27th March 2001 Archive

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Conexant and PMC cut jobs amid gloomy forecasts

Californian chip outfits no longer able to weather the storm

US chip outfits Conexant Systems and PMC-Sierra have both announced job cuts amid gloomy financial forecasts. PMC said it would slash 230 jobs, or 13 per cent of its workforce, blaming sluggish chip demand and cancelled orders for communications chips. The job cuts will result in a first-quarter charge of at least $18 million …

Channel 27 Mar 2001, 08:19
Compaq and Transmeta named in Tablet PC XP gang

Wireless wonder tipped for 2002

Microsoft has crawled into bed with top vendors such as Compaq and Transmeta to give the world Tablet PCs based on its Windows XP OS. The tablet-based device is meant to offer the power and functions of a Windows-based PC in a machine the size of a standard piece of paper. It will have wireless Internet access, and users will …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 08:19
Russia and US shut down pedo site, arrest nine

Alleged buyers of child porn videos charged

US and Russian officials have arrested nine people in connection with a Website suspected of selling hundreds of child porn videos worldwide. US customs worked with Moscow City Police for Operation Blue Orchid (named after the site), which resulted in five arrests in Russian and four in the US, US Customs said. The Russian …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 08:22
1,700 students get day off school after IM threat

US teen faces five years in jail

An American teen was arrested yesterday after an Instant Message comment scared New York schools into closing for the day. Benjamin Ballard made the threat to a student of Edgemont High School in Greenburgh, NY, via AOL Instant Messenger on Thursday. He told the student not to go to school the next day, mentioning "a lot of …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 08:25
IR35: the govt's viewpoint

Civil servant behind legislation speaks her mind

The civil servant behind the controversial IR35 tax legislation has spoken at length with contractor group Shout99. In the interview Sarah Walker is unrepentant regarding the legislation and is sure that it will be upheld as legal. Sarah was the architect of IR35. She is soon to move to the Inland Revenue's Pensions Department …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 08:31
Azlan bullish at year-end

Channel Flannel

Azlan, the pan-European networking equipment distie, has issued a bullish trading update and says it is confident of the outcome of the financial year (ending March 31). The company continues to "enjoy the strong growth experienced in the first half across all of its 15 European territories". Progress "has also been made in …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 09:45
Quake rocks Hiroshima fab

DRAM supply disrupted, but so what?

NEC's DRAM fab in Hiroshima was shut down yesterday after the site was hit by an earthquake. The company said the site was closed to allow chip-making equipment to be checked for damage, and that - assuming no significant problems were encountered - the plant would be up and running at full production next week. Not that NEC …

Channel 27 Mar 2001, 09:49
breathe to close?

That's news to us microscooter-riding modern urbanists

breathe is bemused by weekend press reports that it's new owner, Great Universal Stores (GUS), is to shut down the ISP three months after buying it. According to the Sunday Telegraph, GUS only wanted the modern urbanist ISP for its technology and has no interest in it as a service provider. Indeed, when GUS bought breathe …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 09:57
Why do we need 3G phones anyway?

Packet switching with GPRS may be good enough

The move to packet switching that will come with the introduction of GPRS services will make serious business applications, picture messaging and mobile gaming a reality. Mark Edwards, Symbian's VP of marketing, said the move to packet data will be as important the increase in data speeds from 9.6Kbps to 28Kbps that will come …

Data Networking 27 Mar 2001, 10:07
Skycar crashes and burns?

Flying car community rounds on flying car

Inventor Paul Moller's recently unveiled Skycar - the 21st century solution to commuting woes - has come under heavy ground fire from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeroboffin. According to aircraft design expert John Hansman, quoted in a piece in the National Post, the Skycar is "a piece of junk". He further states: " …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 10:14
Europe to create cybercrime forum

More jaw-jaw on e-crime war-war

The European Commission is looking to create a new talking shop to thrash out the issues affecting cybercrime. The Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner, António Vitorino, is expected to announce proposals for a European Union Cybercrime Forum next month during a keynote speech at the European ISP Association Conference in …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 10:42
MS hobbling WinXP Server, pushing users to Advanced version?

