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2nd February 2001 Archive

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  • Tiny outgrows PC rivals

    Market reality

    Tiny Computers said yesterday that unit sales increased 15 per cent in 2000, compared with overall UK market growth of 7.9 per cent. Shipments for 2000 were "over 400,000" PCs in the UK, against 350,000 in 1999. However, the PC builder/retailer says it is "realistic about the future of the PC market". For Tiny, this means it …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 06:38

  • Buy.com to sell UK ops

    Bigger than expected Q4 loss

    Buy.com recorded bigger than expected losses for the fourth quarter, and said it is to sell its UK operations. The company said it had recently signed a Letter of Intent to sell its UK business, which it launched last year, to a "European entity". It expects the deal to close in the first quarter. It will also shut is Canadian …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 06:42

  • Dell pumps up the price pressure

    Consolidation by death

    Dell Computer has left no one in doubt that there's a price war going on - and that it means business. On Wednesday, the company took an axe to list prices for desktop PCs, storage boxes and server. It says it can cut prices quicker than rivals because it sits on less inventory and so price cuts from component makers feed …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 07:22

  • Transmeta chief talks Crusoe megaservers with The Reg

    Disses SMP

    Transmeta founder Dave Ditzel says we can expect servers with hundreds of Crusoe CPUs later this year. But the dedicated, small form factor boxen won't look anything like today's SMP kit - even though Ditzel and partner in crime Gary Stimac (who pioneered Compaq's server business and has launched a start-up to OEM Transmeta …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 08:01

  • Electrical shops con us over faulty goods

    Enter the world fresh, armed with this info

    Which? has carried out an undercover investigation on high street electrical shops and found they are conning us by illegally refusing to take responsibility for faulty goods. The consumer champion went to ten major stores with a broken video recorder, 18 months old, and found that eight of them refused to accept it, putting …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 10:46

  • Woundup Win95 dying, Gates is Napoleon?

    And time to stuff some more ballots...

    As you heard in the Woundup first - ZDNet reports Dell has ceased support for Windows 95, due to the expiration of the OEM licence that covered 95. Microsoft's new-look licence for the PC companies doesn't cover 95, so as the various outfits' deals get renegotiated, 95 will go into near total eclipse. Microsoft is also stopping …

    Software 2 Feb 2001, 11:15

  • Infineon settles with Rambus, Hyundai

    Progress in Hyundai vs. Rambus, too

    Infineon has been making up and being friendly with Rambus and Hyundai, settling patent infringement legal action with both semiconductor companies. So, the German semiconductor operation yesterday withdrew its allegations that Rambus' RDRAM violates its patents. That claim was made in direct response to allegations made by …

    Channel 2 Feb 2001, 11:33

  • Gameplay to make more job cuts?

    Who knows, they won't talk to us

    Gameplay is expected to announce more job cuts at the multi-platform games outfit, according to sources familiar with the situation. It's not known how many people will be hit but it's understood the redundancies could be announced as early as tomorrow. El Reg, has tried to contact Gameplay for much of the day but despite …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:38

  • Gameplay axes 275 jobs

    Blood on carpet, walls, windows, sofa...

    Gameplay is to axe 275 jobs as part of a major shake-up it that will save the multiplatform games outfit £12.5 million a year. The far-reaching restructuring programme hits just about every aspect of the business even though directors at the company have increased their revenue estimate for the six months to January from £40 …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:38

  • TV Boy retro Atari game pad gets revamp

    Old skool games, but there's a price hike

    Feeling retro? Then you might like a new gizmo called Super TV Boy III. Its got 127 old school games squished onto a console style game pad that plugs into the TV. It might sound very familiar, and it should. The Super TV Boy has indeed been around for a while, but the manufacturers have redesigned the casing so it looks …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:38

  • Codemasters cans 25% of workforce

    'Short term'

    Codemasters, the privately held British games developer, is dishing out the P45s (UK version of pink slips) to 90 people - a quarter of its workforce. The company says that market conditions have forced it to make the cuts at a time of instability, as the games industry moves to new platforms, such as PlayStation 2, Xbox and …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:38

  • Xbox to be Dreamcast compatible?

