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22nd February 2001 Archive

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  • IBM withdraws CPRM for hard drives proposal

    Rejoice

    At a much-anticipated meeting in Texas yesterday, IBM withdrew its proposal to put CPRM (Copy Protection for Recordable Media) into ATA hard drives. The proposal before the T.13 committee which administers the ATA standard was in its third revision, and in a significantly changed form. It had been thought that this amended CPRM …

    Business 22 Feb 2001, 07:55

  • Open access challenge to Google

    Deja debacle springs some alternatives

    Your letters continue to stream in complaining about the loss of service resulting from Google's takeover of Deja's Usenet assets, and calls are spreading to make the archive publicly available. Wired woke up and noticed there was a problem yesterday, too. Its report will be wearily familiar to those of you who depended on the …

    Software 22 Feb 2001, 09:50

  • Taxan to flog Asus mobos

    System builder deals

    Monitor vendor Taxan has struck a deal to sell Asus motherboards in the UK. The deal marks another attempt by Taxan to grow its UK business after failing to launch a PC business last summer. Taxan sales and marketing director Hugh Chappell said he had struck deals with "a couple of big system builders already" but declined to …

    Business 22 Feb 2001, 09:55

  • Apple gets Nvidia GeForce 3 first

    Updated Just about...

    Nvidia's affection for Apple is clearly deeper than we previously thought. How else to judge the company's decision to give its next-generation graphics chip, the GeForce 3, to the Mac maker first. That at least is what Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced last night/this morning in Tokyo, during his MacWorld Expo keynote. "We've …

    Mac Channel 22 Feb 2001, 10:34

  • Apple intros CD-RW, ‘technicolor yawn’ iMacs

    Updated Nice plastic, shame about the colour

    Apple's Steve Jobs unveiled new, CD-RW equipped iMacs at MacWorld Expo Tokyo last night, as expected. He also announced a new Cube, though with the addition of only a CD-RW drive, it's not the consumer-oriented upgrade many Apple watchers had predicted. In addition to CD-RW, the new iMacs get speeds bumps to their CPUs. There …

    Mac Channel 22 Feb 2001, 11:07

  • Woundup Office XP hits RC1, preview edition looms

    Amidst characteristic clouds of confusion...

    Earlier this week Microsoft began sending out Office XP RC1 to testers. This is also dubbed the Office Professional Corporate Preview Beta... or is it? According to a news report at ActiveWin, the Corporate Preview kit was announced in MSDN's Flash magazine for $19.95; only to be used for evaluation purposes, with a time limit. …

    Software 22 Feb 2001, 11:41

  • HP mulls dropping WinCE for Palm or Linux

    An ex-Motorola exec admits...

    Hewlett-Packard is considering dumping Microsoft and hopping into bed with Palm, the company's incoming Embedded and Personal Systems chief, Iain Morris, has admitted. To be fair, we're not talking a company-wide move to turn its corporate back on Windows here. Morris, who takes up his new post on Monday, will take charge of HP …

    Software 22 Feb 2001, 11:46

  • Intel settles FIC patent suit

    Firms make up and be friendly

    Intel and Taiwanese mobo maker First International Computer have settled their long-running patent clash, the two companies tersely announced yesterday. No settlement terms were revealed - the joint press statement simply said the pair had resolved their dispute, settled up their remaining differences and entered into a …

    Channel 22 Feb 2001, 12:24

  • Harvard prof in uncrackable crypto claim

    But not everyone is convinced

    A Harvard computer science professor says he has developed a provably unbreakable encryption technique, with a key based on a stream of random numbers. The idea of a disposable key is not new, and was used to great effect during World War II, but according to Dr Michael Rabin, this is the first time it has been made to work …

    Software 22 Feb 2001, 12:40

  • VNUNet online experiment fails

    Gnumeedjia can't hack it without old media

    VNUNet is to ditch its standalone online news service. Ten staff including admin and journalists have lost their jobs as a result of the action. VNU claims the decision to reintroduce its online news service within the confines of its print stable is part of a strategy to "fully integrate cross media solution allowing clients …

