27th October 2000 Archive

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• MS hacked! Russian mafia swipes WinME source?

  Could have been quietly downloading and recoding for three months...

  Hackers may have made off with the source code for Whistler, Microsoft Office and - for all we know - Bob.NET. A major breach of the company's networks reported in today's Wall Street Journal (nice shooting, Ted) seems to have effectively compromised the integrity of a whole range of Microsoft products, including Windows Me, the …

  Software 27 Oct 2000, 08:04

• Ingram exults over results

  And other channel flannel

  Ingram Micro saw Q3 earnings jump 146 per cent on revenues up 13 per cent, on the same period last year. Not bad at all for an industry where you have to run very fast to stand still. Ingram, the world's biggest distie, produced net income of $38.9 million, against $15.8 million, for Q3, 1999. The company also pushed up margins …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 08:35

• What is this thing called ASP?

  IT director = IT ignoramus

  Get this: almost 40 per cent of European IT Directors/Managers don't know what 'ASP' means (and no, we're not talking Active Server Page). Let's rephrase this - they haven't even heard of the term.. Perhaps we can help here: ASP or Application Service Provider is an old-fashioned bureau service/leasing concept, wrapped up in …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 08:35

• Sending out an SMS just got a lot quicker

  Maths whizz-kid designs predictive text-entry system

  Letterwise is a predictive text-entry solution that its developer, Eatoni Erogonomics, claims will overcome the 'bottleneck' to SMS messaging by reducing the number of key taps needed to enter text on a numeric keypad. The software is not dictionary based, rather it is founded in the patterns of language. It uses statistical …

  Software 27 Oct 2000, 09:28

• Psion falls 25 per cent on profit warning

  Hit by component costs, comms business restructure

  Psion isn't going to make as much money this year as it thought, the company admitted today - and it's all the fault of the euro. Psion's full-year results will end up a long way off from where analysts expected, the company warned. It primarily blames the decline in the value of the euro, which has knocked four per cent off …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 09:37

• Boxman founder slams IBM for collapse

  SAP fingered, too

  The founder of Boxman has openly criticised IBM and its e-business technology claiming it made the music e-tailer go titsup.com. Bill Odqvist - who left the company December 1999 - wants to buy back some parts of the business and resurrect Boxman. He'll be putting his case to shareholders and creditors at a meeting on Monday. …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 09:39

• MS ‘hacked’ by – 'illuminati terrorists,' this time

  Just the Internic entry - Steve Jobs in the frame, we reckon...

  Insult to injury in Microsoft's hour of trial(s). While hackers of the possibly sinister, secretive variety been busily downloading company source code, somebody's been taking liberties with microsoft.com in Internic entries. And considering what they said about Microsoft, and what has been said about Apple in a possibly …

  Software 27 Oct 2000, 10:01

• S3 revenues grow 100 per cent

  Losses grew even faster, though...

  One-time 3D graphics company S3 saw its Q3 revenue double year-on-year, though its losses ballooned over the same timeframe. For the three months to 30 September, S3's third quarter of fiscal 2000, the company saw revenues reach $140 million, almost twice the $70.5 million Q3 1999, driven by sales of its Rio MP3 player. Clearly …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 10:05

• Intel boss delivers speech

  Be still my beating heart

  Intel CEO Craig Barrett delivered stock speech number three* in Seoul yesterday as he assured a spellbound audience that Korea's Internet economy should be worth $35 billion by 2004. Barrett went on to claim that he expects Chipzilla's Q4 revenue to be up eight per cent, compared with four per cent growth in the previous …

  Channel 27 Oct 2000, 10:24

• PlayStation 2 auctions net sellers 4900% profits

  Updated Bidding reaches $15 grand - now this is getting silly, folks

  Sony's PlayStation 2 went on sale in the US yesterday, and while demand is high and supply low, canny consumers are cashing in on the world's desire for the new console. Early purchasers - or possibly folks who are awaiting their console in the mail - have already begun selling them on, auctioning the next-generation …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 10:27

