16th March 2000 Archive

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HP punters shout online over missing W2K driver

All the fun of the forum

Hewlett-Packard customers are complaining about the vendor's lack of W2K drivers. The Yahoo.com-hosted forum aims to shame HP into making a Windows 2000 driver for the Scanjet 4200. Not much to ask for, is it? Started by a user in Georgia, the Scanjet 4200 club has collected 129 messages so far from HP punters angry at the …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 07:07
MS wins more time in Euro antitrust case

Are we checking to see if the Commission will blink?

Microsoft has been given a few more days to respond to the European Commission requirement that it provide data relating to the complaint made public last month. This was lodged by end users, SMEs and competitors (including Sun), and concerns alleged leveraging of Windows 2000 in the server market. The Complaint is under …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 07:37
US-Europe privacy deal: agreeing to ignore it?

Analysis But if the fudge averts a trade war...

The political and cultural differences between Europe and the USA are too great to make any effective protocol on data privacy realistic. This became clear this week when EU and US negotiators announced that after two years of talks, the US "safe harbour" principles gave sufficient protection over private data on European …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 07:39
Big Blue makes 75GB hard drive

Biggest capacity disk ships next month

IBM, which has always been pretty nifty at hard drive technology, yesterday said it will ship a 75GB hard drive next month. The Deskstar 75GXP is aimed at the desktop market and whirrs around at 7,200 revolutions a minute. At the same time, IBM also said it will release a 40GB drive, the Deskstar 40GV, which like, the former, …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 07:46
Intel puts whole weight behind Red China

Normal trade relations essential for business

Craig Barrett, CEO of the Intel Corporation, has put his and his company's muscle into a push to bestow permanent normal trade relations with Red China, according to a report in Electronic Buyers' News. Barrett told influential US trade body the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) yesterday that a failure by the US Congress …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 08:23
Mouse pen gets joyful mobile twist

The moving keyboard writes and having writ...

Inventor C.L. Chung claims he has made a breakthrough in pointing devices for mobile phones and other Net appliances. The system which, includes a mouse device, an electronic pen and a joystick, will fit in a 3 cm by 2 cm area and will work with mobile phones, keyboards for Internet TVs, gaming controllers and PDA style devices …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 09:01
Zoom struts down the Free Everything catwalk

Wants to flog more clothes

Fashion and lifestyle e-commerce portal, Zoom.co.uk, strutted down the catwalk today to offer its very own fetching design for 0800 toll-free access to the Net. Unlike a string of other offers which are based on a combined telephony/Internet model, Zoom is prepared to dig deep into its pockets to offset the cost of offering 0800 …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 09:24
FBI Web site hacked

DoS attack commemorates a Bureau anniversary

The FBI's Web site was taken offline by a denial of service (DoS) attack for several hours on Tuesday, UPI reports. The attack interrupted an online announcement of the 50th anniversary of the Bureau's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list, a standard feature in Post Offices throughout America, which was celebrated Tuesday at FBI …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 09:52
Virginia passes controversial software licensing law

Power to the shrink-wrap

Virginia Governor James Gilmore (Republican) signed America's first comprehensive set of regulations governing electronic commerce into law Tuesday during an Internet summit at George Mason University. The Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act (UCITA) swiftly passed the Virginia General Assembly in spite of objections …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 10:26
VA Linux slims servers with new acquisitions

pumps up storage

VA Linux Systems is to spend more than $200 million to buy two hardware companies aimed at bolstering its server design and storage capabilities. California-based VA, which develops software and products for the Linux operating system, said yesterday it would buy TruSolutions and NetAttach for around $240 million. The $189 …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 11:21
No profits for Freeserve – for two, three years

Pluthero speaks

Monster ISP Freeserve is not expected to make a profit for the next two or three years, its CEO said today. John Pluthero's comments were made on the BBC's Today programme after the company announced its quarterly results. Total turnover was up 36 per cent to £5.1 million during Q3, compared with the second quarter. Losses …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 11:25
Congressional privacy commission proposed

Just in case industry hasn't got the message yet

Congressmen Asa Hutchinson (Republican, Arkansas) and Jim Moran (Democrat, Virginia) on Wednesday introduced legislation to create a bipartisan privacy protection commission. The proposed 17-member commission would make recommendations regarding online privacy, identity theft, and the protection of health, medical, financial and …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 11:29
X-Stream US shareholders slam LibertySurf IPO lock-out

It's not fair

Shareholders in the US and Canada are revolting against the merger between The X-Stream Network and the French ISP Liberty Surf. Investors are complaining that X-Stream's management agreed to sell its shares to the French e-outfit for $1.26, when they were being traded in North America for more than $2.00 a share. What's more, …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 11:33
Nvidia gets $200m X-Box injection

