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6th September 2000 Archive

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  • Intel behind Big Brother site claim

    Updated No wonder everyone is paranoid

    And so we found ourselves in a pub called The King of Corsica, in Berwick Street, Soho, London W1 talking to the executive chairman of Victoria Real, who was singing like a berserk canary might about how Intel was helping out the famous C4 Big Brother Site. Richard Daws, the executive chairman, and en route to First Tuesday, …

    Bootnotes 6 Sep 2000, 07:19

  • Waking up to Warwick: is the media-obsessed fantasist on the way out?

    Sadly it's too late to do anything about his Christmas TV appearance

    Professor Kevin Warwick, the self-proclaimed cyborg philosopher and object of regular Register ridicule, has been having a tough ride of late, finally receiving a bad press after years of positive, knee-jerk coverage. We have also received a number of very interesting letters from ex-colleagues, ex-students, academics and …

    Business 6 Sep 2000, 07:54

  • Scoundrel faces court after trying to flog free email addresses

    He tried it on with famous Dutch folk

    A URL and email provider is threatening to sue a chancer who tried to sell a bunch of its free email addresses. Nameplanet.com gives out free personal email addresses made up of first and last names - such as john@smith.com. The idea being that popular family names or domain names can be shared. The London-based company, which …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 08:02

  • HW Roundup Freaks cook eggs on CPUs

    And good stuff about the 815

    Kyle, at HardOCP points us to Freaknuts, who are turning their PC technology into a method for making a good solid breakfast. The lads at Tom's Hardware have an interesting and comprehensive piece reviewing 18 motherboards using the i815 chipset. The Solano, you will recall, is the chipset supporting PC-133, which Intel was …

    Hardware Roundup 6 Sep 2000, 08:22

  • Ghost of memory standard clanks through corridors

    Head tucked underneath arm

    In our relentless search to cover the twists and turns of the memory business, wheresoever it may lead us, a reader asked us whatever happened to SLDRAM. Sixteen memory firms, including the mighty Micron, teamed up in 1998 to form a corporation which would revolutionise the memory market, with the Boise firm even managing to …

    Channel 6 Sep 2000, 08:48

  • Broadcom broadsides Greater Intel

    Winsome Willow hears Nick talk talk

    The Register flicked over from watching Masai herdsmen slaughter a cow and drink its hot blood to find another type of blood sacrifice on CNN. The very winsome Willow Bay was sat in the garden of Broadcom CEO Henry Nicholas' chatting about this and that. His nickname is Nick because there's another senior Henry at Broadcom. …

    Channel 6 Sep 2000, 09:49

  • Sony PlayStation emulator trial date set

    Six months from now, the case may finally be settled

    Sony will finally get to challenge PlayStation emulator developer Connectix in court, but it's going to have to wait until March 2001 to do so. That's the date set by US District Judge Charles Legge for the jury trial, according to the San Francisco Daily Journal. The trial will seek to assess Sony's claims that Connectix …

    Software 6 Sep 2000, 10:35

  • Clickmango.com – may it RIP

    And other sad, sad stories

    Doctors are to turn off the life support machine of Clickmango.com - the trendy health and beauty e-tailer - on Friday after a protracted and painfully publicised illness. A bid to find a suitable donor failed. The e-outfit - which was getting through £100,000 a month - says all staff and creditors would be paid before the …

    Business 6 Sep 2000, 10:46

  • Dixons happy at AGM

    And why not...

    Dixons Group Chairman Sir Stanley Kalms will tell shareholders at today's AGM that business is good and life is generally tickety-boo. He'll say that total retail sales for the 18 weeks to 2 September 2000 were 29 per cent ahead of the same period last year and up five per cent on a like-for-like basis, including a very strong …

    Business 6 Sep 2000, 10:48

  • MP3.com faces $450m damages bill

    That's what Universal wants

    Universal wants $450 million in damages from MP3.com, the music label said yesterday. The request was made in the company's closing statement in the hearing convened last week to decide whether MP3.com's infringement of its copyrights was wilful and, on the basis of that decision, how much the online music business must pay …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 10:53

  • Dangerous folk, Net sex and porn round-up

    Merchant bankers (no, really), schoolgirl S&M, jailed paedo

    Cockney rhyming slang has rarely been so apposite - a bunch of merchant bankers at CSFB have been accused of misusing the Internet and distributing porn during work hours. Apparently 24 senior dealers have been hauled in for questioning. The bank denies any such investigation, claiming it is the victim of a disgruntled ex- …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 11:22

  • BT signs up with Yahoo!

