26th September 2000 Archive
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Vendor trio unveils Intel PIII 800MHz and 850MHz notebooks
Dell, Gateway and IBM limber up
A trio of vendors today announced which notebooks they planned to ship with Intel's latest mobile chips. Intel has released three new flavours onto the market -two Pentium IIIs using at SpeedStep, at 800MHz and 850MHz, and a 700MHz mobile Celeron. Regarding the mobile PIIIs, Dell is launching two notebook models - the Inspiron …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 00:19
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US political parties awash with Microsoft ‘gifts’
'Purchasing influence and access', report claims
Microsoft has dished out more than $16 million in political handouts over the last three years - and the software giant has upped such contributions since its legal wrangles with the US government. It is now ranked number five in the world as a soft-money contributor to political parties. The recipients of this cash include …
Software 26 Sep 2000, 00:20
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CueCat profiling potential described
All the gruesome technical details
Freebie bar-code scanner CueCat, which enables users to swipe bar codes in print media and have their browser immediately directed to related information on the Web, uses software which transmits all the information that maker Digital:Convergence would need to record every bar code that every user scans, and which could be used …
Music and Media 26 Sep 2000, 03:55
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Intel slide a little wafer thin
Analysis Analysts, pundits slap each others' backs
There are lots of good and even wonderful things about being in Asia, close to what the CEO of Via calls the Greater China Manufacturing Engine, and one of them is you can watch the rest of the IT world as it wakes up to the news. Seven hours ahead of Blighty, 12 hours ahead of Wall Street and a staggering 17 hours of …
Channel 26 Sep 2000, 04:33
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Rambus, Intel, Dramurai reach end game
Arbitration, rather than quill pens drawn at dawn
Many thanks to Rambusite, an independent Web site that follows the comings and goings of the Mountain View intellectual property outfit, for drawing our attention to three different developments in the continuing saga of Rambus versus The Rest. If you never tire of the Rambus versus the Dramurai saga, in which Intel plays a …
Channel 26 Sep 2000, 04:50
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Chimpzilla boosts embedded line
Gets flashy with HP
AMD has some new embedded processors for thin clients, point-of-sale terminals and telecom gizmos. The new AMD-K6-2e and K6-IIIe MPUs are available at 350 and 550 MHz and in low-power variants. The 0.18 micron embedded processors come in 321-pin grid array packages. Future versions will also be available in a new organic ball …
Channel 26 Sep 2000, 08:43
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Globalnet Financial/ Telescan merger collapses
Different strokes
The merger agreement between GlobalNetFinancial.com and Telescan has collapsed, with the two financial dotcom sites hurrying to unwind shareholdings in each other. GlobalNetFinancial is also stumping up $250,000 to pay towards merger expenses incurred by Texas-based Telescan. So what happened? In a joint statement, the …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 08:45
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Palm revenues double – again
But PDA prices falling fast
A jubilant Palm yesterday unveiled its latest quarterly fiscals, which saw its revenues double and profits beat Wall Street expectations. For the three months to 1 September, Palm's revenues hit $401 million, up 127 per cent on the $176.5 million it recorded in sales of product and technology licences for the same period last …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 08:54
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Play Space Invaders on your mobile phone
But not yet
Space Invaders, the seminal computer game, is to make a comeback on WAP-enabled phones. Taito, the Japanese coin-op games giant, which owns Space Invaders, is subbing WAP development and distribution rights to Online PLC, a small British "Internet and content company", listed on AIM. Online has not announced a release date. …
Data Networking 26 Sep 2000, 09:09
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UK software boss warns of PlayStation 2 famine
Games biz will be hit hard if Sony can't ship enough consoles
Rage Software supremo Paul Finnegan today added his voice to fellow computer games magnate Ian Livingstone, head of Eidos, and warned that the trade is in for a rough time over the next six months. Livingstone is concerned that interest in Sony's PlayStation 2 will divert attention away from other platforms - Finnegan's worries …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 09:09
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Spot Register Hard drive shortages loom
Memory prices plummet and bounce
The Euro took its toll on the spot market last week, but Taiwanese brokers are taking up the slack. There's also movement, or lack of movement, let's say, on hard drives, writes Marco Fumagalli. Memory There were major changes in the market over the last week. Memory prices on the spot market plummeted significantly, with many …
Spot Register 26 Sep 2000, 09:39
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Motorola pledges allegiance to Symbian
Epoc-maker acts quickly to prevent stock turmoil
Symbian yesterday called on alliance member Motorola to reaffirm its support for the smartphone platform after the mobile phone giant announced its decision to work with Symbian rival Palm on a pair of smartphones. The PalmOS-based phones were announced yesterday, but an apparently chastened Motorola quickly re-stated its …
Software 26 Sep 2000, 09:42
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Offspring agrees to can Napster album giveaway
Pretty fly for a bunch of white guys under legal pressure from Sony
Pro-Napster band The Offspring have knocked on the head their plan to offer their next album in MP3 format ahead of the CD release via the trouble music sharing service. We're not entirely surprised. Offspring is signed to Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Sony is, of course, one of the recording …
Music and Media 26 Sep 2000, 10:05
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Energis leads fight against BT
LLU is a 'cherry pickers' charter' says BY.
