11th December 2000 Archive

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Woundup New skins for WMP7, IE6 beta due?

And the 'give us back our boot disks' campaign triumphs...

Windows Media Player 7 has been given a Bonus Pack. This allows you to convert MP3 files to Windows Media format, cutting file sizes in half while preserving the sound quality. Which is what Microsoft claims, in any event. The pack also includes eight new skins and nineteen new visual effects, as well as an importer to use …

Software 11 Dec 2000, 08:06
Liquid Audio wants Scour.com tech

Keen to Napsterise its digital music system

Online music company Liquid Audio is looking to buy the technological remains of failed media sharing service, Scour. Liquid Audio's plan is to build Scour's Napster-style file-sharing system into its own Liquid Distribution System. Thanks to Napster, the peer-to-peer model of digital music distribution is emerging as a potent …

Music and Media 11 Dec 2000, 09:01
New Intel processor prices

The only way is down

Intel's 1Ku tray prices have been chopped today, bringing a 1.4GHz P4 down by 11 per cent to $574. The 1.5GHz part remains unchanged at $819. Unlike boxed P4s, tray processors - aimed at the largest PC makers - do not come bundled with 128MB of RDRAM. PIII Xeons are unchanged, but desktop PIIIs are reduced by up to ten per cent …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 09:05
Rambus-Infineon legal spat delayed

Judge moves on to higher things

Legal rottweiler Rambus' pending court case against Infineon has been postponed due to the judge being promoted. The court in Mannheim, Germany has rescheduled the case, originally set for 22 December, to May next year due to the judge originally assigned to hear the patent infringement suit being promoted to the appeals court …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 09:31
Intel fouls up two years in a row

Analysis Hunting of Snark begins

Intel must be quite eager to put the 20th Century behind it, given that this is the second calendar year in a row that it has a) suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or b) fouled up on its strategy, that answer depending on whether you believe in kismet or kiss-ass. At the end of last year, we reported on Intel' …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 09:41
Intel plans $1500 10GHz PC

But not until 2005

Intel has built what it claims is the world's smallest and fastest CMOS transistor. The company says that within the next five to ten years (nice accurate bit of futurology there) it will be able to build microprocessors containing more than 400 million transistors, running at 10GHz and operating at less than 1V. Intel boffins …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 10:27
AMD chops chip costs

Anything Intel can do...

Not to be outdone by Chipzilla's price cuts today, AMD is chopping its prices too. A 1.2GHz Athlon is now $254, while other Athlons are reduced as follows: 1.1GHz - $223 1.0GHz - $179 950MHz - $161 900MHz - $143 850MHz - $125 800MHz - $110 750MHz - $95 700MHz - $85. Duron prices go down too. An 800MHz part is now $79, …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 10:57
Telewest ditches £1bn net plans

Says DSL not viable for consumers

Telewest has canned plans to provide DSL services to residential customers, pulling an estimated £1 billion from the coffers at BT and putting a serious dent in Tony Blair's plans to get everyone going digital. The company had planned to spend the billion rolling out high-speed digital subscriber line (DSL) services through BT' …

Data Networking 11 Dec 2000, 11:33
Gateway hit with shareholder lawsuit

Claims it put out misleading results

A Gateway shareholder has filed a lawsuit against the company claiming that it misled investors about financial statements. James Burton, a Houston based shareholder, filed the suit against the computer manufacturer last Thursday in a federal court in San Diego. It alleges that Gateway failed to record the declining value of …

Business 11 Dec 2000, 12:22
Guilty! Four go down for insider trading

Profited from IBM Lotus takeover

Four investors accused of together making almost $120,000 trading on inside information on IBM's acquisition of Lotus have been judged guilty as charged. The prosecution, acting for the US Securities and Exchange Commission, alleged the four - James Ribellino Jr., Ralph Serpe, Gerald Wells and Claudio Spinelli - were tipped off …

Business 11 Dec 2000, 12:35
RIAA wins royalties from radio Netcasts

US broadcast licences don't cover online streams

US radio stations will have to pay extra to stream their shows on the Internet, the US Copyright Office has ruled. The ruling follows by demands from the music industry's main trade organisation, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), that Net-streamed media should be covered by new royalty agreements, not …

Music and Media 11 Dec 2000, 13:05
Rambus growls at Nvidia

Rottweiler off the leash again

Graphics behemoth Nvidia warns in its quarterly SEC form 10Q filing that it has been advised by Rambus it may be in breach of patents. Nvidia's SEC filing says: "We have been advised by Rambus Inc. that it believes our products infringe certain patents owned by Rambus and requesting that we agree to certain licensing terms, …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 13:36
i-Mode to roam into US, Europe Q3 2001

DoCoMo-to-go...

