9th June 2000 Archive

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Disney's Eisner solves Net piracy problem

Let's make OEMs and ISPs liable

Piracy on the Internet is the most devastating thing to happen to the entertainment industry in the past seventy-five years, Disney Chairman Michael Eisner told the Congressional Joint Economic Committee in Washington this week. And there is much at stake for all of us. The entertainment industry "contributes more to the US …

Music and Media 9 Jun 2000, 00:12
Movie clip Trojan to be used in DDoS-style attack

Home PCs in the crosshairs now

The FBI will meet with staff from Network Security Technologies on Friday to examine the company's claim that malicious hackers have embedded a Trojan in a movie clip, with which they have infected 2,000 commercial and home computers in preparation to launch an attack to disable Web sites, the Associated Press reports. …

Music and Media 9 Jun 2000, 05:40
Ruling would hurt MS, staff, millions of people – says MS

MS on Trial Colourful language backs request for stay

Microsoft has asked Judge Jackson for a stay on the Final Judgement, couching its Motion in aggressive terms. Starting with a claim that the judge's ruling would inflict "grievous and irreparable harm on Microsoft, its 35,000 employees, its millions of shareholders, its thousands of business partners, and the tens of millions of …

Software 9 Jun 2000, 07:23
Plan 9 goes open source

Outswank your BSD neighbours...

Ken Thompson's Plan 9 operating system has been released by Bell Labs as open source. Thompson co-created the original Unix operating system, and more recently co-authored Inferno. Plan 9 was a group effort written in large part, Thompson says, to clean up some interfaces. "Every time I looked at later versions of Unix there …

Software 9 Jun 2000, 07:30
Computers will disturb heat balance of universe, says Sun's Gage

JavaOne Overclockers, beware...

Molecular computation could eventually threaten a cosmic meltdown, thinks Sun co-founder John Gage. And he wasn't being frivolous. "In fifty years, computation will be so complex, and so demanding of memory and working on devices of such intricacy" - such as a terabyte-on-a-sugarcube-storage - "that a single calculation could …

Channel 9 Jun 2000, 07:36
Terra and Lycos a go-go

World domination only a click away

Shareholders of Terra Networks have given their blessing for the Spanish company to acquire Lycos. The investors' thumbs-up is another tick in the box for Terra in its bid to acquire the Net company. The go-ahead was given despite some investors complaining that the $12.5 billion price tag was just too much. Once the deal is …

Music and Media 9 Jun 2000, 11:38
ISPs breeding like rabbits

Yuk -- and in public too

There are now some 4,000 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Europe, according to the latest number crunching from Cambridge-based researchers Analysys. While the number of ISPs in Europe grew by a third last year, the number of subscribers jumped by 75 per cent to 34.5 million. Net users, as a whole, increased by 69 per cent …

Business 9 Jun 2000, 11:38
Corel sheds 320 jobs

Plus Cowpland works for free

Corel is to shed 320 jobs and stop paying its CEO's salary in an attempt to slash costs. The worldwide staff atrophy (21 per cent of the Canadian software vendor's workforce) is across the board, but its HQ in Ottawa will be worst affected. The company said yesterday the cuts would consist of "employee terminations, …

Business 9 Jun 2000, 11:39
Ballmer unplugged is off message from Redmond

MS on Trial Reel him in quick, before he whacks the stock price again...

