24th November 2000 Archive
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M$ Senator Gorton loses, won't concede till re-count
Please, not again...
Former RealNetworks exec Maria Cantwell (Democrat) with 1,199,260 votes has just edged out Senator from Microsoft Slade Gorton with 1,197,307 for a difference of only 1953 in the Washington State Senate race. Because of the close shave, a machine re-count will be required under state law. Election officials say it will begin …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 01:07
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VNU in porn sack shock
Had to be on of the sales boys, didn't it?
IT publisher/cuckoo VNU has fired one of its sales staff for downloading "loads and loads" of porn on his work computer. The salesman had grown so used to grabbing his saucy snaps that over-familiarity bred incaution. The alarm was sounded when he downloaded some fleshy photos in full view of a female colleague. She made …
Bootnotes 24 Nov 2000, 01:07
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Rivals to peek at BT exchanges
Oftel proposes, supposes erroneously
Oftel today published a series of draft proposals outlining how it intends to settle differences between BT and rival telcos as they jostle for space inside BT's local exchanges. The winged watchdog wants to authorise operators will to commission independent surveys if BT claims there is insufficient space in an exchange. If …
Data Networking 24 Nov 2000, 01:26
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HP sells out of P4 systems
But won't say how many that was
Sounds cool. Hewlett-Packard has sold out of P4 systems within a couple of days of launch. Rather unhelpfully, the Great Satan of Printers, Calculators and Oscilloscopes can't give absolute numbers. So we won't know for a while if there was a genuine mad rush to buy P4 boxes, or if HP only bothered to build a dozen systems on …
Channel 24 Nov 2000, 09:24
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WinME can't handle more than 512 megs of memory
Pointless discoveries R US...
Like world+dog, we were obviously looking for something to beat up on Intel with following the launch of the P4. Unlike most of the planet, we reckoned that an old BIOS shipped with a couple of old mobos wasn't much of a story. We much preferred a glitch we'd discovered a couple of weeks ago that appeared to be a rerun of the …
Software 24 Nov 2000, 09:51
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AMD Dresden ships two million Athlons
Aiming for 30 per cent of market
Today, we take a break from producing the Pentium What4 Times, to recall our other favourite CPU maker: AMD. The company said yesterday that cumulative shipments of Athlon chips made at Fab 30 in Germany have hit the two million mark. In September, AMD had shipped only one million units. The company aims to start operating it 0 …
Channel 24 Nov 2000, 10:04
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Sony pulls Santa-slapping advert
US cable network complains as Father Christmas drugged and tormented
Sony has been forced to drop its latest ad campaign under pressure from a squeamish US cable TV network. The controversial series of commercials, intended to promote SonyStyle.com, Sony's online consumer electronics and entertainment store, depict Father Christmas being chloroformed then bundled into the boot of a car. Poor old …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 10:08
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PR bunny bites back
Dangerous when wet
Every UK PR bunny's favourite read, PR Week, (well, it does have lots of job ads), praises one Lisa Allen for standing up to rude and surly hacks. [Who they? - Ed] Little Lisa was deeply upset by being given the cold shoulder by Daily Mail technology writer Paul Kendall and fired off an email snottogram: "Thank you for taking …
Bootnotes 24 Nov 2000, 10:19
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Sega full-year loss to widen
Dreamcast price cuts nuke profits
Sega today posted a ¥17.98 billion ($163.11 million) loss for the six months to 30 September, in line with the company's expectations. As Sega had warned earlier, its attempt to revive flagging sales of its Dreamcast console by slashing prices and offering cash rebates knocked the company's earnings for six, turning an expected …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 10:33
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Software tycoon ‘flees Tamil Tigers’
So why did he run away to Sri Lanka?
