7th August 2000 Archive

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Arrow, Avnet carve up Veba

Schroder joins in distie fun

The world's two biggest electronics and computer component distributors are ganging up to buy the number three. Schroder Ventures is joining in the fun too, teaming up with Arrow Electronics and Avnet to buy German distie Veba Electronics Group from holding company E.ON for $2.35 billion (E2.6 billion) in cash, including debt. …

Business 7 Aug 2000, 08:54
The gutting of Cyrix…

Updated ...and the smokers of Plano

The former home of Cyrix at 2703 Northern Central Expressway in Richardson, Texas, has now been sold for a cool $30 million. Last week, we reported that the site was up for sale. SWB Communications paid the price in the last month, and the East Cyrix building is currently being gutted by The Beck Company to make way for the …

Channel 7 Aug 2000, 09:51
AMD: the boyz'n'girlz done well

Analysis How Intel allowed its bastion to be breached

The share price of AMD closed on Wall Street at $62.75 on Friday, a pretty big drop from its $97 high just a couple of months ago, prompting the good old tabloid question, why, oh why? Because AMD, despite dire predictions from Wall Street analysts and a handful of hax only 14 months ago, has executed on its microprocessor …

Channel 7 Aug 2000, 10:01
Share price gazunders online estate agent

Dotcom doesn't need any more money

Easier plc, an online estate agent, says it will not need to return to the stock market for further funds. In a statement prompted by the recent fall in the company's share price, it notes that advertising costs for its easier.co.uk Web site were "significantly lower" than it had originally anticipated, and that the number of …

Business 7 Aug 2000, 10:18
Via takes aim at AMD, Intel server chipset market

Takes it to the bridge

Up-and-coming firm Via said today it will introduce a high bandwidth differential interconnect technology (HDIT) for future versions of its Apollo chipsets. Although disguised in the jargon of technology, the significance of the announcement is that chipsets will be able to support server and workstation platforms using double …

Channel 7 Aug 2000, 10:26
Cybersmears – another great Net tradition falls by wayside

US courts crack down on online libel

Cybersmearing, otherwise known as online defamation, became a trickier pastime last week when a New Jersey state judge ruled that anonymous messages on Yahoo! Finance by three defendants constituted libel against Biomatrix, a bio-medical firm which previously employed two of the libellers. The next step will be the assessment …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 11:07
Tesco takes online shopping to ‘nearly all’ of the UK

Clickmango clings on like grim death

Tesco has announced it will roll out its Internet ordering plans to cover "nearly all" of the UK by the end of the month. The company claims this puts it ahead of main rivals Sainsburys, a claim apparently backed up by the latest market share figures which show Tesco edging ahead with 15.6 per cent (up 0.4 per cent) and …

Business 7 Aug 2000, 11:12
Lastminute is dotcom icon

And it's all our fault

The media was responsible for turning lastminute.com into an "icon of the new economy", according to a report published today. Of the 2814 articles written about the new economy in Britain between March and May 2000, 293 (ten per cent) mentioned Lastminute.com, claims Dot.comment. Of these, 73 mentioned Lastminute.com's co- …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 11:44
MS Windows a ‘sack of bile’ – Novell

Bit too strong a comparison? No, reckons Novell editor

God knows people can go a bit peculiar when they get a little poorly, but identifying Microsoft Windows with your illness, that's going some. Actually, it isn't. We recall the late, great playwright Dennis Potter calling his cancer Rupert after the Australian... sorry, English... sorry, American nationality-changing media …

Bootnotes 7 Aug 2000, 12:13
HW Roundup Asus A7V for the dipswitch devoid

Old dog ABit BX 133 learns new tricks

The ever helpful and obviously deranged Aussies have been at it again. Go here to read about their Asus A7V. This one's been modified so that peeps without dipswitches can follow their guide and get it all working. Plus pics, so it'll be worth peeking at. ABit BX 133 board gets the once over at OC Workbench. Could there be …

Hardware Roundup 7 Aug 2000, 12:47
Babylon 5 creator publishes novel for free on the Net

But it's not yours to keep

J Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, is to publish his new novel Tribulations, in its entirety on the Web, for free. But it's not yours to keep. The book, described as "one part thriller and one part pure fantasy complete with supernatural visitations, priests, soldiers of light, politics and lots of humor", is to …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 12:48
Security hole in Adobe Acrobat

Updated Door open for Trojan horses, viruses, worms

Adobe has quietly released a patch for a security hole in its latest version of Acrobat, 4.05. The hole is a "buffer overrun" problem, which basically means that malicious code can get through Acrobat and run on the client machine. This, of course, means that all means of nasties can get at your PC. The hole's discovery was …

Software 7 Aug 2000, 12:52
Telewest cuts cost of broadband Net access

Didn't we tell you they would?

