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23rd January 2001 Archive

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  • DEA agent charged with selling citizens' data

    Fat pension blown for chump change

    A twelve-year veteran of the of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court in Los Angeles to charges of illegally selling sensitive information about private citizens pulled from federal and state law enforcement computers. DEA Special Agent Emilio Calatayud is charged in an eleven …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 03:37

  • Texas Instruments misses Q4 targets

    Profit still up 22 per cent

    Chipmaker Texas Instruments today recorded profit up 22 per cent for the fourth quarter, but missed Wall Street targets. The Dallas-based company, which makes chips for mobile phones, saw net income of $549 million, compared to $448 million for the same period the previous year. But earnings dipped seven per cent from the third …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 03:40

  • RedHotAnt claims police raid ‘rash’

    We're good guys, honest

    RedHotAnt has criticised the raid on its premises by police and trading standards officials last Friday as "rash". The ISP made the claim in a statement published on its Web site. It reckons it has done nothing wrong and that any investigation into its business affairs will draw a blank. "We feel confident that the authorities …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 10:03

  • AltaVista confirms job losses in Europe

    Only minimal impact though

    AltaVista has confirmed it has made job cuts in Europe although nowhere near the scale of the redundancies announced last week in the US. The dotcom would not say how many jobs would be lost outside AltaVista's HQ in Palo Alto. AltaVista Inc spokesman David Emanuel told The Registe: "The reduction was across the board in terms …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 10:35

  • VIA debuts 700MHz ‘Samuel’ Cyrix III

    Paves way for 750MHz-1GHz Samuel II CPUs

    VIA quietly rolled out a 700MHz Cyrix III processor late last week - the last chip to use the company's Samuel design before the introduction of Samuel II. Like previous Cyrix III parts, the 700MHz chip has 128KB of built-in L1 cache and supports frontside bus speeds of 66, 100 and 133MHz. It also runs Intel MMX and AMD 3D Now …

    Channel 23 Jan 2001, 10:38

  • Stepstone sacks 40

    Shares in bin-liner manufacturers soar

    StepStone UK, the online career portal, is to shed 40 staff as part of cost-cutting exercise. Sixteen people will get the boot as the production department is outsourced to India. Twenty-four sales staff will be looking for work now that Stepstone has closed its temporary offices in Birmingham and Milton Keynes. Now, it's …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 11:05

  • SlowCoMo launches Java phones

    Sony console tie-in to follow

    The first mass market Java phones will finally launch on Saturday in Japan. NTT DoCoMo's i503 iMode handsets will cost between ¥20,000 ($170.40) and ¥30,000 ($255.60). It's a landmark of sorts, representing as it does a new, open-ish mobile Internet platform, and it will be particularly closely watched outside Japan now that …

    Software 23 Jan 2001, 11:10

  • AMD okays Samsung PC1600, PC2100 DDR

    Better than bananas, says Chimpzilla

    Samsung may be having a tough time meeting Intel's high demand for RDRAM chips, but it's happy to churn out DDR parts for Chipzilla's arch-rival, AMD. Yesterday, the Korean conglomerate proudly announced that Chimpzilla has given the thumbs-up to ten of its DDR memory modules, ranging from 64MB to 256MB, in PC1600 and PC2100. …

    Channel 23 Jan 2001, 11:15

  • Monsoon finds e-commerce a washout

    Could not justify costs

    High street fashion chain Monsoon is closing its e-commerce arm, saying that it could not justify the £400,000 annual running costs after failing to reach online sales targets. The company said that it needed to sell £800,000 worth of clobber per year to keep the site viable. At a press briefing the company acknowledged it was …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 11:32

  • FreeDrive pulls plug on shared hard disk service

    Updated Too many warez distributors using it

    Online storage provider FreeDrive.com has closed its public file sharing service. FreeDrive.com, which offers individuals with 50MB of free online storage in return for exposure to advertising, yesterday emailed customers to inform them that the service - or at least the part that lets users share their virtual hard drives with …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 12:19

  • Europe gets first big cable VoIP rollout

    Cheaper calls via the Net for 500,000 homes

    Dutch telecoms outfit United Pan-Europe Communications has announced a deal with Cisco to build Europe's first cable-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network. UPC hopes the network, which will be ready in around three years and available to around 500,000 homes in five cities, will allow it to extend services and allow …

