5th March 2001 Archive
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Australia outlaws e-mail forwarding
Way over the top down under
Outrageously strict Internet copyright laws which have just gone into effect throughout Australia make it illegal to forward an e-mail memo without the author's permission, and could result in fines of $60,000 or five years in the slam, according to a story by the Aussie Sunday Telegraph. "It's quite possible that the …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 08:10
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Click here for Seattle Earthquake Collectibles
Reg Reader special offer
Want your own piece of an earthquake? No problem. Within hours of the 6.8 Richter earthquake hitting Seattle opportunist eBayers were offering genuine Seattle Earthquake rubble up for auction. Thanks to them you too can now own your own brick or random piece of debris that used to part of a downtown building for as little as …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 08:11
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Amazon, Wal-Mart ‘in alliance talks’
Sunday Times scoop
Amazon and Wal-Mart are in "secret talks" to construct a wide-ranging alliance between the two companies, the Sunday Times claims. A deal could be signed within six weeks, with Amazon becoming Wal-Mart's online fulfilment house, according to the paper. At the same time, Amazon would gain a presence in Wal-Mart retail outlets " …
e-Business 5 Mar 2001, 08:41
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NEC anoints AMD for euro-corporate PCs
Athlon and Duron
AMD has scored a major design win with NEC, possibly the first time it has secured a place for its chips in corporate PC line from a top-tier manufacturer. NEC will use AMD Athlons and Durons in the PowerMate DR series, targeted at big corporates and government agencies in Europe. The PC manufacturer will flog the range - " …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 09:42
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Electronic Arts sticks into Pogo.com
Games companies play
Electronic Arts has bought gaming website Pogo.com in for $42m. In a past life, Pogo was the gaming service provider TEN; in this guise, it helped to form the Professional Gamers League before abandoning the fickle hardcore gaming market for mainstream webgames such as card and board games. Pogo.com boasts 17 million …
Games Industry 5 Mar 2001, 10:44
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Two more sites join Apple retail chain
Littleton, Colorado and New York City to get AppleStores
Littleton, Colorado and New York City have joined Chicago; Glendale, California and Palo Alto as unofficially confirmed sites for outlets in Apple's soon-to-be-opened retail chain. Apple has kept very quiet about its plan, which leaked out a year or so back. Since then, details of the scheme have emerged from unlikely sources …
Mac Channel 5 Mar 2001, 11:17
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DRAM market contracts in 2001
Sales up, prices down
The DRAM market has always been boom or bust, but it looks set to enter the bust part of the cycle earlier than usual, according to IDC. The market research firm predicts worldwide DRAM sales will fall 18 per cent in 2001 to $23.8 billion, while unit prices will slump 46 per cent. Soo Kyoum Kim, IDC semiconductor programme …
Channel 5 Mar 2001, 12:33
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Apache regains ground lost to MS
Netcraft Web Survey Feb 2001
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 January 2001 Percent February 2001 Percent Change Apache 16207982 58.75 16871744 59.99 1.24 Microsoft 5903512 21.40 5523943 19.64 -1.76 …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 12:51
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SCH buys Compel's desktop biz for £18.5m
Compelsource unit lost £4.3m in last half of 2000
Compel has finally sold its desktop business to Specialist Computer Holdings for up to £18.5 million cash. The Birmingham computer dealer will pay £16.5 million for the loss-making Compelsource unit when the deal is completed - expected on March 22. The remaining £2 million cash will be paid over the next two years. Compel has …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 12:56
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IBM ads to feature Linux penguin
Peace, Love & Linux - groovy baby!
IBM is to launch a high-profile advertising campaign featuring Tux, the Linux penguin. Starting this week, a six-storey billboard in New York's Times Square will be emblazoned an image of the Linux penguin alongside peace and love symbols that give the multi-million dollar campaign a distinctly 60s feel. Print ads in …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 13:10
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Cloud Nine blasts ‘incompetent’ Oftel BT ruling
Seeks OFT investigation
BT could face a full investigation by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) despite an Oftel ruling last week that the monster telco was not guilty of anti-competitive behaviour. Basingstoke-based ISP Cloud Nine, maintains BT is in breach of the Competition Act and will take its complaint to the European Commission if the OFT …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 13:12
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BT ditches ADSL ‘always-on’ promise
Sorry, you shouldn't have received that email
BT bosses are trying to hide their blushes after telling customers that its flagship always-on ADSL service is no longer "always on". In an email to users of BT's broadband service, bosses point to a change in the Ts&Cs. It says: "Your connection to the Internet via the Service, at any one given time, is on a timed session …
Telecoms 5 Mar 2001, 13:13
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Microsoft to delay Japanese Xbox launch?
