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25th August 2000 Archive

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  • Pentium 4: performance puzzle begins

    Will it, won't it be a goer?

    At a technical track in San Jose today, the principal architect of the Pentium 4, Doug Carmeon, briefed delegates on the performance of the up-and-coming processor. But although Carmeon gave many comparisons between a 1.4GHz Pentium 4 and a 1GHz Pentium III, the information from his talk was hard to interpret. First off, the …

    Channel 25 Aug 2000, 00:28

  • Intel lobs software grenade back at chippy Redmond

    Anything you can do, we can do better

    Although it got buried in the XScale announcements this week, Intel is stepping up its software offerings in intriguing fashion. Intel's Integrated Performance Primitives are a set of libraries that run across Intel architectures and began life as way of tapping MMX and Screaming Sindy instructions without dropping down to …

    Channel 25 Aug 2000, 00:29

  • 64-bit Compaq Alpha tops 1040MHz

    Intel's Itanic has a way to go

    Working samples of Compaq's 64-bit Alpha processor - often described as the 'brain of a computer' - are already being tested around the world, with a full launch date slated for early next year, it can be revealed. The chip, which forms the basis of the Compaq server family formerly known as Wildfire, has been a 64-bit …

    Channel 25 Aug 2000, 07:19

  • Intel Irish fab expansion hits snag

    Updated Environmentalists up in arms

    Intel's plan for a £1.5 billion expansion of its County Kildare, Ireland plant is facing protests from environmentalists, according to the Irish Independent. The expansion of the Leixlip plant would create 1000 additional jobs, but locals are objecting that pollution from the semiconductor manufacturing process, linked with …

    Channel 25 Aug 2000, 08:43

  • Love Bug just the job

    Careers advice for the maliciously minded

    The Register has some career advice for those whose GCSE's were not all that they had hoped. Just follow in LoveBug creator Onel de Guzman's footsteps and you too will be inundated with job offers. Step One Write a malicious piece of code and release it - accidentally, of course - into the wild. Step Two Enjoy all the fuss as …

    Software 25 Aug 2000, 09:42

  • Intel's best-kept secret revealed

    World Exclusive Register comes up with the goods again

    Literally years of sleuthing by Reg staffers has finally paid off. When we learned that Intel was suppressing secret photographs of CEO Craig Barrett, the Reg Insight investigative team (M Magee) immediately swung into action. The photos allegedly showed Barrett astride a horse wearing a cowboy hat (Barrett, not the horse). …

    Bootnotes 25 Aug 2000, 09:44

  • Email monitoring rules postponed

    Three more weeks to chat about it

    The government has extended the consultation period on the proposed monitoring of email, it emerged today. The Home Office had been unequivocal in its desire to see the RIP act in force before 2 October. But following the barrage of criticism that the bill has received, the DTI has conceded a further three weeks to discuss the …

    Music and Media 25 Aug 2000, 09:45

  • Linux scuppers notebook theft

    There's a lesson here for us all

    A reader told us an amusing tale featuring a friend of his - a Deutsche Bank employee, no less. This man was happily supping in his local pub when he inadvertently took his eyes off his notebook for a second and - whoosh - off she went. Not overly impressed, he went down the police station, filled in the forms and went home …

    Business 25 Aug 2000, 10:05

  • Mobile phone immobilises policeman – permanently

    Curiosity killed the copper

    Mobile phones will probably act as an evolutionary catalyst, not because they spew out vast quantities of nasty radiation, but because they will separate the quick-witted from the more sluggish of thought. With this in mind, we can announce the latest entry for this year's Darwin Award. PC Darren Riley was speeding along the …

    Data Networking 25 Aug 2000, 10:17

  • Omnicom buys into five health sites

    Look like there be a battle brewing

    Ad and marketing company Omnicom has taken large minority stakes in five health Web companies, laying the groundwork for its drug clients who want to get their products in the faces of doctors and hypochondriacs. The move represents an interesting acceptance of the Internet as a marketing tool and looks set to cause a hell of a …

    Music and Media 25 Aug 2000, 10:44

  • PDA vendors target Euro cellphone market

    Sharp, Casio prep mobile phone-equipped electronic organisers

    Sharp and Casio are separately working on PDAs with built-in cellphones aimed at the European mobile data market, the Nikkei newswire reports. Sharp's plan is to extend its Zaurus family of electronic organisers with a Mitsubishi-designed, mobile phone-equipped model. Mitsubishi will likely build the device on Sharp's behalf, …

    Data Networking 25 Aug 2000, 11:04

  • Bastiaens bails from L&H

    Goodbye, auf Wiedersehen, au revoir, ciao, adios...

