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1st March 2001 Archive

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  • Gigahertz Mac maker Xtrem backtracks on speed promise

    It's 1066MHz now, instead of 1200

    Xtrem, the Swedish Mac upgrade maker that whipped up a whirlwind of controversy last summer with a plan to ship a gigahertz Mac, has been forced to scale back its scheme. Instead of shipping a 1.2GHz machine, the company will offer a Mac clocked up to 1066MHz, a drop of around 12.5 per cent. To make up for the drop, Xtrem has …

    Mac Channel 1 Mar 2001, 05:04

  • ServerWorks blockbuster trumps Rambus, adds PCI-X

    Intel Developer Forum The Ministry of Alternative Roadmaps

    A DDR SMP chipset that can safely be described as stonking was announced by ServerWorks yesterday. Intel has become increasingly reliant on ServerWorks technology, and the latest 2way/4way chipset adds support for the PCI-X bus and, with memory throughput at 5Gbytes/s, offers double the throughput of dual channel RDRAM Rambus …

    Channel 1 Mar 2001, 09:26

  • Realty check: Easier goes titsup.com

    Toyzone goes down the pan, too

    Two British dotcom collapses yesterday: Easier, the online estate agent, and Toyzone, the UK's very own answer to eToys (also bust). Easier decided to become a cash shell last year and erected a for sale sign for its operating business. but shut up shop yesterday after failing to find a buyer. The company reckons that all is …

    e-Business 1 Mar 2001, 09:58

  • WorldCom slashes 6,000 jobs

    More to come?

    WorldCom has laid off some 6,000 workers in the US - seven per cent of the company's global workforce. . An anonymous source at the company told AP that the losses are across the board and are understood to be part of the company's restructuring announced last year. An email sent to The Register late last night read: "Layoffs …

    Telecoms 1 Mar 2001, 10:29

  • BT employees suck

    It's a perk of the job

    Monster telco, BT, might have enough debt to sink a battleship, but that doesn't stop it celebrating key milestones in its commercial life. Word has reached El Reg that to celebrate BTinternet recruiting one million customers to its narrowband ISP (BTinternet) - it gave its employees...lollipops. That's right - …

    Bootnotes 1 Mar 2001, 10:47

  • Gateway issues profit warning – again

    Expects to sell less PCs this year

    Gateway has warned profits will not reach targets for the first quarter of the year, with unit sales expected to drop. The PC vendor said it expected to break even during the quarter, before adding charges of between $150 million and $275 million. Analysts had expected the US company to record a profit of 17 cents per share. …

    Business 1 Mar 2001, 11:09

  • 3Com to fall further into red

    More woe for network equipment manufacturers

    3Com has issued a third quarter profits warning that means it will fall further into the red on lower than expected sales. The networking equipment maker is now pegging revenues for this quarter at between $625 million to $640 million, down from previous forecasts of between $725 million to $750 million. This will result in …

    Data Networking 1 Mar 2001, 11:11

  • Gates: the earth moved for me

    Billy Boy's speech interrupted by God

    Bill Gates had his speech to the movers and shakers in Seattle's IT world interrupted yesterday by a 6.8 earthquake. According to witnesses, he took it well and calmly walked off the stage, where minders led him to some kinda underground nuclear bunker so God couldn't get at him. The quake caused mayhem, taking out power …

    Bootnotes 1 Mar 2001, 11:15

  • Psion made £1.4m loss in 2000

    Ditches Epoc mobile handset product

    Psion recorded a pretax loss of £1.4 million in 2000. This figure compares to a profit of £4.7 million the previous year. Sales were up 46 per cent at £ 219.7 million. The British handheld computer company said it would merge its computer, connect modem and InfoMedia consumer products units into one division called Psion …

    Business 1 Mar 2001, 11:59

  • Oftel delays broadband ruling

    The longer it waits, the worse it will be

    Oftel has delayed a ruling critical to the future of broadband Britain creating more uncertainty for those companies who believe the current state of affairs is a "national disgrace". The winged watchdog was due to rule on an industry group complaint made in December which accused BT of favouring its own broadband ISP with the …

    Telecoms 1 Mar 2001, 12:16

  • Fibre cut leads to outage at Seti@Home

    Getting too close to finding aliens?

