlounge" in London's Covent Garden. The company says it will run nude surfer theme nights every Friday "until Westminster closes us down". The Wibbly Wobbly Web indeed. Nutopia also plans to run theme nights for lesbian and transsexuals (with the latter getting …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 12:31
R&D and expansion costs hit Psion net

Minnow betting on big-time shoulders heavy burden

Psion's second half net income was down 74 per cent, to £2.8 million, largely because of cost of investment, according to CEO David Levin. "The cost of delivering on new technology is significant," he said, and the company expects its share of Symbian-related costs to increase by at least 20 per cent. Symbian costs are however …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 12:42
MS Win2k video drivers vanish between gold and retail code

Build 2195's fine. But not all versions of it...

When does 2195 not equal 2195? Why, when it refers to the build number of Windows 2000, of course. Attempting to discover why a system that ran happily under the gold code version of Win2K refused to have anything to do with AGP graphics when upgraded to the full retail version of the OS, we discovered that there are two sorts …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 12:51
FSA puts bullet in bulletin boards

Ignore the tips, regulator says

The financial services watchdog has issued yet another notice warning investors to be wary of so called "tips" published on bulletin boards and in chat rooms. In a bulletin published yesterday, Phillip Thorpe, MD of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), said: "Following such tips blindly can seriously damage your wealth. "So …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 12:53
Credit card fraudsters cost Expedia $6 million

Victim of crime racket

Online travel agency Expedia.com is to take a charge of up to $6 million to cover credit card fraud costs on its site. The Microsoft spin-off said yesterday it would set aside between $4 million and $6 million from its fiscal third quarter. It added that its service had been the victim of a professional crime racket. "The …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 13:02
SGI finally sells off Cray

Buyer Tera to change name to Cray in desperate quest for profitability

SGI has at last managed to flog off Cray Research to rival (and rather smaller) supercomputer manufacturer Tera Computer, according to an item in today's Wall Street Journal. Tera, it seems, hasn't been doing too well of late - a bit like SGI, in fact - and is banking on the Cray acquisition, which will see it take on the …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 13:06
Lucent spin-off unlikely to be last

I fell into a burning ring of fire

Insiders at Lucent (ticker LU) tell us that the spin off of its communication systems division yesterday is unlikely to be the last, and that the word is that some much more aggressive action can be expected in the future. In fact, the CEO, Rich McGinn, was asked in an internal broadcast whether other parts of the business would …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 13:09
Wildfire Alpha gets May launch now

But over 200 deals worth half a billion bucks

Sources close to Compaq's plans now tell us that it will be May before the company officially launches its much-vaunted Wildfire Alpha range. That means a further delay for the technology, which has been postponed several times already. However, our informant also adds that there are already pre-orders for the Wildfire …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 13:26
OneSwoop.com crawls into service

Would you buy a used car from this site?

Oneswoop.com, the big VC-backed European online new car dealership, turned away potential customers, less than a day after going live. Site's back up and running now. But we have saved its door-shutting tactics for posterity. Here's the message: "Welcome to OneSwoop. "We are currently experiencing great interest in our site, …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 13:31
InterX distie arm still for sale

Share dealers excited

InterX shares were up 80p today to 3,180p on news that it was increasing its proposed placing and open offer by 20 million to a total of £50 million. This is wierd psychology: shares are supposed to go down on news like this, especially when executive shareholders are flogging shares at the same time. According to AFX, dealers …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 13:36
Telewest goes tits up in Bristol

Leased line customer blames SurfVeryLimited users

Telewest has suspended registrations for its Cable Internet ISP amid reports of heavy congestion on its network. The cableco confirmed the news today, following a report yesterday on vnunet, but insisted that new registrations had only been put hold for a "couple of days". "We're adding modems to increase capacity," said Stephen …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 13:54
Nvidia NV20, NV15 details leak

More from under the CeBIT bushel

Earlier this week, we reported some interesting facts about Nvidia's NV11, the follow-up to the GeForce 256. An Nvidia PR guy contacted us to confirm the accuracy of our earlier story. So now it's time to lift the veil on some more Nvidia secrets, which are also true. It's time to tell you something about the NV15 and - believe …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 14:07
We've got more rabbis than you

Jewish site aims to make religion more accessible

Jewish.co.uk has signed up a panel of rabbis to discuss the meaning of life and other knotty issues. The rabbis promise a 72-hour turnaround in dispensing personal advice by email to Jewish.co.uk readers. Selected questions and answers will also appear on the site. The rabbis are associates of Aish UK, an "informal education …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 14:33
Evesham offers to buy out school RM lease contracts

That sounds like war

Evesham Micros has declared war on Research Machines to try and steal its customer base. The sneaky system builder today issued a statement to all schools unhappy with their Research Machines (RM) leasing agreement: ditch them for us and we'll give you a better deal. "Evesham... has today confirmed that it will offer a facility …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 15:02
AMD Athlon stormed during Q1 says channel

There are no shortages -- official

Sales of AMD's Athlon have gone through the roof in Q1 of this year, channel players confirmed today. Steve Clark, marketing director of Microtronica Europe, said sales of the processor, particularly during February, were very strong, accounting for a large percentile rise in microprocessor sales. Microtronica, like AVNet, sells …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 15:32
World Online eats up bun.com

News International throws in ISP towel

World Online has bought the ISP bun.com from News International in a bid to grow its business in the UK. Financial details surrounding the acquisition were not released. However, it's clear that the move makes perfect sense for both parties. Dutch-based World Online -- which recently acquired Telinco -- gets an extra 450,000 …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 15:40
Unauthorised PlayStation 2 exports illegal

Console vendor highlights obscure Japanese trade law to deter overseas buyers

The Japanese government has declared any attempt to export Sony's PlayStation 2 - due to go on sale in Japan on Saturday - illegal. Well, OK, we exaggerate a little. Japan's Department of Trade and Commerce (DTC) hasn't banned exporting the eagerly anticipated console per se, but last year the Japanese government passed the …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 16:15
Intel to dribble out 1GHz Cumine this month

Updated This is really beginning to megahurt

Michael Kannellos, at news.com is a thoughtful and cautious reporter and when we saw his scoop about Intel dragging a 1GHz Coppermine screaming and kicking into the world this month, we had to give it credence. We understand Intel will make a formal announcement about this on Wednesday, the 8th of March. Sure enough, we are …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 16:35
City squabbles over £1bn Lastminute price tag

Grey market share price blows value sky high - and some

Spread betting companies in the City are reported to be squabbling over Lastminute.com's likely flotation price. IG Index was quoting a "grey market" price between 350p and 360p for the online retailer's IPO, according to the Financial Times. This towered above Lastminute's own estimated share price of 190p to 230p - which would …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 18:06
Kevin Mitnick was no hacker

Legendary phone phreaker says he rarely touched a keyboard

Those who picture hacker legend Kevin Mitnick seated before a computer tirelessly reverse-engineering operating system code and exhaustively probing remote networks for weaknesses have got the wrong idea. "The human side of computer security is easily exploited and constantly overlooked," Mitnick explained in testimony before …

Business 2 Mar 2000, 19:52