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8th January 2001 Archive

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  • Reg readers on the CPRM fiasco

    Letters Ten days that shook the world

    We're only just beginning to catch up with an avalanche of correspondence on our series of CPRM on ATA stories. This selection was culled before the 4C Entity signalled its willingness to accept a compromise on the issue. However that compromise is in no small part due to the outcry reflected in your letters here. Which as ever …

    Letters 8 Jan 2001, 00:17

  • $300 integrated PCs in sight

    PC dealers look to SiS for respite

    PC dealers, hard pressed by ever shrinking margins, are turning to integrated chip sets for succour, and in particular one produced by Taiwanese firm SiS. The Duron, somewhat underemphasised by AMD as it wants to flog loads of Athlons, somewhat lacks cheap, cheerful and heavily integrated mobos, according to one reseller we …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 09:45

  • BBC Watchdog wards off PC helpline gagging bid

    Tiny, you are the weakest link...

    Watchdog, the BBC consumer rights show presented by Anne Robinson, the notoriously tough celebrity journalist, beat off an attempt to gag part of last Friday's programme. International Insurance Services Ltd failed in its High Court bid to stop Watchdog broadcasting a critical piece about the helpline service it runs on behalf …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 09:53

  • Tiscali buys LibertySurf for E900 million

    Update: Not bad for a Monday morning

    Italian telco and ISP Tiscali has shelled out E900 million (£570 million) in shares for European ISP, LibertySurf, the companies confirmed this morning after suspending shares first thing this morning. LibertySurf's major shareholders - British retail corporation, Kingfisher PLC, and Euro@web, owned by the Bernard Arnault …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 09:58

  • Dabs.com claims record Xmas

    Talk again of IPO

    David Atherton, owner of online computer retailer Dabs.com, is talking again of IPO, after record Christmas sales, The Sunday Telegraph reports. The Bolton-based firm reported Christmas sales of £7.5 million, of which £4.5 million were "unassisted Internet sales". Dabs reported Christmas sales of £6.8 million in 1999. Based on …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 10:07

  • Apple seeks success in ‘killer apps’

    Well, it worked for the Apple II...

    Solutions, not systems, will win Windows users to the Mac cause and get Apple out of the financial mess it has suddenly found itself in. That's what CEO Steve Jobs is telling staffers and analysts in private, according to the Wall Street Journal. Essentially, Jobs' vision harks back to the early days of Apple, when sales of the …

    Mac Channel 8 Jan 2001, 10:32

  • Police piracy row reseller calls in receivers

    Plod to sue

    Protocol Solutions, the Fareham, UK reseller accused of installing pirated software into the Hampshire Police force, has been forced into receivership after being sued by the police, Silicon.com reports. We'd give you the URL, but Silicon is currently shut - "for essential engineering work" - so here are our two earlier stories …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 10:35

  • Via posts DDR validation results

    DDR t-shirts live another day

    Via has announced a further stage in the ongoing battle for PC memory, involving Jedec, Rambust and the Seven Dramurai, which means we will probably see its execrable t-shirts start to return to the light of day. The plucky little Taiwanese company [it's quite big Ed], said that it had completed the initial stage of its double …

    Channel 8 Jan 2001, 10:48

  • MSN kills child porn site – eventually

    Took a week and a half to find the Web log, apparently

    Sweden's police force this weekend criticised Microsoft for taking way too long to shut down a child porn site hosted by MSN. MSN Nordic head Lars Backhans was quick to express his disgust at the contents of the site. "It's absolutely awful. We have no tolerance for that kind of content," he told Reuters on Saturday. Quite …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 11:10

  • Palm to cash in on pay-by-PDA plan

    Sorry, can't pay for lunch, I left my Palm in the office

    Palm unveiled its scheme to make its PDAs as indispensable as cash and credit cards by turning PalmOS into an e-money platform. Palm's eWallet software, unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas over the weekend, holds credit card details and beams them via the PDA's infra-red port to retailers' tills. And it's all …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 11:37

  • BT scraps Internet Villain sponsorship

    It's not funny, it's getting too personal

    High drama has hit Britain's "Internet Oscars" with the withdrawal of former AltaVista UK MD, Andy Mitchell, from the shortlist of "Internet Villains". Mitchell - who was in charge during the non-launch of AltaVista UK's 'free' ISP - has been replaced by BT CEO Sir Peter Bonfield. The updated nominations for the Internet …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 12:17