Energis has been singled out as the ringleader among rival telcos looking for the best way to give BT a bloody nose. The Mail reports that CE, Mike Grabiner, is forming a "council of war" to take on BT in the courts. Colt Telecom, Kingston Communications and Thus have all been fingered as telcos ready to take legal action …
Data Networking 26 Sep 2000, 10:29
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HP's going down the cubes
Carly the cubist boxes clever to downsize
In a move straight out of Dilbert, HP is trying to save money by making its staff work in more cramped conditions. A disaffected mole from HP in the US informs us that CEO, president and chairperson Carly Fiorina noticed that, while the average sized cube in the IT industry measures just eight feet by eight feet, workers at the …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 10:58
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Brits lukewarm about Net use
Cold custard more appealing
More than half of British adults has never accessed the Net, according to the latest number crunching from the National Statistics Office. Asked why they had never done so, half said they just weren't interested. A quarter said they didn't have a computer and 15 per cent said they lacked the confidence and didn't have the …
Music and Media 26 Sep 2000, 11:59
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What about drivers for WinME?
What, indeed...
Does your hardware have driver support? Windows Me had a longer run-up period than Win98 SE, so it should have been possible to nail driver issues, but lack of driver support can still be a problem. Upgrading to a new operating system can be exciting up until you try to fire up a graphics-intensive game or begin using your new …
Register Full Coverage 26 Sep 2000, 12:02
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$13M UK venture cash boosts Palmchip
Mega gate SOCs 'R' Us
San Jose-based IP outfit Palmchip has trousered first-round venture funding of $13 million from a syndicate led by Index IT, a division of Beeson Gregory in London specialising in funding emerging semiconductor and IP companies in the UK and US. Palmchip's flagship product is its CoreFrame architecture which allows any piece of …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 13:57
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QNX ships Neutrino real-time OS just in time
Summer 2000 release? By the skin of its teeth...
Real-time OS developer QNX has released version 2.0 of its Neutrino operating system, mere hours after we looked on QNX's Web site and found no sign of it. Well, there's timing for you. Had we checked in a little later, we would have found that the upgraded real-time OS will run in either its own disk partition or straight off …
Software 26 Sep 2000, 14:05
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Web browsers who buy from stores are top spenders
Pure Net shoppers are the tightest
Shoppers that check out a company's Web site spend a third more in stores than those that don't bother with the Internet, according to the National Retail Federation. Almost a third of those surveyed also used the Web to look at or buy something they had seen in a shop. However, those that spend the least are Web-only purists …
Music and Media 26 Sep 2000, 14:06
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Bugs and issues
It's more a case of driver problems than bugs
Recent Problems Several bugs and small little problems with Windows Me have been popping around the Internet lately. I went around and asked a couple of people if they encountered any bugs, but most say that their biggest problem was with their device drivers, I think one can conclude Windows Me is fairly bug-free. But there …
Register Full Coverage 26 Sep 2000, 14:07
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The apps WinME breaks
And what to do about it
Broken applications Windows Me was designed to be more stable and cause fewer crashes than previous versions, including Windows 98 and Windows 98: Second Edition. Although Windows Me is built on the Windows 9x kernel, not all Windows 98 software runs properly on it, particularly antivirus and personal firewall programs. …
Register Full Coverage 26 Sep 2000, 14:07
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Vodafone celebrating portal launch by terminating free alerts?
