30th March 2000 Archive

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Via goes for dual-processor jugular

Intros Pro133A chipset supporting 4GB PC-133

The dual-processor market received a boost today from third-party chipset manufacturer Via, which has announced support for paired processors for the Pentium III and Pentium II platform. The Apollo Pro 133A will support up to 4GB of PC-133 memory, Via said, with the chipset aimed at the workstation and server segment of the …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 05:29
FIC gives Intel BX440 board hearty resuscitation

You can't put good technology down

A dearth of BX chipsets from Intel at the end of last year caused quite a few problems for motherboard manufacturers and PC manufacturers, particularly given certain difficulties with the i820 (Camino) chipset. But that dearth of product was fixed in a month or two, although every Intel roadmap we've seen since indicates …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 06:19
Intel Labs to go 3D at NAB

News from the backroom boffins

The Intel Architecture Labs (IAL) is a set of people dedicated to pushing the boundaries of technology (for that, read 'selling more microprocessors'). Often the IAL folk are seen at Intel's Developer Forum but if they were there last month, they were hiding from The Register and the monstrous regiments of the US and …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 06:40
More CuMine Celerons en route from Intel

The A suffix gets a reprise for 533MHz

We are grateful to First International Corporation (FIC) for pre-announcing the Intel Celeron 633MHz processor as it announced the introduction of its FB11 BX mobo. And we are even more grateful to Intel for letting us know, by the back door, so to speak, that it is migrating its Coppermine 0.18 micron technology to the 533MHz …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 07:21
Cybersquatter? Not me, says owner of Greatdomainrobbery

Interview with fast-moving entrepreneur

A Surrey man has spent £40,000 buying 5000 Web addresses even though he says his domain name business is "just a hobby". Asked whether he thought £40,000 was a lot of money, he said: "It's nothing in terms of business." John Pepin told The Register that most of the 5000 Web addresses are "innovative" domains that would appeal to …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 07:39
Ballmer plays to gallery with message to MS troops

Preparing the way for a deal?

Microsoft president and CEO Steve Ballmer has emailed the troops with a morale-boster on the settlement talks, but from the phrasing it looks written very much for public consumption. Microsoft has used this PR trick before, when supposedly confidential memos from Bill Gates to Microsoft executives have been specifically written …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 07:46
Acer casts adrift three disties

Wants to hang out with the big guys

Acer UK has ditched three distributors in its push into the corporate market. Datrontech, Enta Technologies and SI Distribution all reached "an amicable agreement" with the manufacturer, said Scott Dodds, Acer sales director. The three will end their contracts with Acer at the end of March. This leaves the company with six …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 07:49
Nationwide and its most peculiar Net banking plans

Service available at branches

Nationwide is putting Web terminals in its branches to let customers check their accounts online for free. The building society is splashing out £250,000 on the scheme to install terminals in 250 branches by the end of May. If the plan is a success, it hopes to extend the Internet banking facilities to all 682 branches. It is …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 07:53
CDNow faces Cash Crash

Arthur Andersen expresses big doubts

CDNow's auditors say there is a "substantial doubt" about the online retailer's ability to "continue as a going concern". Arthur Andersen's warning, contained in a CDNow filing on Tuesday, says the company had suffered "recurring losses from operations, ahd a working capital deficiency and significant payments were due in 2000 …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 08:14
Sony to fold US music, movie wings into broadband unit

Paves way for the day when everything comes by cable

Sony's scheme to dominate the home computing and home entertainment markets through broadband content delivery moved another stage forward today. The Japanese giant is to fold its three key entertainment subsidiaries - Pictures, Music and Online - into a new operation, Sony Broadband Entertainment. The move will see the …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 08:26
Intel's server board strategy to 2002

Part Three End of lines, dates, closures and $1.5 million in dosh

How long will Intel's different server platforms survive? The source at Intel Europe who showed us the roadmaps this series is based on revealed projections for the different platforms already existing and yet to be announced. However, he stressed that these only projections, and refused to be drawn on how specific the dates …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 08:33
Intel's server board strategy to 2002

Part Two Classy chassis, Glen Echo and Raid options

The Intel Hudson (SC5000) chassis will have three 5.25in device bays and one floppy, five hot-swap drive bays, two additional non-hot swap drive bays and support 10,000rpm drives. It has two power options, a 300W PS2 and a 350W 1+1 redundant hot swap option. It will include four system fans, two behind the drive bays and two in …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 08:34
MS, BT, AT&T strike global wireless broadband deal

At last - Redmond scores a biggie

One of the major deals Microsoft was hoping Bill Gates could announce in February was finally rolled out today - a triple alliance with BT and AT&T covering broadband mobile data. Microsoft's contribution will be its wireless data services platform, which will allow consumer and business applications to be deployed on AT&T's and …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 08:48
MostHateD to plead guilty in gLobaL heLL hack case

Dropping like flies....

