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31st October 2000 Archive

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  • People PC touts free PCs in Europe

    First step, work for a large company

    PeoplePC, the ISP which doles out free branded PCs to customers when they sign up, is coming to Europe. Backed by $50 million from @viso, the Softbank/Vivendi-owned VC business, PeoplePC Europe launched yesterday with offices in London, Munich and Paris. The company has found a way to make free PCs pay, by getting employers to …

    Music and Media 31 Oct 2000, 08:42

  • Broadband for Brits at £9.99 a month

    No, not BT and yes, there are restrictions

    A Luxemburg-owned wireless data company is planning to give BT a run for its money by introducing a broadband service in the UK for £9.99 a month. Tele2 aims to tempt Brits sick of waiting for the telco giant's ADSL service - at around a quarter of BT's price. The company, owned by Millicom International Cellular SA, has a …

    Data Networking 31 Oct 2000, 08:42

  • Post Office takes on e-delivery upstarts

    Postman Pat and his baseball bat

    The Post Office is hoping to cash-in on the e-shopping revolution with an ambitious plan to make deliveries more flexible. A trial scheme encompassing 1000 post offices in Bristol, Bath, Taunton, Torquay and Exeter goes live today and enables consumers to nominate their local Post Office branch as an alternative address for the …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 09:30

  • Kingfisher buys Streets Online

    Now biggest UK e-tailer?

    Kingfisher, the British retail conglomerate, is buying an 85 per cent stake in Streets Online, the e-tailer of records, CDs, games and books for £15.7 million. The group said the acquisition of the £10m t/o Streets Online would complement its MVC chain of 87 entertainment stores. It quotes industry projections that the UK's …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 11:08

  • Athlon beats P4 in urinating contest

    System builder exhibits colourful turn of phrase

    The latest reports from system builders putting together the first Pentium 4 systems look very encouraging - for AMD. A leading European PC maker confided to The Reg yesterday: "If they think this compares to Athlon they are joking. At 1.5GHz the P4 is outperformed by a PIII 933, never mind an Athlon 1GHz which urinates in …

    Channel 31 Oct 2000, 11:10

  • Pump and dumper done over down under

    Wham spam thank you ma'am

    An Australian man has been convicted of artificially inflating the share price of a company in a bid to make a quick buck. George Hourmouzis was sentenced for a two-year stretch - with 21 months suspended - by a Melbourne court after it heard how he dispatched four million unsolicited e-mails in a bid to ramp up the share price …

    Music and Media 31 Oct 2000, 11:12

  • Intel price cuts: final instalment

    The last in our four-part series

    Intel finally confirmed details of its latest round of price cuts yesterday. As we revealed some time ago, the fastest PIII available, the 1GHz, drops by 31 per cent from $669 to $465. Other PIIIs are reduced by a similar percentage, the 933MHz is now $348, the 866 and 850 $241. Slower PIIIs now range from $143 for the 600MHz …

    Channel 31 Oct 2000, 11:55

  • LibertySurf: ‘Kingfisher wants out’

    Talk of the City. Apparently

    Kingfisher, the British retail conglomerate, wants to offload its 35 per cent stake in loss-making LibertySurf, the French ISP modelled on Freeserve, according to "whispers", reported in today's Guardian. So where do these whispers come from? It looks like the City, where Kingfisher chief executive Sir Geoff Mulcahy was doing …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 12:03

  • Mad Cow toys removed from shelves

    Uncontrollable shakes

    Homebase, the Sainsbury-owned DIY chain, has removed "cuddly" mad cow toys from its shelves, following customer complaints. Costing £9.99, the cow moos and shakes uncontrollably when switched on. Apparently, customers thought the toys were 'disrespectful' to human victims of the disease - more than 80 people in Britain have …

