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9th November 2000 Archive

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  • Capitol Hill re-shuffle promises entertainment

    Get ready for 'Senator Cheney'

    In this most bizarre presidential election one thing is certain: when a race is as close as this, neither candidate can claim an overwhelming mandate, and as a result Capitol Hill can become a bigger player in Washington politics than the White House. Regardless of which candidate ultimately wins the presidency, he is going to …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 01:18

  • George Dubya will lose if he wins

    Updated Buchanan spoiling things now....

    Democratic Party candidate Al Gore could very well make history with a rare aberration, winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote, an absurdity which has occurred only three times in US history. If that should happen, Bush's win by the Electoral College, marginally against the will of the people, will hobble him …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 01:24

  • Sony on the scrounge for silicon chips

    Spare the price of a wee DRAM, guv?

    Sony executives are rifling through the rubbish bins of chip factories in a desperate bid to score sufficient parts to keep PlayStation 2s dribbling out of the company's factories. Well, yes, we exaggerate, but Sony is in talks with Taiwanese companies to get them to up production of key PlayStation 2 parts semiconductor parts …

    Channel 9 Nov 2000, 10:52

  • BT's profits plummet

    Update Holds car boot sale to raise extra cash

    BT's plans to sell off part of the family silver in a bid to reduce its debt burden and turn around the ailing giant does not appear to have found favour with the market. By mid-afternoon, BT's shares were down 50p (6.35 per cent) to 738p, having started the day at 784p. Furthermore, some press reports have talked of a crisis …

    Data Networking 9 Nov 2000, 11:05

  • ViA (no relation) to use Crusoe in next gen wrist watch PC

    US Army cops to get FUDded by benchmarks...

    Today's news in the Transmeta sign-up/cancellation stakes is that ViA (no relation to the Taiwanese chip company) will be using Crusoe in its next generation of wearable computers. ViA is already involved in a DARPA-funded wearable computer project, and apparently the US Army Military Police has been testing its devices. The …

    Channel 9 Nov 2000, 11:07

  • Pro-Web filter politician changes track after his site is blocked

    US Republican congressional candidate censored

    A US Republican congressional candidate became the victim of his own campaigning after Web filters blocked traffic to his site. Jeffery Pollock, a conservative Christian who waged an unsuccessful campaign for the Third Congressional District seat in Oregon, had been a staunch supporter of filters. A statement on his site …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 11:08

  • Gateway adds two notebooks to Solo range

    Thinner and cheaper models

    Gateway has added two models to its Solo range of notebooks. The Solo 3350 is blue metallic in colour, weighs 1.63kg and is 25mm thick. Aimed at punters who want a notebook with desktop functions, it is based on a Pentium III 600MHz, has a 6GB hard drive - upgradeable to 12GB - 64MB RAM, 12.1in display and costs £1599 (exc. VAT …

    Business 9 Nov 2000, 11:10

  • Taiwan DRAM gang ditches Rambus

    Three vendors team up to announce and end to RDRAM production

    A trio of Taiwanese memory manufacturers have dumped Rambus production, Taiwan newspaper the Commercial Times has reported. Winbond Electronics, Promos Technologies and Powerchip Semiconductor all cited their doubts over the future of the Direct DRAM market as the main motivation for their decision to end production. Winbond …

    Channel 9 Nov 2000, 11:15

  • Patent granted for PC eyestrain glasses

    We can see clearly now the strain has gone...

    A US patent has been granted to Eyecity for glasses designed to reduce eyestrain from staring at a computer screen all day long. The American Optometric Association (AOA) estimates that 60 million people are affected by computer eyestrain, or Computer Vision Syndrome, which causes eyestrain, blurred vision, headaches and dry …

    Business 9 Nov 2000, 12:09

  • Data density duel at dawn

    Samsung, Tosh and IBM fight it out

    There is a pitched battle underway to be the company with the highest areal recording density in the industry. Competing claims are coming in faster than the rivers in the UK are bursting their banks. Samsung says it has just finished testing technology that is capable of recording 60Gb of data per square inch. This, it says, …

    Business 9 Nov 2000, 12:44

  • Virgin wants its free computers back

    Have angry customers launched a DoS attack?

    The entertainment arm of Virgin in the US is insisting over 10,000 customers return computer equipment given to them free because its partner in the venture, Internet Appliance Network, "is no longer continuing in the business of delivering Internet appliances and services direct to consumers". Those involved were informed by …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 12:48

  • Lastminute shares drop below £1 for first time

    Now worth less than 25 per cent of float price

    Lastminute.com shares dropped below £1 for the first time yesterday. They are now worth less than a quarter of the £3.80 float price. The company has no immediate worries - it still has £90 million in cash which is expected to see it through to profitability. But backers might be concerned - the business has a monthly cash burn …

    Business 9 Nov 2000, 12:53

  • Hacker research team disputes ‘hack SDMI’ results

    Not going quietly back into box

    The SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) group has announced, despite earlier claims to the contrary, that practically all of the 447 entries to the 'Hack SDMI' challenge bounced off. This would mean all in the garden was lovely, if it weren't for the pesky Princeton University researchers led by Edward Felten, who stoutly …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 13:31