A 28-year-old man has fled the country to escape his creditors after his technology business collapsed around his ears. Joe de Saram started his software company, Rhodium, a year ago with a loan of £2500. The company specialised in banking software and encryption technology. At the height of the technology boom he was worth a …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 10:58
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Hyundai seeks $3bn to split from parent
May change name too
Hyundai Electronics Industries is to raise up to Won 3.5 trillion ($3 billion) to help it separate from its parent company early next year, the Korean Dramurai said yesterday. "We are even considering changing the company name," said Hyundai Electronics Industries' president and CEO, Park Chong-sup. Hyundai's plan is to issue …
Channel 24 Nov 2000, 11:09
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Poptastic Jonathan King charged over child sex offences
PC and videos seized from London home
The millionaire pop mogul Jonathan King - you know, the one with the annoying voice, glasses and T-shirts - has been charged with three sex offences committed nearly 30 years ago. The allegations are thought to concern young men under the age of consent and occurred when King was a high-profile figure in the music and …
Music and Media 24 Nov 2000, 12:14
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PCs R Evil
It's official
Computers are divisive and should be outlawed from homes. That's just one of the conclusions of research conducted by 3Com which found PCs caused problems in the home, leading to arguments and family isolation. The research also found that six out of ten households in Britain have PCs and a quarter of these have more than one …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 12:15
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Mediaplayer 7 security flaw
Get your filters out
A security flaw in Media Player 7 lets unauthorised users run arbitrary code on a victim's PC if the latter is viewing a Web site or accessing an HTML email. The discovery was made by GFI, a developer of email content-checking software. Microsoft has been notified and has issued an advisory which you can view here. The problem …
Software 24 Nov 2000, 12:23
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Tesco is Cock of the e-Walk
Brits flock to ecommerce sites
October was the busiest month on record for people in Britain visiting e-commerce sites, according to the latest research from NetValue. Some eight million people checked out e-commerce sites during the month and more than half went on to make a secure connection, suggesting that people were engaging in some kind of online …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 12:26
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C&W buys another networking reseller
How much? won't say
Cable & Wireless has bought ML Integration, a data networking communications and systems integration company. In personnel terms, the acquisition is C&W's largest to date in the UK. ML Integration has a net asset value of £2.1 million, but C&W won't say how much it paid for the Reading-based company. AIM-listed, Media Square …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 13:45
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When the wind blows, the mobiles will stop
Disrupt your sleep
Children who use mobile phones are at risk of memory loss, sleeping disorders and other health problems. Dr Gerard Hyland of the University of Warwick says that children are particularly vulnerable to low level, non-thermal, radiation because their immune systems are still developing and their skulls are smaller and thinner …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 14:39
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Letsbuyit no longer illegal in Germany?
More it sells, more it loses
Troubled buyers clube Letsbuyit.com has embraced news of the repeal of two strict German laws regarding price discounting. The two laws - the Discount Law and Free Gifts Act, according to Letsbuyit - will be eliminated from the middle of next year to help build the country's e-commerce industry. The laws were created in the …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 14:39
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Web professionals site hacked by cartoon character
Rug Rat makes self-aggrandising association look silly
The British Association of Web Professionals Web site has been hacked by someone calling him or herself Evil Angelica. The site now features the message "British Association of Web professionals? Evil Angelica strikes again!" with an eye-catching image of the Angelica Rug Rat cartoon character. The site is still down as of 2pm …
Music and Media 24 Nov 2000, 14:41
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We are slaves to technology – official
More speed, less haste
New technology and sexy gadgets are making us less productive, more stressed and removing what little life we have left. Or so says a new survey by Priority Management. The arrival of new bits of kit have caused us to throw time and work management skills out the window, found the company - which specialises in providing time …
Music and Media 24 Nov 2000, 15:08
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Germans hit HP with anti-piracy fine
It's official - your PC is a hi-fi...
Hewlett-Packard has been fined by the German courts for shipping hardware capable of creating pirate music CDs. The company will have to cough up DM3.60 ($1.60) for each computer it has sold since February 1998. HP won't say how many machines that is, but it could easily run into the hundreds of thousands. The case comes just …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 15:25
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Desperate Brits bid online for PlayStation 2s
But aren't willing to pay much for it...
