29th November 2000 Archive
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With friends like these… MS amici file their briefs
MS on Trial Denouncing... George III?
Microsoft has few firm friends, and the Amici Microsoftae who form a rather small pro-Microsoft faction have either a financial relationship with Microsoft or some rather offbeat ideological kink that compels them to side with Microsoft. This strange conglomeration is the source of the 'friends of court' briefs filed this week …
Software 29 Nov 2000, 05:33
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IBM exec accused of insider trading
Caught on tape
An IBM exec was today accused of insider trading after his broker allegedly taped him bragging about his exploits. Stephen Cowley, 37 years old and a VP of IBM's software arm, is accused of making $127,000 illegally from the deal. The Securities and Exchange Commission is not happy, claiming in a civil complaint that Cowley, …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 07:47
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Mr wembleystadium .net loses domain case
WIPO unconvinced
A Brit forced to give up www.wemblystadium.net today argued he was entitled to the domain as it was his nickname. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was having none of it, and ordered Bob Thomson to hand the domain over to the owners of the London sports stadium. "Because of my seven-foot-tall height, and …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 07:48
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Where have all the Web sites gone?
Botched upgrade at Freedom To Surf
A botched upgrade by ISP Freedom To Surf (f2s) is to blame for deletion of all the Web sites on one server. The sites of those unfortunate enough to use the f2s's server 26 were offline for 48 hours before they were informed that an Apache upgrade had resulted in the loss of their data. No back-ups were kept by the ISP and …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 07:51
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600 jobs go at BT call centre
Festive cheer
BT is to close a telemarketing call centre in Bristol with the loss of 600 hundred jobs. A spokesman for the telco maintained BT not be making any redundancies itself. Instead, he said all the job losses would be limited to agency staff employed in temporary contract positions by employment agencies, Kelly and Pertemps. Around …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 07:53
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1.7GHz Athlon – too hot to trot?
One step beyond?
AMD was quietly confident earlier today in London when the company confirmed its plans for a 1.7GHz Athlon sometime in the second half of 2001. The new part will still be built using the current 180nm process as the first 0.13 micron samples from AMD's Dresden fab won't come on stream until late in the year for production in …
Channel 29 Nov 2000, 07:57
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CyberPatrol censor-ware gives up credit details
Another fine mess
Web filtering and spyware outfit SurfControl has hit a PR snag since it bought the CyberPatrol child-salvation censorware from toy maker Mattel this Summer, following a recent BugTraq submission detailing laughable credit card protections for its customers. The problem occurs when a customer attempts to register the product. " …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 09:07
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China jumps on human organ craze
Sidney, pass me the kidney
China has cottoned on to the craze of selling human organs on the Net, with one man prepared to sell everything - as long as the price is right. The donor in question was a prisoner - a condemned one at that - so he probably thought "what the heck... if I'm gonna go, I may as well make some cash out of it". However, according …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 09:55
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PocketPC takes marketshare from Palm
Mainly in the corporate world
Microsoft's PocketPC platform is catching up with Palm - at least in the corporate arena - according to market research company IDC. PocketPC's marketshare has grown from ten per cent in April - when it was simply Windows CE - to 18 per cent. Of course, that still leaves Palm with 74 per cent of the market, but IDC's statistic …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 10:37
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Amazon hit by analyst fears
Is the glass half-empty or half-full?
A senior analyst at Banc of America Securities has questioned the current valuation of Amazon.com in light of his prediction that the etailer's growth rate would slow during next year. Bloomberg quotes Tom Courtney's report which said: "We find it increasingly difficult to justify the company's valuation in light of its profit …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 11:02
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HP racks up 9000 L-Class
Dimpled chads found in pricing schemata
Hewlett-Packard has updated its mid-range L-Class 9000 servers, the first revamp since the range was launched 14 months ago. These rack-mounts take up where Wintel boxes leave off, with starting prices around $15k-20k, and they've been as important to HP - accounting for as much as a fifth of its revenue growth - as they have …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 11:05
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Think tank rolls over e-biz standards
But where's Sun?
