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12th February 2001 Archive

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  • Compaq stagnates in Q1

    Picks up after that

    Compaq CEO Michael Capellas forecasts zero growth for the company in Q1, and overall growth for the first half of 2001 of 5 per cent - half of the 10 per cent achieved in the same period last year. Capellas made the predictions in an interview with Der Spiegel, the leading German news magazine. Certainly, they are not out of …

    Business 12 Feb 2001, 08:17

  • Brits offer to cure Californian energy crisis

    Unloved spin-off seeks corporate welfare

    The British company International Power has "offered" to solve California's energy crisis, by seeking to bid for new plants in the power-stricken hi-tech state, The Observer reports. International Power, a fragment from the privatized British energy generator National Power, "wants to build 3000MW of generating capacity" in the …

    Business 12 Feb 2001, 08:24

  • TurboLinux, LinuxCare in pre-op surgery

    Distro flu

    TurboLinux and LinuxCare both made staff cuts on Friday, prior to their merger. Newsforge cited anonymous sources as saying that TurboLinux had laid off a third of its staff - 40 out of 120 employees. LinuxCare told CNET that 10 per cent of its staff were being made redundant. The most prominent major independent Linux …

    Software 12 Feb 2001, 08:25

  • Whatever happened to the Everquest auction suit?

    This one won't run and run

    The class action law suit against Sony, Verant and eBay has been put on hold, according to the mysterious Web site set up last month to announce the legal move. The identity of the wannabe class action co-ordinator(s) is unknown, although Dennis Flanders of Gravity Spot, the Seattle Web design company that hosts the site, is …

    Games Industry 12 Feb 2001, 08:42

  • Woundup Zapping the ads in MS Messenger

    And the big XP day looms...

    Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome sent this in: "The MSN Instant Messenger, while functional, is far from full-featured. The banners are... wait a second. Hey, if you move this IM past the bottom border of your screen, you can make the advertisements completely disappear! Don't want it talking to the ad server if it doesn't have to? …

    Software 12 Feb 2001, 10:34

  • MS Canada on slippery slope

    Company offers startling toboggan incentive

    So what's so special about Canada then, eh? There must be something, if this recent MS Office ad is anything to go by. Now once you've polished off your Powerpoint presentation and slapped some clipart into your Word file, you can put on your quilted puffa jacket, unsheath your baseball bat and carouse around the snowy slopes on …

    Bootnotes 12 Feb 2001, 11:04

  • Intel, Gateway team on 41.3GHz PIII box

    Maybe someone should tell Michael Dell?

    Chipzilla's Irish fabs certainly know how to punch out groundbreaking technology. At least, if Gateway Ireland's Web site is anything to go by, they do. How else to explain Gateway's exclusive deal on Intel's new 41.3GHz Pentium III? And it's cheap, too - the machine it's installed in, the E-4600, comes in at a mere (in the …

    Bootnotes 12 Feb 2001, 11:14

  • Lastminute's losses grow

    Cash burn cut

    Lastminute.com's first quarter losses have grown to £15.4 million, up from a mere £6 million for the same period a year earlier. For the three months to 31 December sales rose to £2.9 million from £409,000 the year before. But the company's shares rose 6.5 per cent to 74 pence because it announced its burning less cash. …

    Business 12 Feb 2001, 11:31

  • Screensaver Challenge – Freeware for flash gits

    Blatant and successful attempt at free advertising

    We've just been (successfully, apparently) blagged by a company which reckons that their freeware will allow 'a much broader range of people (designers and flash developers) to enter your compo.' These cheeky monkeys add: 'And we will also get some nice traffic in the process too.' We're sure you will. The compo mentioned is …

    Bootnotes 12 Feb 2001, 11:43

  • Fans, industry await today's Napster appeal ruling

    Will judicial triumvirate shut Napster down or not?

