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25th January 2001 Archive

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  • Verio stands firm in DeCSS row

    Cryptome has unexpected ally

    US ISP Verio has refused to remove a Website which allegedly shows DVD-cracking techniques. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sent a letter to Verio in November claiming the site Cyptome.org had illegally posted DeCSS. IT demanded the ISP remove the offending code, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( …

    Software 25 Jan 2001, 08:32

  • Windows Roundup MS tries to throttle Whistler code leaks

    And the next build to shoot for is 2240...

    Yesterday evening testers of Whistler received an e-mail concerning substantial changes being made to the UI, allowing users to change the look and feel of it. Since some testers do not respect their non-disclosure agreements (NDA), Microsoft is taking precautions by not releasing the code and interfaces of the most recent …

    Software 25 Jan 2001, 09:30

  • Bush scrubs Clinton from Web

    The cleanup continues

    During his election campaign, Dubya got great mileage out of Clinton's "troubles" - most notably over Monica Lewinsky - saying that when he was President he would give the Oval Office a darned good cleaning. It seems like that cleaning extended to the servers that hold the White House Web site, as Bush has had it scrubbed of …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 10:37

  • LinuxPPC to go non-profit

    NPO not IPO

    LinuxPPC, inc. is no longer in it for the money. The organisation, which became a company in 1997, is to become a non-profit operation. We'd like to say that LinuxPPC, one of the pioneers of the open source operating system on the PowerPC platform, has made the move for philanthropic reasons, but the reason appear entirely …

    Software 25 Jan 2001, 10:44

  • STMicro more than doubles Q4 profits

    Q1 slowdown expected

    STMicroelectronics said Q4 profits more than doubled thanks to demand from mobile phone makers. Net profit for the quarter rose to $462 million, up from $184 million for the period a year earlier. Sales rose 48 per cent to $2.19 billion but the company expects an eight per cent drop in the first quarter due to slowing demand …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 11:11

  • MS blames lowly techie for Web blackout

    Takes 22 hours to fix router config error

    Microsoft has blamed a lowly technician for a cock-up which almost completely blocked access to its Web sites for most users yesterday. From the early hours of yesterday morning until late evening www.microsoft.com, msn.com, expedia.co.uk and msnbc.com were all unavailable. The software giant's Hotmail service was also …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 11:48

  • AMD drops EV6 for Hammer bus

    Going for NUMA instead

    So farewell, then, the EV6 system bus, dropped from AMD's Hammer family of 64-bit processors, but not forgotten. Instead, AMD will use a new, NUMA-based bus. NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) is designed for multiprocessor system, primarily eight-way and up jobs, so the move - outlined by Bob Mitton, AMD's workstations and …

    Channel 25 Jan 2001, 11:52

  • Everquest class action threat over auction spat

    Whose fantasy life is it anyway?

    EverQuest players who tried to sell characters or in-game items, only to have their online auctions cancelled, are being invited to join a class action law suit against publisher Sony, writes Andrew Smith. A web site set up to announce the suit, which also targets developers Verant, eBay and "any other service" which has …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 11:57

  • Letsbuyit awakes from coma

    But how long can it hold out?

    Unbelievable as it may seem, Letsbuyit has found someone daft enough to save it from bankruptcy for a coupla weeks. Head of the management team - described by the liquidators last week as "deplorable" - John Palmer has persuaded his friend and ex-hacker Kim Schultz to cough up the bulk of the £2.5 million to save the troubled …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 12:01

  • Microsoft launches revolutionary new OS

    Why has no one told us this gag before?

