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12th April 2001 Archive

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  • MS ridicules itself to sell Office XP

    'We've been such idiots -- please upgrade'

    Microsoft is hard-selling the irritating character of its animated paper clip Office Assistant, which it's now decided to name "Clippy", to promote Office XP and finally get some decent mileage out of the hated little "feature". The basic angle here is that XP is so perfectly idiot proof that even the densest users will no …

    Software 12 Apr 2001, 02:37

  • Rambus, Infineon trial delayed

    Infineon pursuing 'Rambus committed fraud' allegation

    Rambus' legal battle with memory chip maker Infineon has been rescheduled - yet again. Last week it was put back to 10 April, this week it was delayed until the 17th. Now, we learn, we'll have to wait until the 23rd of this month before Rambus can try to prove how Infineon infringed its SDRAM patents, the basis for its claim …

    Channel 12 Apr 2001, 09:05

  • Palm cuts prices to clear unsold stock

    Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!

    Palm cut prices on three soon-to-be-retired models yesterday in a bid to tackle the build-up of excess inventory, including $100 million worth of unsold PDAs left over from last quarter and the $200 million worth of kit expected to remain in Palm's warehouses and the channel at the end of the current quarter. So the Palm Vx - …

    Business 12 Apr 2001, 09:38

  • WHSmith Online reaps £5m sales

    Just a nano-drop of water in financial ocean

    WHSmith Online - the e-version of the high street book, music and stationery outfit - has increased sales by 47 per cent to £5 million during the six months to 28 February, the company announced today. The operation lost £4 million during the same period and is expected to lose around £7 million for the whole year. Execs hope …

    e-Business 12 Apr 2001, 09:50

  • Boo.com tops 100 e-business list

    Dumb, dumber, dumbest

    Boo.com - the fashionably chic failed dotcom that blew a whopping £178 million - has headed a list of the 100 "Dumbest Moments in e-Business History". Compiled by the new economy-focused magazine ecompany.com, boo.com's top slot epitomises all that is wrong with the dotcom world. It's failure is based on unrivalled extravagance …

    e-Business 12 Apr 2001, 10:49

  • AMD ships 800MHz Mobile Duron

    It's in a Sony Vaio coming next month

    AMD has an 800MHz Mobile Duron in the works - according to Sony. The Japanese giant yesterday announced the latest additions to its Vaio notebook line, one of which sports "the new 800MHz AMD Duron mobile processor" with a 200MHz frontside bus, 128KB L1 cache and 64KB of on-die L2 cache. The machine contain the 800MHz part, the …

    Channel 12 Apr 2001, 11:20

  • Baltimore issues profits warning

    Blames firms delaying e-business projects

    Security firm Baltimore Technologies has issued a first quarter profit warning blaming lower than expected sales on its customers' decisions to postpone ebusiness plans. Baltimore expects its first quarter revenues to be pegged at $33.6 million, against the £25 million it previously predicted. It's the second time in less than …

    Business 12 Apr 2001, 11:43

  • Missing Novell server discovered after four years

    BOFH meets Edgar Alan Poe

    In the kind of tale any aspiring BOFH would be able to dine out on for months, the University of North Carolina has finally located one of its most reliable servers - which nobody had seen for FOUR years. One of the university's Novell servers had been doing the business for years and nobody stopped to wonder where it was - …

    Data Networking 12 Apr 2001, 11:45

  • Tiny furious at dirty tricks campaign

    'Not one store closure or redundancy'

    Tiny Computers claims that it is the victim of a dirty tricks campaign suggesting its computer retail chain is in trading difficulties. The company flatly denies all the allegations, circulating in an orchestrated email campaign to staff, suppliers, competitors and the press, about impending store closures and redundancies. …

    Business 12 Apr 2001, 11:46

  • Data-corruption bug hits VIA chipsets

    Updated Only obscure (ish) configs need apply

    VIA has confirmed a data-damaging glitch in its 686B Southbridge chip - a major part of the Taiwanese company's KT-133A chipset - and is working with mobo makers to prepare BIOS updates to fix the problem. The southbridge part is used in the vast majority of AMD Athlon-oriented mobos, primarily the KT-133, but it can be used …

    Channel 12 Apr 2001, 11:53

  • Yahoo! pumps up porn sales

    'Hard and fast' apparently

    Yahoo! is hoping increased sales of porn will help boost its flagging operation. A story from the LA Times by way of Reuters reports that Yahoo! has quietly relaunched its "Adult and Erotica" store offering thousands of different videos and DVDs. Yahoo! doesn't flog the stuff itself, you understand, that's done by its partners …

    e-Business 12 Apr 2001, 12:21

  • ASPs no defence against piracy liability

    Pain in the ASP

    British IT managers are a sensible lot, by and large, and they know better than to deliberately pirate software. But keeping track of all the software in use is a pain in the auditing neck. At last, a solution could be at hand - the Application Service Provider (ASP)But is the right answer? According to a survey commissioned by …

    Security 12 Apr 2001, 13:20

  • Juniper sales soar

    Recession? What Recession!