And Valentine flashes Blade at WinHEC...

Packaging changes introduced by Microsoft in Beta 2 of Windows XP look set to limit use of XP Server to small networks, and force larger customers to spend more money on XP Advanced Server. The changes are not yet final - according to Microsoft they "represent out current thinking about how we can better position our product …

Software 27 Mar 2001, 11:01
Ex-Novell CEO becomes chairman of Google

Schmidt now chairs three firms, runs One Net

Departing Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt has become chairman of search engine firm Google. Schmidt, who is handing over the leadership of Novell to Cambridge Tech President and chief executive Jack Messman, will retain his position of chairman of the Internet software and service firm, and its subsidiary Volera. He will …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 11:01
Nokia and Ericsson to axe staff

400 and 3,300 respectively

Nokia is to axe 300 to 400 jobs to slim down its high-speed Internet broadband systems division. The company is also splitting the division into two units - broadband access and narrowband access - to take effect in Q2. The job cuts will mainly affect R&D staff. Rival Ericsson has announced plans to cut 3,300 jobs in Sweden …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 11:35
Acer to split in two

To avoid conflict between OEM and own brand business

Acer is split into two businesses - one to make and sell its own brand machines, the other to supply IBM, Dell and other customers on a made-to-order basis. The split is to avoid conflict between the two parts of the company. Acer Co-President Simon Lin will run the business selling products to other computer makers. Wang …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 11:49
ic24 denies Tiscali acquisition

Still for sale apparently

Trinity Mirror has denied reports that it has sold its ISP, ic24, to Tiscali for £25 million. Bloomberg cited a report by German news outfit, MF which said the Italian telco had agreed to buy ic24 and the Internet division of German wireless operation, Viag Interkom. A spokesman for ic24 said that as far as he was concerned, …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 11:58
Jack Straw shoots back in the Net

Mobile thefts and kiddie Web protection

Home Secretary Jack Straw is having a summit today and tomorrow concerning the problems the Internet is throwing up. Today at 3pm, he's meeting representatives from the mobile phone industry to discuss ways in which mobile theft can be tackled. Tomorrow at midday he is meeting with the Internet Watch Foundation to discuss how …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 12:25
Police swoop on Internet paedophiles

Largest ever UK raids

A series of raids was mounted this morning on the homes of suspected Internet paedophiles. Operation Appal, which was led by Greater Manchester Police's (GMP) obscene publications unit, focused on individuals suspected of using the Internet to exchange and store obscene pictures of children. It is the culmination of a four …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 12:29
Time staff claim they've been paint poisoned

Case retouching toxic trouble

Burnley based Time Computers is facing legal action from three employees and one sacked ex-staffer for breaching health and safety regulations. The four claim to have been poisoned by a toxic paint being used to smarten up some damaged PC cases. The three employees are currently on paid suspension - Time won't say why - but …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 13:55
IMEI numbers no antidote to mobile fraud

Readers give us the lowdown

The retention and reporting of IMEI numbers is no solution to mobile phone theft, a number of Reg readers have informed us. Police are currently pushing for greater awareness of IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers, which can be found from your phone by typing "* # 0 6 #". This 15-digit number is unique to a …

Security 27 Mar 2001, 14:44
British courts to take pleas by email

cc: your lawyer

Instead of appearing in court, defendants are to be given the opportunity to submit pleas by email to charges they face. But the scheme isn't available to people charged with serious crimes. According to a Press Association report, Courtroom 8 at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court is to receive a hi-tech makeover in order to …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 15:04
Minnow ISP takes on mighty BT

Not to be sniffed at

A small British ISP is considering legal action against BT after the monster telco allegedly disconnected the Surrey-based service provider's SurfTime customers yesterday. This action was the culmination of problems that Sniffout alleges date back to summer 2000 when BT failed to deliver the unmetered Net access product, …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 15:08
Napster demands fans march on Washington

Goes all agitprop

Napster is calling on its users to march on Washington, DC and protest about the way the company feels it has been treated. Tempting users with a free concert and the opportunity to hear Napster founder Shawn Fanning talk about programming, Napster hopes enough punters will show in the US capital on 3 April that legislators …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 15:38
MS cools to USB 2.0, warms to 1394

Another Secure PC smoking gun

Microsoft's support for USB appears to be not quite as warm as it once was, if comments made by Carl Stork, the Beast of Redmond's general manager for Windows Hardware Strategy, are anything to go by. 'Interviewed' by his own company's PressPass 'journalists', Stork says he - and, by extension, Microsoft - reckons that the …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 15:47
Voice over DSL: good for slashing your phone bill?

