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15th January 2001 Archive

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  • AMD slips mobile Durons out

    600 and 700MHz chips arrive

    The first notebooks using AMD mobile Duron microprocessors were released today: an NEC range, one of which uses a 700MHz chip. These products are somewhat delayed. Last July we saw an AMD roadmap which suggested the firm had targeted Q4 for an entire range of products (see AMD confirms Corvette plans). And AMD said that it is …

    Channel 15 Jan 2001, 09:10

  • Sun-AMD alliance tweaks Intel's beard

    Head-bone connected to the nose-bone

    Intel is Sun's enemy, and therefore AMD is Sun's friend. Can life be that simple? In the computer industry, we're very much afraid the answer is 'yes'. Compaq is Dell's enemy, and Intel is Dell's friend, so the Big Q has always been prepared to give AMD microprocessors a try. 3Com is Intel's enemy because of the network …

    Channel 15 Jan 2001, 09:59

  • Teenagers shun Procter & Gamble portal

    See through the Swizzle

    In January 2000 drugs company Procter & Gamble announced its intention to set up a Web site for British teenagers. At the time we attacked the "sheer awfulness of the undertaking" of P&G's attempt to turn this country's youth into dutiful consumers (see Procter & Gamble grabs Net teenagers for life). So it's with great pleasure …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 10:27

  • Record week, record readers

    Site News Time to blow our own trumpet

    Last week, The Register's servers dished out 3,428,699 pages to readers (and plenty more to robots and spiders). This was a record week for us and included our new record day on Friday, when we served 642,381 pages. And that's without the aid of downloads, product reviews, message boards, job boards, a white label auction …

    Site News 15 Jan 2001, 10:59

  • CPRM kicked into touch?

    Up yours Hollywood!

    CPRM for HDs may be kicked into touch Old Andrew Orlowski's turning up the heat on CPRM. Kevin Macken votes for a boycott: CPRM in any implementation is intolerable for the consumer and 4C knows it. So how do you get consumers to accept it on removable media. Try to get it put on hard drives and then compromise to removable …

    Hardware Roundup 15 Jan 2001, 11:29

  • BT urges UK not to use mobiles

    Big fat ad campaign

    BT has launched an ad campaign slagging off mobile phones and suggesting that the Great British Public goes back to using pay phones. No, honestly, it has. Unsurprisingly, BT informs those that ask that the rocketing use of mobiles has slashed income from public call boxes. "Slashed" is the right word because we suspect one …

    Data Networking 15 Jan 2001, 12:20

  • Feds find pro-Napster hacker

    Pimpshiz' computers seized by police, but no charges made

    'Pimpshiz', the hacker who sprayed pro-Napster messages on hundreds of Web sites last year, may have been caught. US police raided the home of a 17-year-old last month after being tipped off by the FBI, a fact they confirmed to CNet late last week. There's certainly no doubt that Pimpshiz broke into and deface a host of big- …

    Media 15 Jan 2001, 12:25

  • ICANN legal pay-off avoids scrutiny

    Your domain dollars at work

    ICANN has neatly sidestepped scrutiny from its newly elected at-large board members in authorising a payment approaching half a million dollar dollars to its law firm. ICANN is deeply in debt to the firm, Jones Day Reavis and Pogue, which could pull the plug on the quango if it called in the debts. The payment of $465,553.67 …

    Media 15 Jan 2001, 12:28

  • AMD's Deathstar Carries on Pulsing

    Focus on Fabs Only real men have debts

    Some time back, and after we'd visited AMD's Fab 30 plant in Dresden, we learnt that a few PC manufacturers and distributors were calling the wafer factory the Deathstar. This is because at the time they were so thoroughly fed up with Intel launching CuMine (Coppermine) technology that they couldn't source, that they wanted the …

    Channel 15 Jan 2001, 12:34

  • VIA ships 266MHz chipset

    Plenty of new Athlon-friendly features

    VIA today began shipping its high-bandwidth, 266MHz DDR SDRAM and Athlon-supporting two-chip chipset, the Apollo KT266. Demo'd at Comdex last November, the KT266 supports AMD's Socket A chip interface, connecting the processor to the rest of the world via a 266MHz frontside bus. The chipset supports up to 266MHz DDR (Double …

    Channel 15 Jan 2001, 13:24

  • Register Sofacam – The new millennium

    Vulture Central laid bare

    Click here to meet previous guests of Vulture Central. The Register: Sofa, So Good... ®

    Site News 15 Jan 2001, 13:57

  • FBI makes itself look stupid with Net ‘conspiracy’ crackdown

    The world is safe for another day, say deluded federal agents

    The FBI has gone into a back-slapping frenzy over what it claims was a conspiracy to "bring down the Internet" on New Year's Eve. It gets better. This vast, evil conspiracy was being run by kids - crazed teenage hackers no less. The FBI tells us it saved the world by seizing "floppy disks, CD-ROMs and other related equipment". …

    Media 15 Jan 2001, 14:23

  • Channel Flannel Intel shuts Internet café

    Intel has shut down its first and now almost certainly only Internet café. Situated in Malaysia, the store was intended to be a pilot for a chain extending through Asia, according to ZDNET. The chip giant said the store closed following accelerating Internet access in Malaysia. Staying in Malaysia, Dell is to open a second …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 14:26

  • Sony to double PlayStation 2 output

    But can it catch up?

