27th March 2000 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Intel tweaks notebook pricing

SpeedStep chips see biggest move, but where's the 700MHz?

As part of what Intel describes as its normal pricing activity during the year, the firm will lower prices on its microprocessors for notebook machines today. (The Intel channel had been told there was a 700MHz Coppermine mobile being released today, but so far, there is no sign of that part). The changes affect both the Pentium …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 07:00
Rambus faces antitrust accusations

Hitachi strikes back by invoking Sherman Act

Memory technology company Rambus received a blow to its plans Friday when Hitachi, which faces legal and US government action for alleged infringement of patents, fought back by invoking US antitrust legislation under the umbrella of the Sherman Act. Last week, Rambus stepped up its claims that Hitachi, a large manufacturer of …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 07:11
FBI tracks Bill Gates credit card hackers to Welsh village

'He had an American accent and was wearing a trench coat'

The FBI and British police expected to find professional criminals when they descended on a small village in west Wales last Thursday. Instead, they got two 18-year old hackers armed with nothing more than a £700 computer. Raphael Gray, 18, is accused of stealing 23,000 credit card details, including the credit card number of …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 07:28
Hopes of deal fade as DoJ rejects MS offer

Proposal was complex, but not good enough

Microsoft's settlement proposal is apparently not good enough for the DoJ and the plaintiff states: the two sides remain "sharply divided", according to reports over the weekend citing "sources familiar with the matter". Microsoft's proposal was faxed on Friday to each plaintiff state, as well as to the DoJ. It has been …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 07:44
Muddle erupts over dual CPU Intel platform

The flipping chips won't play the game

Confusion and uncertainty from Intel on support for dual-processor configurations for its latest flip chip (FC-PGA) packaging for Pentium IIIs is causing users across the world to suffer from CPU Angst. Posts on the Intel support forum underline the muddle, as the chip company makes a move from the previous slotted SECC2 …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 09:18
FBI computer security consultant busted

'Ethical hacker' lights the candle at both ends

A so-called 'ethical hacker' from California who had been a computer crimes consultant with the FBI appeared in federal court last week to face fifteen counts of computer trespass. Max Ray Butler, who once worked as an FBI source in computer crime, offers network penetration testing to clients interested in learning how a …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 09:38
Nvidia detonates new features for $0.00

Driver tips up in 'new lamps for old' shock

A hidden feature in an Nvidia driver is set to provide better functionality for cards based on the company's technology. The additional features will not cost users a cent, but do require some tweaking of the awful Windows registry. That's one on the nose for the competition. 3dfx showed two features to be supported in its …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 09:59
MS pulls legacy hardware drivers from Windows ME

Nearly ready to roll, download the wheels for yourself...

Windows Millennium Edition (WinME) is virtually ready to ship, according to a report at Win98Central. But the latest version of the code doesn't include drivers for legacy hardware, which strongly suggests Microsoft intends to make the break with the next (and last?) rev of the Win9x code. According to the site, the latest …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 10:53
BT boob exposes personal details

Big Number? Big no no, more like

BT has published - by mistake - the names, telephone numbers and email addresses of more than 800 phone users on its official Numberchange Web site. The boob – which comes in the same week bra maker Gossard is to hold National Cleavage Day - is a gift to spammers and other low life who could use the information to try and sell …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 10:54
Martha Lane Fox ate my mouse

Move over Freddie Starr...

Is there no escape from lastminute.com? Lunchtime sandwiches delivered to The Register were wrapped in a paper bag which read: "Want to eat something really special tonight? Grab a mouse." "Restaurants, travel, entertainment, gifts - do something lastminute.com" It's enough to give one indigestion. Still, apart from picking …

Bootnotes 27 Mar 2000, 11:42
MS offers to free OEMs, dis-integrate IE to escape noose

Unless we're going to sabotage the wording again, this offer sounds strangely generous...

If no agreed settlement of the Microsoft antitrust case is in the offing by Tuesday, Judge Jackson will issue his findings of law. Microsoft made an offer of settlement late last week, but this seems to have been rejected as inadequate by the government over the weekend. But although that suggests the judge will indeed be …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 11:48
Fujitsu Siemens sacks All The President's Men

Hoffman and Hoog awarded Grand Order of The Boot

Fujitsu Siemens Computers has kicked out its joint presidents amid a warning over profits. Winfried Hoffmann and Robert Hoog left the top spot at the European PC vendor on Friday. Fujitsu Siemens insisted the two - formerly heads of Fujitsu Europe and Siemens respectively - would remain at the company and were happy with the …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 12:28
Aureal close to collapse – execs out on their ears

To sell or to wind down?

Aureal has purged its entire executive management team and is considering "all necessary actions to either sell the Company or its assets or wind down the Company". The putsch for the digital audio company follows a horrible set of Q4 results, which saw the firm effectively run out of cash. It sees the departure of "President …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 12:45
Apple open source OS to ship on Intel

Darwin may be x86 compatible, but it doesn't mean MacOS X will be

Apple looks set to release version 1.0 of its Darwin open source operating system core real soon now - and for the first time the code will be made available for Intel-based systems. On Saturday, Apple's open source development lead, Wilfredo Sanchez, posted a message on the company's Darwin Development bulletin board saying: " …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 13:21
Cosmopolitan wins £4000 damages from porn-threat cybersquatter

The worm is turned

A cybersquatter who threatened to sell celebrity name URLs to porn sites has been ordered to pay damages in the High Court. Jaei England was told to pay £4000 to Cosmopolitan after it was revealed he sent a letter to the magazine's editor demanding cash for domain name cosmopolitan.co.uk. England had threatened to sell the URL …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 13:36
Hackers use PlayStation 2 to dump DVDs to tape

Industry-standard copy protection mechanism bypassed, claim Web sites

PlayStation hackers have discovered a second way to use the console to bypass the DVD industry's strict regime. The first hack overcame the games machine's DVD regionalisation software, and now users have found out how to circumvent its DVD copy protection mechanism. According to EE Times and reports from Register readers, …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 13:54
Iridium creditors sue Motorola for $1.99bn

Suit alleges Motorola syphoned off cash from doomed satellite comms company

Iridium creditors have begun legal action against Motorola. They claim the company, which created Iridium and held an exclusive contract to maintain the comms operation's 66 satellites, failed in its legal duties. The suit, filed with the New York District Court, alleges that Motorola was aware of Iridium's problems and failed …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 14:12
Universities hit by Net costs

Students run up massive phone bills - wherever they are

Cash-strapped UK universities are being drained of money by careless Internet surfers. The total bill for unwarranted Net surfing in UK higher seats of learning could add up to a loss of around £450,000, according to The Independent, and is on its way to hitting the £600,000 mark next year. The UK newspaper says the figures are …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 14:15
Amstrad leaks like leaky thing over ‘Web phone’ launch

Exclusives mount up

Details of Amstrad's mystery Web surfing product have started to leak out ahead of this week's launch. A screaming exclusive from ZDNet UK revealed the "smartphone", developed jointly with BT and manufactured in Asia, will offer a personal information manager (PIM) as well as GSM capabilities. The price, said to be so low that " …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 15:53
Red Hat still in the red

But sales are growing nicely

Red Hat, the best-known Linux distributor, continues to see strong revenue growth - and almost equally large widening of its losses. Reporting the results of its fourth quarter today, the company revealed revenues up some 39 per cent on the same period last year, rising from $9.4 million to $13.1 million. Last quarter, the …

Business 27 Mar 2000, 15:53