• Yankees butt of tasteless hack

  Sore arse, sore loser

  While fans of the Yankees celebrated their team's victory in the World Series last night, despondent Met fans were getting their own back. Dutch news site nu.nl reports that the Yankees site has been hacked. Instead of site devoted screaming about victory over the Mets, the vandalised site says simply: "yankees suck!!!" Oh, …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 10:35

• Hitachi has a 73.9GB hard drive

  The 'mine's bigger than yours' game continues

  Another step has been taken in the race to have the biggest/fastest/etc machine as Hitachi announces a one-inch high hard drive with a capacity of 73.9GB. This is twice as large as the next capacity down the list at the same size, so no doubt Hitachi is feeling very pleased. It will also use 27 per cent less power than a 1.6in …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 10:48

• Sega to turn ¥1.5bn profit to ¥22.1bn loss

  Fiscal year won't be a good one after all

  The day after its main rival's biggest product roll-out, a sorry Sega conceded today that 2000 will go down in its books as its fourth loss-making year in succession. The company had previously said it will finally get back into the black this year. Dreamcast maker Sega said it will lose ¥22.1 billion ($204.2 million) for the …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 10:57

• Faster Athlons launch Monday

  DDR support will boost performance

  Chimpzilla will be spilling the beans on its latest weapons in the battle against you-know-who on Monday at a lavish bash at the Paris Ritz. Plans for moving to DDR memory and details on upcoming SMP Athlons will be announced in what cynics might describe as a spoiling tactic coming just a month before Intel debuts the Pentium 4 …

  Channel 27 Oct 2000, 11:05

• PlayStation 2 games make top ten…

  ...before console ships

  PlayStation 2 software took 11 per cent of the US retail games market last week, before the next-generation console had even gone on sale, such is the consumer interest in Sony's new toy. That statistic comes from market researcher PC Data, which also noted the two PlayStation 2 titles, American football game Madden NFL 2001 …

  Software 27 Oct 2000, 11:12

• DRAM spot price falls through floor

  But is anyone selling?

  Spot prices of the benchmark 64Mb DRAM fell through the floor today, hitting a record low in Asia, of $4 per PC100-flavoured chip, the Korea Herald reports. This is getting perilously close to break-even territory, and if prices don't rise soon, Korean DRAM makers will consider cutting back on production, in order to shore up …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 11:23

• Chips are champ for Tosh

  Responsible for 68 per cent of profit

  Brisk chip business helped Toshiba report a net profit of 53.9 billion yen ($497 million) for the six months to 30 September. The company made a loss of 48.5 billion ($447 million) for the same period a year earlier. Chip business, at 72 billion yen, accounted for 68 per cent of Toshiba's overall operating profit for the half …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 11:43

• Olympic ‘cybersquatters’ for the high jump

  750 writs sent out this week - is that a record?

  Lawyers acting on behalf of the Olympic movement will today complete issuing some 750 "cybersquatters" with writs demanding they hand over their domains or face the threat of legal action. In July, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the US Olympic Committee, and the organisers of the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002 …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 11:58

• Petopia turns into Pet Cemetary

  dotcom dogfood

  Petopia, the American e-tailer, has sacked 120 people - 60 per cent of the workforce. The company says it will continue to seek more funding - but as online pet product stores are a particularly overcrowded sector, both in the US and in Europe, it doesn't look like too long before Petopia get served up for dotcom dogfood. It' …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 12:58

• Email: in defence of the delete key

  Use in law unethical, judge argues

  James Rosenbaum, a district judge in Minnesota, has sparked a debate about the legal status of email with an essay called In Defence of the Delete Key. He argues that it is unethical to take words never intended for publication and to use them in evidence against their author - likening this to punishing people for thinking …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 13:07

