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28th July 2000 Archive

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  • Rambus, Pentium 4: The Hall of Mirrors

    Where does the 479 pin cushion fit in?

    Back in June we revealed that Taiwanese OEMs were holding off implementing the first rev of the Pentium 4, because only two or three quarters after introduction, which we believe will happen in September, the Tulloch chipset supporting a 479 pin version of the microprocessor will supersede it. This week's admission by Intel …

    Channel 28 Jul 2000, 06:54

  • Hamidi outlines proposed Intel class actions

    Thorn in Chipzilla's paw won't go away

    The long history of litigation between Ken Hamidi and the Intel Corporation isn't going to go away real soon now, and in fact, is set to intensify. Hamidi, who is currently fighting a summary judgement in the US courts following an action Intel took against him, revealed to The Register earlier this week that whether his appeal …

    Channel 28 Jul 2000, 08:16

  • X-Box design ‘complete’ – MS demos microbrowser, set top box

    And some dates for your diary

    A few dates and figures escaped from Microsoft's briefing for financial analysts yesterday, which largely returned to recent presentations. But Whistler will be called Windows 2000 Consumer, and a beta is promised "soon"; the Windows 2000 DataCenter will ship on August 11; the delayed Windows 2000 Service Pack on August 1; and …

    Software 28 Jul 2000, 08:20

  • Blair gets RIP thanks to a few sleepy MPs

    Here's how it got through the Commons

    The government managed to slip its email snooping plans through the House of Commons on Wednesday night. Not that it proved too difficult - no more than 30 MPs made the effort to attend (out of 659, making it a 4.5 per cent turn out) for the consideration of the Lords amendments to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 08:35

  • Win2k successor Whistler to beta in October

    WinME then BinME...

    Microsoft is poised to release the first beta of Whistler, the successor to Win2k, and is expected to hit the market in the second half of next year. We have of course heard this sort of stuff from Microsoft before, but when Windows division senior VP Brian Valentine delivered the hostages to fortune to journalists yesterday, he …

    Software 28 Jul 2000, 09:15

  • US buckles on export subsidies to MS et al, but ups them $1.5bn

    All's well in the world of trade negotiations, then...

    The US is retreating in the latest skirmish of the trade war with the EU, and will revise the controversial foreign sales corporation system that, according to World Trade Organisation rules, gave illegal export subsidies to the likes of Microsoft and other major US exporters. More than half of US exports go through FSCs, and it …

    Business 28 Jul 2000, 09:29

  • Minor Dramurai tumbles to Rambus

    Okey-dokey says Oki in licence hokey-cokey

    Bloomberg is reporting that Oki, a maker of synchronous DRAM memories, has agreed to license both DDR and SDRAM patents from Rambus Ink. That should give Rambus' share price a kick up the pants, given that it has been in freefall ever since Intel confirmed it would create DDR and SDRAM chipsets supporting its up-and-coming …

    Channel 28 Jul 2000, 09:45

  • I wanna be – Sledgehammer

    But I don't think it'll be out this year

    [Mike heard from a little birdie that AMD was expected to ship its 64-bit microprocessor, codenamed Sledgehammer as early as next month. He also heard that OEMs would introduced Sledgehammer servers in Q4 of this year. However the next day, he awoke to find a torrent of emails informing him he was totally wrong. Mike was then …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 10:00

  • breathe email

    breathe memo

    Dear customer, You may have seen in the press or on the web that we have taken action to remove users from the breathe freely service. We have taken this action in the interests of retaining the quality of service for the vast majority of users who do not use unmetered access in a manner that affects the service levels of other …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 10:04

  • ISPA's war of words

    That leaked letter in full

    From: NICHOLAS LANSMAN, Secretary-General, ISPA UK To: LineOnE I have been asked by the ISPA Council to write to you in response to a large number of complaints ISPA has received since the beginning of the week regarding Line One's recent decision to cancel its free unmetered Internet Access service. The complaints received …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 10:04

  • Euro2000 forces women online

    Watch out for the sting in the tail

    Women flocked to the Net in June to escape football on TV, according to the latest research from new media pollsters, NetValue. As men settled down in front of their TVs to watch Euro2000, women hopped online to escape the quadrennial soccer tournament. According to NetValue, almost 44 per cent of Net users in Britain during …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 10:21

  • Oracle boss no pirate, a jury rules

    Everything was ship shape and bristol fashion

    Larry Ellison may not have a problem poking his nose into other people's garbage, but never let it be said that the man does not pay his bills. Despite conflicting testimonies, a California jury took just two hours to dismiss a case against Ellison for non-payment of sales commission. Yacht-broker Michael Rafferty was suing the …

    Business 28 Jul 2000, 10:23

  • MS plans subsidised X-Box street price, $500m promo blitz

    Dirt cheap hardware, but buy lots of games?