Patrick Gregory, aka 'MostHateD', has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit teleconferencing fraud and computer trespass. The 19-year-old Texan is a founding member of a crew known as gLobaL heLL, previously known as total-Ka0s. The Feds accuse gLobaL heLL of causing $1.5 million in damage to numerous US …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 08:49
Demon coughs up damages in Godfrey libel case

Pays price for uncivil liberties

Demon Internet has agreed to pay £15,000 to a scientist after failing to remove defamatory postings on newsgroups it hosted. The UK ISP will apologise to Dr Laurence Godfrey, as well as paying his legal costs, which could top £250,000. Add in its own legal fees and Demon is facing a bill of half a million smackers. Dr Godfrey …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 08:51
Bizarre language in Mattel ruling

'Slavery' and 'genocidal slaughter' cited in copyright case

The Register is more than a little concerned with the mental health of US District Judge Edward Harrington, who ruled in favour of the plaintiff, Mattel, in a copyright case involving a crack to decrypt a list of banned URLs in the company's Cyber Patrol filterware. We thought this was a straightforward dispute over intellectual …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 09:25
ex-AMD Atiq Raza gets Infiniband job

The ironies of any old Intel iron

A fabless semiconductor firm partly funded by Intel Capital has appointed Atiq Raza, who masterminded AMD's introduction of the Athlon chip, to its board of directors. Mellanox will design interoperable silicon in conjunction with the trade association Infiniband, and has raised funding of over $25 million in its second round of …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 09:43
Acer unveils ‘most competitive’ embedded Linux

OS to ship under Animeta brand and ultimately replace Windows in Acer kit

Animeta Systems, one of Taiwanese giant Acer's numerous subsidiaries, claims to have whipped up the world's most compact - it only requires 2MB RAM - and most competitive version of Linux for embedded applications. More important, perhaps, is the fact the group plans to use its new OS to oust Windows in many of the company's …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 10:19
Long fraud scam hits eBay

LA outfit wins buyers trust then takes the money and runs

It's one of the oldest tricks in the fraudsters' book and it's got the LAPD sniffing around eBay. According to CNET, police in Los Angeles are investigating claims that dozens of people handed over money for computer equipment advertised on eBay but have never received the goods. The seller in question is understood to have sold …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 10:46
Ugly Web site finds curry and beer for Brits

Geography is about maps, soon about WAPs

A self-confessed ugly Web site has launched to help Brits find their evening pint and curry anywhere in the country. The somewherenear.com site will locate your nearest public house, B&B or Indian restaurant online. Punters simply click on an area of a map of the country, say what kind of establishment they want, and up come the …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 11:35
S3 chip team sale: the potential buyers lined up

Step forward Nvidia as the main contender, but there are others...

While S3 continues to remain tight-lipped as to the identity of the mystery buyer of its 3D graphics chip development operation (ie. that part of the merged S3/Diamond that isn't... er... Diamond), a nice little chain of logic has emerged that leads to a possible buyer. The links were uncovered by Web site Tech Report, and …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 11:45
Inprise lawyers seek to block opposition to Corel merger

Shareholder's employer threatened over anti-merger Web site

A campaign to derail the Corel-Inprise/Borland merger has attracted the attention of Inprise's learned friends, probably because of some interesting revelations rather than as a result of the campaign seriously threatening the deal. The reason for the aggro is that Corel's share price has dropped dramatically since the …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 12:07
Leak! Intel's server board strategy to 2002

Part One Brace, brace it's codename conundrums

Sources working within Intel in Europe have leaked comprehensive details of the firm's strategy for server boards which reveal plans the chip giant currently has up until the year 2002. Documents seen by The Register show that the firm is scrambling to ensure that its lucrative server business carries on being the cash cow to …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 12:35
Emulator puts arcade classics on digital cameras

Donkey Kong on a Kodak

After yesterday's news that Nintendo plans to offer a cellphone with a built-in Gameboy Color, you'd have thought go-anywhere gamers would be sated with opportunities to play arcade games on the move. Not so. We now learn there's a project underway that has developed a console emulator for... er... digital cameras. The …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 12:51
Seagate MBOs HDD business at rock-bottom price

Group dismembered in $20 billion deal

Seagate is to bow out as a corporate entity by divesting itself of all non-operating businesses and offloading its disk drive division in a deal valued at $20.4 billion. The HDD business is going in an MBO for a paltry $1.2 billion, even though it's valued at more than twice that amount. The Seagate HDD business will now, as the …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 15:02
Ticketmaster calls for ban on linking rejected

Hello, welcome to the Internet. You're a stranger here, I gather...

Ticketmaster has had its call for hyperlinking to be banned by law rejected by a US federal judge. The ruling follows a row between rival ticket sites Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch and Tickets.com over the practice of deep linking to parts of competitors' Web sites. Ticketmaster had complained that Tickets.com was sending …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 15:46
Quios looks to extend global reach

Start up wants to spread its wings

An Internet startup which acts as a channel to send SMS messages to 400,000 users says the firm is ready to sign a series of deals with a number of different content providers. Marc Vanlerberghe, CEO of Quios, said today that his firm, which got its second round of financing this year, provides instant messaging, communities and …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 15:52
Apple to ship 800MHz Power Mac G4 by year end

Motorola's predictions of Apple's release schedule matches our predictions of Motorola's

Motorola sources have told MacUser that Apple should be able to release an 800MHz Power Mac G4 by the end of the year - and follow it up with a 1GHz machine sometime during Q1 2001. It's worth pointing out that this is Motorola's schedule, not Apple's, and while the source - and we're pretty sure we know who the fellow is, so it …

Business 30 Mar 2000, 16:51