  • Detention without trial looms for Malaysian hackers

    Government crackdown

    Malaysian authorities may apply draconian powers that allow indefinite detention without trial in order to deter hacking. In a debate that followed an attack on the Malaysian Parliament's Web site, Deputy Home Minister Zainal Abidin Zin said the government may apply the country's Internal Security Act in future cases of hacking …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 12:19

  • Iomega admits to reduced revenue, profits

    Zip sales not what they were

    Iomega's Q4 results will show a dip in both revenue and earnings, the company has warned. The figures, due on the 18 January, will see around a 25 per cent fall in sales compared to the same period last year. Then, Iomega recorded revenues of $434 million - this time round, expect the figure to be between $325 million and $330 …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 12:31

  • PS2 ‘mouth watering prospect’ – EB

    Record Xmas

    Britain's biggest computer games retailer, Electronics Boutique, today reported record sales for December, with like for like sales growth of 15 per cent and overall sales growth of 17 per cent for the five week period ended 30 December 2000. The outfit projects that that it is on target to generate sales of more than £300 …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 12:49

  • NYT online blues

    Cash Register

    The online division of the New York Times was caught unawares by low ad revenues and has had to lay off 17 per cent of its workforce as a result. The job cuts, totalling 69, are reported to be across the board and will save the publisher $6 million. The cuts are needed to reach profitability by 2002. eBay Inc is to acquire a …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 12:54

  • And so Xbox is ‘launched’

    Razzamatazz

    It will hardly come as news to many of you that Bill Gates officially launched Microsoft's gaming console, the Xbox, in Las Vegas on Saturday. And as befitting such an occasion and a place, glitzy faked-up razamatazz was the order the day. Hence Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, lots of excited gibbering, a touch of US-style whooping …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 12:56

  • FBI forms cracker posse

    Talking shop

    The FBI has recruited IBM and more than 500 other US companies to a scheme designed to combat cybercrime. The idea of InfraGuard is to enable the FBI and member firms to alert others about Internet attacks and to pool information on how systems might protected from crackers. Bloomberg reports that the FBI is pushing the scheme …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 13:16

  • The maths prof., free speech and encryption

    Test case

    We recommend you check out a very interesting article at legal news site Gigalaw, which looks at the storm a mathematics professor stirred up with a new encryption program. The article details the case of one Professor Bernstein of Berkeley. While encryption was still under the watchful eye of the US Department of State, …

    Software 8 Jan 2001, 13:41

  • MS anti-trust appeal looms

    Napoleonic

    Wake up! Wake up! The Microsoft anti-trust case is starting up again after a six-month hibernation. Here's the story so far: District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson listened to unfeasibly large amounts of evidence from October 1998 to June 2000 with a few breaks in between. He laid down the facts of the case in November …

    Software 8 Jan 2001, 14:30

  • RedHotAnt denies end is nigh

    Closes doors to new customers

    RedHotAnt (RHA) has denied it is winding down the flat-fee ISP despite refusing to accept any new customers. The new non-recruitment policy doesn't just impact new punters - existing users looking to renew their annual subscription will also be told to take a running jump. So what's going on? If, as RHA claims, it isn't …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 15:06

  • Lawyers look to EMI after Musicmaker collapse

    Music giant accused of dodgy share dealings

    'Big five' music company EMI has denied allegations that its decision to cash in its 36.5 per cent stake in Musicmaker.com less than a month before the online venture failed may have precipitated that collapse, claiming that the two facts are entirely coincidental. Musicmaker.com went into liquidation last week. EMI sold its …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 16:23

  • Hardware Land reviews Duron 850 to death

    HWRoundup Not much better than 800

    So, the game of one-upmanship continues between Chip and Chimpzilla. Intel releases the Celeron 800MHz (with its shiny new FSB) and before we can all blink AMD comes out with the Duron 850. Not surprisingly, the good doctor Tom has seen fit to provide us with his thoughts on the matter which you can read here. The new Duron may …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 16:50