    Napster and its opponents in the music industry are awaiting with bated breath the pronouncement of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, will state later today whether the MP3 sharing software company will face trial for alleged contributory copyright infringement. The background to today's announcement is the Recording …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 11:47

  • Forbes.com: immediacy, depth, interactivity

    Core Values

    Newly arrived from the Financial Times, Paul Maidment has started his new jobs at Forbes: editor-in-chief of Forbes.com and executive editor of Forbes magazine. Maidment spent some phone time with us recently. Here's how it went. SWMS You observed Forbes from afar for years. What has surprised you now that you're inside the …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 12:32

  • New Labour's Internet election pledge canned

    Broadband Britain buried for May battle

    The grand vision of Broadband Britain™ was to be a main election issue for New Labour, we have been reliably informed, but may have to be canned thanks to the current controversy surrounding BT's ADSL roll-out. The threat last week of legal action by AOL and Freeserve - incensed at the apparent favouritism shown by BT to its …

    Election 2001 12 Feb 2001, 12:36

  • Unholy row as Baan shareholders sue firm

    Dutch Protestants allege double dealing by firm's founders

    A group of devout Dutch protestants is suing enterprise resource planning firm Baan, claiming their religious beliefs were preyed upon to coax them into buying shares in the struggling software firm. Baan, which was acquired by process and controls manufacturer Invensys last year for £480 million, was named in a lawsuit filed …

    Business 12 Feb 2001, 12:48

  • Palm courts Taiwan mobile makers to boost production

    Anticipates rocketing demand

    Palm is seeking to expand production of its PDAs through a series of deals with Taiwanese manufacturers, the company's head of North Asian operations admitted last week. Taiwanese producers make almost all of the world's portable PC products, constructing notebooks for the likes of Apple, Sony, IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, Dell, …

    Business 12 Feb 2001, 12:50

  • Intel moots sooner-than-later DDR support

    Brookdale DDR to ship October, Brookdale PC-133 may not ship at all, sources claim

    Intel is pulling forward the launch of its DDR-supporting Brookdale Pentium 4 chipset from Q1 2002 to Q4 2001, perhaps as soon as next October, according to "sources with knowledge of the company's plans", cited by EBN. Brookdale is due to ship in Q3 2001 - around August, we reckon, from the copy of Chipzilla's latest desktop …

    Channel 12 Feb 2001, 12:52

  • NASA to webcast Eros landing

    Probe to land on most distant rock yet

    A NASA space probe will land on the asteroid Eros later today. NASA says that it will provide a video stream of events at mission control over the web as well as via satellite. The pictures will be available to the public, via the NASA site or the NEAR homepage, on a "first-come-first-served" basis, the agency said. Over a …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 12:54

  • Oftel's timing as poor as ever

    Backslapping turns to head-slapping

    Winged watchdog Oftel has unwisely chosen today to release a new report into how huge consumer demand is for telecoms services. Its timing is impeccable. As you may well know, AOL and Freeserve are extremely unhappy with BT's apparently preferential DSL treatment and are threatening to go over Oftel's head to the courts because …

    Data Networking 12 Feb 2001, 13:02

  • SCH pulls plug on TW2.com

    Titsup.com

    The TV cameras were out in force in Birmingham city centre on Friday evening to record the first high-profile new media collapse in the West Midlands. The victim is TW2.com, the well-regarded developer of e-commerce systems, which is to be airbrushed from history, after losing the support of parent company Specialist Computer …

    Business 12 Feb 2001, 13:10

  • 3D Realms fences in Foxing fans

    Copyright abuse

    Game developer 3D Realms last week shut down an unauthorised update of their 1996 hit title Duke Nukem 3D. Duke It Out In Quake was an add-on project for Id Software's Quake III Arena. It used copies of levels and graphics from the original Nukem game, and from an expansion pack created by Sunstorm Interactive. Although the …

    Games Industry 12 Feb 2001, 13:33

  • Compaq AlphaServers to hit 833MHz, 1GHz

    Real Soon Now

    Compaq's Alpha EV68 running at 833MHz will be used to upgrade The Big Q's AlphaServer ES40 in the very near future, according to old Reg chum Terry Shannon over at Shannon Knows Compaq. And the 1GHz version of the chip, of which the company has more than enough, will appear in Compaq's AlphaServer GS line - aka Wildfire - …

