6th April 2000 Archive
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ACLU appeals Mattel ruling
Banned URLs should be revealed to all
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is appealing a court order blocking distribution of the now-famous cphack utility programme that allows owners of Mattel's Cyber Patrol Web filtering software to override its controls and to learn which Web sites are blacklisted. US District Court Judge Edward Harrington issued a …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 04:22
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London thieves nab rare crypto machine
Sympathetic Web heads hope to thwart fences
Crypto buffs will be discouraged to learn that a rare German Enigma machine from World War II was stolen from a display case at Bletchley Park Trust, near London on 1 April. The stolen machine is a rare model known as Abwehr, thought to be one of only two surviving. "We hope that if the Internet community gets behind it, it will …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 05:09
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Congress mulls ‘cyber-molester’ bill
Save the children, silence adults
Child-protective hysteric Rep. Robert Franks (Republican, New Jersey) has introduced a House bill requiring mandatory prison sentences for 'cyber-molesters' who use the Net to find underage sexual partners. The bill would call for a minimum of five years' incarceration, leaving judges with the sole option of passing sentences of …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 06:09
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Retired US Army major faces Net pedo charge
Yet another perfectly respectable online sicko
A retired US Army major who directed emergency communications for the White House has been charged with attempting to have sex with two young girls. Idaho retiree John Davis got caught in an Internet sting operation when a mother who told him he could have sex with her daughters, aged twelve and fourteen, turned out to be an …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 06:49
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MSN divvies up $40m for recruitment campaign
Aims for one million new US users
Microsoft is to chuck around $40 million trying to recruit more subscribers to its information and Internet service provider, MSN. New users who sign up for a year will get six months for free - the other six months they will have to pay the going rate of $21.95 a month for the service. The Great Satan of Software Monopolies is …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 07:50
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Get your scalpels, handbags and PCs here
B2B surplus stores move online
A venture selling everything from surplus IT kit to boats on the Web has launched for Business punters in Europe. Started last week, Eurosurplus.com is hoping to flog a diverse selection of goods via the cybermarket, including IT equipment, furniture, food and even ships. Sadly there were no products listed under the computer …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 07:53
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SAPping the will to live
It's a dirty job, but someone's got to learn it
Massachusetts-based Global Knowledge is launching a series of products for forgetful Brits. You know the scenario: your boss sends you on a course to learn about one of the latest complicated software applications. It seems to make sense at the time, but the minute you're back in the office you've forgotten half of what was …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 08:01
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Rambus claims network chip wins
Share price rallies on Garibaldi news
Memory technology company Rambus said that it has made a number of significant wins with network companies adopting its blueprints for their infrastructure products. The firm, which is famous for the way its stock peaks and troughs, said it had enlisted HP, IBM, LSI Logic, NEC, Texas Instruments and Toshiba to its ranks. And it …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 08:21
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Contractors raise £500K for IR35 court challenge
Rules 'contrary to European law'
It's that time again. After losing the first round of legislation in November, IR35 protestors have raised the stakes by taking legal action against the Government. The Professional Contractors Group (PCG) has drafted in a leading barrister in European law, Gerald Barling QC, to argue that the April Finance Bill, which increases …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 08:24
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ON24 slams ZDNet April Fool's ‘joke’
No longer considers ZDNet News a reliable source
Unaccountably, this link (http://biz.yahoo.com/oo/000404/20367.html) no longer appears to work. So here is the ON24 piece in full: "This is a retraction to a story published by ON24 News on Monday April 3rd. At that time we attributed a story to ZDNet News United Kingdom citing 'exclusive sources', reporting Sony was developing …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 08:25
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Judge sets schedule for remedies against MS
MS on Trial Government claim by end April, then MS responds
While Bill Gates was across the road working Congress, Judge Jackson held a ten minute hearing to set the timetable for the remedies phase. His scheduling order gives the DoJ and the plaintiff states until 25 April to file their proposed form of permanent injunction. However, in the event that the states cannot agree with the …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 08:45
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AMD starts sampling copper whoppers
Spitfires, Mustangs to fly out of Dresden
A report in EE Times said yesterday that AMD's CEO, Jerry Sanders III, has confirmed that its Dresden fabrication plant 30 has started shipping samples of x86 microprocessors using the copper interconnect process. Sanders is reported as saying that his firm will turn in its first quarter next week with turnover of $1 billion, …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 08:46
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Aureal seeks Chapter 11 shield
So farewell, then...
Aureal has declared itself bankrupt, just a week after firing its entire management team and reporting a very poor set of results indeed. The company yesterday sought Chapter 11 protection from creditors while it desperately tries to sort out its finances, though with the board now desperately trying to recruit a CEO, a CFO, a …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 11:04
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Via claims 348 per cent sales rise in March
Chipset business thrives, lawyers will get paid
Taiwanese chip firm Via said today that its net sales for last month amounted to $84 million (NT$ 2.57 billion). The firm claimed that is an increase, compared to March 1999, of 348 per cent, while net sales grew 218 per cent for its first three months, compared to the same quarter last year. Total net sales for Q1 2000 amounted …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 11:08
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Rumbled in the Jungle.com
Prepare to take your hat off
Nothing makes The Register prouder than sheer, naked toil - wherever it raises it head. This week's Naked Toil prize therefore goes to Jungle.com for services above and beyond the call of customer care. It could all have been so different. A reader's husband ordered a large number of hard-to-find CDs from Jungle, listed as in …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 11:13
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Third secret-packed official notebook nicked
Army's laptop loss 'incredibly embarrassing' admits Blimp
Another laptop containing the nation's secrets has been stolen - the third in a month. The computer was nicked from a top army officer while he was queuing to check-in at Heathrow airport. The lieutenant-colonel put the machine between his feet while waiting at Terminal Three on Monday. Quick as a flash, a thief reached between …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 11:20
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PR bunnies in extinction shock
New technology will finish them off
Spin doctors are fast becoming a threatened species, according to a new report from the PR bunnies themselves. The source of the threat isn't a gin and tonic shortage, a clampdown on expenses, or even myxomatosis, but the Internet. The Institute of Public Relations and the PR Consultant's Association claim that because so much …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 12:00
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Former Nortel exec fined over mile-high sex romp
Strange mewing noises in underwear, much groping. Grief...
