23rd April 2001 Archive

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Stanley Kalms to retire from Dixons

Headhunters are calling

Stanley Kalms, the man who turned Dixons from a single outlet photographic studio, into the UK's biggest electronics and computer retailer, is to retire. That's what the Sunday papers say: the headhunters are looking for someone to take over the reins when Kalms hangs up his boots next year at the age of 70. Kalms won't be …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 08:54
NASA grounds Pope

PC rocket boffins gag Supreme Pontificate

Pope John Paul II's influence may extend to all matters spiritual, but his Holiness's clout doesn't run to the extra-terrestrial, it seems. US rocket courier NASA has banned space shuttle Endeavour fly-boy Umberto Guidoni (above) from being the first man to deliver the world's first ultra-atmospheric papal missive. The …

Bootnotes 23 Apr 2001, 08:59
e-Pen signs death warrant for bigamy

Good

A Dutch company may have come up with a technological solution to end bigamy. On Saturday Danny Beullens, a software developer for LCI-Technology Group, and Nele Vleugels from Leuven in Belgium used a biometric pen to sign their marriage licence in what is believed to be the first such union of its kind. Not only does the pen …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 09:35
Samsung Electronics enjoys Q1 profit jump

In spite of memory slide

Samsung Electronics has shown it's handling the memory price slide by posting net profits of 1.24 trillion won ($940 million) for the first quarter of 2001. Sales for the period were 8.6 trillion won ($6.54 billion), down 5.5 per cent from the 9.1 trillion won ($6.92 billion) for the last three months of 2000. Net profits for …

Channel 23 Apr 2001, 10:58
Intel Foster poses for snap

Iwill Yeti ensnared

Iwill says it doesn't exist. So what's this screen grab all about then? Look closely: 'Dual socket 603 for Intel DP Foster and Next Generation Processors' Yeti hunters keep your eyes peeled. Bootnote Thanks to eagle-eyed Reg contributor David Ross, of Hexus.net, for the lead. If you want to see another snap and read …

Channel 23 Apr 2001, 11:26
Ringtones cost music industry $1m a day

Diddle-ee, diddle-ee, diddle ee, dee

Mobile phone users could be costing the record industry up to a $1 million a day according to a new report. UK-based Internet monitoring company, Envisional, claims that those annoying mobile phone ringtones that are downloaded from Web sites and rip off popular tunes could constitute a breach of copyright. Envisional claims …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 11:29
Gates no longer richest man on planet

And IT tycoons suffer in the UK (but not all)

Bill Gates is no longer the richest man on the planet. Thanks to the DoJ and the recent fall in tech stocks, poor ole Bill will have to make do with £37.5 billion. He had lead the world for three years thanks to his huge share holding in Microsoft but now new king of the castle is publicity-shy head of Wal-Mart S Robson Walton …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 11:32
SDMI cracks revealed

Banned in America

The academic cracker crew led by Princeton University Computer Science Professor Edward Felten, which answered the HackSDMI public challenge of last September with 'unqualified' results, has received veiled threats of criminal prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) from the SDMI Foundation in hopes that …

Security 23 Apr 2001, 11:39
1.7GHz P4 launch price will prompt further cuts

Intel confirms other P4 prices to fall next weekend

Intel has confirmed next Sunday's price cuts following today's launch of the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 at just $352 in trays of 1000 CPUs. On 29 April, the 1.5GHz P4 will come down from $519 to $256 (a cut of 50.7 per cent). The 1.4GHz P4 and the 1.3GHz part will both be priced at $193, down from $375 and $268, respectively, making for …

Channel 23 Apr 2001, 12:09
Intel 1.7GHz P4 ships at $352

Confirmed

Intel released the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 this morning, as expected. And various industry sources' reports that the chip would debut at just $352 were confirmed. An Intel spokesman told The Register the part is available now and will be appear in PCs from various European PC OEMs today. So watch out for companies previously …

Channel 23 Apr 2001, 12:19
BT and AOL UK in (another) slanging match

Tension breaks out ahead of 'Bandwidth Aid'