    Channel 12 Feb 2001, 13:36

  • Paedophile says why he loves the Net

    w0nderland member speaks to the BBC

    The BBC has broadcast chilling footage of an Internet paedophile discussing his activities, two days before he is due to be sentenced for his crimes. David Hines was one of seven members of paedophilic club w0nderland who recently pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court to charges of trading child pornography over the net. In …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 14:17

  • Infineon unveils PDA SDRAM

    Eats less power, is more compact than standard SDRAM

    Infineon has launched a mobile-oriented SDRAM technology designed to provide "very low power consumption, small form factor and low cost per bit" to suppliers of palmtops and cellphones. Dubbed Mobile-RAM, the new chips offer 128Mb (16MB) of capacity in 8Mb x 16 configuration making it suitable for 16-bit and 32-bit operating …

    Channel 12 Feb 2001, 15:42

  • PlusNet blames BT for poor Net service

    And we finally find out what 'unlimited' really means

    An intriguing letter by the managing director of ISP PlusNet puts the blame for its poor Internet service squarely at BT's feet. The letter, written in the first person (complete with typos), and posted into a discussion forum on PlusNet's Web site on Thursday, apologised for the poor service it has offered recently, but said a …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 16:14

  • Vodafone seeks Sony help with mobile gaming

    Got to find something they can use to sell 3G cellphone networks

    Vodafone and Sony today unveiled a plan to work together to bring PlayStation games to mobile phones. The two companies' avowed intent to "extending the PlayStation experience into the Vodafone mobile-phone environment" will grab all the headlines, but for now the alliance is rather more mundane. Essentially, it's about …

    Data Networking 12 Feb 2001, 16:28

  • Google saves Deja.com Usenet service

    Archives, the lot

    Google, the iconic search engine company, is branching out into discussion boards, with the acquisition of Deja.com's moribund discussion service for an undisclosed sum. At the same time, the company is providing a useful public service, as among other things, it is acquiring the Deja.com's archived discussions. Deja last year …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 17:05

  • Nvidia GeForce 2 Go to ship in a notebook at last

    Toshiba puts it into its latest Satellite

    Toshiba has finally begun shipping a notebook containing Nvidia's GeForce 2 Go mobile 3D graphics chip. About time. When Nvidia launched the GeForce 2 Go last autumn, it highlighted Toshiba is its first customer with the promise that others will follow. They haven't, and it's taken the Japanese notebook vendor the best part of …

    Channel 12 Feb 2001, 17:08

  • Nvidia in Sharky infested water

    HWRoundup Anand's KT133 board hoard

    SharkyExtreme plays host to an interview with Nvidia today. You lot asked the questions, they post the answers. Find out what the game card merchants make of life, the universe and everything here. Hexus gets in on the "AMD 760 chipset and DDR" act with this review. Despite the arrival of the KT133A being a bit of rain on the …

    Hardware Roundup 12 Feb 2001, 17:10

  • Buy a piece of history: the Dome destroyed

    An online presence to rival the 'attraction' itself

    It's our generation's complete, abject failure. You'll be telling your grandchildren about it. "Yes, so they spent over a billion pounds (which was a lot of money in those days) on this big dish thing and the most exciting bit about it was when armed robbers tried to steal a diamond there - which was actually made of glass." …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 17:16

  • Micron launches low-power SDRAM

    Dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna... BAT-RAM

    Micron has announced a version of SDRAM technology aimed at mobile applications - even as fellow chip maker Infineon was doing exactly the same thing (see Infineon unveils PDA SDRAM). Micron's answer to Infineon's Mobile-RAM is called BAT-RAM, but the aim is the same: to offer a memory part tailored for the cellphone and …

    Channel 12 Feb 2001, 17:34

  • 200 billion SMS messages expected this year

    Really Gr8

    GSM mobile phone users will send more than 200 billion text messages in 2001, double the amount sent last year, according to the GSM Association. In December 2000 a record 15 billion SMS messages flew around the world (although this still means the average GSM customer only sent one text message per day) - in December 2001 this …

    Data Networking 12 Feb 2001, 17:34

  • Apple to focus on pro users during 2001

    Analysis Jobs bets consumers will come back next year

    Consumer Mac owners won't be offered Apple's SuperDrive CD/DVD writer - and, by extension, its consumer-oriented iDVD software - until next year, CEO Steve Jobs admitted yesterday at a meeting with financial analysts. In fact, consumers won't factor too highly in Apple's plans this year as the company focuses instead on its …