    Data Networking 23 Jan 2001, 12:41

  • Sega shares surge ¥200 on PS2 code claim

    Writing games for Sony, Xbox too. All according to plan

    Sega is developing software for both the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox, a Japanese newswire, Jiji Press, has claimed. The report sent Sega's shares up 19 per cent to ¥1270. That represents the stock's biggest one-day gain in more than seven months, according to Bloomberg. No sources were cited in the report, but its …

    Software 23 Jan 2001, 12:48

  • Travelocity drops customers' pants in public

    But it's very, very sorry

    Online travel company Travelocity has been criticised by security experts after making personal details of site users visible on its site. In a grovelling apology issued to the press, Travelocity said that names and addresses of people who had entered some of its competitions had been "inadvertently made accessible" through a …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 13:00

  • Windows Woundup Where it's at with Whistler

    We kick off a new daily look around the Windows sites

    Welcome to the new-look Windows Woundup, which will wend its way awound the Windows sites on a daily basis. So if you have anything you would like to see covered or hear about, pass it on! To begin this week, I'll give you a brief roundup of what happened last week at Microsoft's headquarters. What happened to Windows Whistler …

    Software 23 Jan 2001, 13:00

  • Windows Roundup Wide public beta for Whistler?

    Plus: WinME, hero or villain?

    It's been over a hundred days since Windows ME was released, and PCWorld has a write-up of what it's been like for Microsoft and Windows ME itself. This article makes it clear that even though Microsoft considers it a complete upgrade over Windows 98, it's either the best Windows version ever or the worst. Microsoft kept the …

    Software 23 Jan 2001, 13:00

  • Readers' letters 95%? You're having a laugh

    Punters unimpressed by mobile connection claim

    UK mobile networks connect 95% of the time 95% - you call that a service? Well, the networks do. But not Andy D: 95% is shit. Imagine you picked up your phone at home and one time in 20 you didn't get a line? Or 1 time in 20 it just didn't connect you when you dialled. Hardly what you'd call sterling service, is it? Good …

    Letters 23 Jan 2001, 13:02

  • Flame of the week Magee is suck boy

    Whatever that is

    Re. Intel denies Rambus legal action - at last. You are a fucking jackass! I will never read one of your pieces again as I now know your stories [are] pure bullshit. I wrote to Frances Hong yesterday and he/she wrote me back about the error in the article: "this is being corrected... thanks for writing in." You are the biggest …

    Flame of the Week 23 Jan 2001, 13:07

  • Flame of the week Stop whining, you faggot

    'Lacky' Tim Richardson advised to write some proper news

    Re. A personal message to all Orange mobile phone users Never backwards in coming forwards with an opinion, Tim Richardson has apparently pushed Chris Booth too far regarding Orange: bastard serves you right for using orange anyway i used orange and they screwed me. my bills were always wrong and i never got a signal do the …

    Flame of the Week 23 Jan 2001, 13:08

  • Bull workers want French govt to use muscle against bosses

    Restructure plans c'est merde

    Workers at Bull are calling on the French government to take action against the French company's restructure plans. The Bull workers reckon Bull management's scheme to split the company in two and sell off assets amounts to just breaking up the business. FT.com quotes Robert Bossier, a CGT union official representing the Bull …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 13:13

  • AOL UK COOs over Lori

    Appointment frenzy not without casualties

    AOL UK has appointed Lori Friedman to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer, the company said today. Friedman will report to AOL UK's MD, Karen Thomson, and will be responsible for a "broad range of business operations" across the company. She joins AOL UK from New York-based e-business outfit Donovan Data Systems …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 14:56

  • Govt clarifies ISP demands for adoption sites

    Now just a case of reminding them of obligations

    The government has been forced to clarify its prosecution threats against ISPs regarding illegal adoption Web sites after its initial noises were roundly condemned. Health minister John Hutton yesterday reacted to the twin babies adoption mess by saying that ISPs would be held responsible if they allowed people access to …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 15:09

  • Wonderful Webmaster wesults

    10 readers' names in lights

    Without further ado, it gives us great pleasure to announce the results of our Tivola Webmaster competition. And the winners are: Peter Bowyer David Boyce Stuart Caie Chelle Hine Sarfaraz Manji Christopher P Liddle Richard Tietjens Brad Town Stuart Vo Todd Williamson The answer to the question 'Who was the wizard who …

