17th March 2000 Archive

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Sun scientist Joy on the future that doesn't need us

Veteran thinker considers the risks of future technology

Bill Joy, the developer of the vi editor and Berkeley Unix, and later chief scientist of Sun Microsystems and co-designer of Sparc, picoJava and MAJC, has written a landmark essay in the current issue of Wired. It's entitled: "Why the future doesn't need us" and it's scary stuff - well worth reading. Sensationalists, or perhaps …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 07:16
SAS ports its software to Linux

Packages to appear on multiple distributions by year end

SAS will port its data warehousing and decision support packages to Linux by the end of this year. They will be available first with the Red Hat distribution, followed by at least Caldera, SuSE, TurboLinux and Corel. Keith Collins, vp for R&D, said that "Based on positive customer feedback, as well as the increasing number of …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 07:19
US Patent Office appears to trash laws of physics

Device faster than the speed of light. Must be an Athlon.

Thanks to a reader who has pointed us to a US patent which describes a device which can perform faster than the speed of light. He suggests that it is lucky that the US Patent Office pays for itself, otherwise US taxpayers might want to know why the organisation is hiring people who haven't got even the slightest clue about …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 08:39
China to use Sun boxes for warplane systems

Early warning system no threat to US pilots

The US government has approved sales of supercomputers to an Israeli firm which is designing a top end defence radar system for Red China. Bill Clinton's administration reluctantly approved a deal to ship Sun boxes to Israeli firm Elta Electronics, the Washington Post reports. Elta will use the machines to design an early- …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 08:58
Compaq's Wildfire gets May 16 debut

Seed systems start to sprout

The latest issue of newsletter Shannon knows Compaq is reporting that May 16th is now the official date for the launch of The Big Q's Wildfire, Alpha based systems. According to Terry Shannon, editor of the newsletter, AlphaServer GS80 up to GS320 WildFire systems are now all up and running smoothly. Shannon visited the Wildfire …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 10:15
Debt collectors coming to get you online

Won't send the Boys round

Debt collection will go online from March 27 thanks to a Web site aimed at recouping small claims on a pay-as-you go basis. The Credit Protection Association (CPA) will launch a new Web site called getaresult.co.uk that will let smaller businesses grass on late payers. For an advance fee of £22 plus VAT per debt, the CPA will …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 10:20
Tecmar warns about tapes and Windows 2000

Updated Others, surely, will follow suit...

Got a peripheral tape solution based on floppy and parallel port tape drives? Thinking of upgrading your operating system to Windows 2000? Be careful. Tecmar has just issued a warning that its Ditto drives will not work with Windows 2000. According to a statement from the firm, the operating system does not provide drivers for …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 10:33
Why Intel's Foster will use DDR memory

At last, some Rambus clarification

When Intel announced its up-and-coming Willamette processor at last month's Developer Forum, many were puzzled as to why the company said that the server version of the 1.4GHz processor, codenamed Foster, would use double date rate (DDR) memory rather than the Rambus memory recommended for its desktop chip. Now, at last, there …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 10:53
Blair in Women's Weekly online storm

Govt.Web site used for party-political ends. Again

The Number 10 Downing Street Web site has once again caused a storm by bowing to party politics. The site was designed as a place for the Government to post announcements and for the public to put questions to the country's leaders online. Since its inception in February, the site has been at the centre of controversy – from …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 11:53
Lastminute shares rally at err… last minute

Update: Closes up on earlier fall

It looked at one point today as though the unthinkable could be about to happen - and it still might. Despite rallying to close at 391p investors in lastminute.com are facing up to the reality that share prices - even in dotcoms - can go down as well as up. The over-hyped and over-subscribed float of Lastminute on Tuesday saw …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 13:29
ZDNet posts CRAP Demon Story

Oversells itself in dodgy headline shock horror

Oh dear. This CRAP Demon story from the increasingly accident-prone ZD Net UK, has the hallmarks of a classic sub/copy-editing error. It looks like the journalist's tagline was imported wholesale into the space reserved for the headline in ZD Net UK's content management system. The floating "Kris" -- and the real suggested …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 13:41
Intel notebook chip glitch not just Tosh problem

Updated 400MHz notebooks hit by rocky stalagmites

A problem with some 400MHz mobile Intel processors in notebooks has caused Toshiba to issue a warning to its resellers after it discovered machines failing last month. The problem is not just confined to Toshiba notebooks, we now understand, but also affects other PC vendors, some of which have only just woken up to the issue. …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 14:21
Text me, Cindy (my Bluetooth baby)

But make sure the WAP phone works first

Clutching their mobile phones and muttering, "The gateways don’t work...", application developers and Ericsson executives tried to demonstrate their Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) on that very rare device, the WAP-enabled mobile phone. But technical glitches such as these didn’t dampen spirits at the Ericsson Mobile Data …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 15:21
Sony PS2 is 21 times more popular than Win2k

It's great what you can do with statistics

1.Microsoft says Windows 2000 sold a million copies in the first three weeks. But PlayStation 2 shipped a million copies in the first day. Therefore, PlayStation must be 21 times more popular than Windows 2000. Right? 2.In the PR skirmish between Microsoft and RealNetworks over the latter's licensing the former's Windows Media …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 15:36
Channel Flannel: Resellers charged with handling pirate MS goods

London ring broken

Time for this week's round-up of the UK channel press. Computer Reseller News Police have charged three Microsoft resellers from London with handling stolen goods. Pirated copies of Windows NT, Windows 98, Publisher and FrontPage worth £3 million were seized. Rory Sweet, former RBR Networks chairman, has set up a networking …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 17:16
AMD Athlon 550 rises from the dead

Pricing will give Intel the collywobbles

System builders and distributors around the world are reporting that the AMD Athlon 550MHz processor, which many thought would disappear as the firm ramped up higher clock speeds, is once more for sale. The processor is being offered in OEM packaging to dealers at a cost of around $169, which makes it, let us say, rather …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 17:22
Sony may fix copy protection in mass PS2 recall

Don't send them back

Sony may recall all PlayStation 2s shipped so far...to stop the consoles being used to play US DVDs. A Sony representative said the manufacturer was considering recalling or exchanging the one million PlayStation2's in use, Bloomberg reports. The Japanese company refused to say how much it would cost to fix the machines already …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 17:30
Biggest online credit card heist leaked to MSNBC

Yank whistle-blower overlooks The Reg, but we're not bitter

An unknown network intruder stole details of nearly a half million credit card accounts from an e-commerce site and tauntingly stored them on a US government computer, MSNBC reports. Credit card companies notified financial institutions, but many of the compromised accounts remain open because the banks neither closed them nor …

Business 17 Mar 2000, 22:03