19th September 2000 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Auction Web site offers $25,000 hacker bounty

News or publicity stunt? You make the call

On-line auction outfit Bidbay is offering a $25,000 bounty for information leading to the conviction of malicious intruders who shut down their operation intermittently for two days starting 7 September, rendering service unavailable to users. The hacking underground is sure to resent the idea of offering financial incentives …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 07:13
AOL UK offers 24/7 flat fee Net access

Now they got the Holy Grail, what next?

After months of speculation AOL UK has finally announced it is to offer flat-fee 24/7 unmetered access to the Net. The new service - based on Flat Rate Internet Access Call Origination (FRIACO) - will cost just £14.99 a month and includes all subscription and Internet telephone costs, together with unlimited freephone member …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 07:42
DRAM headaches for bulk buyers

Bald memory guru keeps his hair on

DRAM prices have dropped this month, thwarting the efforts of PC builders and brokers that upped stock levels in anticipation of September price rises. Since the beginning of September, the average price of a 64MB PC 100 Maj/3rd Dimm has fallen in Asia from $68 ($8.25 per DRAM) to $61 ($7.35 per DRAM), according to research by …

Business 19 Sep 2000, 07:46
Intel, AMD get DDR 266 support

Via Technical Forum Spate of products close to release

A senior executive at Micron today forecast that a spate of double data rate (DDR) products were set to hit the market in the next three months. Micron, we must remember, as well as being in litigation with Rambus Ink over alleged patent infringement on synchronous DRAM and DDR memory, is also a Rambus licensee. But Brett …

Channel 19 Sep 2000, 08:20
Kingston takes over the World

Well, the World according to Toshiba, anyway

Kingston Technology is to become the exclusive supplier of memory to Toshiba worldwide. The memory behemoth today signed a deal with Toshiba in Tokyo, adding to existing agreements in Europe and the US. A Kingston spokesperson said the deal was exclusive. Under the terms of the agreements, Kingston will supply Toshiba-badged …

Channel 19 Sep 2000, 09:37
AOL UK saves e-Britain

Owen scores on the rebound

Today's announcement by AOL UK that it is to offer unmetered Net access has not come too soon for e-Britain. Consumer confidence in ISPs has faded fast as more and more service providers pull out of the unmetered marketplace, go titsup.com or simply fail to deliver a service of any merit. AOL UK - which has its knockers - …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 10:17
MS trial judge points finger of blame at US states

Attorneys general are a waste of space. But we knew that...

Judge Richard Posner, who ran the Microsoft case mediation talks until they failed earlier this year, has paid-out another snippet for trial whodunnit addicts. In the immediate aftermath of the breakdown of talks in April Posner denounced the "leaking and spinning" that surrounded them, and said that was his final word. But now …

Software 19 Sep 2000, 10:53
Amazon chooses AOL over Yahoo!

Can only afford one portal partner

Amazon is ending its three-year book marketing deal with Yahoo! and is now just concentrating on working with rival AOL. The bookseller said it decided in spring that it would go with one or other of the portals. Yahoo! now has a book relationship with BarnesandNoble.com. As both Yahoo! and AOL charge very high fees for …

Business 19 Sep 2000, 11:11
Toshiba to start peddling online music

But it needs to find some good songs first

Toshiba is getting into the online music business and will start selling music for download over the Internet next year. The company is planning a web site to launch early next year to market the music. Each download will cost 350 yen, or around $3.25. The music download market in Japan is beginning to hot up with major …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 11:57
Hexus marks the spot for Overclockers UK

Review site & overclocked reseller form match made in hardware heaven

Back in April we said the UK overclocking sector was growing apace and growing up, citing Stoke-based Overclockers UK (OcUK) as an example of this. Looks like we backed a winner - which is nice. OcUK, as well as consolidating its position as top dog in the UK overclocked kit reseller market, has now announced that it has teamed …

Business 19 Sep 2000, 12:06
Blind leading the dumb: the local loop fiasco

Shakespearian farce or Greek tragedy? Might just as well go home

It's hard to know where to begin. Oftel is as effective as a monopode in the Premier league. In fact it is a byword for not only not doing your job but also failing to recognise what your job entails. Let's get that out the way first. This is about the local loop, its unbundling and the process' total mishandling from start to …

Data Networking 19 Sep 2000, 12:12
SupaNet savages Downing Street

How many sees in hypocrisy?