    Juniper Networks today posted markedly increased revenues for its first quarter, bucking the trend of poor financial results from networking equipment suppliers Juniper, which supplies high-end routers to service providers in competition with Cisco Systems, reported net revenues of $332.1 million, compared with $63.9 million …

    Business 12 Apr 2001, 14:10

  • Extreme ultraviolet chip-making kit unveiled

    Paves way for 10GHz CPUs

    The processor industry-backed company developing extreme ultraviolet lithography chip-making equipment has demonstrated its first prototype. The machine etches circuits on a wafer of silicon. The microscopic 'wiring' is 0.01 micron wide - just 5.6 per cent of the width of the circuits in today's top-end 0.18 micron CPUs. That …

    Channel 12 Apr 2001, 14:35

  • BT payphones to become phone aerials

    That's what it says 'ere

    BT is to turn its public phone boxes into mobile phone transmitters to help raise cash to fund its service. Space will be made available in up to 5,000 locations around the country for mobile network operators to fit the boxes with low-powered mobile phone micro cells. The monster telco says trials have proved successful and …

    Business 12 Apr 2001, 14:58

  • Punters petition broadband outfit Homechoice

    Demand 'decent service for their money'

    Disgruntled customers have started an online petition demanding "decent service for [their] money" from UK broadband outfit Homechoice. By late Thursday afternoon 41 people had signed the petition but organiser, Sarah Moloney, hopes many more customers will add their names over the coming weeks. "I started the petition after …

    Broadband 12 Apr 2001, 15:43

  • Kozmo.com makes its last delivery

    A sad day for Manhattan's modern urbanists

    Kozmo.com has joined the dotcom delivery slaughter by shutting its doors and laying off more than 1,000 staff. Yesterday the CEO of the Silicon Alley Net outfit, which promised to deliver a range of items such as pizza, videos or medicine within one hour, blamed the company's death on Internet investor jitters and the outfit's …

    Media 12 Apr 2001, 15:49

  • Motorola to axe Palm smartphone

    The cull continues

    Motorola's axe continues to swing, with its PalmOS-based smartphone the latest casualty. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Motorola executive told The Register that the Palm collaboration was "extremely unlikely" ever to reach market, independently confirming other highly placed Motorola sources. The device was announced …

    Business 12 Apr 2001, 16:25

  • MS sabotages MP3 quality under Win-XP

    How else to push WM audio?

    Being an OS monopolist has its privileges, and making the competition look bad on your ubiquitous desktop has to be one of the sweetest. So it comes as no surprise that the Redmond Beast has apparently decided to equip Windows XP with second-rate MP3 software, thereby limiting the recording and playback quality of MP3 files …

    Software 12 Apr 2001, 16:25

  • BT and Dixons named as May Day protest targets

    Cops comb Net for anti-capitalist mayhem info

    Police are preparing to meet the threat posed by anti-capitalist protestors in London on 1 May by monitoring their evolving plans on the Internet. Tactics for the loose confederation of anti-capitalist, green and anarchist groups who are planning rallies in May remain unclear. Because of this police are keeping an open mind …

    Media 12 Apr 2001, 17:05

  • Intel tackles chipset rivals on price

    Set to charge under $30 for new chipsets

    Intel looks set to join the price war started by rival integrated chipset makers VIA and SIS when its 815G and 815EG Celeron-oriented chipsets enter volume production next quarter. Both chipsets will sell to mobo makers for under $30 a pop - pretty much what their getting the older 810 family of chipsets for. With the 810 …

    Channel 12 Apr 2001, 17:06

  • Spyware concerns over fast selling PC game

    Is Black & White snooping on gamers?

    Fast-selling PC game Black & White has generated a storm of controversy on messaging boards this week amid concerns that it is being used to spy on gamers. Black & White sends information about a user's computer (including IP number, registry details and hardware configuration) to a server run by the game's developer Lionhead …

    Games Industry 12 Apr 2001, 18:43

  • Wallmartcanada sucks.com goes on the attack

    Fun and games

    In December, 2000, Kenneth Harvey, the owner of WallMartcanadasucks.com won the right to retain his domain name following a WIPO adjudication which rejected Wal-Mart's attempts to grab the URL from him. At the time, Harvey was described as "childish and unfair" the WIPO panel. Maybe so. But he won. And now he's going on the …

    Media 12 Apr 2001, 19:01

  • VIA KT266: Tom and Anand's turn

    HWRoundup Ace's returns to fray

    Now for some VIA KT266 news: Tom and Anand have put the beast through its paces - their benchmarks come out a little different from Ace's Hardware's magisterial review a few days ago. In an update, Ace's explains why. Oh yeah. Intel launched the Celeron II 850... But aren't Durons cheaper and faster? At CeBIT there was a …

    Hardware Roundup 12 Apr 2001, 19:40

  • The pop group, the press release and global warming

    Green bid to save the Net not what it seems?

    Few of the press releases pumped out on a daily basis actually make it into news articles, but when The Register received an announcement about a cyberspace day to save the environment, our interest was peaked. What an amazing notion - an environmentalist group in the US was declaring that the Internet was on the verge of a …

    Media 12 Apr 2001, 20:27

  • Rambus legal bill soars

    Expensive delays

    Lawyers have their price, and in Rambus, the litigious DRAM IP company, the price in Q2 is $7.3 million - up from $4.3 million in Q1, and a huge jump on the $660k recorded in the same Q last year. Part of the jump is "due to delays in our litigation in Europe against Hyundai and Micron, and in the US against Infineon". But, …

    Channel 12 Apr 2001, 21:27

  • MSN opts for Brightmail anti-spam defence

    Yeah, but what about Hotmail?

    MSN has signed up with Brightmail to stop its email users getting spammed. The ISP will offer its five million email users in the US the option of Brightmail's Anti-Spam Solution. MSN users need to opt-in for the service, which splits unwanted and legitimate emails - the spam is put in a separate area where the account holder …

    Media 12 Apr 2001, 22:41