Not nice enough to Japanese developers?
Microsoft may be forced to put back Xbox's Far Eastern debut - because of a lack of support from Japanese games developers. Says who? Who else but... er... Japanese games developers, according to a Bloomberg report. Sounds a bit like sour grapes to us... we do sense a certain indignation in the tone of the comments from …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 13:27
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Transmeta's Ditzel drops CEO title for CTO role
Time for the company to grow as a business
Transmeta leader and co-founder Dave Ditzel has handed over his CEO title to president and COO Mark Allen. Instead, he'll become CTO and vice chairman, the corporate equivalent of an executive producer in the movie business, ie. more about salary than responsibility. Taking on the role of Chief Technology Officer makes a lot of …
Channel 5 Mar 2001, 13:48
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LineOne and AOL France up for grabs
Who'd want to be an ISP?
It's an ISP bonanza! LineOne and AOL France are both under the hammer, although one is in distinctly better health. It isn't LineOne - the UK ISP's sale price LineOne has slumped since being put on the market by BT and United News & Media in November, according to those "close to the negotiations". Italian ISP Tiscali is still …
e-Business 5 Mar 2001, 13:54
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VIA sales up in February
Fabless
VIA, the ever helpful fabless chip firm, has published its monthly sales figures for February, but without a break down of revenues for chipsets and CPUs. Net sales for the month were NT$3.25 billion ($100 million approximately), up 125 per cent on the same period in 2000. Combined sales for January and February are around NT$6 …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 14:19
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Linux to push Palm off PDA pole position – Sharp
Open source OS will take half the market
Sharp wants Linux to dominate the PDA market when it launches a version of its Zaurus handheld based on the open source operating system in October (see Sharp tools up with Linux to fight Palm). So says Hiroshi Uno, head of Sharp's mobile systems division, in an interview with Bloomberg. He expects to help achieve that goal by …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 15:01
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Demon upgrade hits users
Problems, problems, problems
Demon Internet is warning customers to expect disruption to services for six or seven weeks as it finishes an upgrade to its network. The ISP claims the work is nearing completion with "migration and replacement work to establish all services across the new platform continuing through March, and expected to be completed several …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 15:37
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SiS, VIA and Acer intro Tualatin chipsets
Readying mobo support for chip's Q3 debut
Taiwanese chipset maker SiS has begun work on two chipsets designed to support Intel's upcoming 0.13 micron, copper interconnect revision of the Pentium III, codenamed Tualatin. VIA is working on one too, as is Acer Labs, Taiwan's business paper, the Commercial Times has reported. Tualatin is due to ship early Q3 at 1.13GHz …
Channel 5 Mar 2001, 15:53
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Internet firm slams UK govt over fags
Not quite smoke and mirrors
The UK government is attempting to illegally put the frighteners on smokers buying their requisites over the Internet, a dot.com has alleged. Representatives at www.lowpricecigarettes.com claimed last week that HM Customs & Excise are seizing consignments of fags ordered from its Web site, in contravention of European rules on …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 16:01
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Another NT crack (yawn)
Cracker raise their sights
The battleground between security vendors and crackers is shifting as attacks are becoming more likely to come in at the application rather than infrastructure level, according to a security firm which keeps close tabs on the digital underground. According to Kenneth De Spiegeleire, consulting manager at Internet security …
Security 5 Mar 2001, 16:24
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Pearson profits fall on Net spend
Expensive business this Web stuff
Media group Pearson has unveiled its annual results and suffered a 17 per cent fall in profits, placed squarely at the Internet's gates. The company which owns the Financial Times, as well as a huge portfolio of education and media companies, invested £196 million on Internet enterprises during the year. Sales climbed 16 per …
e-Business 5 Mar 2001, 16:28
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Intel slices up to 19% off desktop CPU prices
Paving the way for new products
Intel cut prices on selected desktop CPUs yesterday, as anticipated (see Pentium 4 price blitz to push out PIII and Intel warns channel of price cuts on 4 March). The biggest cuts were reserved for older processors, with reductions of between five and 19 per cent on Celeron CPUs, and six and 11 per cent on PIII parts. Only the …
Channel 5 Mar 2001, 16:38
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MS RTMs Office XP
On course for Spring launch
Microsoft today released Office XP to manufacture, ensuring the company will be well within its self-imposed first half, 2001 launch target. In February, the company made available the Office XP corporate preview kit, giving "up to 500,000 corporates", the chance to test-drive the product for $19.95 per copy. ®
Software 5 Mar 2001, 16:41
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Aussie AG denies e-mail penalty, sort of