Spinmeisters from some of Britain's leading telecoms and Internet companies have been getting gobby ahead of "Bandwidth Aid" - a charity pub quiz to be held this week between rival PR offices to raise cash for Comic Relief. A BT spokesman for BT bragged: "It's in the bag unless the so-called opposition try to bribe their way to …

Bootnotes 23 Apr 2001, 12:24
Isle of Man pitches for world's first 3G network

It'll never work in time

The Isle of Man is making a play for the title of first ever functioning 3G mobile network, but as we understand it, it will be a rather drab affair. The tiny island - most famous for the TT motorbike races that take place there each year - has its own government and most importantly in this case, its own telecoms company, Manx …

Data Networking 23 Apr 2001, 12:27
Rambus tried to deceive patent office – Infineon

Case comes to court today

Infineon will attempt to prove that Rambus has not only tried to hoodwink the chip industry's standards body, JEDEC, but used similar tactics on the US Patent and Trademark Office. The case finally comes to court later today after various delays. The Siemens spin-off's allegation comes in its final pre-trial case summary and …

Channel 23 Apr 2001, 13:01
Apple Powerbook ‘bomb’ shuts airport

Titanium 'residues'

A Californian airport was closed for six hours on Friday, following a bomb scare. And the 'culprit'? Step forward the Titanium Powerbook G4. Operators of an x-ray machine installed at Burbank airport were unable to get a high-enough res look at a machine trundling through security. They called in back up for some chemical …

Mac Channel 23 Apr 2001, 13:03
Netscape SmartDownload opens up PCs to attack

DumbDownload

A security flaw in Netscape's SmartDownload browser plug-in leaves users vulnerable to attack even if the application is disabled. The simple act of visiting a Web site with a maliciously constructed URL could be enough for a Trojan horse program to infect the user's Windows PC, BugTraq claims. A buffer overflow bug in the …

Security 23 Apr 2001, 13:31
UK Jedi get green light

Well, sort of...

The campaign to have 'Jedi' recognised as an official religion in the forthcoming UK census has received a boost. The census form itself confirms that entering a frivolous faith therein will not result in an appearance before the courts. 'Completion of the Census form is compulsory under the Census Act 1920. If you refuse to …

Bootnotes 23 Apr 2001, 13:46
1.7GHz P4 spanks 1.33GHz Athlon in Quake 3

HWRoundup Hardware sites seem to like it

Don't know whether you've noticed but Intel has knocked out the 1.7GHz Pentium 4. And so, here is a brief list of what the boys have made of it, and some reference links for you. The review site getting the nods of approval from its peers is Tech-report which says clock 'n' load. It reports the Athlon 1.33 GHz is faster in …

Hardware Roundup 23 Apr 2001, 14:32
Britain warms to the Net

Aaaaaaaahhh

A million Net users in Britain have joined the online community since January, a new report claims today. According to the latest figures from NetValue there are now 12.8 million people online in Britain - up from more than 11 million in January. Those who have signed up to the Web during the last year make up a quarter of …

Music and Media 23 Apr 2001, 14:33
Mobile phone chaos on Friday

Do it now because you can't remember the numbers anyway

It you do one sensible thing this week, go through your mobile and phone directory and change all the numbers. Why? Because the second swathe of poorly publicised and irritating phone number changes is about to take place - this Friday. Basically, any mobile numbers (and pager numbers) you have that start with anything but 07 …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 14:38
NASA jet to hit Mach 10

Forget flying cars, we want a piece of this

NASA will take a step closer to viable hypersonic air travel when it tests its scramjet-powered X43A. NASA hopes that the project will successfully overcome the great technological hurdle for such vehicles - how to accelerate to greater than Mach 5 (approx. 3,600mph at sea level) without using rocket motors. The …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 14:40
And so to the Intel P4 1.7 Gig

One for the bloopers tape: 'It is still a little slow..'