    Sony will increase PlayStation 2 production 100 per cent over the next three months in a desperate bid to catch up with the extravagant predictions it made at the console's debut. At least, that's what the company told Bloomberg today. A year ago, the consumer electronics giant bullishly claimed it would have shipped ten …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 15:21

  • Hounded head of titsup.com ISP gets above his station

    Don't shoot the messenger

    Since our story about lone crusader Mike Ashworth posting the contact details of Laurence Horgan, former head of titsup.com ISP IG Click - only to be threatened with the Human Rights Act - we have had some interesting correspondence. Even though Mr Horgan seems to think that Mike is to blame for allowing disgruntled ex- …

    Media 15 Jan 2001, 15:52

  • BOFH: This hardware is dead… It has ceased to be…

    Episode 2 End user support, BOFH style

    BOFH 2001: Episode 2 "I just can't believe it!" some mindless feeb from Marketing gasps disgustedly as he surveys the innards of the disk drive The PFY's showing him. "Dead?" "As the Bay City Rollers," The PFY nods sagely. "But... How?" I can't help myself, I have to help the grief process along a little: "Well, to put it …

    BOFH 15 Jan 2001, 15:59

  • Tualatin, Trucks and DDR

    Hardware Roundup We're distracted by a picture of a gigantic truck. Or is it?

    Insane Hardware has pictures and specifications of Tualatin, Intel's 200Mhz FSB PIII. It's based on the i830, and uses DDR. What are you waiting for? Click here for the skinny, and if you're worried about the thing overheating, fear not: here's a link to Tualatin's very own Fire Department. Hardware Unlimited has found a …

    Hardware Roundup 15 Jan 2001, 16:29

  • Okay! Okay! This is what everyone reckons Ginger is

    It'll rock your world. Nah, not really

    They started coming in on Friday. Then kept on coming on Saturday and Sunday and yet more have arrived this morning. Look, we were trying to ignore this Ginger fiasco that has turned the IT press into a bunch of gibbering school kids, but it's an unwritten rule at Vulture Central that when more than 200 emails arrive saying the …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 16:42

  • Feds publish computer search manual

    One word: crypto

    When the Feds lack evidence sufficient to hustle a judge into issuing a warrant to examine a computer's contents, they often politely ask the owner or someone who shares it if they might just have a quick peek at the contents of its HD. Incredibly, a significant number of people foolishly cooperate, and so reveal enough evidence …

    Media 15 Jan 2001, 18:00

  • Tiny gets new MD

    He's been a mobile phone retailer

    Tiny Computers has given Andrew Walwyn, ex-MD of mobile phone retailer DX Communications, the job of MD. Walwyn is going to take over from Jon Gilbert-Harris who's been with Tiny since 1981. Gilbert-Harris is staying on with Tiny to do some strategy stuff, but is also going to spend the next six months handing over to his …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 18:03

  • Latest RealPlayer crashing PCs

    All to do with Comet Cursor software apparently

    We've had several complaints that the latest version of RealPlayer is interfering with systems, causing them to crash and throwing up all sorts of errors. It looks as though the problems are caused by a small program called Comet Cursor which is automatically downloaded with the player and takes a disliking to various graphics …

    Software 15 Jan 2001, 18:20

  • Apple retires current iMac line

    Paves way for ones with CD-RW

    Apple has officially marked the current iMac line for termination after announcing $200 rebates on the two top models last week. The rebates aren't signs in themselves that the current iMacs will soon be replaced by new versions. More likely they are designed to shift as much unsold stock as possible before the new machines are …

    Mac Channel 15 Jan 2001, 18:20

  • Video games make good kids evil

    Survey proposes unplugged peacenik Utopia

    Stopping kids from playing video games makes them nicer people, according to a US study out today. The research from Stanford University suggests that aggressive behaviour can be reversed by cutting the time children spend playing video games or watching TV. Third and fourth grade children (with an average age of nine) were …

    Media 15 Jan 2001, 20:11

  • How ‘Crazed Uncle’ Bill brought the Microsoft house down

    Book Club Auletta's World War Three

    Spare a thought for veteran New Yorker columnist Ken Auletta. He endured the longeurs of the Microsoft antitrust trial for over eighteen months, and although his thoughtful and well-written observations on the case have been sped into print as quickly as the publishing process could allow, much of it feels familiar if not …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 20:40

  • Prof hushes SDMI crack on DMCA terror

    Academic freedom takes one on the chin

    Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten, who has claimed to have helped crack the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) watermark challenge, now says he's withholding the details of his accomplishment on advice of legal counsel fearing he could open himself to prosecution under the 1998 Digital Millennium …

    Media 15 Jan 2001, 22:09

  • Intel to pay $748m cash for Xircom

    Mobile computing love-in

    Intel has agreed to buy PC card maker Xircom for $748 million cash. Intel said the deal, which prices California-based Xircom at $25 per share, would help add to its line-up of products for wireless computing. In addition, chip giant Intel will assume all existing vested and unvested employee options. The acquisition is …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 22:11

  • Bazillion shafts DSL users

    US ISP shuts shop with days' notice

    US ISP Bazillion.com has shut up shop after running out of funds. The Seattle-based venture, which offered a DSL service across most of the US, sacked most of its 100 staff on Thursday, sources told The Register. And the 5000 customers, who paid a monthly fee of around $40 each for the high-speed Net access, found out about …

    Business 15 Jan 2001, 22:13

  • Reg ships Sherlock plug-in – again

    It's back, Mac users

    The Register is pleased to re-release a plug-in connecting our story search system into Sherlock, the MacOS' own search technology. Re-release? Well, we've a small confession to make. We produce the first version of the plug-in over a year ago. It was popular. It was very popular. But we left it alone, and after last summer's …

    Mac Channel 15 Jan 2001, 23:11