    We don't think so

    Xbox will play Dreamcast games, "credible" sources have claimed, according to videogame Web site Gamers.com. The plan appears to be the inclusion of the "Dreamcast chipset" inside Xbox, and Bill Gates is going to get up on stage and say as much at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) this spring. No, we're not sure about this one either …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:40

  • UK set-top box builder licenses Dreamcast

    Pace to integrate console's technology into digital VCRs

    UK set-top box maker Pace today said it will integrate Sega's Dreamcast console into its latest products, as we predicted it would last week (see Sega set to license Dreamcast to set-top box builder). Pace plans to use Dreamcast technology to enhance the TiVo-style digital video recorder it announced last year. The plan is to …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:40

  • Sega eyes Palm as games platform

    Development work in progress

    Sega's decision to drop Dreamcast and focus on software sales will see the company expand beyond its games machine roots to alternative platforms - including, the company said today, Palm PDAs. The move will see Sega offering both Web-based online titles - possibly derived from the Java-based cellphone-oriented games it's …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:40

  • RIP Dreamcast: March 2001

    No one really liked it

    Reports that Sega was going to kill off the Dreamcast games console at the end of March have been confirmed by the company. It was costing Sega a small fortune and never really took off to the extent it wanted. And so while Sonic sobs into his pint, Sega will concentrate on developing games for other platforms - PlayStation, …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:42

  • Sega Europe job losses

    All thanks to Dreamcast's demise

    Following Sega's decision to stop making the Dreamcast console at the end of March, Sega Europe has made an unknown number of people redundant this morning. The company won't say have many people have gone but email newsletter MCV reports that it may be the entire third party division, including Dreamcast guru Mark Maslowicz, …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 11:42

  • BOFH gets to the back of the Q

    Episode 4 The world's first keyboard virus strikes

    BOFH 2001: Episode 4 It's later in the afternoon when I finally roll into work after a "Doctor's Appointment" to find the PFY printing up Virus warning leaflets espousing the latest thing in desktop danger. "'The Q virus infects the letter Q on your machine, causing potential damage to any document with a Q in it.' Yes, I can …

    BOFH 2 Feb 2001, 11:59

  • Apple rattles lawyers at DesktopX over Aqua

    Once more round the MS legal department for the Whistler UI, we'd hazard...

    Apple's notorious legal eagles have moved on skinning outfit Stardock, whose DesktopX is deemed to be a little too close to MacOS X's Aqua. According to a Stardock newsgroup announcement made by company president Brad Wardell yesterday, Apple has asked for the removal of "anything that even remotely looks like Aqua. "This …

    Software 2 Feb 2001, 12:24

  • NGUK says it's first gISP

    WTF does this all mean?

    What's being described as the UK's first Gaming Internet Service Provider (that can't be right, can it?) goes live today. NetgamesUK Ltd said its gISP unmetered offering has been submitted to lengthy beta tests and also suffered delays and last minute changes. The service costs £25 a month and comes with a three-hour cut-off. …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 12:29

  • MS claws back Web server share from Apache

    The latest stats, straight from Netcraft

    Internet-oriented researcher Netcraft has released its latest survey of the world's Web servers and the software they use, writes Mike Prettejohn. Top Developers Developer Dec 2000 Percent Jan 2001 Percent Change Apache 15414726 60.04 16207982 58.75 -1.29 Microsoft 5027023 19.58 5903512 21.40 1.82 …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 12:33

  • European PC market hit by soft Euro

    Single figure growth, except in Russia

    The much-discussed fourth quarter slowdown has made its mark in the European PC market according to analysts at Dataquest. The market only grew six per cent last year, with total shipments reaching 35.3 million units. The market in Russia increased the most, gaining 28.9 per cent on 1999's shipment figures, but this only …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 12:39

  • The Register guide to acronyms

    Or how to misunderstand PC speak

    We have been asked by many readers to provide a guide to the thicket of acronyms that obscure the PC industry. So here it is. .9999999 Almost perfect but recurring and occurring a little too much. See also Q and HP. 1394 Mistaken date for the Battle of Hastings. See Battle of USB. 2LA Fully mirrored version of Los Angeles. …