    Content deal for mobile phones

    BT has signed a deal with Yahoo! to take the content provider's WAP content and services over BT's Genie portal (market-leading, one million customers apparently). The two have also said they will co-market the alliance both on the Internet and in traditional advertising. It's not known if any money is changing hands, if the …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 12:53

  • Corel to axe up to 139 jobs in Dublin

    Retrenching engineering operation in Canada

    Corel announced today it plans to shut down its Dublin, Ireland engineering operation as part of its ongoing attempt to shave $40 million off its operating expenses bill. Some 139 jobs will be affected by the move, which will see the engineering team consolidated with Corel's Canadian operation in Ottawa. Some of the 139 staff …

    Software 6 Sep 2000, 13:16

  • ICANN Special: New legal hurdles (Part 1)

    Exclusive Considered unconstitutional?

    ICANN - the secretive body that controls the Internet's key functions - could look unrecognisable in the future if a host of new and unrelated legal challenges go ahead. We're examining these in two parts, and here's the first. According to legal expert Michael Froomkin, Professor at University Miami School of Law and author of …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 14:08

  • UK Govt warms to spam

    Hey ho

    The British Government has bottled out of plans to ban spam and has, instead, opted for a system of self-regulation. News of the Government's decision has been welcomed by some industry insiders who believe that the self-regulatory approach already employed by ISPs is effective in combating spam.. Hard-liners, on the other …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 14:15

  • MS exec moots Windows for Washing Baskets

    Bluetooth boxers, already?

    Buried towards the bottom of the big dull pile of Microsoft 25th anniversary celebrations (the interesting bit, such as it was, seems to have been Steve Ballmer jumping out of a cake), we find something rather more promising. Microsoft would seem to have written a book. About itself. Inside Out, Microsoft - In Our Own Words …

    Bootnotes 6 Sep 2000, 14:38

  • Energis to snuff out offspring

    Freedom to achieve eternal liberty

    Energis is set to commit infanticide on one of its own fledgling businesses. Documents seen by The Register suggest that the telco is about to issue a winding up petition against Freedom Telecom for an outstanding debt. How much Energis is owed was not disclosed. However, Freedom Telecom was funded last year to the tune of £5 …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 14:40

  • Call for fresh ‘Love Bug’ charges

    Philippine investigators want their man

    The Philippine Justice Department has been asked to reconsider dropping the charges brought against the former student accused of releasing the 'Love Bug' virus. The appeal has come form the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation. Charges of theft and violation of 'access devices' law were dropped against Onel de Guzman …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 16:32

  • Amazon makes regular customers pay more

    Tut tut. This is very naughty.

    It's come to light that Amazon.com is varying the prices of DVDs, using cookies installed on a customer's computer to decide what percentage discount to offer. If you are a first-time visitor (or, incidentally, have turned your cookies off) you will frequently receive a higher discount that if you are not. What this essentially …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 16:53

  • Germans offer to help England win at cricket

    Maybe they should help the West Indies instead :-)

    The Germans may be crap at the summer game, but they reckon they know how to help the English back into their rightful place in the pantheon of world cricket. For German scientists claim to have solved one of the great mysteries of life - how to judge whether a batsman is leg before wicket. Siemens boffins have adapted missile …

    Bootnotes 6 Sep 2000, 16:57

  • Novell does cut workforce – 16 per cent to go

    Microsoft has a double reason to celebrate

    Novell has followed through on the rumours and announced that 16 per cent (about 900 people) of its US workforce are to go. The lay-offs come from across the company and will "free up dollars", according to CEO Eric Schmidt, to be spent on sales and marketing of the new One Net concept. Ironically, the announcement has come on …

    Software 6 Sep 2000, 17:12

  • ICANN Special: New legal hurdles (Part 2)

    I hear you knocking - but you can't come in.

    With Andy Mueller-Maguhn of Germany's Chaos Computer Club ("Welcome ... Hackers!") heading the European nominations for its at-large elections, you'd think ICANN would have enough to worry about. But a bigger threat to its notorious closed-door sessions could come not from Europe, but from its own backyard. The issue has been …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 20:02

  • Universal routs MP3.com in court for $118m

    Blood in the water

    As expected, US District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled against MP3.com in New York Wednesday finding that the Web music-sharing service "wilfully violated" the copyrights of record companies with its MyMP3 service, which enabled customers to access MP3 files via the Net for any piece of music they owned. Judge Rakoff ordered the …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 20:17

  • ICANN Special: The Triangulations of Esther Dyson

    Analysis : Whose Internet is it anyway?

    The prospect of a legal tsunami against ICANN (or the US Department of Commerce, the midwife to this unloved offspring) might make for esoteric reading if you aren't a practising lawyer. But the issue of who gets to control the Internet affects pretty much everyone who uses it. What's becoming apparent, when you take this news …

    Media 6 Sep 2000, 20:19