  • GUS buys Breathe for £1.4m

    Super, smashing, great

    The Great Universal Stores plc (GUS) - the outfit behind catalogue retailer Argos - has bought the assets and technology of failed ISP Breathe.com for £1.4 million. In the short term, Breathe will continue to operate as an ISP under the Breathe name. The 80-odd people who still work for Breathe (60 people were made redundant …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 16:50

  • Hollywood, software groups push DoJ copyright busts

    A most unholy alliance

    Music bootleggers and software crackers tired of wading through the entire United States Code to see if they're about to break the law, or incur daunting criminal liabilities in excess of the potential value of their planned activities, may now consult a handy reference guide on line. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 17:41

  • CPS2 arcade encryption smashed

    Morality debate ensues

    A group of gaming enthusiasts called the CPS-2 Shock Team claims to have broken the encryption on the CPS-2 arcade board from Capcom. While the algorithm itself has not been compromised, the group has managed to extract unencrypted data from the board using the 68k code on the hardware itself, according to a poster on SlashDot …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 19:44

  • What's really going on at Zy.com

    It's a pity

    On Friday we tried to find out what on earth was happening Zy.com. An ad had appeared in the FT saying it was in the hands of administrators and the site was up for sale. Five hours and about 15 phone calls later we were none the wiser as no one would talk. We pointed this out in an article. Well, it's Monday and sure enough we …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 19:45

  • Broadcom buys ServerWorks

    Strategic

    Chip giant Broadcom is to buy server chipset maker ServerWorks in a $975 million deal. Broadcom said today it would issue 11 million shares in exchange for all outstanding stock in the fellow Californian outfit. The acquisition is the latest in a stack by Broadcom, which specialising in making semiconductors for cable modems, …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 19:47

  • How the Xbox controller was created

    It's an interactive cartoon - you'll like it

    Thanks to the reader who emailed us this link on gaming site Hloz.com (Hyrule the land of Zelda, if you must know). It shows the intricate thought processes that went into creating the Xbox's "innovative" controller. It also neatly agrees with our summary of it. Oh and it's very funny. What are you waiting for? Click the link …

    Bootnotes 8 Jan 2001, 19:48

  • NetZero wins round one in patent suit

    Free ISPs slug it out

    US ISP NetZero has got a temporary restraining order against rival Juno Online Services as part of their ongoing spat over online ads. The move, which centres on a patent governing ads or messages shown via a window separate to the browser, is part of a tit for tat legal dispute between the two. Juno sued California-based …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 19:50

  • NSA preps Spook Linux 0.1

    Prototype

    The ultra-secretive US spy agency, the National Security Agency (NSA), has released a prototype for an ultra-secure version of the Linux operating system. Developed in co-operation with industry research partners, the prototype includes enhancements to Linux which provide stronger protection against the bypassing of application …

    Software 8 Jan 2001, 19:53

  • HP parades Spring 2001 line-up

    Views from the Pavilion

    Hewlett-Packard has spruced up its Pavilion range of consumer PCs and notebooks. The range, out later this month, includes models in the 7000 series - new PCs in this series, the Pavilion 7850 and 7840, are meant to be cheap and small, according to HP. The 7850 retails at $1,049, with Pentium III 933MHz chip, 128MB SDRAM, 40GB …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 21:58

  • Website names not shames New York drivers

    You talking about me?

    New York drivers have laughed in the face of a bid to name and shame them on the Net. In August the city's Department of Finance started listing the names and addresses of residents with the heftiest parking fines online. It aimed to embarrass them in cyberspace and collect more than $700,000 in unpaid tickets. But five months …

    Music and Media 8 Jan 2001, 22:01

  • HP in clone inkjet cartridge US ban bid

    Tries patent tack

    Hewlett-Packard has filed a patent-infringement complaint with the ITC, the US trade regulator, over cut-price clone inkjet cartridges imported into America. The company says that two products, intended to replace HP 51626A and HP 51629A cartridges, contravene six patents it holds. It wants the ITC to ban the importation or …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 22:09

  • Kozmo dumps Houston and San Diego

    Delivery dotcom cuts 120 staff

    Silicon Alley delivery dotcom Kozmo has ditched its Houston and San Diego businesses and cut around five per cent of workers. The company said the service, which delivers products such as tobacco, food, videos and medicine ordered through its Website to customers in one hour, failed to take off in these two cities. The move …

    Business 8 Jan 2001, 22:53