    Register Links 2 Feb 2001, 12:59

  • The quick guide to Register jargon

    Chipzilla, The Big Q, and the rest

    The Register has gained so many readers this year that we've prepared a rough guide to the jargon we use, after receiving a couple of emails asking us what words like Chipzilla and The Big Q mean. BOFH Bastard Operator From Hell. Beast of Redmond, The Microsoft. 'Nuff (enough) said. The Big Q Our new name for Compaq, which …

    Register Links 2 Feb 2001, 12:59

  • Links for PC gamers

    Sites we like

    Blues News Hardcore site for teched-up gamers Voodoo Extreme A world where games and hardware collides >a href= "http://www.AGNhardware.com" target="_blank">AGN Hardware It's a hardware/gamer thing Snipers Alley One-stop UK gaming shop Any dud or dead links? Email us here

    Register Links 2 Feb 2001, 13:00

  • NatSemi warns of profit, sales dip

    Revenues down 13 per cent, earnings off over 50 per cent

    National Semiconductor yesterday admitted it will report significantly reduced sales and earnings for its current, third fiscal quarter, which ends later this month. Anticipating a dip of around 24 per cent on last quarter's figures, NatSemi officials said the company's revenues will lie somewhere between $475 million and $480 …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 13:05

  • Sony cuts PS2 sales forecast by 10%

    A million less Japanese expected to buy one

    Sony has chopped 10 per cent off its PlayStation 2 worldwide sales forecast for 2001. The Japanese vendor said it now expects to ship nine million of the consoles during its current financial year, which ends in March. The company previously said it would ship ten million. Europe's allocation remains unchanged, with three …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 13:09

  • Empty PlayStation box sold for $425

    eBay bidder a bit confused

    PlayStation freakiness just got freakier after an empty console box brought more than $400 on eBay. Bidding started at $9.99 for the item, described as a "PlayStation 2 Original Box And Receipt", on December 27. Over the three day online auction the gaming collectables, item number 1204183251, received 39 bids. They were …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 13:21

  • FA still stamping on football fan sites

    Now they can't use club badges

    The Football Association is continuing to target small fan Web sites, this time insisting that they remove any images of football club badges, which it claims infringe copyright. As UK paper The Mirror suggests in this morning's edition, if such popular mini sites didn't exist, there would be far more people going to the …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 14:07

  • Intel: we have server leaks too

    Intel Roadmap Update Servers and workstations

    Here's more from Intel's latest roadmap revision. At the very high end, Q4 2001 will see McKinley replace Itanium, and Foster replace the PIII Xeon as the chips of choice in four-way and eight-way systems. Foster is the server-oriented version of the Pentium 4, featuring up to 1MB of inline L3 cache and Chipzilla's NetBurst …

    Channel 2 Feb 2001, 14:28

  • BOFH gives good slide

    Episode 3 A technician's got to do...

    BOFH 2001: Episode 3 "Quick, we need some help up in the boardroom," The Boss gasps, winded, rolling into the office and interrupting an extended printing session, "The projector's out!!!" "And the technician is?" "Sick!" "You're not wrong - I've seen his web traffic!" The PFY adds. "Look, it's very important, they're in the …

    BOFH 2 Feb 2001, 14:32

  • Tourette's – we're sorry

    Should have thought about this one a bit more

    Regarding our ill-judged screensaver competition, we received this letter from Malcolm Worth: I am a regular visitor to The Register site and was dismayed tonight by your challenge to create a Tourettes screensaver. Firstly your definition of Tourette Syndrome is incorrect, Tourette Syndrome (TS)is characterised by many varied …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 14:41

  • Flame of the Week Quit writing the word ‘cock’

    Now we're peanut eating jizz mopers (sic)

    I invite you all to share this class piece of incoherence from 'hot male'. We were trying to work out what story it's in reference to, but then we lost interest. Enjoy. YOU ALL SUCK!!!!! holy christ on a cracker! AMD has ONE screw up puting out a CPU and you act as though theyrs blood on the nob! I know the register is …

    Flame of the Week 2 Feb 2001, 14:43

  • Reg Tariff – The Uranium Service

    Pushing back the envelope of service?