• Irish banks suffer dotcom flatulence

  Now the bubble economy is passing wind, all that's left is a nasty smell

  The dotcom blues have hit Allied Irish Banks'plans to establish a stand-alone online presence. After nine months of planning, the bank decided to pull the plug, saying it is disillusioned with the whole idea. It says that disappointing performances from e-banks, such as Cahoot, show that customers don't want online banking to be …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 13:08

• Sony iMac-style PDA mystery solved

  Reg readers track down the answer

  Register readers have rushed to solve the mystery of the origin of the iMac-style Sony Clié PDA that appeared on a Japanese Web site earlier this week. The site published a series of pictures of a Clié with a rather natty translucent shell, rather different from the solid blue and silver tones of the official Vaio-styled …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 13:52

• Apache wins Big Brother award

  Joins Doubleclick on privacy abusers' roll-call

  The Apache Consortium, producers of the world's most popular Internet server software, sucks when it comes to privacy. So much so that it won a Big Brother award for it's "irresponsible default settings". Yes folks, its Big Brother Awards time again. The brainchild of Privacy International,a London-based human organisation …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 13:56

• Europe to investigate legality of RIP

  British Govt's anti-free speech chickens coming home to roost

  Britain's big brother email snooping law - RIP - could be in breach of European privacy legislation. The legality of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act is currently being investigated by the European Commission on four separate counts, according to information released today. It could even be in breach of the …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 14:22

• Building immunity to online fraud

  Electronic white blood cells are the solution

  A boffin at Kings College London, has come up with a way to tackle online fraud, based on the immune system's response to attack by disease. According to the New Scientist, Richard Overill is working on a system that will be able to tell the difference between a genuine transaction and a fraudulent one in the same way that our …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 14:25

• My IntelliMouse has gone insane

  and the dangers of monotony

  The Microsoft IntelliMouse is an optical mouse, designed to work on all surfaces and to get rid of the irritating problems of gunk on the mouse wheel and so on. All surfaces, that is, except monotonous ones. For example, don't try to use it on a glass-topped table. The poor little mouse gets all confused, as the esteemed Reg …

  Bootnotes 27 Oct 2000, 15:18

• Human chip implants not going skin deep

  Body tracking processors launch on Monday

  Applied Digital Solutions, the US outfit behind a chip which can be stuck inside a human body, will unveil its device in the Big Apple next week. The Digital Angel demonstration will show "the first-ever working prototype that combines bio-sensors and Web-enabled wireless telecommunications linked to Global Positioning System ( …

  Channel 27 Oct 2000, 17:14

• Cyberwar in the Middle East

  Palestinian, Israeli sites under attack

  A number of government and news Web sites on both sides of the unfortunate conflict between Israel and Palestine are under attack according to local wire reports, and we've confirmed that several of Israel's government sites, including the Knesset, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the President's office, the Union of Local …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 19:17

• Dopey surgeon loses $200k on dud deal – sues E-Trade, and wins

  Stupid greedy people need looking after

  A stock speculator who blew $200,000 on a foolish dotcom buy has successfully sued online broker E-Trade. Jay Kiessling was awarded $203,333.15 after a panel of the National Association of Securities Dealers decided E-Trade processed the buy order without caring about the risks for its customer, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. …

  Media 27 Oct 2000, 20:24

• Dell launches super-powerful Inspiron notebook

  Promises to 'outperform many desktop systems'

  Dell has launched a super-powered Inspiron notebook, a machine it reckons surpasses many desktops. The Inspiron 8000 is aimed at gamers or multimedia consumers, and is its first notebook to sport both DVD and CD-RW drives installed at the same time. Prices start at $1,899 for a model based on a 600MHz chip Intel Celeron chip, …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 20:25

• How do you make a Compaq notebook go 'woof'?

  Use a Sony battery pack

  Compaq is to recall around 55,000 battery packs which are a fire risk. The recall and replacement programme affects batteries made by Sony inside Compaq's Armada E500 and V300 machines. They can short-circuit, making them overheat, smoke and possibly catch fire, the Houston PC maker said today. The faulty batteries were …

  Business 27 Oct 2000, 20:27

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