28th September 2000 Archive
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Congress has H1-B visa epiphany
Quota increase nearly certain now
Congressional Democrats have found a way to preserve their attenuating social-progressive credentials while at the same time supporting a very popular bill which would raise the quota on H-1B work visas for skilled immigrant labour. The proposed legislation would grant about 200,000 high-tech visas for each of the next three …
Music and Media 28 Sep 2000, 07:35
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Wall Street savages Priceline.com
Earnings disappointment panics investors
Shares of name-your-price Web shopping outfit Priceline slid by a whopping $7.89 to $10.75 for a forty-two per cent loss Wednesday on warnings that its third-quarter revenues look set to fall short of expectations. Disgusted investors dumped shares after learning that the company's Q3 revenues will hit around $340 million, …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 08:16
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Intel's McKinley tapes out, Itanium is Itanic
Itanium, Itanic, Unobtanium design won't clock
Sources close to Intel said that its next generation of IA-64 processor, codenamed McKinley, has already taped out, a term which means that the chip company has advanced its plans for the chip by a clear 12 months. But the source at Hewlett Packard, who declined to be named, also said that meant corporate America, by far the …
Channel 28 Sep 2000, 08:27
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Via, Qualcomm threatened by Intel-TSMC deal
Only real men have fabs, continued
The Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which, as we reported last week, will outstrip every other chip factory in the world next year, is brokering a deal with Intel which threatens the futures of both Via and Qualcomm. TSMC is a foundry firm, with over 300 customers, and one of its senior Chinese executives …
Channel 28 Sep 2000, 08:56
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Carnivore review team rudely unmasked
DoJ censorship backfires
When the US Department of Justice (DoJ) released the winning Carnivore review proposal in Adobe .pdf format, they apparently failed to mask the names and other details of the review team adequately. According to Cryptome, the details can be unmasked by copying and pasting the .pdf text or by using an Adobe plug-in, such as …
Music and Media 28 Sep 2000, 09:05
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PowerPC G4 Plus taped out
Updated Long-awaited chip done and dusted, apparently
Register sources have added their voice to earlier hints that Motorola has completed the PowerPC G4 Plus, a process known in the trade as 'taping out'. Some weeks back, we came across rumours from Motorola that the chip, the successor the desktop-oriented PowerPC 7400 (aka the G4), has finally begun sampling. Now, sources …
Mac Channel 28 Sep 2000, 09:21
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Sun's 600MHz workstations to be available by auction only
eBay nabs exclusive contract
Sun CEO and chairman Scott McNealy has come up with a novel way of flogging his low-end Sun Blade 1000 workstations. Punters will be able to get the 600MHz machines, based on UltraSPARC III technology and launched today, only by bidding on auction Website eBay. And as a gimmick to kick off the offer, McNealy will personally …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 09:31
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Sony slashes US PlayStation 2 allocation to 500k units
We can't make enough of 'em, admits Japanese giant
Sony has confessed it's not going to be able to supply enough PlayStation 2s to meet demand when the console makes its US debut late next month. In fact, it is cutting the number of machines it intends to ship by half. Sony had planned to pump one million units into the US market on launch, but that has now been hacked back to …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 10:01
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Exodus buys Global hosting business
And other CashReg titbits
Exodus is to buy Global Crossing's Web hosting business for $6.5bn in shares, the WSJ Web site reports. Global Crossing will end up with 20 per cent of Exodus, already the world's biggest Web hosting company. In July, an attempt to do the deal fell apart in a disagreement over price. Iomart, the Glasgow broadband provider is …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 10:17
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Corel stems sales shrinkage
Q2 loss narrows too - is the turnaround plan is working?
Corel's troubles appeared to be easing yesterday when the company posted third quarter results which included both a narrowing loss and stabilising sales. The Canadian software company lost $10.7 million - 15 cents a share - during June, July and August, much of it due to one-off charges related to the numerous job cuts the …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 10:28
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Inventory cutbacks torpedo VIA's sales forecasts
Structural blip, not lower demand
VIA Technologies tried its best to keep out of the limelight today as it reduced September revenue forecasts to NT$3 billion. The chipmaker sought to distance itself from Intel, which last week issued a profit warning, citing reduced PC demand in Europe. The September sales shortfall is normal, VIA says. It's nothing to do …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 10:29
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Intel criticised for constructive criticism
Destructive criticism, innit?
