17th April 2000 Archive

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Pixelon.com founder confesses he is fugitive embezzler

Dotcon shows aplomb

The founder of Net start-up Pixelon.com is actually a fugitive embezzler living under a false name and a wanted man in the state of Virginia. Michael Adam Fenne raised $35 million from private investors to start the online broadcast network last year. California-based Pixelon's launch party in October cost $12 million, and …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 12:00
World+Dog waits for Nasdaq opening

Crash Register See, saw, Marjory Daw...

The whole world and its doggie are waiting to see what will happen on Nasdaq when the stock market opens any minute or hour or so now, but the fall out on Friday had all the signs of a panic run. That generated column inches that possibly reached to the Moon over the weekend but the indiscriminate rush to get out of high tech …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 12:13
See marchers get beaten up on the Web!

Protestcam casts eyes over Washington anti-capitalist demo

If you were horrified at the images of baton-wielding police kicking the living daylights out of anti-capitalism protestors in Washington, DC over the weekend, then you'd better give ProtestCam.com a miss. Activists have two cameras overlooking the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund buildings in Washington, DC …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 12:13
Hackers: cyber saviours or snake-oil salesmen?

Should we buy into these cultural harbingers?

Surrounded by sycophantic applause and loud guffaws at weak jokes, a strange, nervous twitch started to develop. Similar to entering the Blue Oyster bar*, the Hackers Forum was not the kind of place an old-style, cynical hack is welcome. Up on stage at London's Olympia is "one of the strongest line-ups of hacking experts ever …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 13:15
Saudi authorities shut down women's cybercafé

Against religion and traditions, apparently

Officials in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, have shut down a women's cybercafé after finding it a threat to morals. According to a report filed in court, the Internet establishment served "immoral purposes" in the Muslim holy city. "What was found was against our religion and traditions," said Yussuf Matter of the civil rights department …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 13:35
QNX opens Neutrino RTOS source code

But not all of it

In a bid to boost its profile in the emerging 'e-device' arena, real-time operating system supplier QNX is going open source - sort of. QNX calls its take on open source, 'accessible source'. As yet, the precise terms of the licensing agreement have yet to be finalised, but the scheme broadly mirrors Sun's Java Public Source …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 13:48
SMEs to get the Net knowledge

Roadshows aim to boost e-awareness

BDO Stoy Hayward is running a series of roadshows aimed at boosting the use of the Internet among the UK's small/medium sized businesses. The events will take place across the country, including Birmingham, Nottingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Sheffield and London. According to BDO's National eBusiness Manager, Jonathon Corkey, this is …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 14:40
InterQuad gets Nokia WAP exclusive

Looks to drum up reseller WAP business

InterQuad has been signed up to distribute Nokia's WAP server solutions products. The move is a first for Nokia in the UK. Part of InterQuad's remit will be to boost the demand for WAP products through the reseller channel. InterQuad's general manager of distribution, Sean Fane, said: "WAP provides an open technology platform …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 14:43
Blair wires up poor, huddled masses

A whopping £10m for bridging Digital Divide

The Government is to chuck £10 million at a scheme to wire-up deprived areas in England. Housing estates, tower blocks and rural areas will be earmarked for the digital investment providing their own "community Web" with access to government, job, health and education services. So far, no areas have been selected to take part in …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 14:56
PlayStation 2 exports to be restricted – again

Sony makes more of a fuss this time - there's a better marketing angle

Exports of Sony's PlayStation 2 console have been officially restricted by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), the Sunday Telegraph reported this weekend. Not that Sony gives a hoot. With plans for the US and European PlayStation 2 roll-outs well in advance, the last thing the company is keen to …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 15:07
Wide Open News TurboLinux CEO Follows Amazon's Lead

Got guts or just nuts?

TurboLinux CEO Cliff Miller, a renegade even inside the renegade open source industry, is never afraid to speak his mind. And the fact that TurboLinux remains a private company with no announced plans for an IPO gives him greater freedom to lose money in the pursuit of market expansion. Time will determine whether he's smart and …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 15:15
Via reckons it will triple revenues this year

From $380m to $1b, thanks to Cyrix and S3

Taiwanese chip vendor Via bullishly announced today that its revenues should exceed $1 billion this year, leaving the company with ten per cent of the global microprocessor market in the process. Last year Via notched up sales worth $380 million, which means it's predicting a growth rate of over 215 per cent. Key to making that …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 15:34
Dotcom genocide in Wall St. Week of the Lemmings

Luddites' gloat session: US $1 Trillion in New Economy wealth up in smoke Friday alone

Terrified US investors bailed out of dotcom and other New Economy issues en masse last week to yield the NASDAQ's largest historical point loss and a severe contraction on the Dow. By week's end brokers began making an inevitable move towards margin calls, thereby twisting the knife and sending all but the bottom feeders into a …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 15:34
Iomega profits way up – hurrah!

But sales continue to fall - sob!

Troubled storage company Iomega saw a major hike in profits for its first quarter of fiscal 2000, making the period the second most profitable in Iomega's 20-year history. Falling sales, however, mean the company can't afford to assume its problems are over. For the three months to 26 March, Iomega recorded profits of $31.7 …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 16:06
Microsoft mole spills beans on weenies

Relic of the browser wars, staffer claims

A mole working at Microsoft in Redmond has described in detail the process that culminated in a FrontPage security bug that unfolded its wings and started occupying hectares of column inches last week. The source, who asked that he not be named for fear of losing his livelihood, said that the bug, which includes language …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 16:17
Intel CuMine supply problems a twisted, complex tale

Analysis Consider Caesar III in every supply chain

On Friday, we reported that a large number of manufacturers have been told there will be continuing shortages of Coppermines until June. Intel has 70,000 employees working for it worldwide and a large number of fabrication plants, R&D centres, as well as a large headcount of admin, sales and marketing staff. It's little wonder, …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 16:25
Pro-Napster hackers hit Metallica

Raid the Lightning...

Hell hath no fury than a Napster fan spurned, it seems. Hot on the heels of Metallica's major legal action against the developer of the MP3 track finder, the band's Web site was hacked over the weekend. A Napster buff sneaked onto the the rockers' server and replaced the site's minimalist www.metallica.com homepage with the …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 16:27
Irish curse engine puts acid tongue on the Web

Another gift of linguistic scholarship

Web-headed linguists at Jefferson City, Missouri's Lincoln University have developed an Irish-language curse engine (An tInneal Mallachtaí) for those who wish to spew invective with a minimal risk of being understood anywhere outside of British gaols. Drop-down lists of prospective subjects, verbs and objects in English allow …

Business 17 Apr 2000, 16:50