19th July 2000 Archive

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Caminogate failure finally explained

San Jose World learns why Rambus boards only have two slots

At last the truth can be told. Samsung's Yong Joo Han, boss of RDRAM planning, said the Intel recall of its Vancouver mobos last year was caused by the RIMM connectors themselves. Fans of the Caminogate saga will remember that before the SDRAM Cape Cod got the chop, the VC820 Vancouver (the board that Cape Cod users get in …

Channel 19 Jul 2000, 00:18
Cheap Rambus memory on the way

San Jose Probably best not to hold one's breath, though

Samsung revealed to The Reg today that it has set itself the target of bringing Rambus to within five percent of the cost of boring old SDRAM. A laudable aim, but unfortunately the date set for this wondrous event is sometime in 2002. When asked at the Platform Conference in San Jose what the main problem OEMs came up against …

Channel 19 Jul 2000, 03:55
White House recommends more on-line snooping

Bite the pillow; it's for your own good

Surveillance of citizens suspected of computer crimes such as malicious hacking must be made easier for federal law enforcement agents, White House Chief of Staff John Podesta said during a speech Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, echoing a familiar Clinton Administration demand once again. If the Clintonites …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 06:42
Mobile barge saves Bubble Economy

Mow, mow, mow your boat

A floating power plant is being shipped to the San Francisco Bay to shore up the region's perilous Internet Economy. In record-breaking temperatures last month, Bay Area dot.coms were forced to shut up shop as California's power utility PG&E instituted a series of rotating power cuts. Power-sapping air conditioning was largely …

Business 19 Jul 2000, 08:02
Big-time Linux cluster breaks cover

16-node failover cluster seeks solvent, non-smoking application vendor.

SGI's FailSafe looks like being the first high-availability clustering for Linux to break cover. The first public demos of the open sourced Linux FailSafe are expected at the LinuxWorld Expo in August, we gather; the binaries were made available on request last week, and should be available on SGI's site this week. Unlike the …

Software 19 Jul 2000, 08:06
Chipzilla's Q2 sets new record

But vulture capital gains hide chip woes

Chip giant Intel turned in revenues of $8.3 billion for its second quarter with profits of $3.5 billion, but the figures are somewhat blurred because it reaped the reward of its investment portfolio. Intel's Capital division contributed significantly to the bottom line in the quarter, a trend which first started to appear in …

Channel 19 Jul 2000, 08:55
Queen Mum takes online royal salute

Pomp up the music and make it large

The Queen Mum - 'appy birfday ma'am and gawd bless ya - is to appear live on the Net today. AOL UK and ITN will broadcast her 100th birthday pageant this afternoon at 5pm (BST) and you can guarantee there won't be a dry eye anywhere. ITN Online editor Fergus Sheppard said: "The Queen Mother has the rare privilege of having …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 09:15
Consumer watchdog is anti spam

Finally, it's official

The shoppers champion - the Consumers Association - has finally got an opinion about spam. As incredible as it seems, until now the CA has just been unable to decide whether it should defend Net users against the vermin of unsolicited commercial e-mail or not. Sitting on the fence and its hands simultaneously - no mean …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 09:45
breathe is such a wheeze

Not

Further proof - if proof be needed - that lifestyle-conscious breathe is absolutely off its trolley has surfaced courtesy of an e-newsletter from the ISP. Mark Hodder, the author of this enlightening yet meandering monologue, opens with something from his childhood. "The bra and pants pages of my mother's mail order catalogues …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 10:00
Super scoopage on AMD

FSB theory plus an ASUS mobo droolathon

Tweaktown has started a new section, called AMD Scoopage Resource. Despite sounding like what one might have to do while following a dog around a park, the guys and gals at Tweaktown will be posting all their hot "scoopage" and opinions of AMD's CPU's. The first instalment of the AMD Scoopage Resource is the Theory of AMD's new …

Hardware Roundup 19 Jul 2000, 10:21
Transmeta signs IPO organisers

Public offering won't happen before October, though

Transmeta is pretty much on course for a late 2000 IPO, having chosen Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Deutsche Banc Alex Brown to set it all up, according to a source "familiar with the matter", cited by Bloomberg. By the end of the year, Transmeta should have a series of big-name notebook PC producing customers to shout about, …

Channel 19 Jul 2000, 10:43
E-commerce is a hotbed of fraud

Twelve e-tailing rip-offs for every high street one

Internet fraud is sky high, according to Gartner, and Web companies are picking up the tab. A survey of 160 companies confirmed many people's fears by saying that fraud over the Internet is 12 times higher than traditional retailer sales. Another indication that this is the case comes from the terms that credit card companies …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 10:46
Intel shuts stacks of Web forums

Can do the job better by email

Chip giant Intel has proffered an explanation for shutting its motherboard forum, as it emerged that it will also be shutting up shop elsewhere. If you go to this Intel URL, there is an extensive list of forums closing between now and the middle of August. An Intel representative said that it was the firm's experience that …

Channel 19 Jul 2000, 11:02
Freeserve drops on news of next year losses

£60.9 million in the red for 2001

Freeserve shares fell five per cent in early morning trading following a report that losses are set to increase next year. The British dotcom's broker, Credit Suisse First Boston, estimates that Freeserve will run-up pre-tax losses of £60.9 million in 2001 and £40.7 million the following year. The losses are significantly higher …

Business 19 Jul 2000, 11:54
Russian tycoon secrets up on the Web

But then you won't have a bloody clue what they say

Another good example of how the Internet can be used to screw those that abuse their power (and of course give us all a good dose of voyeurism). Apparently there are masses of phone conversation transcripts of leading Russian businessmen up on the Web. Not that these are not your average businessmen. In fact, Mafia bosses would …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 12:01
Slow Win2k uptake, flagging Office sales dog MS Q4

But $1 billion of investment income comes in handy...