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's travelling CEO, is unwired from Fort Redmond, judging by some contradictory statements he has been making about the judgement - as well as a startling admission that Windows 2000 desktop sales may not be so good. He acknowledged to reporters in Rotterdam yesterday that it was a mistake to have had …

Software 9 Jun 2000, 12:06
Rambus exec kicked out of DDR seminar

He hadn't registered, that was his problem

Senior suits at chipset manufacturer Via Technologies confirmed today they had expelled a Rambus executive from their midst. The incident occurred at a DDR (double data rate) seminar Via held Monday last, confirmed Richard Brown, marketing director of Via worldwide. Via hosted the event. A man who Brown named as Richard Crisp …

Channel 9 Jun 2000, 12:19
AT&T trials JavaTV

JavaOne ...and it's subsidised by Redmond

Remember interactive TV? After years of tub thumping, backroom arm twisting, and tactical releases and untactical retreats, Sun Microsystems investment in putting Java into interactive TV finally looks like paying off. Sun has never knowingly undersold anything before, so we were surprised to hear developers at JavaOne in San …

Software 9 Jun 2000, 12:30
Sony to replace PlayStation 1 with ‘portable’ PSone

More PSX 1.5 than GameBoy rival

Sony will revitalise its 32-bit PlayStation next month with the launch of a portable version of the console. 'Portable' doesn't mean the device can be used on the move: batteries are definitely not included, and the PSone has to be hooked up to the mains. That said, it will be a third of the size of the current PSX1 and can be …

Business 9 Jun 2000, 14:11
Barnstorming Ballmer breezes off to Belgium

MS on Trial Can't you just feel those ears popping?

For reasons that entirely escape us, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is (was? frankly we haven't a clue about the lad's airmiles) now in Belgium, welcoming the news that DoJ bigwig Joel Klein is "prepared to engage in meaningful settlement negotiations." The vast gulf that likely separates Klein's definition of meaningful from …

Software 9 Jun 2000, 14:18
BBC removes Star Wars, Austin Powers meta tags for no reason

...other than they're a bit stale, that's all

The BBC has denied it removed three meta tags from its flagship Web site because they allegedly broke trademark laws. The words "Buffy", "Austin Powers" and "star wars" were clearly visible among the source code of bbc.co.uk on Thursday. A vulture-eyed reader who spotted the tags wanted to know whether their inclusion …

Music and Media 9 Jun 2000, 14:21
Cockney Kryptonite finds use for Tony (Blair)

Fancy a Frank and Pat?

If you fancy popping out for a Ruby and a Britney tonight you might end up with a Leo Sayer. Especially if you're out with a Wunch (as in a Wunch of Bankers), for a Frank and Pat (chat). According to Cockney rhyming slang Web site LondonSlang.com, pub staff in London are increasingly being asked for "a couple of Britneys" as …

Music and Media 9 Jun 2000, 14:22
Judge orders movie execs deposed privately to prevent antics

MPAA v 2600 Magazine courtroom stunts wisely anticipated

US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan has rejected an MPAA request to keep witness testimony secret in the upcoming court battle between the movie industry and the 2600 Magazine Web site over the distribution of the DeCSS utility which cracks DVD encryption. MPAA lawyers had argued that media coverage would leave industry …

Music and Media 9 Jun 2000, 15:10
Internet incubator slashes jobs

...as even more dotcom jobs become availabe

There's conflicting evidence today concerning the state of the dotcom industry in Britain following the loss of more Net jobs. ESouk -- a privately owned dotcom incubator fund with an interest in a handful of companies -- said it intended to shed a number of jobs because of the volatility of the sector. It will cut its …

Business 9 Jun 2000, 15:51
DRAM prices rise (again)

Chipmakers get fat as supply thins

DRAM contract prices continued to rise in North America and Europe from mid-April to mid-May. The 30-day rolling average price to May 19 of 128MB DRAM chips was up 2.4 per cent on the previous month to $12.78 in the European market, asiabiztech.com reported. Large volume users in North America saw prices rise 0.3 per cent to $ …

Business 9 Jun 2000, 15:53
Warner Music Group makes out with MP3.Com

Anything's better than Napster

Warner Music Group has granted MP3.com a licence to distribute its music over the MyMP3.com channel. At the same time it has dropped its copyright infringement suit against MP3.com, upon agreeing terms for royalty splits with the digital music download pioneer. Warner is the first of the five music majors to settle with MP3.com …

Music and Media 9 Jun 2000, 17:09