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest cellphone company, will soon allow i-Mode users to access its mobile Internet service from the US and Europe. The company today said its overseas partners, AT&T Wireless and Dutch cellphone operation KPN, will begin to provide roaming services to i-Mode users during autumn 2001. At the same time, …

Data Networking 11 Dec 2000, 13:57
Outbreak of viruses disguised as vaccines

Dangerous V3 update

Computer virus writers are disguising viruses as anti-virus updates in an attempt to trick users into running malicious code. Korean security firm, Dr. Ahn's Laboratories, has warned its users about a malicious program that arrives by email disguised an update to its anti-virus software, V3. In reality the message contains an …

Software 11 Dec 2000, 14:34
Sorry tales of Advertising Standards and tech firms

BT, Network Associates, and Sega shamed

This month, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) tells off BT and Network Associates for fibbing, and tears into Sega for making a racist joke. The ASA has upheld a complaint against BT after a punter pointed out that the telco's adverts for BT Highway exaggerated the speed of the download using the service. Although the …

Business 11 Dec 2000, 14:38
Kevin Warwick: a life in pictures

Our visual guide to Captain Cyborg

Bootnotes 11 Dec 2000, 14:39
Future cans Computeractive clone

PC market downturn scares publisher

Future Publishing has pulled the plug on the magazine it planned to launch in competition with Computeractive, the consumer/hobbyist title from Dutch publisher VNU. Future was less than a month away from going live with the title, which was planned to have more of an Internet focus than Computeractive. The Computeractive clone …

Bootnotes 11 Dec 2000, 14:52
Xmas draw cheats shown red card

We name and shame

Anyone who thinks that they can get past the eagle eyes of Vulture Central's competition invigilators would do well to read the following tale. Despite the rules, Benjamin Knigge and Martin Gonzalez's could not resist submitting multiple entries to our Xmas comp. The cheeky monkeys sent 33 and 50 respectively. Martin couldn't …

Bootnotes 11 Dec 2000, 14:53
IBM reveals 10GHz, .13µ PowerPC chip tech

Big Blur vs. Chipzilla

IBM today unveiled the technology that will drive its PowerPC and Power processors down to 0.13 micron - and speeds up to 10GHz. Dubbed 'CMOS 9S', the fabrication technology brings together a number of innovations made by Big Blur over the last couple of years. So into the process go copper interconnects, silicon-on-insulator …

Mac Channel 11 Dec 2000, 15:28
Iridium threatened rain of terror

One in 250 chance of hitting someone on Earth

There was a one in 250 chance that debris from a proposed burn-up of the Iridium global satellite network could have hit someone on Earth, according to Nasa scientists. The figures come from a previously secret study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that investigated a now-shelved fast-track schedule for …

Data Networking 11 Dec 2000, 15:59
1.3GHz P4 priced at around $300

Intel still denies baby P4 on the way

US distributor Tech Data now lists the baby P4 1.3GHz with 128MB RDRAM, despite Intel maintaining its official response of refusing to comment on unannounced products. Tech Data lists the part as follows: "INTEL Manufacturer Part# BX80528JK130GR Description BOXED PENTIUM 4 1.3GHZ 128M 800MHZ NECC RDRAM TD Part# 277354" The …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 16:38
Dr Tom's cooler droolathon

HWRoundup There just isn't one to handle every job

Two things on at the good Doctor's. A round up of gargantuan proportions from Lord Kryo, who puts 17, count 'em, 17 coolers under the metaphorical microscope. The message is that perfection is impossible to attain, and there isn't one cooler to do the job. As always it depends on what you want from it. The review starts here but …

Hardware Roundup 11 Dec 2000, 17:28
Communists, Blofeld et al plan cyber Pearl Harbor for US

Analysis Head White House spook swatter makes lurid budget pitch

Don't look now, but the cyber 'missile gap' might be turning into an issue. Speaking at Microsoft's Safenet 2000 conference on Friday, top White House security official Richard Clarke painted a grim picture of foreign powers setting up cyber warfare squads intent on unleashing an electronic Pearl Harbor on the USA. And they're …

Music and Media 11 Dec 2000, 19:01
Dr bags $675k in Net libel case

First judgement based on anonymous message

A US doctor has won an Internet libel case, which his lawyers believe is the first judgement based on an anonymous Net message. Dr Sam Graham was awarded $675,000 last week. Graham used to work at the Emory University School of Medicine. In February 1999 he discovered a posting on a Yahoo! message board which reckoned he had …

Music and Media 11 Dec 2000, 22:21
AMD sales flatter than a flat pancake

Where have all the customers gone?

Ouch! AMD has joined the ranks of US tech companies to issue a profit warning. There may be safety in numbers, but AMD has left it a little late - just a few weeks ago the company boasted it was producing and selling record numbers of Athlons. The company says it is still sold out on Athlons, so that means it must be taking a …

Channel 11 Dec 2000, 23:07
E-mail ‘bug’ danger overstated?

Not that it's harmless, mind you

We recently came across an InfoWorld.com item suggesting that an HTML 'bug' implanted in spam could be a major boon to malicious hackers. The technique mentioned involves embedding a link to a tiny, one-pixel image on the spammer's server. When victim retrieves the message, his e-mail client automatically fetches the image off …

Music and Media 11 Dec 2000, 23:16