    Microsoft will subsidise the street price of its X-Box games platform, due out next year, and is planning to spend $500 million in total on making the machine a success. The $500 million will cover subsidies, marketing and support to retailers and software developers, and will make X-Box Microsoft's biggest launch ever - …

    Business 28 Jul 2000, 10:30

  • Win2K SP1 ready to roll

    Coming to a modem near you on Monday

    The will it or won't it saga of the first service pack for Windows 2000 is finally at an end. M$ insiders told The Register today that SP1 has finally been released to manufacture after last minute hitches twice prevented the code going gold. The clever money is now on SP1 being available for download from Microsoft's site …

    Software 28 Jul 2000, 10:48

  • Virgin.net to be split

    Leisure portal parts with dial-up Net customers

    Joint ISP venture Virgin.net is to be split by its owners Virgin group and NTL in a £240m deal, today's FT reports. The companies are understood to be bashing out an agreement that would let NTL take over Virgin.net's 560,000 dial-up Internet customers, while Virgin would get the service's entertainment and leisure portal. NTL …

    Business 28 Jul 2000, 11:04

  • It's a cybersquatting extravaganza!

    Microsoft, Reuters happy; Sting stung

    You wait for a cybersquatting decision all day and then three arrive at once. Continuing the tradition of leftfield WIPO decisions though, the one loser out of the three was the only one whose name was actually used in its true form. And so Sting - you know, that bloke with the high-pitched voice out of The Police - has been …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 11:34

  • BT in muddle over sell-offs

    Would make life easier for Oftel though

    Britain's telecommunications network would be easier to regulate if BT sold it off, the winged watchdog admitted today. Oftel's assessment came as BT confirmed it was looking into the possibility of spinning off its wholesale UK network enabling it to concentrate instead on retail and overseas businesses. A spokesman for Oftel …

    Data Networking 28 Jul 2000, 11:36

  • Dipswitches, peanuts and more Duronic action

    The hardware round-up has got it all

    Will Asus have multiplier dipswitches or not? This is the question of the moment in hardware land it seems. The self described "peanuts" down under at Insane Hardware have gathered some info and posted it for your perusal here Part two of System Logic's Duron review is up online today. They reckon they managed to boost its …

    Hardware Roundup 28 Jul 2000, 11:51

  • AMD exploring Dresden fab extension

    Early talks only...

    AMD is exploring the options of opening an extension to its Dresden chip fabrication plant, it confirmed this morning. The firm's chief operating officer, Hector Ruiz, gave a press conference to the local press in Germany yesterday, but despite reports on some wires, AMD has not made a definite commitment to build in Dresden. …

    Channel 28 Jul 2000, 11:58

  • Is the BT DoSer a tosser?

    The thread here seems to be that BT isn't very popular

    [We were contacted by a man who informed us he had brought down bt.com, btinternet.com and gameplay.com. He told us he'd done this because he was sick of BT's service. We ran with it in last week's letters and then this week found the program he had used for the attack. The letters kept coming] BT hacked: revenge for crap …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 12:02

  • Let's be careful out there

    Ill-advised product names are ill-advised, advises advisor

    Sometimes IT companies fail to step back and take an objective view of the chosen name for their whizzo new products. Many years ago, Sir Clive Sinclair launched the QL - Quantum Leap. Uncle Clive wasn't the first - and certainly won't be the last - to believe that a quantum leap was a giant step forward rather than a very tiny …

    Bootnotes 28 Jul 2000, 12:03

  • BOFH is abysmal

    A very well-spoken computer speaks its mind

    My complaint about Mr. Simon, Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) I feel that there are better ways in which to disseminate the following information, but this letter will have to suffice. So let's begin, quite properly, with a brief look at the historical development of the problem, of its attempted solutions, and of the eternal …

    Flame of the Week 28 Jul 2000, 12:19

  • Dow Chemical sacks 50 over porn emails

    'We're not talking about letters to mom' says company

    Dow Chemical has sacked 50 staff and disciplined another 200 over dirty sex emails sent from company computers. The US chemical company said the action was taken "to protect our other employees." Material found included pornographic and violent images, AP reported. "This sort of activity creates a harassment environment that …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 12:24

  • When 24/7 Net access ain't 24/7 Net access

    breathe reveals all

    breathe has admitted that its 24/7 unmetered Net access service was never meant to be used round the clock. Speaking to The Register today, breathe's COO and self-confessed Modern Urbanist, Sean Gardner, wanted to make it clear that any reference to a 24/7 unmetered service merely referred to its availability and not that it …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 13:59