MS to hand over advance next month

Graphics chip giant, Nvidia, is to receive a $200 million payment from Microsoft next month as an advance on multimedia development work for the X-Box. The X-Box has become one of the industry's most talked about yet-to-ship products and has seen a rows break out over who would win the supply deals for a variety of components. …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 11:38
Congressman proposes more high-tech visas

Ringers from overseas needed to run the IT Revolution

Congressman David Dreier (Republican, California) has introduced legislation to increase the availability of high-tech workers by raising visa quotas for educated foreigners. Called the Helping to Improve Technology Education and Achievement (HI-TECH) Act -- yeah, we figure they chose the acronym first -- the bill would raise …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 12:06
Intel 866, 850 prices arrive next Monday

Chips may follow behind later

The 866MHz and 850MHz Pentium III Coppermines which Intel delayed so it could rush a 1GHz processor out of the door will be formally announced next Monday. The prices are around $760/1000 and $660/1000 respectively, but sources both in the channel and at second tier OEMs suspect that they won't be able to supply systems using …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 12:11
Rambus memory gets Dataquest vote

Hyundai changes mind about DDR

The future for Rambus memory in PCs is bright, a senior analyst at Dataquest forecast today. Richard Gordon, at Dataquest said that last year the future of Rambus was unclear because of conflicting messages sent out by market leaders. "Intel left the whole market in limbo," he said. But now Intel has made its position clear on …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 12:48
Home Office RIPs into its Big Brother critics

Open letter from Charles Clarke MP

Home Office minister Charles Clarke has hit out at critics of the UK Government's RIP Bill by posting an open letter on the Home Office Web site. In his letter, the Minister refutes all allegations that the Bill is "an Orwellian nightmare of unfettered mass surveillance" and says the Government has struck the right balance …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 12:58
eBay clamps down on hoax bids

Spoils the harmless amusement of millions

eBay is to introduce new measures to stop hoax bids at its online auction house. Customers will have to register their credit card details before making bids of $5,000 or above, according to CNET. eBay will excommunicate anyone caught making hoax bids. The move is designed to put an end to spoof bids and it's hoped this new …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 13:07
Infineon to gift technology to Mosel-Vitelic

More microns for 12-inch fab

The Taiwanese press is reporting that Mosel-Vitelic, a memory manufacturer, is to announce an exchange of technology with Infineon, the recently spun-off Siemens semiconductor unit. As Siemens had some responsibility in helping Mosel-Vitelic to set up, perhaps the deal is not that surprising. The reports suggest that Mosel- …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 13:18
AMD prices set to kybosh Intel's .18 Celermine plans

Pricing dilemma will mean low to no margins for Chipzilla

Sources close to Intel and AMD's plans say that up-and-coming .18 micron Celeron processors using a Coppermine core will indeed have half of their level two cache disabled. But,unlike the last time Intel performed this engineering feat, supplying Pentium IIs and Celerons based on the Pentium II but only with 128K cache, very …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 13:40
Angry employee busted after hack attack

He's grumpy, greedy and dopey – he ain't no Snow White for sure

A financial clearing facility in New York was subjected to a three-day cyber onslaught by a disgruntled employee who had demanded better pay and conditions for carrying out training duties. The man, a 31 year old database engineer called Abdelkader Smires, was arrested on Tuesday after he had disabled computers at Internet …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 13:43
Sony plugs US DVD PS2 grey market

More spoilsports

Spoilsport Sony Computer Entertainment is to plug the grey market hole that enables its Japanese-market PlayStation 2 to play US DVDs. Gaming wizards last week discovered a way of playing Region 1 DVDs on the Region 2 console by entering codes in the machine. Today it seems Sony has already made plans to stop this activity. …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 14:02
MS gives away Win2k Pro code for free

Full code dished out in error, instead of 120 day trial as mag cover mount

Microsoft faces something of a licensing issue in Spain, following the accidental free distribution of an estimated 100,000 copies of full, non time-limited Windows 2000. The code was cover-mounted by the Spanish edition of IDG's PC World, which we understand has had record-breaking sales for the month. In the wake of the …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 15:23
Mobile phones blamed for DVD-ROM drought

Yes, really

DVD-ROM drives are likely to stay on allocation until summer while the mobile phone industry eats up much-needed components. Soaring demand for Digital Signal Processor (DSP)chips, needed as PC punters rush to switch from CD-ROMs to DVD-ROMs, as well as for mobile phones, is to blame for the drought. Lead times are currently …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 16:48
Tom's Hardware dissects Rambus

Eviscerates, more like

Tom's Hardware has produced a blockbuster article on Rambus -- and it doesn't like what it sees. Reviewer Van Smith explains why poor yields makes Rambus so costly (a whopping 750 per cent more expensive than SDRAM equivalents) and he notes the vendor "misinformation" concerning performance. "It seems to be common practice at …

Business 16 Mar 2000, 21:15