A damaging dialogue is the essence of Intel's business methods, according to a number of ex-employees canvassed over the last six months. The technique, in which dialogue takes the form of fists crashing on the table, voices being raised and arguments a sine qua non and even a summum bonum is the quintessence of Intel business …
Bootnotes 28 Sep 2000, 10:33
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New MS revenue categories show what's hot, what's not
Windows sales looking a bit flabby, enterprise services on the climb
Microsoft is taking a one-time charge of $350 million against earnings in its fiscal Q1 in order to comply with new US Financial Accounting Standards Board rules. One of the more interesting side-effects of the move, however, is that the company intends, from the release of its Q1s in 18th October, to provide a more detailed …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 10:34
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AMD bites Intel in Germany
More Intel dominoes tumble
Less than a week after Tiny, one of the UK's biggest OEMs, stopped being 100 per cent Intel (see Tiny goes AMD), Vobis, Germany's leading PC retailer has also adopted AMD processors. The first systems, priced at DM1999 ($899), will ship at the end of this month featuring a 1GHz Athlon processor, Nvidia graphics, SoundBlaster …
Channel 28 Sep 2000, 11:52
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I/O, I/O it's off to work we go
New Intel chipset 'delivers 3X performance'
Intel has a new I/O chipset which the chip Behemoth claims can triple the processing capabilities of Internet storage systems and large-scale databases. The IOP310 chipset comprises the 80200 processor and the 80312 I/O companion chip which coordinates memory and physical I/O connections. The new chipset is the first …
Channel 28 Sep 2000, 12:17
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Freeserve in Xmas FRIACO deal
Deck the hall with boughs of holly, tra-la la-la-la, la-la, la-la
Britain's biggest ISP, Freeserve, reckons it will be offering a FRIACO-based Net access by December. In a statement today, CE John Pluthero, said: "...we are strongly positioned for the introduction of Flat Rate Internet Access Call Origination (FRIACO)." But spokesman Paul Barker told The Reg that the timing depended upon " …
Music and Media 28 Sep 2000, 12:22
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Europe outpaces US in e-banking
Both are bad on service and security
Companies rank security concerns below competitiveness in the race to get businesses online according to research published by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. It also showed the e-banking market in Europe pulling ahead of the US with both markets showing very poor levels of customer service. In 1997 and 1998 the greatest concern in …
Music and Media 28 Sep 2000, 12:59
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Amstrad results find Sugar bittersweet
Do you get the feeling that Amserve has got Alan's attention?
Amstrad has released its year-end results and ole Alan Sugar the indomitable chairman is pleased... to report "excellent progress". Gross profit is £15.4 million - 85 per cent higher than last year. Oh, that's excluding Amserve's £2.3 million loss. And this is the interesting thing about this year's results - an almost …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 13:02
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Modern woman: from Web to bed
Remember men are studs, women are slags
One in ten women who use the Internet end up shagging someone they met on the Web, or so says a survey by newomanonline.co.uk. A quarter of the click-chicks have also used the Net to build a "romantic friendship" - which is probably a euphemism for only sleeping with them on the third date. This is good news for, say, a single …
Music and Media 28 Sep 2000, 13:03
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Elpida Memory expects 0.13 micron samples by Jan 2001
The company formerly known as NEC-Hitachi
Elpida Memory, previously known as NEC-Hitachi Memory, has announced the first silicon for memory products based on the 0.13 micron geometry. The design process began back in April this year and the first samples of the 0.13 -micron 256Mb DRAM are expected in January 2001. Development of other high density SDRAM and DDR SDRAM …
Channel 28 Sep 2000, 13:06
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Colt boots BT and Oftel over LLU
More mindless violence
Colt Telecom has become the latest telco to put on its 18-hole Dr Martens and give BT and Oftel a good kicking over the issue of local loop unbundling. CE, Paul Chisholm, claims Oftel and BT have simply got it wrong. He told the Independent: "The UK process that was set up between BT and Oftel doesn't work. "Are we annoyed …
Data Networking 28 Sep 2000, 13:13
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HWRoundup Asus A7V v Abit KT7 – no holds barred
Plus a deep peek at Voodoo5 drivers
We think that those "Compare and Contrast" essays we all had to write at school have left a behind a compulsion to evaluate in every human being. Witness this phenomenon at Alereon.org. These guys have put together what they call a Goliath vs Goliath battle between the Asus A7V and the Abit KT7. If it is Goliath vs. Goliath, …
Hardware Roundup 28 Sep 2000, 13:34
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Dell hacks server, PC and notebook prices to pieces
Components cheaper
Dell has hacked the price of its servers, PCs and notebooks to pieces, citing cheaper component prices. The Texan vendor cut prices of Dimension desktops by 15 per cent, Inspiron notebooks for small businesses by 12 per cent and PowerEdge servers by up to 47 per cent. Punters can now pick up Dimensions for $599, Inspirons for $ …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 15:00
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California to get tough on cyber-deviants
A lesson in how to drive crime underground
A new bill has been introduced in California that will allow harsher penalties to be handed out to people who intentionally distribute computer viruses or carry out denial of service attacks on commercial Websites. Those convicted under the new bill, signed by Gov. Gray Davis, will face a fine of up to $5,000 for the first …
Music and Media 28 Sep 2000, 15:01
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How to get a shag online
We think we've been missing something here
[A woman's mag did a survey that said one in ten women online have got it on with someone they met on the Net. A quarter of them had had a "romantic relationship" all thanks to Uncle Web. We said we didn't believe it. Then we got emails coming in. By the way, we've changed the names of the emailers because we figured someone …
Letters 28 Sep 2000, 15:05
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Women nab quarter of IT jobs
They'll be wanting the vote next...
Women hold just a quarter of IT jobs and even less top management roles, and it's all men's fault. That's according to research by Mori due out next month. It claims that while women currently fill 24 per cent of jobs in the sector, they only hold 13 per cent of senior management positions. Sixty per cent of the women quizzed …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 15:07
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Sony launches wireless home Net access device
Web pumped throughout your home to Airboard tablet. Cool
Sony has unveiled a product to bring the Net to the Net-less - a home-oriented mobile device that gives users access to the Net without the need for a PC. Based on home wireless networking, Sony's Airboard is an LCD screen tablet and base-station combo. The base-station hooks straight into the Net and beams requested Web pages …
Business 28 Sep 2000, 15:19