Vizzavi may charge from 1st January
For the past few months mobile phone giant Vodafone has been running a handy little service in the UK. You can get free Web email via vodafone.net, and the service can link into your mobile phone, so you can get 'you have mail' alerts sent via short message, and you can also get news headlines, lottery numbers, horoscope and so …
Data Networking 26 Sep 2000, 14:20
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Quantum crypto secrets from Japan
Data sent along 200m of optical fibre at 1 kbps
Mitsubishi and Hokkaido University have completed a latest round of experiments in quantum cryptography over optical fibres. The two organisations say that their quantum cryptographic system is a success, and could have important implications for optical fibre networks already in use. The data was sent along 200 meters of …
Data Networking 26 Sep 2000, 14:26
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Incredible shrinking cubicles – the madness continues
HP is not alone
A can of worms appears to be inexorably opening following our story earlier today HP downsizes workspace. Five years ago, Philips Consumer Electronics' engineering staff in Knoxville, Tennessee, used to have palatial cubes measuring about 10 feet by 12 feet. Today they've shrunk to 8 by 10, but will shortly become a cosy 8 by 8 …
Bootnotes 26 Sep 2000, 14:45
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Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson try and set global location standard
Mobile triumvirate get all territorial
The big boy mobile manufacturers Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson have moved to control the issue of location commerce with the creation of a new standard forum. The Location Interoperability Forum (LIF) aims to build a global standard for how to pin-point mobile locations, tapping into the "hot new topic" of "l" (or "p") commerce …
Data Networking 26 Sep 2000, 14:58
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Blind dating on your WAP phone
'Obviously we are aware that the service is open to abuse...'
A Web- and WAP-enabled chat and dating service - an online lonely hearts column in other words - will go live early next year. The site will be called findablinddate.com. Users will be able to input their details from either a numbered inbox or an alias, and their messages will be posted where all other users can find it. SCi …
Music and Media 26 Sep 2000, 15:50
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Curtains finally close on FTC Intel gig
'Ethical and lawful'
The Federal Trade Commission has closed the file on its investigation of Intel's business practices. It has also closed its examination of the anti-competitive implications of the acquisition of Chips &Technology and the equity stake in Real3D held by Intel. These are bookkeeping exercises - The FTC ceased active investigation …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 15:54
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US Govt in double back down
Intel, Spinola innocent
On the very day that the FTC ended its investigation into Intel Story: Curtains finally close on FTC Intel gig, the FBI's file on the notorious Spinola family was also finally closed. The FBI team working on the investigation which began in September 1997 and covered all aspects of Spinola's business announced the decision …
Bootnotes 26 Sep 2000, 16:11
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HWRoundup Overclocking frenzy – some work, some don't
The Asus A7Pro gets drooled over
Overclocking action over at HardOCP today, as the one-gig versions of the Athlon and the PIII get water cooled and investigated more thouroughly that Richard Nixon. Click here to find out why your money is better spent on the slower versions. Not all overclocking attempts end in glory. Some, in fact, end in hideous disaster …
Hardware Roundup 26 Sep 2000, 16:40
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Computer Resale franchise biz ceases trading
Forty outfits paid up to £25,000 each to join
Computer Resale, a franchising company for second-hand PCs, has ceased trading and is expected to call in Chantrey Vellacott as receivers by the end of the week. Many of the creditors are franchisees of Computer Resale, who paid up to £25,000 a year for the right to its name and support. The company was started last year and …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 16:56
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MS Supreme victory leaves company guilty but unchecked
At least a further year of freedom to innovate, says crestfallen DoJ
Microsoft today won - in the words of the Department of Justice - a further year's reprieve from the battery of remedies imposed by Judge Jackson earlier this year. The Supreme Court voted 8-1 in favour of the company's proposed course of action, that its appeal against Jackson's verdict should be dealt with by federal appeals …
Software 26 Sep 2000, 17:12
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Negroponte in Noel Edmonds throwback shock!
Dotcom milks big name connection
Lucky London dotcom Webswappers has netted investment from "leading Internet visionary" Nicholas Negroponte. Negroponte has thrown an undisclosed sum of cash into the site and he's not throwing his money away on an overhyped useless dotcom because "consumer-to-consumer websites currently carry the stigma of online retail, which …
Music and Media 26 Sep 2000, 17:16
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IBM flings more desktops on British public
NetVista with ME OS
IBM has launched yet more additions to its product range - this time it's the turn of Big Blue's shiny desktops. The models are in the NetVista PC range, and include two offerings for consumers - the NetVista A20i and A40i, and two for medium and large businesses - the A20 and A40. The PCs are Internet-ready and designed to be …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 21:37
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Sun debuts UltraSPARC III and embraces copper
Preview SunBlade and SunFire first out of the gate
Contrary to weekend reports, Sun Microsystems will preview one server and one workstation featuring its spanking new UltraSPARC III processors tomorrow. John Shoemaker, executive veep of the system products group at Sun reiterated that UltraSPARC III systems will roll out gradually over the next nine to twelve months. Rivals HP …
Business 26 Sep 2000, 21:37