  • US and Europe finally agree on data protection

    Good news for all - except spammers

    The EC has agreed a deal with the US which patches up previous disagreements over data protection. The problem stemmed from the fact that the US relies on a self-regulation system for the security of personal information - Europe on the other hand has gone for a legislative approach. Because of the opposing philosophies, an …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 14:19

  • Pedants of the world unite

    You lot, make a choice: get a) a life b) a sense of humour

    [About half the emails we receive can be split into two categories. First, those that haven't read the article properly and so witter on about where we've gone wrong without realising we've answered that very question in the text. And secondly, those that read them far too carefully, or with a sense of humour bypass. Here's just …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 14:55

  • German man arrested in Thai girl fiddle

    No "Bangkok" puns - honest

    A German man faces up to seven years in a Bangkok jail for fraudulently receiving money from American Don Juans who thought he was a Thai woman looking for romance. Rudiger Reischert, 50, - aka Thaee Maiyuran - used online singles clubs and lonely hearts services to con men into sending money for "her" to travel to West and …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 14:58

  • Yee-haw, Yankees get a-fiesty

    Hot diggady darn dem Register limeys

    [This being the IT industry, a lot of the articles we write concern the US. And it being the US, we are occasionally faced will appalling examples of what that big ole country can kick out. Refusing to do anything but attack any examples of poor human behaviour, we therefore invariably print negative comments about you lovely …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 15:15

  • EMI and MP3.com sort it out

    'They only did it cos of fame. Who? EMI'

    EMI and MP3.com have reached a point of consensus over the copyright infringement suit filed by the record company against MP3 in April. The deal will allow MP3 to use EMI's material on My.MP3.com. It has been reported that MP3 will pay EMI around $20 million in damages and a royalty fee each time a user registers an EMI CD on …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 15:31

  • And the best of the rest

    Cobbled together, diverse, peculiar, amusing. Must be The Reg

    [We wrote about Iraq's first ever Internet café. It's amazing. Just not very useful and a little scary. And no, we don't think this letter is either big or clever] Iraq's first Internet café opens up the world Shouldn't The Register be in the forefront of the Iraqi e-revolution? Why don't you have a contest to name the Bhagdad …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 15:42

  • Spot Register Mem prices fall

    Hard drives stable, at last...

    Drives this week are in a state of stasis, largely because of the Quantum hard drive story which we reported last week. Last week everything was in a freny. Marco will update us, come September. ® Memory Prices are down slightly this week, because demand is still on the low side. The 64/100 major brand is now generally sold …

    Spot Register 28 Jul 2000, 15:49

  • Readers' Letters: You hate us this week

    Stories are wrong, attitudes are wrong, grammar is wrong. Sob

    We had a fair few emails concerning the different layout of the letters page last week. Most liked it. A few told us they were scroll animals. Some asked for alterations. So, this is the deal. The basic click-through for letters on individual stories stays. We like it more and you, as a rule, prefer it. So sorry to those that …

    Letters 28 Jul 2000, 15:58

  • Big Brother cocks-up online voting

    Site manager wants Caroline out

    Channel 4's virtual voyeur programme Big Brother has made a cock up of its promised online voting system. The fly-on-the-wall project tracking ten individuals locked together in a house for nine weeks has been hit by a series of technology hitches. Much hype was made at the launch of Britain's Big Brother about its Web …

    Music and Media 28 Jul 2000, 16:01

  • Nortel to acquire Alteon

    Gets ready for optical Internet

    Nortel has publicly announced that it will buy Alteon WebSystems in a stock deal worth $7.8 billion. The company says that the deal will give it a big advantage in the content switching market as the transition is made to optical and wireless Internet. Upon completion of the transaction, Alteon WebSystems will become a wholly …

    Data Networking 28 Jul 2000, 16:08

  • Reg welcomes small addition to nest

    Baby vulture Sadie pops up

    We're sure you'd all like to congratulate top Reg man Drew on the birth of his fifth little Drew, called Sadie and weighing in at 8lb 11ozs. Better half Sian is fine and dandy and has the good fortune of having Drew fussing around her for the next few days. Our thoughts are with you Sian.

    Business 28 Jul 2000, 16:25

  • Reg welcomes small addition to nest

    Baby vulture Sadie pops up

    We're sure you'd all like to congratulate top Reg man Drew on the birth of his fifth little Drew, called Sadie and weighing in at 8lb 11ozs. Better half Sian is fine and dandy and has the good fortune of having Drew fussing around her for the next few days. Our thoughts are with you Sian.

    Business 28 Jul 2000, 16:29