    Regarding our all-singing, all-dancing Tariff 2001, David Wei reckons we've missed a few options: I find your article covering most aspects, however, I think you can add a few additional levels of service. Depeleted Uranium Service - UKP 20,000: Dispatch Reg staff to the competitor's HQ for spying purposes. Weapons Grade …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 14:45

  • P4 – Now clock this

    More chuckling boffins on the case

    P4 piece hertz reader's feelings Well, when you start going on about clock speed, you know you're in for it. Geoffrey Barnett hasn't stopped laughing since last week: I just read James Perry's defense of why the Itanium has lower clock speeds than the P4 and nearly laughed my arse off! Why, you might ask? 'Tis quite simple, …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 15:06

  • Want a Tiny PC? Forget it

    Unless you take the desk, scanner, printer...

    Tiny outgrows PC rivals Lucien Caldwell has a tale to tell about Tiny: It's nice to see they are finally realising that current Tiny owners wanted to buy another one.... I bought a Tiny PII in 97. Then all the printer, scanner and stuff over the next couple of years. When I went into the Exeter showroom last September ready …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 15:08

  • Downing Street hammered for ‘failing’ eGovt strategy

    UK Govt retaliates with duff research slur

    Downing Street has savaged a report from Forrester Research which claims that the UK's e-government strategy simply isn't up to scratch. The report - part of an in-depth study by Forrester - claims the Government is "failing to make the grade" and is jeopardising £3.7 billion in cost savings. It believes the Government doesn't …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 15:14

  • Patent on bugs? We like it

    Our people will talk to your people

    Californian patents thought process Arron Rouse is equally depressed and nonplussed by Hugh Harlan's patent on the operation of code that mimics the human thought process: Perhaps I hadn't been reading too much sci-fi after all :| Mind you, I don't suppose patenting thought processes will lead to any patent infringements by …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 15:16

  • TiVo not flopped – people ‘intend’ to buy

    In talks with NTL after a shaky start

    NTL and TiVo - of "pause live TV" fame - are said to be in talks after TiVo's product failed to set the world alight in the present buying frenzy before Christmas. According to a report in The Independent, despite a massive marketing drive with BSkyB, TiVo is only selling a "couple of hundred" boxes a week. TiVo does not accept …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 15:40

  • eBay to thwart spammers

    Bad for trade, the company finally observes

    It took ages and hundreds of thousands of complaints, but auction site eBay has finally lifted a finger towards discouraging the low-life spammers who trawl their site sucking up e-mail addys to add to their victim lists. The company has now developed a scheme (simple enough to have been implemented ages ago, but we digress) to …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 15:42

  • Dreamcast: Bad for the Imagination

    Chip designers awake to profits nightmare

    Chip design firm Imagination had the wind taken out of its sails by Sega's decision to stop making Dreamcast consoles. The company followed yesterday's announcement with an immediate profit warning. Imagination designs the graphics chips for the beleaguered gaming system and was expecting 22 per cent of its profits to come from …

    Games Industry 2 Feb 2001, 16:25

  • Microsoft epiphany in antitrust case

    Shocker: they'll argue the facts after all

    Oral arguments in the Microsoft antitrust appeal, scheduled for 26 and 27 February, will differ radically from the briefs which the company has already filed with the court. MS intends to shift its appeal from the current strategy of whingeing mournfully and publicly about Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's lack of admiration for …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 17:01

  • Corel logo – it's a squirrel!

    Or a hideously empurpled member

    Corel in transcendental makeover Michael Lorrey, a Corel user, writes: We Corel users were rather perturbed at the rather lame 'restructuring' they underwent. Note that with the logo design, the 'C' formed by the blue squares faces downward, obviously a sign that the designer was using some feng shuei, treating the C like a …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 17:12

  • Student selling everything he owns in world on eBay

    John seems to be quite serious about it

    A photography student has hit upon the idea of selling everything in the world that he owns. And to help him with the task, he has set up Web site www.allmylifeforsale.com. So if you want John D. Freyer's bag of laundry bags, clip-on tie, Iowa City phone book, girl scout cookies and so on and so forth visit the site, click …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 17:15

  • Corel sees bigger than expected Q4 losses

    Still expects return to profit this year

    Corel today reported bigger than expected losses for the fourth quarter, but said it still expected to get back into the black by October. The Canadian software vendor saw losses of $8.6 million, or 12 cents per share, for the three months ended November 30. This compared with a profit of $4.6 million, or eight cents per share …

    Business 2 Feb 2001, 17:17

  • Official: Spam costs E10 billion

    Is that all?

