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22nd June 2000 Archive

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  • RIP Bill needs ‘a very big knife taking to it’

    Harming UK reputation claim

    The Government was today accused of damaging Britain's reputation overseas through its determination to gain snooping powers over the Net. Speaking at a briefing on the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill in London, Richard Clayton - an "Internet Expert" and employee of ISP Thus - warned that almost everyone in the …

    Music and Media 22 Jun 2000, 05:59

  • Andreessen snubs NGWS cheerleading cameo

    Stays home to tend air supply

    According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft tried to get Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen to appear at its Next Generation Windows Services launch in Seattle today. Andreessen now heads hosting company Loudcloud. For some unfathomable reason Andreessen's diary is busy for today, and Microsoft has had to settle for using …

    Software 22 Jun 2000, 06:02

  • BeOS goes mobile, announces Gassée (we think)

    Seagulls still following the trawler

    Be founder Jean-Louis Gassée - the self-styled "French farmer abducted by aliens and raised by VCs in Silicon Valley" - seems to have lost none of his Cantona-like talent for gnomic epigrams. Over at CNBC.com, Gassée has been expounding on Internet appliances and announced that a mobile BeIA unit will be launched in the Fall. …

    Software 22 Jun 2000, 06:05

  • Sun makes more appliance deals

    Blood pressure monitors and smoke alarms. So you say it works first time, right?

    Sun Microsystems says it will step into the consumer appliance business over the next couple of years as the bits and pieces of its various Internet initiatives fall into place. But the SunRay terminal, which got a revamp this week with a couple of new iMac-like all-in-one designs, won't be one of them. The SunRay was revamped …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 06:08

  • The Skinny on Skinning Whistler

    Whistler to look like... er... any version of Windows

    BetaNews has reported fresh rumours that Microsoft will build skinning into future versions of Windows, in an attempt to give the OS the theme capabilities of Linux. Right now these are only available from third parties. (The BetaNews gang spotted a job ad back in January where Microsoft was hiring developers with experience of …

    Software 22 Jun 2000, 06:12

  • White House stung by Web privacy stuff-up

    Nuts, just when they had it licked

    The White House proudly announced Wednesday that its Web site will be among the first incorporating a new privacy gimmick called Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), which will make any Web site's privacy policies instantly readable to browser software. Users will be able to configure its settings to block sites which do not …

    Music and Media 22 Jun 2000, 07:37

  • Navy sends underwater emails

    But at 2.4Kbps, wouldn't it be quicker to swim?

    The Navy has developed a way of transmitting emails underwater, New Scientist reports. Until now, the e-revolution has been of limited benefit to Navy submariners, since radio waves do not travel well through water. To transmit data, submarines have had to come to the surface, thus revealing their position to the enemy. The …

    Data Networking 22 Jun 2000, 09:21

  • Intel says Rambus-Tosh deal not final word

    Semiconductor firms can still innovate

    The decision by Toshiba to license DDR (double data rate) memory and SDRAM from Rambus will not necessarily hedge in other memory companies, according to Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel. Responding to questions in a press conference held after he delivered a keynote speech in Stockholm, Tuesday, Barrett said that the Toshiba deal …

    Channel 22 Jun 2000, 09:25

  • Waugh hits out at RIP

    Literary duffer joins the opposition

    Those battling against the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) bill and the British Government's bid to limit people's privacy online have a new, literate ally. Yesterday, Auberon Waugh - one of the Telegraph's finest curmudgeons - took his pen to Home Secretary Jack Straw over the Government's handling of Net issues in …

    Music and Media 22 Jun 2000, 10:38

  • Big Q denies W2k Alpha reports

    No u-turn in sight

    Compaq will not port Windows 2000 to the Alpha processor, it confirmed today. That follows a report in WinInfo, labelled exclusive, which suggested that the departure of senior VP Enrico Pesatori had led to the firm changing its mind about the platform. Richard George, marketing director of Compaq Europe, firmly squashed the …

    Software 22 Jun 2000, 11:04

  • Vocalis shouts about losses

    Plus a side serving of other ebiz snippets

    Vocalis, the speech recognition software company waiting for mobile phone emailing to catch on, has seen sales for the year to 31 March drop from £4.8 million to £2.7 million. Pre-tax loss for the year had grown from £1.1 million to £4.5 million. It has formed a joint venture with BT to produce software for people to talk over …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 11:15

  • Handspring stock leaps on IPO

    Hits Palm-level 28.25 in first day's trading

    Handspring's cautious debut as a public company yesterday saw the company's share price grow 34.69 per cent, which sounds good, but when you're only starting at $20, in fact leaves you only $6.93 up on the deal. Still, colossal growth of the kind seen in previous hi-tech IPOs wasn't to be expected. Palm may have shot up to $165 …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 11:33

  • BT pensioner coughs up to hyperlink invention

    All he got was a quid

    BT developed the whole idea of hyperlinks simply as a way to get people to use their telephones for longer. The frank - and wholly obvious admission - was made by 73-year-old Desmond Sargent in an interview in the Guardian. "Desmond Sargent? Who he?" you might ask. Well, he's the chap whose name is at the top of BT's patent ( …

    Music and Media 22 Jun 2000, 11:56

  • Intel turns off microprocessor tap again

    Ship direct customers will have to wait

    European OEMs have been told by chip giant Intel they will have to wait until the third week of July for supply of Coppermine processors. The latest glitch in Intel's continuing problems in supplying its microprocessors is unlikely to affect very large tier one vendors such as Dell, but is a blow to the smaller tier two and …