    Bootnotes 31 Oct 2000, 12:38

  • Notebooks a go-go

    30m for sale in 2001

    Orders for notebook computers will rise by 50 per cent in 2001, according to leading notebook makers in Taiwan - including Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Arima Computer. More cautious, but also optimistic, Inventec reckons it will ship 1.8 million units in 2001, up from 1.6 million this year. Meanwhile, Twinhead …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 12:40

  • Suspected insider trading at Olivetti

    Legal investigation

    Consob, the Italian stock market regulator, has referred a possible case of insider trading at Olivetti to the legal authorities. This follows its own investigation, prompted by anomalous movements in the share price earlier in the days leading up to February 24 this year, when the company announced plans to convert the stock …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 12:45

  • Trucker goes at it like rabbit

    Intel Golden Bunny Suit snap well worth the wait

    In January we offered Reg readers the chance to win a real-live Intel golden Bunny Suit (as worn by the dancers, not the fab workers) Trucker Doug Thomsen, from America, clinched the prize on the tiebreaker with: "I'm gagging for an Intel Bunny Suit so I can see my neighbors' faces when I'm washing the truck wearing it." He …

    Bootnotes 31 Oct 2000, 12:49

  • Apple creates ‘education czar’

    Former education division veep gets the job

    A chastened Apple is getting tough on poor sales to the education market, getting tough on the causes of poor sales to the education market, with the creation of a new post to oversee its efforts in that arena. Having recently charged former UK general manager Brendan O'Sullivan with the task of building a pan-European sales …

    Mac Channel 31 Oct 2000, 12:50

  • ATI ships latest mobile graphics chip

    M4 a Mobility 128 with AGP 4x

    ATI has released its latest notebook-oriented graphics chip, the Mobility M4, which is reckons is the world's first mobile graphics part to support AGP 4x. And that's pretty much the only advantage it has over its predecessor, the Rage Mobility 128, itself derived from ATI's 128-bit Rage 128 Pro chip. "There really wouldn't be …

    Channel 31 Oct 2000, 13:13

  • Adverts? Never! BBC Online slammed

    Thinking the unthinkable

    Critics have slammed the BBC for even considering the idea of running adverts on its Web site. In an interview published today Greg Dyke, head of the state-owned BBC, told the FT that it was "something we are looking at". A BBC spokesman told The Register that this was merely "a notion - and no more at present - that's being …

    Music and Media 31 Oct 2000, 13:27

  • Codebreaker conundrum confounds crypto-cretins

    Need some help?

    Thank goodness you lot weren't working on the Enigma code at Bletchley Park - otherwise we'd still be trying to bridge the Rhine. Frankly, we are disappointed by the initial response to our codebreaker competition. Entries so far have offered no solution, suggesting furthermore that the whole thing is a load of gibberish. …

    Site News 31 Oct 2000, 13:40

  • MS moves to block court briefs – Caldera skeletons rattle?

    Bristol, Caldera witness savaged in Redmond filing

    Microsoft is attempting to block attempts to file "friends of court" briefs by a collection of known enemies of Microsoft. Somewhat uncharacteristically the company feels that one such brief from either side will be perfectly adequate - but then Microsoft seems to have rather less friends available to fight its corner in the …

    Software 31 Oct 2000, 14:12

  • Rambus to play bit part in Intel's 2001 plans

    Chipzilla roadmap kimono opens a little wider

    Intel looks intent on phasing out Rambus support across the spectrum by the middle of next year, except for the high end workstation segment. Following our story on next year's developments on the Intel front last week, more confidential roadmap details have come to light, this time in Electronic Buyers' News. As we reported, …

    Channel 31 Oct 2000, 15:00

  • Boo.com seeks grisly revenge

    Honestly, you don't want to know

    New look Boo.com was pressing the flesh this morning in a bid to drum up interest in its dotcom fashion house. According to one vulture eyed reader a "small army of young Europeans" was handing out flyers this morning at Tube stations in London. On one particularly non-technical postcard it said: "The revenge of style... Boo. …