    Business 22 Feb 2001, 13:19

  • Toshiba gets hacked down under

    Internet vandals targeting IT sites have a pop at Linux servers

    Toshiba Australian Web site has become the latest high profile victim of Internet vandals. The site, toshiba.com.au, was defaced by a cracker called BL4F who replaced its content with a series of greetings and profane abuse at various members of the digital underground. In part the message, which can be seen in full on …

    Security 22 Feb 2001, 14:23

  • My Internet love is a corpse-hoarding granny

    The dangers of online dating were never so clear

    Trevor Tasker's online romance went from steamy to chilly when he flew to the States to marry his love, only to discover that she was an old age pensioner with a corpse in her freezer. Trevor, 27, met Wynema Shumate in a chat room, and exchanged electronic love notes with her for months. After she sent him photographs of …

    Music and Media 22 Feb 2001, 14:25

  • Customs arrest 21 in £7m PC component tax fraud probe

    Operation Darken

    Twenty one people have been arrested during a raid by Customs & Excise officers investigating a multi-million pound VAT (value added tax) fraud involving computer components. The 21 people, arrested and released during a raid on 12 addresses in the UK on Tuesday, are suspected on importing computer components worth millions …

    Security 22 Feb 2001, 15:39

  • All your base are belong to us

    Updated and funnier World domination has begun

    Look closely at the animated gif above because you will see those grammatically disturbed phrases repeated anywhere and everywhere you go. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but some day and soon. It has become, ladies and gentlemen, a cult. A Net-based cult, sure, but there are already T-shirts sporting the key phrase …

    Bootnotes 22 Feb 2001, 15:40

  • Nvidia GeForce 3 details emerge

    So hot it's cool

    So what's so special about Nvidia's GeForce 3 introduced yesterday at - of all places, given the company's PC gaming background - MacWorld Expo Tokyo? Digging around the Web a bit - which unearthed one or two handily leaked Nvidia slides and specs - and taking the company's official pronouncements, here's what we reckon it can …

    Channel 22 Feb 2001, 15:46

  • AOL France fined for misleading advertising

    Sacre bleu!

    AOL France has been found guilty of misleading advertising over its flat-rate Internet access service. A court upheld a complaint by the consumer group UCF, acting on behalf of two Net users, which claimed that AOL France's decision to impose restrictions on the service was contrary to the ISP's ads. AOL France was forced to …

    Music and Media 22 Feb 2001, 17:49

  • Lucent to probe conduct of dead employee

    Recruitment exec's criminal past

    Lucent has reportedly began an investigation about the activities of a former recruitment executive who was imprisoned for forgery and embezzlement. The probe into the activities of James Baughman, will be unwelcome for the financially-challenged telecommunication equipment manufacturer, whose officers are also in the process …

    Data Networking 22 Feb 2001, 17:51

  • Porno spam too hot for University

    Warwick officials are vexed

    Pornographic spam has sparked a litigious rage in Warwick University officials. Some Hotmail users have received junk emails, apparently from Warwick University email addresses, containing links to porn sites. The messages were traced back to an American ISP called Starnet, the university said. None originated from genuine …

    Music and Media 22 Feb 2001, 17:56

  • Dead-baby muncher pic spawns police inquiry

    Like Bonsai Kitten, only worse (better?)

    A picture of a man apparently dining with gusto on a roasted baby at the rotten.com Web site has led to a police inquiry by Scotland Yard and the FBI, according to a horrifying story by The Independent. "British detectives are trying to close a Web site showing pictures of a man eating a dismembered baby, further evidence of …

    Music and Media 22 Feb 2001, 19:19

  • FBI traitor suspect had mad C skillz

    A programmer, no less, who hacked the Bureau

    The veteran FBI counterintelligence agent accused this week of spying for Russia is a talented computer programmer who once penetrated a senior agent's office computer to demonstrate the Bureau's vulnerability to hackers, according to newspaper reports Thursday. In 1992 or 1993 Robert Hanssen openly hacked into the office …

    Security 22 Feb 2001, 20:27