    Gaston Bastiaens has resigned from his post as CEO of translation software company Lernout & Hauspie. The move follows months of uncertainty over the success of his management style, according to Jo Lernout, co-founder and co-chairman of L&H. In a conference call just concluded, Lernout made it clear that Bastiaens' management …

    Software 25 Aug 2000, 11:05

  • Rambus death rumours exaggerated, apparently

    Overpriced memory snaps up three quarters of workstation market

    According to new figures from IDC, Direct Rambus DRAM was installed in 75 per cent of the 270,000 personal workstations shipped in Q2. Shipments in the Windows personal workstation market fell seven per cent in the quarter, principally due to a drop in Hewlett-Packard and Compaq sales, while Dell shipments - which only use …

    Channel 25 Aug 2000, 11:12

  • Reg Top Tens Compaq's Wildfire

    Stats'n'facts you never knew - or wanted to...

    The first in an occasional series. This time round it's the... ...WildFire™* Math-tastic Top Ten, writes Terry Shannon 10 Number of GS-Series prototypes built before first revenue shipment: 124 9 Aggregate tpmC of GS-Series systems in Marlboro, MA lab: 50 million 8 Estimated speed of first GS-Series IBM EV68 CPU upgrade: …

    Business 25 Aug 2000, 11:41

  • OPD rude phrase competition

    Say something iffy and win a Reg T-shirt

    New evidence has cast doubt on reader John Kozak's claim that he had managed to make an ICL One-Per-Desk say: "My secretary is giving me head in the wastepaper basket." Tyrone Cartwright points out that "give", "giving", "wastepaper", or "basket" do not appear in the word list, calling into question Kozak's claim. However, …

    Bootnotes 25 Aug 2000, 12:00

  • Everybody wants to study computing

    Are we becoming a nation of nerds?

    Demand for UK computing degree courses has shot up yet again this year. According to UCAS - the body that deals with filing university courses - 11 per cent more people want to do computer-related courses this year than last - over 100,000 scruffy students. Why? Apart from the obvious fact that knowing about computers is pretty …

    Business 25 Aug 2000, 12:00

  • CMGI confident AltaVista will float

    May need water wings though

    AltaVista is still planning to float its operation despite this week's embarrassing revelation that the Net company's ISP in Britain never got off the ground. Speaking to The Register, Sam Sethi, European Marketing Director for CMGI, said: "We're still planning to IPO either later this year or in the first quarter 2001 - …

    Music and Media 25 Aug 2000, 13:43

  • Computers raise stress levels

    Oi, Windows! No!

    Research out today from ICL indicates that some people are taking problems with their PCs far too seriously. Apparently, even though no one gives a monkey's about viruses, one in ten people think that a problem with a computer is worse than missing a holiday flight. Worse, eight out of ten find a PC failure more stressful than …

    Business 25 Aug 2000, 13:48

  • Zetters in online pools bid

    And other financial stuff

    Football pools specialist Zetters says that it has begun its transformation into an online betting and gaming company with a £20 million reverse takeover of IFX, the foreign exchange market maker. Zetters will pay IFX's owners 8.7 million shares and £3.9 million in cash, representing a 37.8 per cent stake in the company. IFX …

    Business 25 Aug 2000, 13:51

  • ISPA slams Oftel

    Sends winged watchdog to the kennels

    The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) has accused Oftel of ignorance when it comes to understanding the needs of Britain's Internet industry. In a sharply worded statement issued today, ISPA "expressed its concern about recent comments by the telecoms regulator, Oftel, regarding BT's wholesale unmetered Internet …

    Data Networking 25 Aug 2000, 14:32

  • The world's first gaol Web cam

    Voyeurism just gets better and better

    Sheriff Joe Arpaio has decided to install a Web cam in his gaol in Maricopa County, Phoenix, Arizona. He says if will deter people from doing wrong - civil liberties folk say it infringes people's rights since some of the alleged criminals featured will inevitably not have gone to trial yet and so may not be guilty. We say: …

    Music and Media 25 Aug 2000, 14:35

  • Chip biz challenged to develop molecular CPUs

    Build smaller, vastly more capacious chips... or else, warns boffin

    Working molecular computers could be as little as a year away, according to Rice University professor Jim Tour. And he has thrown down a challenge to all the industry's chip and PC makers to realise his vision of computers capable of storing more than a million times more data than current solid state chips. His idea is to …

    Channel 25 Aug 2000, 14:41

  • Scunthorpe babes? Well, one or two are all right…

    Internet vote rigging to get the howlers in

    [We ran a story on a radio station's vain attempt to persuade us that Scunthorpe was full of attractive women. It did itself a disservice and probably wiped out whatever tourism income it was getting. Some readers were also rigging an Internet vote to get a particularly unique lady the main prize (we won't say which, but it is a …