Almost without it being noticed, Microsoft has transformed itself from a software company to an investment company. The Q4 results announced last night show investment income up 132 per cent compared with the year-ago quarter. Investment income of $1.127 billion in the quarter represented 32 per cent of Microsoft's income before …

Software 19 Jul 2000, 12:02
Nailbomber's dad gets online to prove his son is mad

Not gay, but "normal", says pops

The father of the London nailbomber has launched a Website in the hope of proving his convicted murderer son is "mad, not bad". Stephen Copeland uses the site to slate the police, the press, the jury, one of the psychiatrists at his son's trial, and even the nailbomber's mother and grandmother. The garishly-coloured Website …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 12:04
CNET to buy ZDNet for $1.6bn

What will the regulators say?

CNET is to buy Ziff-Davis inc for $1.6bn stock, in a deal that will see two of the world's biggest Web sites establish a dominant position in the IT news and shopping sector. Softbank, Ziff-Davis majority owner, will end up with 17 per cent of the enlarged company on completion of the takeover, expected in Q4. The combined …

Business 19 Jul 2000, 12:22
Budweiser Frogs eat HSBC

Ancient virus hoax alert - call the Natural History museum

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. They keep on falling for them. The latest company to do a boo-boo on virus hoaxing is HSBC Insurance Brokers Ltd. We've been sent a copy of an email from their tech support helpdesk warning employees to be on the lookout for "Wobbler", the "Win A Holiday" email, and the newest of the bunch - the " …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 12:37
Boerries confirms StarOffice to go GPL, Mac version

Updated Next: McNealy open sources his MS gag collection?

StarOffice creator Marco Boerries has confirmed that Sun intends to GPL the productivity suite. Sun made the official announcement today, but leaking to reporters earlier, Boerries said that source code for the next version of StarOffice, 6.0, will be available for download from 13th October. The code will be available from …

Software 19 Jul 2000, 12:44
PowerGen credit card security cock-up

It's a gas gas gas

Utility firm PowerGen has left thousands of its online customers' bank and contact details unprotected. The company claims 2,500 of its customers were affected by security cock-up but Leicester based IT consultant John Chamberlain, who discovered the hole in PowerGen's online payment system, reckons the figure is almost three …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 13:06
RedHotAnt in security trouble, again

handing out passwords this time...

RedHotAnt has clearly never heard of social engineering as a hacking technique.The Register has been informed that the company's tech support team seems to have no qualms about revealing a user's password to a caller without confirming his or her identity. Upon calling RHA tech support to make an enquiry about the company's web …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 14:01
Anti-spammers turn guns on each other

All's not fair in love and email abuse

It may seem incredible, but those companies set up to prevent the abuse of modern communications (namely, spam) don't seem to be above a bit of active sabotage. How come? All down to money, sadly. The ongoing war between ORBS, Above.net and MAPS has come to light thanks to Alan Cox's widely read diary (for those that don't know …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 14:21
PowerGen gives lessons on stupidity

And we congratulate a competitor on a job well done

My god, PowerGen's security cock-up may be the biggest example of Net stupidity we've ever seen. If the man that discovered the gaping hole is to be believed (and there's no reason to suppose he shouldn't) he simply cut the end of Powergen's URL, hit return, and was presented with a directory of 700 customers. Not only is this …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 14:26
Wang wangles fatter bonus

CA's boss reckons greed is good, greed works

Computer Associates' fat cat Charles Wang just got fatter thanks to a whopping $4.8 million bonus. The CA president netted the sum less than a fortnight after the US software company issued a profit warning which sent its shareprice plummeting. Wang's bonus was more than $1 million up on the previous year. CA chief operating …

Software 19 Jul 2000, 14:50
Tesco Online goes boffo on booze

Intoxication at your fingertips...

Tesco, the "world's largest online grocer," has "improved" its online store again, and The Register's veteran shoppers view the prospect with the usual gloom. For reasons best known to itself, Tesco is addicted to continuous innovation; with every rev the buttons and departments tend to move around, and weird bugs and features …

Bootnotes 19 Jul 2000, 14:57
TrustUK in spam spin

The devil's in the detail, don't you know

The Government's latest laughable effort to reassure punters that shopping online is safe has hit further bother. TrustUK has already been slated as not being worth the cyberspace it's printed on, but the Ts&Cs issued by the e-enforcer have thrown up something even more interesting. Section 6.10.2 of the Ts&Cs says: " …

Media 19 Jul 2000, 15:30
European smartcard sales to top one billion by 2004

We're off to open a shop

The European smartcard market is forecast to top one billion by 2004. According to a report by IDC, a total of 284 million units were shipped in Europe in 1999 - up 44 per cent on the previous year. "While traditional applications such as banking and telecommunications continue to fuel steady growth for smart cards vendors, …

Business 19 Jul 2000, 15:42
$299 PC launches in Oregon

Spurns M'Soft OS

A US company has launched a sub $299 computer in the technology hotbed of Portland, Oregon. MyTurn.com started selling the GlobalPC at the weekend, and plans to expand sales to three other US cities - Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Tampa - next week. The machine is cheap for two reasons: it has no monitor, and it uses non- …

Business 19 Jul 2000, 16:45
Watch your mouth – hack at work

Careless talk costs lives

Overheard at the Platform Conference in San Jose: "Intel and Rambus? It's like a marriage gone bad, but the pre-nuptials stop 'em getting a divorce." After Transmeta showed a hapless Pentium III getting roasted in the cause of scientific research, the question had to be asked: "How many P3s have you blown up?" Transmeta: " …

Bootnotes 19 Jul 2000, 22:41