The British Government's wired credentials took another rib-cracking blow to the midriff today after ISP, SupaNet, claimed Downing Street wouldn't accept letters to the Prime Minister via email. This sorry state of affairs has been confirmed by a Downing Street spokesman who said that there simply wasn't the staff or resources …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 12:28
Sun launches cell phone Java standard

Here come stocks, games, weather and traffic reports

Sun has developed a standard for putting its Java software onto mobile phones. Called mobile information device, or more concisely MID profile, the standard promises to bring yet more stuff to the titchy screen of your mobile phone. Did you know that you needed personalised stock quotes that can display graphs and give purchase …

Software 19 Sep 2000, 14:37
Sun buys Linux server appliance specialist Cobalt for $2bn

'Our bet for the future' - so this is important, right?

Sun is to buy server appliance specialist Cobalt Networks in a stock swap worth approximately $2 billion. Cobalt's roots are in Linux/MIPS small server appliances for small offices and Web sites, and as one of its products is the Qube, presumably rights to rattle lawyers at Apple and Mr Jobs will come with the acquisition. The …

Business 19 Sep 2000, 14:50
ISP rating scheme launched by NSI and Arthur Andersen

Nothing like objective criticism...and this is nothing like it

Domain name giant Network Solutions and Arthur Andersen will offer their own personal assessment of the performance of ISPs in Europe. The rating system will adhere to strict criteria which will allow people to find out which ISPs are better than others. The details of Swedish ISPs have just been announced; British Net users …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 15:37
HWRoundup Dead Athlons and how to build an MP3 box

The good the bad and the broken

CPU Review sends out a bittersweet warning to all Athlon users out there. The hardware community seems to adhere to the principle that if you gotta go, at least let the next guy know what killed you. Or your CPU, in this case. If you would like to avoid a dead Athlon, this is a must read. Sharky takes a peek at a 32MB Radeon …

Hardware Roundup 19 Sep 2000, 15:47
Nortel VP and CTO waxes lyrical on 4G mobiles

Do you want 10Mbps on your phone/PDA?

The keynote at this year's Rawcon 2000 conference (Radio & Wireless Conference) was given by top Nortel Networks man Al Javed who promptly leapt in with details about 4G mobile networks. Like the man who starts shouting at 9am the morning after a big party, Javed started telling those assembled about how amazing 4G was going to …

Data Networking 19 Sep 2000, 16:14
Beta 1 not out yet, but MS sets April date for Whistler gold code

Mysterious Hidden Hand guides MS dev programme, apparently...

Whistler's status as a Win2k point release looks even more assured, if the latest secret files to fall into the clutches of Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet are to be believed. Actually they're not anything like as good as the leaks she used to get (did somebody leave?), but it does seem highly significant that Microsoft has already set a …

Software 19 Sep 2000, 16:22
Intel tight-lipped on support forum closures

Refuses to speak to Register

Intel's decision to close its processor and motherboard support forums Intel signs death warrant for support forums looks to be pretty irrevocable. Following our earlier stories (see below), the Intel Pentium III processor and mobo forums have been flooded with messages from users complaining, whining, threatening and just …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 16:22
Net server soiree

Dell, CacheFlow and Maxtor dole it out

Here's a hat-trick of network server releases from yesterday - with a trio of vendors vying for a place in the forecasted $16 billion market. Dell is pitching itself against Cisco with its first ever load balancing servers. There are three PowerApp.Big-IP models and these cost from $7,900 to $30,500. The machines are designed …

Business 19 Sep 2000, 16:43
Botzilla sinking fangs into second MSNBC Windows poll?

Twice on the one page - you couldn't make it up...

Luckless online news organisation MSNBC is showing every sign of having been pranged by poll-packing twice in the one week, and on the one page. We do feel slightly sorry for the loves, who're clearly not themselves fixing polls in Microsoft's favour, but if you run meaningless polls as entertainment in order to get hits, you do …

Software 19 Sep 2000, 16:58
Welcome to the pre-pay online cash card

It's open day for kids and those with poor credit

We're been hearing a lot recently about online credit cards, accompanied with Daily Mail rants about how teenage credit is evil and will destroy the world. Actually, we agree with the damage that getting kids involved with credit cards will cause, but Global Internet Billing has an interesting solution with its InteractivCash …

Music and Media 19 Sep 2000, 17:00
HP innocent in CD burner screw up

Adaptec plug-in to blame

It's only taken two clean installs of Windows 2000 and all the applications and a total restore of all the data, but we appear to be getting to the nub of the problems that appeared when we tried running our new HP 9510i CD burner. It seems that HP is innocent this time and that it's an Adaptec plug-in to Windows Media Player 7 …

Business 19 Sep 2000, 17:01
Pentium 4: bring out your living

Benchmarks roll on

Remember those benchmarks at 2CPU which Intel managed to vanish a couple of weeks back? Well, you can't put a good chip down and some more Pentium 4 benchmarks have emerged on the same site, but this time in the forum. Go then to this spot to view benchmarks of a rev supposed to be based on a 1.2GHz part. Pentium 4s are good …

Channel 19 Sep 2000, 23:30