    Spam costs Net users a whopping E10 billion ($9.33 billion) a year, according to the European Commission. Commenting on the findings of an European study, Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said: "The exponential growth of junk e-mail in recent years is a fact of life. "Current technology allows a single cyber- …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 17:20

  • Linus Torvalds = Mould?

    Utter despair at rhyming slang debacle

    Forget Cockney and Popney, here comes Chipney Well this one got your brains working - sort of. We asked for a bit of rhyming slang for Linus Torvalds, and this is what we got. Read it and weep: Lee Carter: Mould ('This bread is covered in Linus') Colin Slade: Dog's Gonads! ('I've got a Sony PS2 it's the Linus mate!') …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 17:22

  • AMD bods get grilled

    HWRoundup and their 760 DDR chipset chewed over

    Kyle at [H]ardOCP has posted this link to Lost Circuits, who have taken an in depth look at AMD's 760 DDR chipset. If Kyle rates them as reviewers, they must be doing something right, so check it out. Not exactly hardware, I know, but the [H]ardOCP lot have also posted an "Inside the mind of Stuart." It was quite surreal, and …

    Hardware Roundup 2 Feb 2001, 17:39

  • Novell, Nortel and Accenture start content networking company

    Will realise full potential of Net. And the rest

    Novell, Nortel and Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) has pumped a load of money into a new company, Volera, "a new operating company targeting the emerging content networking market". What that really means is that Volera will sell you a load of kit aimed at improving Net performance. It will "Make the Net fly". So we …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 17:44

  • Your Privacy and The Register

    What we do with personal data that we've recorded.

    The Register believes in the importance of keeping readers' personal information personal. The site does not use cookies - though some of our partners do (see below) - and while a user's IP address is recorded by our server - as all Web servers do - we use this information solely for monitoring the volume of traffic the site …

    Register Links 2 Feb 2001, 18:11

  • The true color of irony

    It's sort of shiny

    The color of irony Apart from upsetting the colour blind, this recent piece also caused controversy over spelling and the true colour of humour. James Governor is in a tizz over the 'c' word: COLOR or colour? what happened to the headline? has Mr. Haines been in america too long? or are your subs crap? how come the title was …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 18:20

  • Microsoft mail servers stuffed for 4 days

    'Absolutely not a product failure'

    It's amazing how many product failures Microsoft has not actually had lately. First we recall last week's name-server stuff-up, which the company insists had nothing whatever to do with their DNS software. Nope, that was in fact a routing mis-configuration followed by a DoS attack. Today Redmond announced that a major bung-up …

    Software 2 Feb 2001, 18:20

  • Verizon moves to appease Silicon Alley Net anger

    Advocate's Office

    Verizon Communications is to start an office to deal with the many complaints about its high-speed Net service in New York. The monster telco today said the Silicon Alley Advocate's Office would act as a liaison between itself and city's hi-tech businesses. The unit, expected to be up and running in the next few weeks, will …

    Music and Media 2 Feb 2001, 18:23

  • Readers' letters Colour blind see red

    But not green, blue or yellow

    The color of irony As a colored [sic] blind individual, I could not believe your insensitivity of using a categorizing system that so blatantly is a slap in the face of my disability. It is so like you arrogant Brits... Any chance to slap someone down to make your pathetic egos feel better... You persecute the week the same way …

    Letters 2 Feb 2001, 18:28

  • ALi approves Micron DDR

    They're valid

    Acer Laboratories Inc. (ALi) has validated two Micron DDR SDRAM DIMM modules to work with its DDR chipsets. The Micron DDR modules with the ALi sealer of approval are the PC1600 128MB and 256MB flavours. The DRAM maker is also sampling PC2100 DDR SDRAM modules and expects to validate these as well. Micron has received DDR …

    Channel 2 Feb 2001, 19:04

  • MS uses Office registrations to enforce licences, steal customers

    Turn yourself in and buy some more licences off Dell, it says here...

    Microsoft's war on piracy never was a clear-cut struggle between good and evil (considering the dramatis personae, feel free to be unsurprised about this), but now it appears the company is using anti-piracy pitches to steal customers from its own resellers. Inadvertently? Perhaps, but the concentration of business in the hands …

    Software 2 Feb 2001, 19:10