    This is funny. Rob Woolley has come up with a funny visual gag regarding Windows' legendary ability to make OSes that crash - and we bet you that when you see it, you'll wonder why you never thought it. Of course, there will be the smart arses amongst you that will tell us they known about it for ages man and everyone used that …

    Bootnotes 25 Jan 2001, 12:02

  • Boffins back 2600 over DeCSS ruling

    Another instalment in the code as free-speech debate

    Computer Science professors have come out in support of the quarterly hackers magazine, 2600 Magazine, which is currently embroiled in a legal battle over DeCSS, a program that decrypts data on DVDs. The District Court in the Southern District of New York issued an injunction prohibiting 2600 Magazine from hosting or linking to …

    Software 25 Jan 2001, 12:13

  • Le Freeswerve flags 24/7 congestion problems

    Great start

    There are question marks today about the quality of services users can expect from Le Freeswerve's new 24/7 unmetered Net access service. According to its FAQs, Le Freeswerve will "instigate congestion control measures" if the network gets too busy with people using Freeserve AnyTime. No one was available at press time to say …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 12:17

  • Atari leaves gaping hole in admin site

    We've given them 24hrs to sort it, but

    We were so appalled to find that you gained sys admin rights by entering "test" and "test" in the username, password boxes for Atari.com's admin site that we fired off an email to tech staff telling them to fix it. Nearly 24 hours later, it is still wide open and we're left wondering whether Hasbro Interactive has just left the …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 12:54

  • Sony, Rage and Eidos, all bad news

    Games industry not the best place to be

    Eidos issued a profit warning today, ahead of its results, due on February 28. The company said it would revise its sales and profits forecast downward "significantly" after poor sales in the US and delays to the release of three games. Meanwhile, Sony has halved its own forecasts, blaming production delays and higher than …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 12:58

  • Totalise vaporises 900 users

    More abuse cited

    Totalise has thrown off 900 Net users from its Ultimate Surf 24/7 unmetered service claiming they've abused the service. The cull - a third of all users on this particular tariff - comes into force on Saturday less than six months after the service was launched. The British ISP claims it suspended the users because they used …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 13:35

  • UK Linux users find alternatives to BT ADSL modem

    While Alcatel isn't shipping drivers

    UK Linux users fed up of waiting for Alcatel to get its act together and ship drivers that will let the open source OS talk to the SpeedTouch USB modem BT bundles with its home ADSL offering will soon have some alternatives to choose from. First, UK ISP Tele2 offers a wireless DSL via its (growing) CDMA network. The service …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 14:32

  • US PDA market rockets past $1bn

    Sales, unit shipments more than double during 2000

    US buyers spent more than $1 billion on palmtops last year, more than twice the $436 million they forked out in 1999. According to market researcher NPD Intelect, around 3.5 million PDAs and electronic organisers were shipped in the US during 2000, a 271 per cent increase on the 1.3 units shipped the year before. Of course, …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 15:06

  • Exclusive Claire Swires pic: partying her ass off

    We like this. A lot

    You readers are a resourceful bunch. And so imagine our joy and surprise when Andrew Darling sent us one of his holiday snaps, featuring a lovely young blonde lady with a famous name. Andrew was at Synergy on New Year's Eve - a huge rave in Cape Town, South Africa when he met the lady. The beauty of the pic though is her garb. …

    Bootnotes 25 Jan 2001, 15:37

  • Dr Tom delves DDR for the PIII

    HWRoundup Marketing tripe?

    Dr Tom has taken a look at the latest instalment in the DDR Saga, DDR for the PIII in the form of the VIA Apollo Pro 266 mobo. Marketing nonsense or a sensible move? I don't want to spoil it, so just click here if this caught your attention. HardOCP's done a cooler roundup. They slapped a bunch of heatsinks on the new SOYO …

    Hardware Roundup 25 Jan 2001, 15:57

  • SDMI boss bails out

    Chiariglione lands safely in Telecom Italia research lab

    The head of the SDMI - the music and IT industries' joint attempt to create a secure digital music distribution platform - has quit. Leonardo Chiariglione is off to run the multimedia division of Telecom Italia's research centre, Telecom Italia Lab. He will be leaving the Secure Digital Music Initiative in a few months, the …