  • MS hacker gets in touch with The Reg

    But Dimitri's not giving too much away though

    The hacker that worked his way into Microsoft's servers through a known security hole has contacted The Reg to refute a claim we made yesterday that he was lying about hacking into M$' servers for a second time. We were skeptical about Dimitri's claim that he had re-entered the servers through the same route five days after his …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 13:31

  • MS asked to disclose political contributions

    And not use child labour or union-bust in China

    Microsoft will face its first two shareholder resolutions ever at its annual meeting later today. One calls for greater disclosure of the company's political contributions, while the other calls for Microsoft to behave in accordance with the China Labor and Human Rights Principles. Microsoft is opposing both, so they won't go …

    Software 9 Nov 2000, 14:07

  • Hitachi gets flash with 128MB memory card

    Can store two hours of video

    Hitachi has announced a 128MB flash memory card, based on new chip stacking technologies, that can store about two hours of video, enough space for at least some of the Hollywood recent blockbusters, although Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is a wee bit too long still. The seven-pin MultiMediaCard is 32x24x1.4mm and is similar to, but …

    Business 9 Nov 2000, 16:07

  • Viking DDR SDRAM engineering samples ship

    Choice of 128MB or 256MB

    Engineering samples of Viking Components' 184-pin unbuffered DDR SDRAM modules are now shipping. The modules, which support the AMD-760 chipset, are available in either 128MB or 256MB. For those who do not read the hardware site, or the Roundup, DDR stands for Double Data Rate. The idea is that it sends and receives data on …

    Channel 9 Nov 2000, 16:28

  • Pfizer loses wood

    Judge strips lead from pencil

    Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been deprived of its European patent for the active ingredient of Viagra. The stiff and potentially disasterous judgement rules that the company's 1993 patent is invalid since other companies had previously pointed to the use of sildenafil citrate as a treatment for the droops. The loss could be …

    Bootnotes 9 Nov 2000, 16:29

  • Fraud at the polls!

    Register votes itself into top spot in Web poll

    We always knew we were tops and now an independent Web poll has proved it. Overclocked PC's poll here of top techie sites clearly shows The Reg scoring a massive 25 per cent of all votes cast. That's only because we voted for ourselves four times, but, hey, Dubya would have been proud of us... Don't forget to vote! ®

    Bootnotes 9 Nov 2000, 16:30

  • Japanese buy PCs like they're hot cakes

    Sales up 28 per cent

    Japan saw a solid 28 per cent rise in PC sales from April to September, pushing domestic PC shipments to record levels. More than 5.6 million units were shipped during the period, buoyed by both consumer and business markets. Retail sales were particularly strong - with first time Japanese PC buyers flocking to get online at …

    Business 9 Nov 2000, 16:59

  • The Easy way to beat the URL bully

    Peasants revolt against cheeky budget company

    Cybersquatting, real or otherwise, has entered a new era where so-called offenders have started huddling together to collectively beat off predatory big companies. You can't blame them either considering the way WIPO has decided to resolve domain name challenges. Interestingly, the company we are referring to has already lost …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 17:04

  • BT's strategic announcements

    That restructure in full

    A new holding company BT is going to create a new holding company, which will be "lean, focused and light touch". The company will seek approval for it at the company's AGM in July 2001. Sir Peter Bonfield reckons the look and feel of the company will be very different in a year or two. A new network company BT plans to …

    Data Networking 9 Nov 2000, 17:05

  • Gateway to unveil Linux-based AOL box Friday

    Net appliance to support HomePNA home networking system

    Gateway will take the wraps off its Transmeta-based, AOL-oriented Net appliance tomorrow, company sources have claimed. The announcement will follow today's alliance between Gateway and chip-maker Broadcom, which will see the duo co-develop systems capable of pumping streamed digital audio and video content to a variety of …

    Business 9 Nov 2000, 17:14

  • HWRoundup Mega long named mobo in testing shocker

    Plus cooling and case cranking

    The Super Orb. We don't know whether it can leap over buildings in a single bound or anything like that but it'll cool stuff down for you a treat. Click here to get the rest of the story from Hexus. Tweaktown has taken a good look at the MSI 649D Pro AR Dual FC-PGA motherboard. [Who thinks up these names?], VIA's first SMP …

    Hardware Roundup 9 Nov 2000, 17:17

  • Siemens calls on new family of IP telephony products

    You take the Hi Path and I'll, er, call my friend while still surfing the Net. Yowza

    Siemens has unveiled seven IP-based comms products for the UK market. Siemens' unique selling point, we were told, was that it can run old-skool kit and the new IP kit simultaneously on the same network. The new products are: The HiPath 5500 server The HiPath RG 2500 gateway The optiPoint 100 Advance telephone The …

    Data Networking 9 Nov 2000, 17:37

  • Gore wins!

    Well, in Website performance, at least

    George W. Bush's Website took a hammering along with a heap of newswires as presidential election fever gripped surfers on Tuesday night. His campaign site took an average of 17.45 seconds to load between 9pm and 11.30pm as the Republican States started to stack up. Most of the time (90 per cent) George Dubya's corner of …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 17:42

  • World Internet Forum cancelled

    Update Damn, we were going to go

    The World Internet Forum - an inaugural event bringing senior politicians and business leaders together from around the world to explore how the Net can be used to improve life for all of us - has been cancelled due lack of interest. A statement issued last night from the event's organisers read: " It is with regret that the …

    Media 9 Nov 2000, 17:44