Does the world need another e-biz consortium? Circling their wagons this time are IBM, HP, Microsoft and Intel, CA and SAP, and a clutch of backoffice partners, under the name of the Business Internet Consortium. Only this time the catch is that it's not a standards body at all. It's a "think tank" (their words) for coming up …
Software 29 Nov 2000, 11:10
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Xbox to tempt parents with online banking option
M$ porting Money over
Microsoft's Xbox software development team is apparently fiddling around with a version of Microsoft Money for the machine that started out as a games console but is increasingly mutating into a home PC. If Microsoft does indeed have a broader view of Xbox than simply a state-of-the-art, then a Money port shouldn't surprise …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 11:25
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Just when you though BOFH has disappeared…
Episode 39 Try this simple test
BOFH 2000: Episode 40 It's been a while and rumours are that you're losing your edge! Do you still know what a full set of service manuals is, and how hard to hit a user with them when they're annoying you? This simple test may help you get your edge back... 1. You get into work at 8:17am to find someone waiting for you …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 11:41
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Just when you thought BOFH had disappeared…
Episode 40 Try this simple test
BOFH 2000: Episode 40 It's been a while and rumours are that you're losing your edge! Do you still know what a full set of service manuals is, and how hard to hit a user with them when they're annoying you? This simple test may help you get your edge back... 1. You get into work at 8:17am to find someone waiting for you …
BOFH 29 Nov 2000, 11:45
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Pocket lie detector spots phone phoneys
Updated 'I'm working late at the office.'
'No you're not...'Register staff - and quite a few other hacks we know - were provoked to panic this morning by news that Korean electronics company 911 Computing will be bringing a deviously efficient portable lie detector to the UK. According to its inventor, Israeli Amir Liebermann, the Handy Truster Emotion Reader plugs into a phone - …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 12:19
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AMD, Intel chips get DDR mobos
No favouritism at SOYO
SOYO has a brace of double data rate (DDR) memory motherboards for both AMD Socket A Durons and Athlons as well as Intel's Socket 370 chips. The Socket A SY-K7ALA-R features Acer Labs ALiMAGiK chipset, which can support either a 200MHz or 266MHz systems bus. The mobo lists at $129 with discounts for volume. The SY-7ALA-R …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 13:15
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IBM appoints first Chief Privacy Officer
Harriet Pearson will make us feel safe online
IBM has named Harriet Pearson as its first Chief Privacy Officer, with the job of co-ordinating the development of IBM products to account for privacy and raising the company's image over consumer protection. New Yorker Pearson has been with IBM since 1993 and was previously a lawyer in Washington and an engineer in Texas. IBM …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 13:28
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RIAA bids for control of online royalty payments
Trade body getting ready for post-Napster digital music world
The Recording Industry Association of America yesterday launched its controversial online royalties collection operation SoundExchange - the RIAA's bid to dominate the finances of the emerging digital music market. The RIAA claims SoundExchange's role is to ensure that the many recording companies it represents are paid for the …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 13:44
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Intel ships 6000 Itaniums
Blimey, they kept that quiet
By the time Intel's Itanic finally ships in March, almost everyone that was in the market for the 64-bit chip will already have one. Since the beginning of the year, Intel says it's shipped 6000 Itanics for evaluation and has just started a pilot programme under which selected large corporates - including Wells Fargo Bank and …
Channel 29 Nov 2000, 14:15
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Deutsche Telekom threatens to withdrawn flat-rate Net access
Is this the most arrogant telecoms company in the world?
Deutsche Telekom has surpassed its already impressive level of arrogance by threatening to withdraw all flat-rate Internet access in response to criticism from Germany's telecoms watchdog, RegTP (no relation). The telecoms watchdog has insisted that the monopolistic company provide flat-rate wholesale Net access to ISPs by 1 …
Data Networking 29 Nov 2000, 14:29
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Bullies taunt victims with SMS
The poison pen gets hi-tech
SMS messaging has become another weapon in the bully's armoury, and has even been implicated in a teen suicide. Gail Jones, a 15-year-old student, overdosed on tablets last May, after receiving up to 20 abusive message in half an hour. According to Kidscape, an anti-bullying organisation, the amount of abuse being sent by …
Data Networking 29 Nov 2000, 14:31
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InterX signs new customers, new dealers
Revenue up but so are losses
InterX has posted its first quarterly results since the sale of its distribution arm Ideal Hardware which reveal an increase in turnover - but also a move further into the red. Turnover for the quarter ending November 5 was £2 million compared to £1.5 million for the previous quarter but losses per share, before exceptional …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 14:44
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365 Corp sales jump
Gay soccer telco
365 Corporation plc, Internet site operator/telco/ contract publisher which deals in everything from soccer to the gay scene, increased sales 131 per cent for the half year to September 2000. Group revenue stands at £22 million for the period, compared with £9.5 million for the same period last year. Gross profit doubled to £8.8 …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 14:44
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Euro Netheads check out books, CDs, travel, PCs
Want ADSL, like the idea of WAP
The online market in Europe is maturing, as penetration rates increase and the numbers of men and women online begin to even out. Research in France Germany and the UK found that the UK is the most advanced in its uptake of the Net. In all three countries the predominant use of the Net is to gather information, and then mostly …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 14:51
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HWRoundup The great P4 benchmark debate rages
Include us out
Oh dear. The great P4 benchmarking debate at Tom's Hardware continues to rage. Tom has been inundated with opinions about his reviews and has posted this piece to try and pour oil over troubled water. Anand, meanwhile, has taken a different track entirely. He takes a look at the ALi MAGiK 1, a new DDR platform available for …
Hardware Roundup 29 Nov 2000, 14:57
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Freequotes gets TheStreet.co.uk for a snip
Picking over the bones of dotcom carrion
British financial Web site Freequotes.co.uk has shelled out £226,000 for the database of deceased financial outfit TheStreet.co.uk. Freequotes - which is part of themutual.net - will get the details of 110,000 people for its money - which works out at a smidge above £2 per name. Earlier this month TheStreet.co.uk told its …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 15:46
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$50 million for genetherapies .net?