    Bootnotes 23 Jan 2001, 15:11

  • Harry Potter URL backlash begins

    The Internet community has its say

    Following Warner Bros unjustifiable persecution of children who happen to register Harry Potter domain names because they are fans of the books, a few souls have taken it upon themselves to make their feelings known. As we mentioned previously, Alastair Alexander has set up www.potterwar.org.uk to highlight the conglomerate's …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 15:37

  • Microsoft Web site hacked in Kiwiland

    And Chanel defaced in the name of 'TheRegister'

    Microsoft's Web site in New Zealand was defaced overnight by hackers who sprayed the site with taunts about the software giants lack of security. The site was still defaced at lunchtime UK time; instead of information about the software giants' products it was changed to contain a rather different message from the attacker, …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 15:41

  • BT employee hits lottery jackpot

    If only the monster telco were so lucky

    The Register was delighted to read in the nation's favourite newspaper today that an employee of BT won £2.4 million in the National Lottery. Jane Clark, a business analyst with BT, is delighted with the win and intends to blow the cash on a sports car and pressies for family and friends. Asked whether BT could be counted …

    Data Networking 23 Jan 2001, 15:42

  • Orange hit by Millennium Bug

    Updated Charges customers twice by mistake

    Orange overcharged customers on New Year's Day due to the Millennium Bug, we have heard. It may seem a little late in the day, but mobile phone users have only just started looking at their phone bills and several noticed that they were charged twice for the same call. As we pointed out nearer the new year, no one seems to have …

    Data Networking 23 Jan 2001, 15:44

  • Napster on lots of PCs, claims stealth-research firm

    PC Pitstop statistics state the obvious

    Here's an interesting item that came our way today. PC Pitstop - a kind of cross between Symantec and the Gartner Group - reckons that Napster is now installed on 20 per cent of work PCs and 40 per cent of home machines. How does PC Pitstop know this? Because in exchange for a free ActiveX-based computer tune-up and diagnostic …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 15:48

  • Intel, 4C still ‘lying’ about CPRM – Gilmore

    Apple the latest copy control criminal

    Special to The Register, RegisterTV, the Register Shopping Channel, AllRegDevices.com, VultureDesk, DirectReg!, Reg Downloads, MyRegister, and all other subsidiaries of Situation Publishing International. Our pages have now been re-designed for maximum confirmity. All similarities are entirely intentional. The 4C Entity is …

    Software 23 Jan 2001, 16:18

  • Double inspection for SOYO's KT 133A mobo

    HWRoundup And loads of other mainboarding fun

    OCWorkbench investigates the new KT133A board from SOYO, the SOYO SY-K7VTA Pro. The board turns out to be unexceptional, missing AGP Pro support and RAID. However, if you are looking for a platform to run a newer TBird, you could do worse. Read the review to find out what else the OCers had to say. Same board, different site …

    Hardware Roundup 23 Jan 2001, 16:39

  • Captain Cyborg's media monkey business back

    But ZDNet and the BBC should know better

    And so dear old Kevin Warwick (professor of cybernetics at Reading University dontcha know), fresh from sapping the life-force out the poor young souls that watched the Royal Institutions' Christmas lectures, has found a new angle to get himself in the media spotlight. What is really disappointing about his latest exploits, …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 16:41

  • Sun sub $1,000 servers are double the price in UK

    Over-priced, under-specced, and over here

    Sun's first sub $1,000 Solaris server is going to cost UK customers almost twice as much as it would buying it online in the US. But forget the end users. Sun's UK channel partners have reacted angrily to the hardware giant's explanation of why UK users get to pay almost double - because it makes them look bad. The sub $1,000 …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 17:53

  • Engrish – the terrifying truth

    Japanese trash language of our fathers

    John Leyden's recent piece Geeks garbling Greek, heirs to Aristotle complain got us thinking about other hybrid linguistic monsters. The Greeks are alarmed at the invasion of their language by English computer terminology. Trust me, you've got nothing to worry about. Just wait until you see what the Japanese have done to our …