Telewest has slashed the cost of its broadband service, blueyonder, The Register can confirm. The service will now be available for £33 (including VAT) a month - down from £50 a month. In a statement, Gavin Patterson, Director of Marketing for Internet and Telephony at Telewest, said: "blueyonder is now the most competitively …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 12:59
Reg Lonely Hearts

Wanted: AltaVista unmetered user

Shy but inquisitive journalist, GSOH, would like to meet M/F who is actually using AltaVista's heavily hyped British flat-fee unmetered Net access service. Intentions wholly dishonourable. Don't usually resort to placing a personal ad but this time I'm desperate. Problem is, AltaVista has failed to provide any evidence that …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 13:55
Netscape's SmartDownload court case hots up

We haven't done anything wrong, but we'll remove it anyway, says AOL

The complaint lodged against AOL/Netscape that its SmartDownload feature was abusing users' privacy is gathering momentum. The initial complaint by photographer Christopher Specht has been expanded to include three others: John Gibson, Michael Fagan and Sean Kelly*. We don't know why yet but we have been in touch with the four' …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 14:45
Palm unveils Handspring hounding consumer PDA

How dare those Palm founders do so well...

Palm today announced its rumoured m100 consumer-oriented palmtop designed to regain the retail lead taken from it by PalmOS-licensee Handspring. The company also unveiled an updated version of its Palm VII wireless-enabled organiser, the VIIx. The m100 - Palm's first to break its roman-numeral naming scheme - is aimed squarely …

Business 7 Aug 2000, 15:20
Hackers sink Paid-to-Surf Web site

FreeWebStuff seeks protection/new owner

FreeWebStuff.com Inc., a Paid-to-Surf company, has put itself up for sale, after finding out that hackers had undermined its entire business model. The San Jose, California-based firm says it will also consider a partnership with an Internet security firm. FreeWebStuff, which launched only on July 5 this year, cites growth " …

Business 7 Aug 2000, 15:22
Teacher details exposed on Govt Web site

Back to security school for the DfEE

Personal details of hundreds of education professionals, such as teachers and governors have been available to view on a public portion of the National Grid for Learning's Web site. Surfers who register on the site are assured that their information is being held by the NGFL for the NGFL, and will not be passed on to a third …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 15:35
Reg exposes Amazon's poor security

Hack pretends he's actually written a book

Amazon.co.uk carries out no security checks on messages posted on its site by the authors of books it sells. So users are getting upto mischief and posing as writers of books they have nothing to do with. To test the situation The Reg set up a hotmail address using the name of an established author - we clicked on the link …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 15:44
Journalists get PR revenge

Yeah, we know it's a publicity-seeking game. But what the hell

Online humour marketing site www.e-tractions.com has come up with a journalist-friendly form of publicity: a game in which you fire press releases at your least favourite PR company (and score points doing so). Yeah we know that it's all just cheap publicity, but this is e-tractions raison d'etre - providing the message through …

Bootnotes 7 Aug 2000, 15:55
Competition Win Kay Buena's motherboard

Update We need more entries, but no more Elton John. Please

All you would-be heirs to the shot-up Kay Buena motherboard: listen up. If I get one more email from someone claiming to be God or the Devil I think I may cry, or join a convent or something. Please, do not drive me to this tragic end. The best song suggested so far has been Monty Python's Sit on my face... Not because it is …

Business 7 Aug 2000, 16:00
CallNet scraps unmetered access

Here we go again...

CallNet 0800 has become the latest British ISP to ditch unmetered Net access. The service - launched some nine months ago - will be shut down on September 5 and be replaced with a metered service. No one at CallNet0800 was available for comment today to explain why the ISP has decided to call it a day. However, in a "Dear …

Music and Media 7 Aug 2000, 16:16
AMD pulls price drop forward

Next week, rather than month end

Sources close to AMD's plans have confirmed that we can expect big price drops on its microprocessors on the 14th of August. The cuts were originally slated for the end of this month, as revealed here some weeks back. Intel is taking aggressive action to push its newer flip chip processors into the market place, and we …

Channel 7 Aug 2000, 16:57