30th October 2000 Archive

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Redmond strives to cram Great MS Hack back in box

It was possible to hack in and steal source but, er, they didn't...

So did they or didn't they? Through Friday Microsoft spokespeople, spinmeisters and execs seem to have been largely unsuccessful in damping down the fires started by the Wall Street Journal's 'Microsoft hacked' story, but by the end of the day some kind of corporate line seemed to be emerging - they didn't get anything, they …

Software 30 Oct 2000, 05:04
Boo!

Shock as dead dotcom comes back to life

Boo.com is back in business. The failed fashion e-tailer opened its online bootique today after going titsup.com earlier this year having ploughed through £80 million of someone else's money. The European e-tailer is now owned by US-based Fashionmall.com, which bought the outfit for an undisclosed sum. QXL.com goes mainstream …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 10:02
HP broker gets 11 years for illegal server upgrades

Made big money while it lasted

A US computer broker has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding Hewlett-Packard. The broker, Richard Adamson, had been using pirated software to upgrade HP severs and the sell them for higher prices at his Dallas-based firm Hardwarehouse. Reuters reports Adamson was found guilty of eight counts of wire fraud and …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 11:15
UK e-biz minister shamed in report

Definitely a laughing matter

Britain's minister for e-commerce, Patricia Hewitt, needs to revamp her Web site after it was branded "mildly comic" by a parliamentary publication. According to an article in the Parliamentary IT Briefing the minister responsible for leading Britain's e-revolution is really an old-fashioned girl at heart, preferring people …

Music and Media 30 Oct 2000, 11:19
Snook to quit Orange?

Yes he is - Sunday Telegraph. No he isn't - Orange

Orange has denied that chairman Hans Snook will quit the company over France Telecom's decision to float the mobile phone network on the Paris stock exchange. That's what the Sunday Telegraph alleged yesterday. It also noted the Snook is set to become Orange's executive chairman, France Telecom having appointed a chairman of …

Data Networking 30 Oct 2000, 12:07
C&W invests a billion in Japan

Big bucks for big business

Cable & Wireless is to blow $1.4 billion over the next five years to create a new optical fibre network in Japan. The network will connect around 80 cities in all 47 prefectures, and will include 65 Points of Presence (POPs) and 75 Points of Interconnect (POIs). The investment will create one thousand new jobs at Cable & …

Data Networking 30 Oct 2000, 12:14
Carrera assets bought by Digital

It's not total salvation

The seriously troubled PC builder Carrera Technology has had a few of its assets snapped up by Digital Networks. The deal doesn't mark total salvation for the company by any means. According to www.channelnet.co.uk Digital has undertaken to provide warranty and helpline support to Carrera's customers. It also bought the …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 12:15
True luv – Sega 4 Nintendo

Well, the erstwhile enemies are planning a JV at least...

Sega and Nintendo are planning a joint venture, according to Japanese newspaper Asahi. That's all the paper says - it's appended to a report on Sega's financial woes, which we covered last week - and doesn't go into details about what the JV will entail. It's not hard to figure out, however. Sega's chairman, Isao Okawa, first …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 12:35
Linux growth rate slows in Japan

But still being taken up faster than the market as a whole

Linux's explosive growth as a server operating system appears to be slowing, at least in Japan. However, it is still growing faster than the market as a whole. According to IDC Japan's latest stats, for the Japanese server OS arena, Linux will account for 7.8 per cent of the market come the end of 2000. That's due to a 144.4 …

Software 30 Oct 2000, 12:56
Fear drives Net-security spend

Can Europe afford it?

High profile Net-related security breaches - such as Microsoft getting ha-ha-ha-ha-hacked - will help educate people about the problems of online security. Furthermore, ever-increasing media coverage of such events - regardless of how hysterical or headline grabbing - will also help "change the lax attitudes amongst [Net …

Music and Media 30 Oct 2000, 13:04
HWRoundup Athlon 760 DDR danceathon

And not much else

Well, it is DDR-tastic out there today so first off we wnted to bring you a sample of what the reaction has been in Hardwareland. Anand has posted his thoughts on the whole business. He ran a preview about a month ago, so this is a bit more concrete info for those who want to know. Follow this link to read the whole shebang …

Hardware Roundup 30 Oct 2000, 13:07
Tesco to use Linux checkouts for ‘thin store’ system

Covering 20,000 checkout lanes in eight countries

Tesco tills are going Linux, following an agreement with Israel-headquartered retail food industry software specialist Point of Sale Limited. The deal, announced today, will cover up to 20,000 checkouts in eight countries. Tesco is a confirmed NT shop, using Microsoft software for its own internal systems and to run its online …

Software 30 Oct 2000, 14:13
Datrontech sells loss maker ICP

Tough times

Datrontech has sold its loss making Dutch subsidiary ICP to JWP Valk Orthondontie BV for NG1 (£0.26). JWP has taken on £3.2 million of ICP's debt. Datrontech acquired ICP, the Dutch-owned components distributor for £7.9 million in 1997. The deal meant the Basingstoke-based distie gained a logistics and PC assembly facility in …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 14:26
AMD's DDR D-Day

An end to the memory bus bottleneck?