The kit is just hitting Europe

Voice over IP connections has been a much talked about (but infrequently used) networking technology for a number of years but kit to allow voice and data over DSL links has just being introduced to Europe. VoDSL (voice over DSL) technology, which was displayed by a number of firms at the CeBIT show in Hangover, Germany, is …

Data Networking 27 Mar 2001, 15:57
AMD aims high with mobile roadmap

Horsey Horsey

AMD may be late to the high-performance mobile processor table, but it's trying hard to make up for its tardiness in 2001. In its most recent mobile processor roadmap, issued at CeBIT, the company says that notebook systems using mobile AMD Athlon processors, based on Palomino, are "planned" to be in the channel in Q2 this year …

Channel 27 Mar 2001, 16:24
DoubleClick undergoes security audit after hack attack

Security experts say firm should consider "pulling plug on servers" until flaws are fixed

Internet advertising firm DoubleClick has denied reports that the security of its Web servers has been compromised by vulnerabilities which lay unnoticed for the last two years. French security site Kitetoa.com claims that a flaw with the doubleclick.net Web server, which runs Microsoft's IIS, means hackers had backdoor access …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 17:56
MS proprietary tech undermines HailStorm – analyst

Taming Kerberos

Microsoft's holier-than-thou standards pitch for .Net could be undermined by its insistence on using its own, non-standard version of Kerberos. And that, reckons Bloor Research in an overview of HailStorm published today here,could prove controversial. "Unlike all the other open standards displayed throughout the .Net …

Software 27 Mar 2001, 17:57
WinXP Blade: MS' plan to kill off Linux Web servers

It could work, but they have to think smarter than usual...

There is indeed more than meets the eye to Blade, the WinXP server edition Microsoft introduced as a 'possibility' at WinHEC yesterday. The Register's spies (who seem to be on something of a roll at the moment, and we thank them for that), report that Blade servers are viewed internally as 'cool,' and killer products. It's what …

Software 27 Mar 2001, 21:34
IM – maybe the song I cannot sing

Messenger in a bottle

It had to happen - an American schoolgirl has released a song about Instant Messaging. Twelve-year-old Brittney Cleary was 'discovered' while singing karaoke in New York. Her family swiftly up and moved to Nashville to further her career, resulting the release of 'I.M. Me', a pop ditty about Brittney's favourite pastime - …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 22:33
DRAM price rise shock horror!

Inventory gluts out

The DRAM market may have bottomed out - temporarily -, with prices tipped to rise over the next couple of months. DRAM prices coming into the US from Taiwan on the spot market today stood at between $2.40 and $2.65 for 64MB chips (PC133), while 128MB chips were priced at $3.95 to $5.20. This means prices are almost back to …

Channel 27 Mar 2001, 22:41
IBM touts world's quietest mobile drives

Also 48GB monster

IBM has built "the world's quietest" range of mobile hard drives. They use IBM's Drive Noise Suppression System (DNSS), which "replaces the traditional ball bearing design with the fluid dynamic bearing spindle motor technology and voice coil motor dampening enhancement". Big Blue is also sprucing up its Travelstar line, …

Business 27 Mar 2001, 22:49
Surfers confused by ‘Dying Cam’ prank

We are all dying, master magician tells us.......

Surfers were a touch confused today after master magician Jim Callahan revealed his 'Dying Cam'. The prankster last week promised to show "a person dying live on your computer". But the inquisitive and sadistic elements of cyberspace were this afternoon disappointed to find the following statement on the site by Callahan in the …

Music and Media 27 Mar 2001, 22:52