    Bootnotes 23 Jan 2001, 17:55

  • FTC clears DoubleClick of privacy invasion

    The company's actually really nice

    The Federal Trade Commission has ended its inquiry into DoubleClick's practices and concluded that the company has not used or disclosed any personal data. The inquiry started in February last year and caused the company's share price to plummet. DoubleClick, it was said, had been using personal details to build customer …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 17:56

  • Porn site chief in $38m credit card scam

    800,000 punters charged for unwanted porn

    An American porn site chief faces up to thirty years in jail after a $38 million online credit card scam. Malibu resident Kenneth Taves defrauded around 800,000 credit card holders in a scheme that spanned several years, according to the US Attorney's Office. The idea was simple enough - Taves ran a Website that charged …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 18:01

  • Top WWII code cracker dies

    Leo Marks - special ops and Peeping Tom author

    Leo Marks, WWII codemaker and codebreaker, and later playwright, has died aged 80. He was chief cryptographer of Special Operations Executive during WWII, having trained as a cryptographer in Bedford when called up for National Service. During his training, The Telegraph reports, he cracked a code that was supposed to be a …

    Software 23 Jan 2001, 18:07

  • Benchmarks – Itanic 32bit emulation is ‘unusable’

    No kidding - slower than a P100

    The Itanium may prove to be more than just one awful chip. It could be two awful chips, in one integrated flip-chip package. That's if benchmarks run by Tweakers.net are to be believed. Tweakers has run code on the 32bit portion of Itanic, and finds performance to be a little more than disappointing. So bad, in fact, that even …

    Channel 23 Jan 2001, 18:10

  • Games-World.net scoffs over Barrysworld demise

    We're still in business. Na na na-na-nah

    Games-World.net has pumped out a press release lording itself for still being in business, in response to Barrysworld sad demise yesterday. The release starts: "The management and staff of Games-World Net would like to express their sadness at the demise of Barrysworld." Before telling the world how it had started with the same …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 18:12

  • Battersea falls in local loop siege

    How it drags on

    BT has today handed over the first unbundled local loops at a trial exchange in Battersea, London. What should be a momentous occasion worthy of a civic ceremony complete with ribbon cutting and warm white wine, has passed without fuss. However, the monster telco won't say who can claim to be first telco in London to gain …

    Data Networking 23 Jan 2001, 18:14

  • Corel to spin off Linux desktop OS biz

    Plans return to profit in Q3

    Corel said today it is pinning its hopes of a return to profitability in Q3 on its graphics software business. Speaking from Ottawa, execs said the company would pump up its graphics product line over the next couple of years, possibly through acquisitions in areas such as the Web graphics market. Corel did not, as expected, …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 18:15

  • DNS trouble made Microsoft, Yahoo! unavailable

    Mucked-up lookup table

    A technical glitch caused the Web sites of both Microsoft and Yahoo! to become blocked for some users over the weekend. For around twelve hours on Saturday many visitors looking for these popular sites and others, including msn.com were instead sent to the web page of domain registration and management outfit MyDomains.com. …

    Music and Media 23 Jan 2001, 18:26

  • Sell your unwanted Windows licences here

    All perfectly legal - in Germany

    A German PC maker has defied Microsoft and started selling systems with second-hand Windows licenses. Ettling-based Waibel pays up to 65 Marks ($31) for Windows 98, and 85 Marks ($41) for NT or 2000, through its site. The operating systems are then resold (for 95 Marks and 135 Marks respectively) as part of a Waibel computer …

    Software 23 Jan 2001, 22:00

  • Sega to cease Dreamcast production

    Not killing it yet, though

    Sega has brought its Dreamcast project to an end, according to a report in Japan's Nikkei newspaper. The article claims production will cease come 31 March, not coincidentally the last day of Sega's current fiscal year. Or will it. Sega US, for one, is saying the story isn't true. The story appears to follow on from earlier …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 22:15

  • Excite@Home cuts 250 staff

    Blames 'changing online media world'

    ISP Excite@Home has laid off 250 people, or eight per cent of its workforce. Most of the job cuts were in the online content area of the California dotcom, or were corporate staff. Its @Home at @Work units, which provide high speed Internet access over cable lines, are not affected by the cuts. "While content services remain …

    Business 23 Jan 2001, 22:48