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14th July 2000 Archive

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  • MS shares drop as analysts squabble over ‘shortfall’

    No consensus over consensus...

    Analysts squabbled yesterday over a report that sent Microsoft shares down 2.3 per cent. Michael Murphy, editor of the California Technology Stock Letter, said that Microsoft's Q4 revenues, due out on Tuesday, would miss Wall Street's consensus estimate of $6.125 by about $300 million. But there seems to be no consensus on the …

    Business 14 Jul 2000, 09:15

  • Intel: benchmarks ‘not good enough’ for Rambus

    Ah, that explains it then

    In a remarkably audacious explanation of why Rambust continually fails to impress when compared with the much cheaper alternatives, an Intel spin paramedic today explained why we've all got it terribly, terribly wrong. A couple of weeks back, Intel yet again demonstrated its dysfunctional left hand, right hand communication …

    Channel 14 Jul 2000, 09:32

  • Woman touts 10-year-old for adoption on the Net

    Boy sent to live with strangers

    A woman has been arrested for arranging the adoption of her ten-year-old son over the Net. Helen Chase, 29, sent the boy to live with a stranger contacted briefly over the Net because she was unable to cope with his bad behaviour. The transaction was uncovered only because the boy's stepbrother told teachers at school: "My …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 09:36

  • Iomega recovery marred by falling sales

    Change of product focus may help

    Iomega continues to recover from last year's financial troubles, but the company still faces an ongoing slide in sales. So while its second fiscal quarter saw profits hit $40.4 million, clearly well up on the $47.1 million loss it posted this time last year, the company's revenue fell from $348.8 million to $303.6 million. It' …

    Business 14 Jul 2000, 09:42

  • Windows ME ‘a toy operating system’

    It wasn't us what said it, honest

    Never let it be said that Microsoft is a huge, monolithic, monster intent on world domination. Well, OK, a lot of you have already said that. But consider the reply given to The Register earlier today when we asked a geezer very close to Windows 2000 why Internet Explorer 5.5 wasn't deemed ready for inclusion in Win2K's Service …

    Software 14 Jul 2000, 09:43

  • Lords do their worst on RIP

    Home Office victory by one vote

    The government was nearly defeated again last night on the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) bill. The House of Lords voted against an opposition move that would have required the home secretary to sign warrants forcing companies to turn over decryption keys. But ministers won by just one vote. Had they lost, it would …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 10:02

  • Ray Lane – why he quit Oracle

    Larry failed to notice the new curtains he'd put up

    Following his recent resignation, Ray Lane, erstwhile number two to Larry Ellison at Oracle, has spoken about the real reasons for leaving the company. Ellison has also done a bit of a U-turn and is now claiming that Lane quit the company after his responsibilities had been reduced. In a series of interviews, Lane has told CNet …

    Software 14 Jul 2000, 10:19

  • RIAA dubs Napster defence ‘patently baseless’

    Issues response to MP3 company's attack on copyright case

    The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) yesterday responded to Napster's defence, released last week, against the organisation's copyright violation lawsuit. Both defence and response have been posted in the run-up to a 26 July hearing at which the judge will decide whether the RIAA should be granted an injunction …

    Software 14 Jul 2000, 10:23

  • Reno gets her teeth into Carnivore

    Well at least she sounds like she means it

    US Attorney General and everyone's favourite gal Janet Reno has said she'll launch a review into Carnivore - the FBI's automated tapping system for ISPs. "I'm taking a look at it now to make sure that we balance the rights of all Americans with the technology of today," she said with depressing predictability. The Carnivore …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 10:25

  • Music minnows fear Net Giants

    Call on EC for protection

    A clutch of small European music companies have called on the European Commission to ensure that they are not swamped in the consolidation of Internet and content giants. The companies urged the EC to impose strict conditions on mergers such as AOL/Time-Warner and Seagram/Vivendi. They fear the mega mergers could exert monopoly …