    Software 25 Jan 2001, 16:06

  • ISP poll sorts men from boys

    Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear

    A college student has set up his own online survey to see what punters really think of ISPs. The poll is only up for two weeks so users need to be quick if they want to take part. We haven't got a clue why it's being done or for what purpose (we reckon it's got something to do with a school assignment, or homework, or …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 16:52

  • TVT record label drops Napster lawsuit

    So start downloading Snoop Doggy Dogg

    TVT Records, home to Snoop Doggy Dogg and Nine Inch Nails, has dropped its estimated $1.5 million infringement lawsuit against Napster. In an about-turn, the Los Angeles, California-based independent label today lauded Napster as the music industry's messiah. It cited Napster's new online business model, which it is developing …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 16:58

  • Glitch allows online shoppers to rip-off retailers

    Right click and change the price

    A glitch in many systems for order fulfilment on the Web has been reported which allows the fraudulent to create their own online prices for goods. The loophole in many ecommerce Web sites was discovered by ebusiness services company Alphakinetic.net during the course of developing ecommerce Web sites for its clients. …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 17:08

  • MP3 connector for just $20

    Great bargains of our time

    We've been sent the URL of this incredible contraption and just couldn't wait to tell you all about it. Yes, that's right folks, for only $19.99 (plus $4.99 p&p) you can have the "revolutionary new patent-pending device which allows you to listen to all of your computer audio through your home stereo while also maintaining the …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 17:10

  • Solution for mobile Net device power problems?

    Chip is on its way

    Irish chip designer, Parthus, is nearly ready to give second generation mobile Internet a boot up the jacksie, with new technology that will dissipate up to 100 times as much power as currently possible. While the big four phone companies have predicted that phones will be on the market by Christmas 2001, Parthus said that …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 17:31

  • Are you a flashy ponce? Then you want one of these

    Diamond-encrusted mobile phones - just what you need

    Well, it was bound to happen. Something becomes popular. Then it becomes fashionable. And then the people who have more money than you feel the need to rub it in everyone else's face. Hence the arrival of jewel-encrusted mobile phones from London jeweller De Grisogono. The jewellers will take a top-of-the-range phone and then …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 17:54

  • Linux worm nobbles Nasa Web site

    Ramen on the rampage

    Ramen, the Red Hat Linux-based Internet worm, has spread into the wild and defaced the Web sites of several different organisation, including a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) lab. Russian anti-virus expert Kaspersky Labs said that Ramen is the first malicious code for Linux to be detected in the wild. Web …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 18:50

  • DirecTV attacks hacked smart cards

    Electronic warfare for the private sector

    Satellite television behemoth DirecTV struck a decisive blow against signal pirates Sunday night, when it transmitted a carefully-crafted electronic signal from its orbiting satellites and destroyed thousands of hacked smart cards, which for the last four years allowed pirates to gain free access to hundreds of channels of …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 19:26

  • Webvan ditches expansion plans

    E-grocer sees Q4 losses double

    E-grocer Webvan.com has ditched plans to launch in three US markets after losses almost doubled for the fourth quarter. Net losses at the California company were $173.1 million for the period ended December 31 2000, compared with a loss of $89.7 billion for the same quarter the previous year. Sales grew to $84.2 million …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 19:29

  • Ellison to flog $150m in Oracle shares

    Stock options for Owners

    Stock options for owners - who needs them? Obviously Michael Dell, who trousered a couple of hundred million bucks through the sale of optioned stock at the beginning of January. And now Larry Ellison, Oracle founder and gazillionare is getting in on the act, with plans to sell $150m worth of Oracle shares, bought through a " …

    Business 25 Jan 2001, 22:20

  • New Yorkers plot DSL protest

    Verizon prime target

    A bunch of angry New Yorkers are plotting a protest to air grievances against Verizon and its notoriously poor DSL service. The city's ISPs, lawyers, consultants and new media luvvies will congregate next month to try and push the phone company into improving its service. At the meeting entitled: "Infrastructure Held Hostage: …

    Music and Media 25 Jan 2001, 22:23