Domain name sellers lose the plot
Surfers seem to have lost the plot when it comes to trying to cash in on the domain name scramble. Not only are they snapping up any old domain creation that sports a trademark - auctions this month on eBay included microsoftcriticalupdates.com and microsoftofficeupdates.com - but they also seem to expect to make a mint by …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 16:50
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Leechnet: the porn Napster
D'you think the smut business will take it to court?
Well, it had to happen. Following on from Napster's infamy and enormous popularity, welcome to the porn equivalent: Leechnet. The software works in exactly the same way as Napster but with slightly different search criteria. Rather than artist or title, you have finer search criteria: Type, Action, Location, Participants. …
Bootnotes 29 Nov 2000, 16:57
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C&W fires six for email abuse
Obscene communications
Telco Cable & Wireless has become the latest company to sack staff for abuse of its email system. Six staff in C&W's Birmingham sales office received their P45 for sending what a spokesperson described as "obscene" emails which it viewed as an act of severe misconduct. When the abuse came to light the staff were suspended and …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 16:59
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Yet more PIII DDR mobos arrive
Chaintech boosts Intel performance
Chaintech has two new DDR mobos for PIII and Celeron II based on VIA's Pro266 chipset. One is a purely DDR board, while the other offers the option of using either SDR or DDR memory. The 6VJD has 3 DDR 200/266 memory slots for up 3GB of RAM. The board also sports five PCI, one ACR and an AGP slot, AC-97 compliant audio codec, …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 17:21
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Intel poaches Apple ad guru
Think Different... buy a Pentium 4
Intel loves Apple's advertising - true. It must do, or it wouldn't have hired the creator of Apple's 'Think Different' campaign to devise an advertising programme for the Pentium 4. To be fair, it's actually Intel's advertising agency, Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, who has hired Ken Segall, who quit Apple …
Mac Channel 29 Nov 2000, 17:22
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Portable Sun servers get dual screen capability
Tadpole kit revamp pitched towards the City
Hardware manufacturer Tadpole has added what it described as "on-board" video to its range of portable Unix servers. The availability of what amounts to a graphics card gives Tadpole's VoyagerIIi, a phone book sized 10lb Solaris server featuring the UltraSPARC II chip, the video features found in standard, bulkier Sun servers …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 17:38
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Dial P for Public toilets
Express relief
Americans need never worry about taking a leak again - thanks to the Internet. Wireless Web portal Yada Yada today launched its "Bathroom finder", which helps users locate their nearest loo and tell them if it's fit to visit. The service is available in 12 US cities, including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 18:02
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Microsoft urges people not to use the Internet
Updated You are at great risk, says the Beast of Redmond
Finding out what exactly Microsoft is thinking is harder than getting blood out of a stone or a coherent sentence out your grandma, but work hard enough... The Beast of Redmond has put an online form on its Web site that will tell you what sort of risk you are running of having obtained unlicensed or pirated software. Which is …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 18:05
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Yahoo! – encryption for the masses
Not end-to-end
Yahoo! is the first Web portal to introduce an email encryption service. The company is clear that the service is not end-to-end, but offers a "certain level of security" to the person receiving the email. While some people question the value of mass market encryption products, Topsoft, a UK encryption specialist, positively …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 18:06
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Car site aims to shut up annoying salespeople
Promises dealer quotes in four hours
A British Website has launched a service that claims to speed up the process of contract hiring company or fleet cars. The idea is that punters log onto car.now.com, say what kind of vehicle they are after, and receive an email with quotes from dealers within four hours - (within office hours). The West Midlands-based business …
Business 29 Nov 2000, 21:46
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AOL Instant Msgr accounts easily hijacked
Hacker gold rush
Hackers exploiting a loophole in America Online's sign-up process have begun taking their pick of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) accounts, hijacking them virtually at will. The technique emerged early this month on AOL-Files, a meeting place for AOL hackers, where it was born as a harmless hack that allows users to establish AOL …
Music and Media 29 Nov 2000, 21:54