    Business 14 Jul 2000, 10:36

  • Freeserve/T-Online deal back on the agenda

    Buy now before share option squabbles derail it

    Takeover talks between Freeserve and Deutsche Telekom's T-Online seem to be back on. Rumours of the deal sent the share price to 335.5 pence. Analysyts at Credit Suisse First Boston have put a 496p target on the shares according to the Daily Express. Looks like the Freeserve management's concerns about their share options are …

    Business 14 Jul 2000, 11:01

  • EMI digital music service to debut next week

    100 albums, 200 singles on offer

    EMI, one of the world's 'big five' record labels, will next week release 100 albums and 200 singles as digital downloads to be sold through online music retailers. EMI announced its service back in April. At the time, it said it would offer the tracks in Microsoft's MediaPlayer format and Liquid Audio's secure MP3-based format …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 11:10

  • Compaq and Seagate sued for $800 million

    A serious disk drive disagreement

    Compaq and Seagate are being sued for patent infringement by New York based company, Convolve. The privately held firm is seeking $800 million in damages and a permanent injunction against Compaq and Seagate from manufacturing or selling drives incorporating the disputed technology. Compaq says that it is innocent of any …

    Business 14 Jul 2000, 12:20

  • Establishment uses local loop to flay BT

    It's no longer untouchable

    With sad predictability the EU plans to issue directives telling BT it will have to unbundle the local loop before the end of the year. And with sad predictability, Oftel said it wasn't possible and BT sulked and refused to budge. We'd seen this sort of bickering so many times before that we thought it barely worth covering. …

    Data Networking 14 Jul 2000, 12:43

  • Pig farmer wins top UK dotcom award

    Get orf moi Lan

    A Somerset pig farmer has been crowned Britain's top dotcom business king. Richard Counsell has transformed his 200-acre family business at Rodney Stoke near Cheddar into an online organic meat market. The 24-year-old reckons its is cheaper to buy organic nosh from him than from any of the major supermarkets because his scheme …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 12:46

  • We have the solution to cybersquatting

    Warning: logic and reasoning contained within

    Internet technology has spawned an enormous amount of legal action, but the most bitter of it has frequently been to do with so-called cybersquatting. Just as much as people want a certain URL, the party that owns it doesn't want to hand it over. We've had companies bullying legitimate individuals, famous people "defending …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 12:53

  • Cybersquatting: Full Coverage

    Fun for all the family

    A Modest Proposal We have the solution to cybersquatting The Politics The Internet is dead. Long live the Internet Afternic sues ICANN over domain-name status Analysis: Net regulators close in on rogue domains Yankee legislators, stay home US outlaws cybersquatting Congress meddles with cybersquatters US appeal court …

    Register Full Coverage 14 Jul 2000, 13:01

  • Preview version of Windows Whistler released

    Beta ahoy?

    Microsoft has given beta testers access to the first preview edition of Whistler, the next version of Win2k. Designated build 2250, the software is available at a private download site, and according to Paul Thurrott of WinInfo, includes the first version of a skinning feature called Visual Styles, which will allow the UI to be …

    Software 14 Jul 2000, 13:16

  • Sandcraft chip patenting shocker

    The Earth hasn't shattered

    In what has been described as something of a branding exercise, Sandcraft, the electronics designer, has released a list of newly granted patents. Our advisors assure us that there is nothing utterly earth shattering in here, but that there are some new ways of doing old tricks. Or, in other words, they are evolutionary …

    Channel 14 Jul 2000, 14:00

  • Canadian province rules violent game ‘pornographic’

    Fire and lasering in British Columbia

    Violent computer game Solider of Fortune has been classed as pornography by British Columbia, Canada, forcing shops to remove the title or face prosecution for peddling adult material to kids. The classification was forced upon the game by the province's Attorney General, Andrew Petter, after a complaint about its content. As …

    Software 14 Jul 2000, 14:14

  • 3Com finalises Palm stock giveaway

    Roll up! Roll up!