Update The old non-denial denial
We've been buried in reader responses, most originating in Australia, pointing us to a statement in clear contradiction of a Sunday Telegraph story indicating that Australia's new copyright regulations could result in penalties for forwarding an e-mail memo, which we picked up here. "Contrary to alarmist media reports, sharing …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 16:50
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Cyber Patrol bans The Register
Shurely shome mishtake Surfcontrol
We are officially irresponsible. Surfcontrol, the Internet filtering company, has, for some reason, put us on its CyberNOT list - which means that those using CyberPatrol won't be able to see us (or even this story). Don't believe us? Look here. We have a few questions. The first would have to be: why? We write about IT, for …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 17:13
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Trace who is linking to your site
Database launched to boot off deep linkers
A British company has come up with what it claims to be the first true map of the Web. The LinkMap will let site owners track inbound links to their sites, and is aimed at deep linking. The product, from Berkshire-based start-up LinkGuard, is aimed at companies that don't want deep linking - the practice of another site …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 17:15
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MS XP previews morph into list building, market seeding
And we all get to pay the overheads...
Last week Microsoft announced a "Corporate Preview Program" for Office XP, giving "more than 500,000 corporate customers" the chance to check out pre-release code for the product over the next few (well, six actually) months. Today, a full seven days later, Microsoft released Office XP to manufacturing. The CPP code is …
Software 5 Mar 2001, 17:32
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High-speed xDSL moves to new lengths
54Mbps at up to 2.8km
A small US firm had successfully tested an ultra-fast broadband technology which could translate into high-speed Internet access for many more people. New Wheel Technology (NWT), has demonstrated prototype technology, called Cu@OCX, that delivers unidirectional transmission speeds of 54Mbps over a distance of up to 2.8Km, using …
Telecoms 5 Mar 2001, 17:59
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Online spending declines after Xmas shock
Mmmmmmmmmm
Online spending in the US fell by half in January compared to December, according to the latest stats from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Forrester Research. The survey concludes that total spending on online sales decreased from $6.1 billion in December to just $3 billion in January. Toys and video games experienced …
e-Business 5 Mar 2001, 17:59
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Canadian regulator probes Corel-MS deal
Bit late for that, isn't it?
The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has asked Corel to show a list of events that led up to Microsoft buying a stake in the company last year. The request came to light in Corel's annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Thursday, Canadian newswire Canoe reports. It refers to Microsoft's $135 …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 18:05
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Loophole in Palm security lockout discovered
Backdoor highlighted
Passwords and data can easily be obtained through a backdoor in Palm OS, even if a Palm device is "locked". That's the conclusion of researchers at security firm @stake who have discovered that the "system lockout" function in Palm OS security, which means a device will not work until the correct password is entered, can easily …
Security 5 Mar 2001, 18:08
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Sun Micro in quest of clockless CPU
Async logic going mainstream
Sun Microsystems is actively pursuing development of a CPU without a clock, based instead on asynchronous logic, according to a story in Monday's New York Times. "The clock is the microelectronic crystal that beats at the heart of every microprocessor chip, orchestrating the synchronous dance of electrons that course through …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 18:37
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Stomp the identity thieves
Essay by Kevin Mitnick
Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country, and there's no doubt that the Internet makes it easier. But while some argue that sequestering personal information from the Web is the only solution, I have seen the future of identity theft, and I believe that approach would prove a complete disaster. …
Music and Media 5 Mar 2001, 19:17
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FBI roots own systems to find spy's backdoor
Did Hanssen compromise the whole shebang?
The FBI is systematically searching for evidence that suspected double agent Robert Hanssen, who has computer programming skills, compromised systems at the Bureau and/or the State Department with some manner of malicious backdoor, according to an unnamed source quoted in Monday's Washington Post. "The jury is still out as to …
Security 5 Mar 2001, 20:06
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Pacemaker users get digital radio warning
Breathtaking technology
A reader was taken aback when he took delivery of digital radio handset from Motorola that contained a series of warnings for pacemaker users. The Motorola d700 handsets, which will be used in a Terrestrial Trunk Radio (TETRA) digital communications project, contain recommendations from the Health Industry Manufacturers …
Business 5 Mar 2001, 20:23