The Intel propaganda machine swung into action as Intel officially unveiled the Pentium 4 1.7. Skipping a generation to move directly from 1.5GHz to 1.7GHz, Intel must have found the hot breath of the chasing pack from AMD a little close for comfort. 1.7 gigahertz? Well at Cebit Intel demonstrated a 1.5GHz chip clocked up to 1. …

Channel 23 Apr 2001, 14:47
Napster looks to audio fingerprints to monitor MP3 shares

Licenses Relatable music analysis code

Napster has licensed audio software specialist Relatable's audio analysis technology, called TRM, in a bid to control which music tracks are shared on its network. Relatable's code creates a unique fingerprint based on a track's acoustics. The fingerprint is the same no matter how high or low the quality of digital encoding …

Music and Media 23 Apr 2001, 15:02
Infineon to start churning out 300mm wafers in second half

German giant polishes Dresden fab

Infineon Technologies has finished building its fab in Dresden, which will churn out memory products using 300mm technology. Production equipment will now be installed in the plant, which the German company started building last May. The first products using the 300mm technology are expected to roll off the production lines in …

Channel 23 Apr 2001, 15:17
SGI axes 1000 jobs in bid to break even

Times is 'ard

SGI lost $141 million last quarter and will be ridding itself of 1000 employees - 15 per cent of its workforce - in order to get back into the black. The company's sales for the period totalled $510 million, down 11 per cent on the same quarter last year, which saw sales of $564 million, but up on the previous quarter's $487 …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 15:30
Compaq AlphaServer claims SAP record

Small print: mid-range category

Compaq today claims a benchmark record for mid-range servers in SAP BW, a component of mySAP Business Intelligence BI. Up for the gold medal is the AlphaServer ES40 system with four 833 MHz Alpha processors using 8MB of memory and L2 cache Running Tru64 Unix and Oracle 8i, the machine "delivered an average throughput of 25 …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 15:49
IBM claims latest p-servers put Sun in the shade

But the ebiz RS6000s don't have partitioning

IBM has introduced two mid-range servers which it said offer users a more economical and reliable alternative to comparable kit from Sun Microsystems, the Unix market leader. The p620 and rack-mounted p660 servers are the first mid-range systems from IBM to feature its Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology. Big Blue said the …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 15:49
Protest sites galore! Power to the people!

Little man bites back on Net (still)

Despite numerous "judgments" against owners of protest sites, it seems that the little man is unswayed and the Internet remains a perfect medium for making grumblings heard. Here are three recent examples. One has been squashed, another has the legal letter and another has just gone up. Oh, and a bonus fourth, which is a …

Music and Media 23 Apr 2001, 15:55
IBM boosts Linux support in AIX 5L

P-p-p-put a penguin in your p-server

IBM has improved Linux application support for AIX 5L, its flagship Unix operating system. AIX 5L version 5.1 gives developers access to APIs (application programming interface) and header files which enable Linux applications to run on AIX servers after a "simple recompilation". Generally, applications are optimised to run on …

Software 23 Apr 2001, 16:12
PR company loses Web site. Completely

Some Yanks seem to think they own it

PR company Portfolio Metrica Group was very surprised to find its Web site had vanished this morning and had been replaced by a mirror of American cuckoos Free2Try.com. The site, www.portfoliocomms.com, has been owned for years by the company, was not up for immediate renewal and is hardly a catchy title. A company spokesman …

Music and Media 23 Apr 2001, 16:28
Gateway quits OfficeMax

Pulls out of 1,000 stores

Gateway is to quit selling its PCs in OfficeMax shops in the US. The US PC manufacturer said it would withdraw from around 1,000 OfficeMax shops, the third biggest office supply retailer in the US. It currently has "stores-within-a-store" in around 500 of these shops, where it employs its own staff and has a separate space to …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 18:16
Travel clampdown kills trade show

Who said recessions were bad?

A US software company, which includes some of the top names in the IT industry on its customer list, has ditched a multi-million dollar event after customers said they could no longer afford the plane tickets to get there. Virginia-based webMethods sent out cancellation letters last week for Integration World 2001, an annual …

Software 23 Apr 2001, 23:36
Compaq wields cost axe

Capellas warns of tough Q2

Compaq profits dropped in the first quarter, and it warns of a tough Q2. The number two PC seller reported net income of $200 million, or 12 cents per share, for the three months ended March 31, 2001. This excluded a restructuring charge of $249 million and $75 million in net investment income, and compared to $296 million, or …

Business 23 Apr 2001, 23:45