    3Com will hand out 1.484 Palm shares for each of its own shares stockholders own, the comms company said today. 3Com said it would distribute its stake in Palm when the handheld computing specialist was spun off from its parent earlier this year. At the time of the IPO, 3Com retained 94 per cent of Palm, a stake that amounts …

    Business 14 Jul 2000, 14:42

  • eBay gets the law on sweary bidder

    What am I bid for this fu*@ing lot

    Auction site eBay has asked a federal judge to bar a Chicago man from its web site as it claims he's ignored their own attempts to bounce him. eBay says Braxton Anderson, under his own name and various aliases, has been using foul and abusive language on its site. CNN reports that eBay has terminated 40 to 45 of Anderson's …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 14:46

  • Mesh top nob scampers into arms of rival

    But does he like sushi?

    Mesh Computers general manager Paul Kinsler has quit the London PC maker after four years in the job. Kinsler is currently on gardening leave, and will officially finish at the London-based company at the end of July. His former employers don't know where he's off to but believe he's been poached by a Japanese rival. Kinsler …

    Business 14 Jul 2000, 15:21

  • Anand goes on Apollo Pro 133 mission

    And other hardware titbits are along for the ride

    As a concerned reader pointed out a few days ago, AMD is not the mortal enemy of Intel, but Via could be. Having successfully picked off a few points worth of desktop market share, Via now seems to be turning its attention to the workstation market. Anand has come through again with the lowdown of Via's Apollo Pro 133 chipset …

    Hardware Roundup 14 Jul 2000, 15:55

  • Mexican geeks crack controversial gov't report

    A day late and a dollar short

    Mexico's leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) Wednesday revealed a long-sought list of 2300 questionable loans that it obtained by cracking a password on a protected CD, Reuters reports. "Here you are going to find big loans to very well-known companies," PRD legislator Pablo Gomez said as the list was released at a news …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 16:27

  • Seti concept gets commercial

    Make a quick buck renting out your processing power

    Inspired by the success of alien search project SETI@home, a group of US companies has launched fee based distributed computing venture, hoping to tap into the unused power of idle CPUs. Distributed Science, United Devices (launched by David Anderson - who launched the SETI programme) and Parabon plan to divide mammoth …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 16:57

  • NASA blocks all Excite@Home traffic to thwart hackers

    Technology's cutting edge looking a bit blunt

    The US government's normally lame efforts to secure its computer networks from malicious script kiddies fell to new lows earlier this week as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) secretly blocked access to several of its Web sites from more than 1.5 million cable subscribers belonging to ISP Excite@Home. For …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 17:02

  • Mr Spock drafted in to flog Dotcom

    Life, Jim, but not as we know it

    Star Trek megastar Leonard Nimoy is riding his success as the face to flog IT-related stuff and got himself a new ad contract. This follows his work in the classic Time machine ads for Time Computers. The former Mr Spock has signed up for a TV, radio, print and online ad campaign promoting US Internet venture Networds. …

    Media 14 Jul 2000, 17:11

  • Wireless Developers of the World Unite

    Future is safe and secure

    WAP l has many shortcomings, and the prospect for their resolution is Not particularly hopeful, but speakers at the first Wrox Professional Wireless Developer Conference in Amsterdam this week painted an interesting picture of the wireless computing future. The collective opinion was that with the coming of WAP 1.2, there will …

    Data Networking 14 Jul 2000, 17:17

  • Readers' Letters: It's a biggy

    You write to us, we tell everyone else

    [Email on mobile phones, grammar, dead girls, loonies. What more could you possible want from The Reg's letters page] Email with your mobile - but it's a pain in the arse [We discovered that you could send emails using your bog-standard mobile. Since no one we spoke to seemed to know about this, we thought it was worth a story …

    Letters 14 Jul 2000, 17:30