Former Nortel Networks sales exec Amanda Holt "miaowed like a cat" on a mile-high sex romp, a court heard yesterday. Holt, who has since been sacked from her £90,000-a-year job at Nortel, embarked on the session with total stranger David Machin on a transatlantic flight in October. The two, both married, were consumed by lust at …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 12:27
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No customer support please, we're Sony
Radical new approach to Web help
The Internet provides a fantastic resource for customers trying to get help and advice on their purchases. Whether you need a new driver for your video card or need to know how to program your VCR's timer, the Web is the best place to start. Well in most cases it is, unless the company concerned is Sony. When a Sony Walkman is …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 12:49
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ATI records 136 per cent profit hike
Rage 128 Pro, Mobility flying off the shelves, apparently
ATI continues to rub its hands with pleasure at its fiscal results, this time gloating - understandably - over 28 per cent and 136 per cent rises in sales and income, respectively. The company's second quarter, ended 29 February, saw sales reach $380.1 million, up from last year's $297.2 million, and income hit $51.1 million, up …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 13:11
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Saudi prince takes $1bn AOL stake
After Steve Case's oil reserves?
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, billionaire investor and a nephew of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd , has just forked out $1 billion buying up shares in dotcom and IT companies. The flush billionaire investor, whose previous greatest hits include Apple, has been waiting to pounce on dotcom shares for some time but only weighed in when …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 13:30
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Compaq's Wildfire gets first public benchmark
And The Big Q is The Big Q no more
The first public benchmark of a Compaq Wildfire system, which uses Alpha microprocessors, has been posted on the Web. The benchmark, for a GS 320 system running Tru64 Unix 5.1, Oracle 8i 8.1.6 and running that dreadfully boring R3 SAP stuff, can be found on this site. The GS320, which includes 32 Alpha CPUs, achieves more than a …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 13:37
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Now Netscape are 6 – and a nation yawns
Yesterday's news today hits the UK
Netscape unveiled its new browser, Netscape 6, in Britain this morning -- a day after it launched it in the US. So bang goes one of Netscape's nice lines about it now being a global, rather than US-centric outfit that accepts that there are now more Net users outside North America. Not a particularly auspicious start for the …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 13:46
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Judge's Java findings may trigger Sun suit against MS
MS on Trial But maybe Sun's just making more mischief
Sun has started briefing the press on the possibility of it mounting a private antitrust suit against Microsoft. That of course doesn't mean that Sun will mount such a suit - it may well be that the company will be happy enough with the mischief the suggestions will cause for Microsoft. And of course by bringing private …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 13:55
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UK PLC leaves door open to hackers – report
Two thirds of them don't change anything, even after a serious breach
British companies are too complacent when it comes to Internet security and only have themselves to blame if their IT systems are compromised by hackers. That's just one of the conclusions of a new survey published by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which reveals that two thirds of companies in Britain have suffered …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 14:16
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Apple ships Darwin 1.0 open source OS core
But Intel compatibility not quite there yet
Apple has released the first full version of Darwin, the open source operating system core on which the upcoming MacOS X is based, just over a year after the Mac maker announced its open source plans. Darwin 1.0 is based on the Mach 3.0 microkernel and FreeBSD, and as reported earlier, can be compiled for both PowerPC and Intel …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 14:20
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AOL unveils Gateway-made Linux Net appliance
Soon there will be no escape from 'You've got Mail'
AOL's 'AOL Anywhere' strategy took a stride forward yesterday when the company unveiled the results of its $800 million investment in PC vendor Gateway: a line of co-branded Net access devices. Based on Linux and running AOL's new consumer-friendly Gecko Web browser - for a taster, take a look at Netscape Navigator 6 Preview …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 14:35
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InterX inches closer to Ideal Hardware sale
Talking to 'potential purchaser'
The InterX group today edged closer to offloading its distribution business, Ideal Hardware. At today's extraordinary general meeting, company chairman Richard Jewson confirmed InterX had "entered a period of exclusivity with a potential purchaser". "In the Circular [dated 10 March] I also indicated to shareholders that we …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 14:41
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Gates hits Washington in serial lobbying schmooze
MS on Trial Senators, Republicans, Prez - busy busy boy...
Bill Gates is one of the very few people in the US who can fix five top-level lobbying meetings at very short notice on Capitol Hill, and then go on the same afternoon to join President Clinton's New Economy Summit at the White House. Gates changed his slot at Microsoft's government leaders conference in Seattle, upstaging …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 14:48
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Likely MS remedies: breaking up is hard to do
Special report We look at the options the court faces
The last few days have seen a plethora of possibly remedies to deal with Microsoft put forward, but the point many of them miss is that remedies that harm users would be foolish. Nor is it the court's role or objective to punish Microsoft, in this case at least. Any approach to remedies has to start at the present position: …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 15:19
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Leak! ServerWorks cornerstone of Intel servers
Analysis Roadmaps show reliance on outsiders
A colleague at The Register who watches these things more than yours truly, says that a piece on Intel's server strategy, divided into three parts, and which we delivered last week, didn't start really hitting the numbers until the word "Leak!" was stuck in front of the headline. So now that's the order of the day in this series …
Business 6 Apr 2000, 15:31