DDR for the Athlon is finally here. AMD has launched its new 760 chipset to a mostly positive response from the hardware hobbyists, and is promoting it as the end to the memory bus bottleneck. As things stand, the CPU clock on a 1.2GHz Athlon is going nine times faster than the memory bus. There has been concern that if this …

Channel 30 Oct 2000, 14:42
Wanted: strategic partner for Letsbuyit.com

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting lean

Letsbuyit.com, the online buying club is seeking a tie-in with a "big retailer or a major mail-order company". In an interview with TheStreet.co.uk, CEO Martin Coles said: "I think going back to the markets today is certainly not top of the list of options for us. A strategic alliance is clearly on our minds." This looks likes …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 14:43
S3, VIA clear final chip business takeover hurdle

Taiwanese gov't terms and conditions met

S3 and VIA have finally completed, signed and mailed off their new takeover application form to the Taiwanese Government. Or, to put it S3's way, the two companies have "have completed the requirements of all government agencies for the previously announced joint venture transaction to proceed". That joint venture is the sale …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 14:55
Register Crucial Memory pricewatch

Updated 30-1-2000 What you should be paying

Thanks to our chums at Crucial Memory, The Register will now carry a regular memory pricewatch aimed at keeping tabs on the kind of money you'll need for the most popular memory configurations. Each week, we'll update the prices on our list of PC100, PC133 and DDR PC1600 SDRAM prices in 64, 128 and 256MB configurations. …

Channel 30 Oct 2000, 15:15
Receivers pore over Callnet accounts

'Possible irregularities'

The receivers of Callnet, the crash-and-burn free ISP, are to investigate the firm's accounts for 'possible irregularities,' today's Evening Standard reports. Administrator Malcolm Cohen of BDO Stoy Hayward said the sale of the ISP (to E-Tel Ventures, a privately-owned firm) had, the paper reports, "freed his team to …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 15:33
AltaVista shames cybersquatter

Forced to hand over 43 domains

A cybersquatter was today ordered to hand over 43 domain names containing variations of the AltaVista name. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ruled the cybersquatter, with bases in both Panama and the Latvian capital Riga, registered URLs that were confusingly similar to the ISP's trademark. Actavista.com, …

Music and Media 30 Oct 2000, 16:04
British business flocks online

Nine out of ten capitalists can't be wrong

Oftel claims 93 per cent of medium businesses and 69 per cent of small businesses in Britain are either hooked up - or are about to be hooked up - to the Net. In its latest batch of research the winged watchdog claims that more than 70 per cent of those connected said they were using the Internet more now than when they were …

Music and Media 30 Oct 2000, 16:11
1500 caught in child porn swoop

Massive legal Italian job

Some 1500 people face child pornography charges after the Italian authorities joined forces with Microsoft to set an online trap to paedophiles. Weekend reports claim Prosecutor Alfredo Ormanni ordered 831 Italians to stand trial for alleged paedophile crimes. He has also asked that 660 foreigners be "tracked down" and brought …

Music and Media 30 Oct 2000, 16:14
Sony behind PlayStation production problems

O.25 to 0.18 micron shift zapped yield of graphics chips

Sony has confessed that it itself is to blame for some of the "industry-wide component shortages" that it has in the claimed to have limited its ability to ship sufficient PlayStation 2 consoles to meet anticipated demand. Some time back, Sony decided to upgrade its Nagasaki chip foundry from 0.25 micron technology to a 0.18 …

Channel 30 Oct 2000, 16:16
MS blocks staff dial-in access after ‘minor’ hack

If you're safe now, why cut off 39,000 employees for the weekend?

According to Microsoft it knew about the hacker's intrusion almost immediately, it tracked the hacker's movements through its network, and it shut down all of the accounts used by the hacker last week. So how come it blocked access to its corporate network for all of its employees, globally, over the weekend? Since Friday the …

Software 30 Oct 2000, 16:27
Reading from Warwick moves to Szechwan

He's from Warwick, he's a crazy guy, and he's joining The Reg

Szechwan Publishing is proud to announce that Kevin Reading, Professor of Cybernetics and Self-Publicity at Warwick University, has joined the Register's elite team of writers as resident futurologist. Prof Reading needs no introduction to those who know him. For the benefit of those who have yet to experience the clarity, …

Bootnotes 30 Oct 2000, 16:30
Intel patents IA-64 instruction set

Expands the legal ways it thwarts cloning

A stack of new patents filed by Intel has provoked speculation that the company is in effect trying to patent the IA-64 instruction set. According to reports, many of these new patents relate to the "very long instruction word" branch of processor architecture, involving prediction, speculation and reformatting data - integral …

Channel 30 Oct 2000, 17:12
Christopher Biggins leads celebrity A-list at HP charity bash

All in a good cause

It is not everyday you see people paying £8,000 for a pen, £46,000 for a two week holiday in Barbados or £15,500 for a day on a 30ft yacht. These are not the most striking bargains ever seen, rather the result of a champagne and testosterone fuelled bidding frenzy at the HP Halloween fundraiser. A more glitzy occasion than we …

Bootnotes 30 Oct 2000, 17:13
Ellison looks back on the horrors of the Sydney/Hobart yacht race

More bad weather on telly tonight

Channel 4 is showing a report tonight of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race which claimed the lives of at least five sailors and caused Oracle boss, Larry Ellison to swear off sailing. The programme, called "To the Ends of the Earth: Hell on High Water" chronicles the 630 nautical mile journey from Sydney Harbour to Hobart's …

Business 30 Oct 2000, 17:32
MS apps for rent at NY EasyEverything cybercafe

All the favourites at $1.50 a pop

Microsoft is to rent software by the hour for the first time via EasyEverything cybercafes. Punters will be able to access Office 2000, Works Suite 2001 and Encarta 2001 for as little as $1.50, with the scheme kicking off at the New York EasyEverything, due to open in Times Square. HP has also put some cash into the venture, …

Music and Media 30 Oct 2000, 17:45