    Music and Media 31 Oct 2000, 15:41

  • HWRoundup 1GHz T-bird tangorama

    And some hot air on cool air

    The nutters from down under have returned. Insane Hardware has produced a review of the Thermaltake Super Orb. Designed for a 462-pin Socket A processor, this can shove 42 cubic feet of air around every minute. If you want to know more, you know what to do. So, you've done the research, you've chosen your board and you've …

    Hardware Roundup 31 Oct 2000, 15:52

  • Alliance & Leicester banks on Net for future

    Ditches 1,500 jobs

    Alliance and Leicester is expected to announce plans to quadruple its investment in its online banking services to £60 million. It is also expected to re-brand itself as Alliance, rather than A&L, although since both alliance.com and alliance.co.uk are already registered, it may wish to reconsider. Unless it plans to buy one of …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 15:54

  • US Marshals seize $1m fake Adaptec SCSI cards

    But they're old technology

    US Marshals have kicked some butt and seized 5,000 fake Adaptec SCSI controller cards valued at $1 million. Counterfeit AHA-2940 and AHA-3940 host bus adapters, together with faked software and documentation were grabbed from five California companies and one Colorado-based company. These were GlobalNet Computer Components, …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 15:56

  • Online banking ‘less safe’

    Well if banks don't have safes, where do they stash the cash?

    Consumers are losing confidence in online banking believing them to be "less safe" than conventional banking. The latest quarterly survey from ICM Research claims two thirds (69 per cent) of people think online banking is not as safe as traditional bricks and mortar banking. That's a 22 per cent drop in confidence since the …

    Music and Media 31 Oct 2000, 16:01

  • BT plays blind man cuff

    What is the world coming to?

    BT called in the police to evict a blind man from one of their offices after he went to complain that the telco had installed and charged him for a second phone line without his consent. Derek Hornby, 46, from Lancashire, was lead away by police after refusing to budge. Hornby told the Sunday Times: "I was faced with a …

    Data Networking 31 Oct 2000, 16:32

  • Meet Tempest – it stops people knowing what's on your PC screen

    We know some of you know this already

    After we ran a story about the need for TV licenses in the UK and the policing thereof, we got a fair number of emails from readers asking us whether we knew about Tempest as a possible method of monitoring what people are doing on their PCs. Well, no we didn't and neither did the TV Licensing Agency, but we do now. For the …

    Business 31 Oct 2000, 16:44

  • Intel's Blue men make us blue

    Crapper than the bunnymen

    Andrew pointed out that the latest Intel ads are crap. People seem to agree. New Intel TV ads 'complete crap' And here's a nice little reminder of the bunnymen. I read your article: "New Intel TV ads 'complete crap'" I think you have misunderstood the ad. I went to the Intel site link for the Pentium III provided by The …

    Letters 31 Oct 2000, 16:45

  • Mega Joy gives sub £10 NES ecstasy

    Cheapo retro gaming from cheapo tat shops

    While being dragged round a Poundstretcher style crap emporium in Wolverhampton I spotted a games machine in which the N64 style controller plugged directly into the TV and gave you a top selection of Spectrum games. For under a tenner. These kind of devices seem quite common but no one believes it offered Speccy games. Most …

    Letters 31 Oct 2000, 17:18

  • Crypto challenge melange

    Chancers and cheaters

    The Reg set a crypto challenge and offered to give away 20 copies of Simon Singh's 'The Code Book' as a prize. It looks like we'll end up keeping them. Boffin brainteaser book bonanza. Response was slow so we gave out a clue. Codebreaker conundrum confounds crypto-cretins I've got it... It's a licence code for Win 2001 isn't …

    Letters 31 Oct 2000, 17:47

  • Primedia swallows About.com

    But why did Wall Street get shirty?

    Primedia's buyout announcement of online directory service About.com wiped around a third off its stock price yesterday - but why did Wall Street get shirty? The value of the $690 million stock deal fell to $500 million by the end of the day, thanks to Primedia's share price tumbling to $11.44. The agreement, expected to be …

    Music and Media 31 Oct 2000, 18:07