    The search for intelligent life outside the Solar System has been hit by low-tech Earthly thieves. Participants helping to analyse data for signs of alien life as part of the SETI@Home project have been unable to access the project's servers after vandals cut its fibre optic cable. According to a notice on the SETI@Home Web …

    Music and Media 1 Mar 2001, 12:30

  • WebTop sacks two thirds of workforce

    Definitely not top of the Web today

    WebTop has sacked 60 per cent of its workforce in a cost-cutting blitz at the search engine outfit. More than 20 of the 40 staff were told of the redundancies this morning amid fears about the future of the enterprise. WebTop CEO, Andy Mitchell,the former head of AltaVista UK, was not one of those made redundant. El Reg …

    e-Business 1 Mar 2001, 13:13

  • Govt whips up chatroom pedo hysteria

    More misguided legislation

    Not content with the RIP and Terrorist Acts which give the police and secret services unnecessary access to Internet users, ministers are now discussing methods of "targeting" "perverts" who "lure" children away from their innocent lives by chatting to them online. Home Secretary Jack Straw is at the centre of it, of course, …

    Music and Media 1 Mar 2001, 13:16

  • Text Me and Go to Jail

    Wayne, leave Emma alone

    Obsessed ex-boyfriend Wayne Holt has been landed with the world's first text message injunction by a Nottingham judge. Holt, 20, will face jail if he attempts to contact Emma Sellers, 16, before March 2003 - when she turns 18. Wayne was unable to deal with being dumped by Emma last year and proceeded to send her up to 20 text …

    Data Networking 1 Mar 2001, 13:26

  • S'kiddies munch Burger King

    Poking fun at fast food chain

    Burger King executives mulling the effect of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease on their business had more bad news this morning when they woke up to find the firm's UK Web site had been defaced by Internet vandals. The site, burgerking.co.uk, was defaced by a hacker calling himself Dreamscape, with a message poking fun at …

    Security 1 Mar 2001, 13:33

  • E*Trade files suit over online impersonator

    Turns up heat on anonymous message board postings

    E*Trade has filed a suit in the US after postings on a Yahoo! message board by someone they claim was posing as the company's CEO. The messages, such as: "I made a killin on my stock options!", were posted by "christos-cotsakos" and "christos-m-cotsakos" last October. The same person added that he was "sorry" investors lost …

    Music and Media 1 Mar 2001, 15:52

  • MS still owns desktop, but Linux gains at server end

    And according to MS figures, Linux outsold Win2k server last year...

    What a week for Microsoft. The legal process starts to win the trial for the company, God's surgical earthquake strike on Bill Gates misses, and according to the IDC numbers just out the Windows world domination campaign is still going swimmingly - or is it? Anybody who says you can't argue with a 92 per cent market share …

    Software 1 Mar 2001, 16:14

  • Nortel slashes 700 UK jobs

    Charming

    Nortel Networks has refused to confirm local newspaper reports that it has axed some 700 jobs at its optical components factory in Paignton, Devon. A spokesman for the Canadian outfit said he would not comment on rumour and speculation blah, blah - you know the drill. Instead, he pointed to an announcement a week ago in which …

    Business 1 Mar 2001, 17:08

  • BTopenworld hits 20,000 users

    Claims customers are satisfied

    BTopenworld claims it will hit a significant milestone this week when it notches up its 20,000th customer for the broadband service. If true, then it suggests that BTopenworld's customer base is growing at a smaller rate than previously thought. Three weeks ago, BTopenworld CE Andy Green said that, at the end of 2000, the …