British PlayStation 2 consoles have followed their US cousins into the e-auction rooms as desperate gamers try to get their mitts on Sony's next-generation games machine. However, few are willing to spend as much money as their transatlantic counterparts were ready to offer. With the US launch allocation of PlayStation 2s cut …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 15:45
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Euro PC sales – Gartner cheers up
Replacement cycle
The European PC market will pick up next year, as people start to replace older machines bought in 1998 and 1999, both years which saw strong sales. Encouraging signs, too, in the server market, where after two consecutive quarters of declining sales, the third quarter saw a four per cent growth. Shipments to corporates rose …
Business 24 Nov 2000, 15:57
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BBC's got bigbollocks.com
Auntie Beeb never fails to shock
It must be every dotcom's worst nightmare - you've got a cracking domain but nothing to stick on it. No matter. Take a leaf out of bigbollocks.com's book of e-nterprise. Instead of creating anything for itself, it's just linked directly to all that luvverly content churned out by the BBC. Is it me, or is there's something …
Bootnotes 24 Nov 2000, 15:58
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P4: total dog or really cooking?
Reg reader puts Willamette on trial
Is Pentium 4 any good? Some say no because its FPU doesn't have enough grunt. Others say yes because that FPU is optimised for 144 new SSE2 instructions and performs extremely well - when code has been optimised to use them. What's been missing up to now has been a before and after example of a real world application showing …
Channel 24 Nov 2000, 16:29
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HWRoundup Turkeys galore
And that's just the reviewers
After the complete explosion of P4 coverage, we thought a round up of things non-Pentium related was in order. So we have a couple of guides, and a few silly bits and bobs. Post-post turkey relaxation. Just what the doctor ordered. First up, we've got a couple from Anand. He's posted his weekly video card price guide which, yes …
Hardware Roundup 24 Nov 2000, 16:51
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Best of the Rest: barbie porn, whistleblowing and drunk journalists
Another week in the frankly mental world of IT
Mobile phones are penis extensions Just read your letters page about men and their mobile phones. Thought my sad little story might amuse you. I've just dumped my boyfriend over his mobile phone. Not 'cos he spent all day on it, not 'cos he called other women on it. No, it's because he wanted me to call him. Hourly. Not that …
Letters 24 Nov 2000, 17:44
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More of that Bush/Gore nonsense
Can you believe it's still not sorted?
Flame of the Week: You can take your politics and shove it up your.. That Bush/Gore total fiasco cock-up saga in full Just to counterbalance the flames, thanks for covering the US Election. Who gets in will make a big difference to IT - Bush is in an ongoing onanism with Microsoft, will slash spending to Internet too and other …
Letters 24 Nov 2000, 17:46
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The dark world of directory enquiries
Hello what power-abusing monopoly would you like?
Oftel mulls BT '192' monopoly I think you might find that the 118XX idea is a European directive, since the same thing was introduced here in Ireland a few months back. We didn't go for the option where xx is 01, 02, etc. and currently have: 11811: Eircom 11844: Eircell 11850: Conduit And an Esat one, the number for which I …
Letters 24 Nov 2000, 17:48
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The Friday gag
An old, irregular feature
A kid gets a job in a small department store. On his first day, the manager shows the kid round, and explains that the company policy was to sell a product, with a product. The kid looked confused, so the manager said he would show him what he meant. Now, it just so happened that a customer approached the manager and asked if …
Letters 24 Nov 2000, 17:51
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Flame of the Week The site's going down the toilet
And it's all Thomas C. Greene's fault
[This week it's a long, seemingly well-thought-out letter, but a flame none the less, and ole Thom Greene is the target - for a second week running (he secretly loves it though). It may not be as entertaining as those flames from the less eloquent, more concise flamers we usually feature, but hey, there's a big trailer trash …
Flame of the Week 24 Nov 2000, 17:51
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Readers' Letters Everyone's got a bloody opinion
Politics, phone calls, customer service, and a joke
[Well, we're nearly into December and Christmas is hanging over us. It's getting colder, darker and less hospitable. Which is precisely why you need The Register's Readers' Letters. We'll make you laugh, cry, shout, rant - but it's all good heat production and you won't have to turn that radiator up. That's why pensioners who …
Letters 24 Nov 2000, 17:52
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Oftel hurries FRIACO timetable
BT ain't chuffed
Oftel today published its draft determination on unmetered Net access in Britain drawing a frosty response from BT. According to one report, a BT spokesman said the publication of the proposals was "premature", a response which only serves to reinforce the view that BT is happier dragging its heels rather than best serving the …
Music and Media 24 Nov 2000, 17:54