    Letters 25 Aug 2000, 15:29

  • Threat of the Week Mike's a dead man

    It's a sort of scary version of Flame of the Week

    [We actually had a crazy flame this week but there was something that just wasn't right about it. Rudeness and causing offence is an art form, and we don't like amateurs, so we'll stick it in letters somewhere. This, however, is a strangely threatening letter sent to old Mad Mike Magee (who incidentally still gets post from …

    Flame of the Week 25 Aug 2000, 15:34

  • Transmeta chips not up to scratch – Toshiba

    Intel does power management better, says notebook vendor

    Transmeta claims its Crusoe CPU offers very low power consumption and heat generation. And Toshiba reckons that claim is bollocks, according to the notebook nabob's UK product marketing manager, Steve Crawley. Interviewed by VNUNet - a UK newswire we're told - Crawley said: "[Crusoe] does give a reasonable increase in battery …

    Channel 25 Aug 2000, 15:36

  • Korean economy is the Comeback Kid

    Graham looks at the role of IT in the country's reversal of fortunes following the disaster of 1997

    Korea has the misfortune to be best known for being the home of the Moonies and MASH, but neither Sun Myong Moon's Unification Church nor the American sitcom that glorifies a war that took place fifty years ago come close to illuminating the remarkable developments happening in Korea today. Less than three years ago, the street …

    Business 25 Aug 2000, 15:39

  • Hardware Roundup Weak Duron's week 31 boot bug

    OC Workbench explains...

    OC Workbench has posted a fix for the ABIT KT7 beta BIOS for the bug that means the KT7 won't boot with new Duron 600 CPU manufactured after week 31. New Durons have default Vcore of 1.6v. The patch can be downloaded from here. There is some info up on System Logic's site from an AMD seminar. It might be of interest to some …

    Hardware Roundup 25 Aug 2000, 15:40

  • Vnunet in all sorts of trouble

    We're concerned. Honest

    The main site of Dutch publishers VNU is currently in terrible difficulty. The original sign, "Sorry, vnunet.com is temporarily unavailable", has been removed but the site is still working at the pace of a geriatric tortoise. Despite the fact that most of The Reg's staff are escapees from the Broadwick Street gulag, we are …

    Bootnotes 25 Aug 2000, 15:45

  • Nutters: there's alternative thinking and just plain oddness

    A prize if any of you can tell us what they're on about

    1.13GHz P3 system DOA I'm searching for the cooler for my home cold fusion power station. Could you provide some info where I can buy active cooler you've mentioned in your review: "1.13GHz P3 system DOA By: Andrew Thomas" Not since early Russian nuclear submarines have we seen so much active cooling. Your help will be …

    Letters 25 Aug 2000, 16:03

  • Best of the Rest Mostly chip stuff

    Randomly thrown in. It's a kinda treasure trove

    "I think Intel's reputation as a chip company is better than Microsoft's, and you can take it from there." Really!!! And how many successful chip companies sprang up in the last couple of years ? Maybe a thousand ?! Besides, its Toshiba that's doing it, anyway. If Microsoft is going to start making chips, then perhaps Intel …

    Letters 25 Aug 2000, 16:05

  • Readers' Letters The abridged version

    Come on, it's sunny, it's Friday, it's a Bank Holiday weekend

    Never explain, never apologise - who was it that first said that? Probably Margaret Thatcher. Anyway, readers' letters haven't been as good as last week and we're itching to get out in the sun and pull on a cold beer, so this week's contribution is going to be short and sweet. Okay? [Actually, while waiting for Pran Pran, the …

    Business 25 Aug 2000, 16:15

  • Bill Gates' bidding blunted by sharper cards

    A bridge (match) too far

    Pity poor Bill Gates. No, really. Head of the world's biggest software company he may be; negotiator of a mean business contract he almost certainly is - but is he any good at contract bridge? Is he heck. Apparently, His Billness this week came 50th out of 52 in a bridge tournament held in Anaheim, California, one of the UK's …

    Bootnotes 25 Aug 2000, 16:23

  • AltaVistaGate: Mitchell admits he mislead US bosses

    When will this sorry affair end?

    Andy Mitchell, the forlorn MD of AltaVista UK and Ireland, has admitted that not only did he confuse and mislead his consumers here in Britain about his fictitious ISP, he also fooled his US bosses. The result of this charade is that AltaVista's CEO, Rod Schrock, went on TV saying the service was being used by umpteen thousand …

    Music and Media 25 Aug 2000, 20:35