    Channel 22 Jun 2000, 12:00

  • Action warns of £6 million loss

    MD jumps ship

    London-based Action Computer Supplies has warned investors to prepare for losses of £6 million for this financial year. The computer reseller said sales had been slower than expected in the first half of the year, especially in April and May. Turnover for the year ending 30 August 2000 was expected to show "a small increase", …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 12:01

  • Apple splits stock

    AAPL on the rise as next-gen iMac rumours emerge

    Apple yesterday went ahead with its two-for-one stock split. AAPL shares closed at 55.625 – the equivalent of 111.25 at pre-split levels. That leaves Apple with a market capitalisation of $18.105 billion. Apple's decision to split the stock was made last April, and approved by the shareholders later that month. At the time, …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 12:22

  • BT's WAP strategy whopped by Oftel

    0000 - just how desperate is BT?

    BT Cellnet has been slapped by Oftel for preventing customers from altering their homepages on their WAP phones. The underhand move by the BT subsidiary meant that users were stuck with its own offering WAP portal. The mobile phone telco said it would provide people with a four-digit code to make the changes, after someone …

    Music and Media 22 Jun 2000, 13:04

  • Doctor Tom checks out embedded chips

    And price comparisons rule among the usual hardware suspects

    Hardware land reveals a more commercial streak today with almost everyone talking about cash. From memory prices to the swings and roundabouts of the CPU market, we bring you the best bits. The new and groovy first, and the only non financial slice today: Those busy beavers at Tom's have been to the Embedded Processor Forum in …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 13:49

  • Dotcoms burn up cash less quickly

    But book the crematorium anyway

    Heavyweight business mag Barron's has published its second Dotcom survival league table, based on how much cash ebusinesses have and how long it will last them. Out of 227 companies surveyed, just nine had positive cash flows reports the Guardian. The entire league have a combined life span of 13 years. Of the big names listed …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 14:45

  • Government PC cock-up leaves teachers owed £9 million

    £15 sweetener offered

    A Government cock-up over a computer subsidy scheme has left British teachers up to £9 million out of pocket. The Computers for Teachers scheme was launched by Junior Education Minister Michael Wills to a fanfare back in January. "The digital age presents great opportunities to business, to society - and to education. But …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 14:57

  • Demon issues ADSL ultimatum to trialists

    Misery reigns

    Demon's ADSL trialists are up in arms after being told yesterday that they had three days to sign up to the full broadband service - at more than £1200 for the year - or face being disconnected. Broadband users are so hacked off by the way they have been treated at the hands of Demon some have even threatened legal action …

    Music and Media 22 Jun 2000, 15:41

  • Laptops get car immobiliser style security

    Recommended for MI5

    Rainbow Technologies is bringing car immobiliser style security to workstations. The iKey slots into the USB port and restricts physical and network access to authorised personnel. It must be used in conjunction with a randomly generated four digit pin before a user may log on. Once on the system, the pin number identifies the …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 16:12

  • NTL router down for 12 hours

    Users bogged down in rerouted traffic

    Yesterday at 3pm, one of NTL's linx routers went offline. The network then plunged into chaos as the overloaded system ground to a halt under the weight of the redirected traffic. Mike Alexander, a project manager at NTL's Internet support section said that the service was never completely out, but that users may have had such …

    Data Networking 22 Jun 2000, 16:14

  • ilion sued over wrongful dismissal

    Legal wrangle could cost distie £600,000

    Two former ilion execs are suing the networking distributor for more than £600,000 over wrongful dismissal. Ex-CEO Serge van Gorkum and ex-operations director Minh Tran Chau claim their former employer promised them termination payments if ilion got taken over, IT trade mag CRN reports. The two say they received letters on 10 …

    Business 22 Jun 2000, 16:17

  • Microsoft to ship long-awaited ‘Java killer’

    1998's Cool project becomes 2000's C Sharp

    Microsoft will finally launch a rival to Sun's Java next week, according to sources who've been blabbing to Cnet. Called C# - it's C 'sharp' not 'hash', using musical terminology – the language is essentially an easier to use version of C++. That sounds to us not a million miles away from Cool, the Microsoft internal project …

    Software 22 Jun 2000, 16:49

  • Brit faces decade in jail after arrest over UAE hacking

    Out on bail in Dubai

    A British man faces ten years in a United Arab Emirates jail cell after being arrested for hacking into the country's Internet system. The 26-year-old, a senior computer engineer in Dubai, was picked up last week after he was traced by security staff at Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat) network, Reuters reports. …

    Music and Media 22 Jun 2000, 17:05

  • Bill Gates, Windows, the Universe and everything: .NET

    The Ultimate Windows project gets its first airing

    Microsoft has made no secret of its intention to dump the clunky Next Generation Windows Services title, and it has come to pass - the Next Big Thing is going to be called .NET, presumably meaning that Microsoft now proposes to take over the Internet in easy stages, following up later with .COM and - oh yes - .GOV and .MIL. …

    Software 22 Jun 2000, 18:25

  • Duron shortages looming?

    Chimpzilla could just have been too clever for its own good

    The hardware site cognoscenti are making much of the fact that AMD's Celeron basher, Duron, is a completely different beast from the high-end Athlons and Thunderbirds. And in a simplistic way, they're right. The fact that Duron is a completely different processor from its big brothers has a certain elegance - and that's …

    Channel 22 Jun 2000, 20:03