    Telecoms 1 Mar 2001, 17:18

  • 365 losses grow in Q3

    Voice portal launch due in Spring

    Web content provider/telco 365 Corp saw pre-tax losses grow to £ 10.2 million for the third quarter. This compared to a loss of £ 6.2 million for the same period the previous year. Sales at the British outfit rose to £ 13.6 million for the three months ended December 31 2000, from £ 5.6 a year earlier. The company's consumer …

    e-Business 1 Mar 2001, 17:31

  • WorldCom silent about job losses

    Employee morale plumbs new depths

    WorldCom is still refusing to comment on the 6,000 job cuts it made yesterday in the US. It won't comment on whether we can expect job cuts elsewhere, even though documents seen by El Reg prove the outfit is set to announce losses following the integration of WorldCom International and UUNet. You know, it always beggars belief …

    e-Business 1 Mar 2001, 17:32

  • WANs no longer the telecom king

    IP VPNs are cheaper and more flexible

    Wide Area Networks (WANs) are reaching their capacity, and will be replaced by cheaper IP VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) That's the conclusion of a survey of 400 UK and Dutch businesses conducted by research firm IDC, which revealed that four out of 10 UK businesses, and slightly more in Holland, see IP VPNs as the way forward …

    Data Networking 1 Mar 2001, 17:38

  • VeriSign loses control of .org domain

    A Pyrrhic victory

    Domain monopolist VeriSign is to hand over the .org domain name over to a non-profit organisation (as was the original intention) at the end of 2002. This is the first step on a long road to remove VeriSign's special status and break up the gentleman's club that is Internet infrastructure. It will however retain ownership of the …

    Music and Media 1 Mar 2001, 18:12

  • 1.5 m North Americans grab broadband in Q4

    One third get DSL

    Almost eight million homes in North America have broadband Net access. Less than a third of these have DSL services (2.3 million), with the remainder of users getting access via cable modems, according to a survey by Phoenix-based Kinetic Strategies. The cable companies added three million customers during 2000, with DSL …

    Telecoms 1 Mar 2001, 18:13

  • Cisco visits top clients to warn of SNMP bugs

    Door for possible DoS exploits

    Cisco has publicly disclosed a number of potentially devastating security vulnerabilities affecting the operating system used by its routers and switches. In the most serious case, flaws in the way Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS) implements Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), a standard for the remote …

    Data Networking 1 Mar 2001, 18:18

  • Intel to integrate USB, wireless into P4 chipsets

    Intel Developer Forum Making it easier to get digital media to its digital media processor

    Intel Developer Forum, San Jose Intel will add native USB 2.0 support to its PC system chipsets early next year, the company's desktop products group chief, Louis Burns, promised today. And wireless 802.11 support will follow around a year later, he pledged. Intel's roadmap highlights the release during Q1 2002 of a version of …

    Channel 1 Mar 2001, 18:59

  • US cyber-defense on track – report

    Govt networks pretty safe nowadays

    Three years after declaring cyber-defense a national security priority, the United States government has won the trust of a once-skeptical tech industry, fortified security on military networks, and "created effective public-private partnerships" to combat computer attacks, according to a report released last week by the …

    Security 1 Mar 2001, 19:14

  • Intel plots post-PCI, 3G PC standard

    Intel Developer Forum Convergence, here we come...

    Intel Developer Forum, San Jose So, farewell then, PCI... So, farewell then, AGP... Intel is already working on your successor, a unified PC sub-system designed to provide connectivity out into the next decade of the 21st Century. As yet, this third-generation technology has no name - at least, not one that Louis Burns, Intel's …

    Channel 1 Mar 2001, 19:24

  • Court rules for Intergraph in Intel patent dispute

    Wants royalties, damages etc. etc.

    Intergraph has actually won a court ruling in its long-festering patent dispute with Intel. Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuits ruled that Intel had no rights to use Clipper Technology patented by Intergraph. Intel's argument that use was protected by cross-licensing agreements were described as "strained …

    Channel 1 Mar 2001, 23:12