    Mac Channel 12 Feb 2001, 17:41

  • MacOS X beta users get $30 off full version

    Apple encourages pre-orders

    Apple has knocked $30 off the price of MacOS X for users who've already bought the next-generation operating system's Public Beta release. According to MacCentral, Apple has emailed a number of buyers with the offer, valid only if they order before 14 March. MacOS X ships ten days later, on 24 March. There's nothing …

    Mac Channel 12 Feb 2001, 17:41

  • Lax security costs business 6% of revenues?

    Cracker cost estimate beggars belief

    An economist has completed a study which suggests that computer crackers cost businesses nearly six per cent of revenues. Technology economist Frank Bernhard of the University of California studied 3,000 US businesses and concluded that lax security cost them around 5.7 per cent of annual revenue. The study was reported by …

    Security 12 Feb 2001, 18:00

  • RealBasic brings quick app-making to MacOS X

    Carbon-coding made easy

    Real Software has begun shipping the latest, MacOS X-supporting version of its rather fine Mac rapid application development tool, RealBasic. The ability to code for MacOS X has to be version 3.0's key feature, allowing programmers top create applications quickly without all that tedious mucking about in the Macintosh Toolbox. …

    Mac Channel 12 Feb 2001, 18:02

  • Anti-Dubya protest organised via Net

    'Not My President's Day' this weekend

    Americans are using the Net to organise a series of protest rallies against the election of George Dubya. The "Not My President's Day" event will take place in New York this Sunday, the day before the US's official President's Day. There are also other protests planned across the country on the same day, which aim to combine …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 18:09

  • Amazon sells software downloads in bid for profit

    Tax, antivirus and design software up for purchase

    Amazon.com is continuing in its bid to make a profit but this time it's being constructive. That's right, rather than fire staff or get rid of entire lines of goods, it has decided to expand its offerings to include a software download service. Available now, the Software Downloads area has a range of software available form …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 18:11

  • Anna Kournikova virus spreading like wildfire

    Email worm spreading twice as fast as Love Bug

    An Internet-based email worm that masquerades as a picture of tennis star Anna Kournikova is spreading fast, so posing a severe threat to the world's email servers. Alex Shipp, senior anti-virus technologist at MessageLabs, which scans customers email for malicious code, said the VBS/SST virus is "spreading twice as fast as the …

    Security 12 Feb 2001, 18:26

  • MS court gig to go out live on the Web

    But these being lawyers, 'live' is maybe the wrong word...

    Microsoft's appeal will go out live over the Internet for two days at the end of this month, and the lucky winners of the audio stream are ABC News and C-Span. The two organisations will carry the show live on their Web sites, and it will also be available on archive, and for radio broadcast. The Washington District Appeals …

    Software 12 Feb 2001, 18:44

  • Napster ruling merely delays injunction

    Enjoy it while you can....

    The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals has rendered a mixed decision on a lower court's injunction against Napster, which has been stayed pending appeal. While the injunction will not be imposed immediately, the appellate court has found that many of the district court's findings against Napster were sound, in particular its …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 20:02

  • McDonald's hit by spitting email hoax

    Staff mishandling 'white people's hamburgers'

    McDonald's has fallen foul of an email claiming its staff were filmed spitting on customers' food. The hoax email stated that South Africa's M-Net TV show Carte Blanche had footage of McDonald's workers "spitting on white people's hamburgers when ordered," according to ITWeb. Carte Blanche denied the rumours, but is obviously …

    Music and Media 12 Feb 2001, 22:33

  • Hold the Bus! Rambus German lawsuit postponed

    'Last minute delay tactics'

    Rambus will have its day in court - but not yet. The high-speed memory chip designer's patent infringement case against DRAM makers Hyundai and Infineon was supposed to kick off on Friday (Feb 16) at a court in Mannheim, Germany. But the judge has requested the hearing to focus on procedural issues only. A hearing on …

    Channel 12 Feb 2001, 23:43