10th May 2001 Archive

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2 stepping GeForce goose-stepping

HWRoundup One works, one doesn't

Ace's Hardware today outs the name for AMD's new Palomino due to be launched in three wholesome flavours next week. Recently, there's been a lot of chat about Geforce 3s, with the 2 current stepping. Difference: One works. The other doesn't. At RivaStation my friend Borsti has published a comprehensive write-up on the …

Hardware Roundup 10 May 2001, 00:17
Guilty! Rambus committed fraud

Updated Ordered to pay Infineon $3.5m

A US federal jury has awarded punitive damages of $3.5m against Rambus for using fraudulent means to file patents for high-speed memory technology. The jury agreed with arguments presented by Infineon, the German chipmaker and Rambus nemesis, that Rambus had deliberately hidden its intention to file patents for SDRAM technology …

Channel 10 May 2001, 00:38
BT shake-up to save business (touch wood)

The future's bright, the Future BT

BT today announced a widescale re-organisation which it prays will turnaround the fortunes of this ailing corporate giant. The company is to be split in two, creating a new business called "Future BT" which will concentrate on the telco's European network and retail business. At its heart will be BT's operations BT Retail, …

Business 10 May 2001, 08:53
Avnet launches ACS in Europe

Channel Flannel

Avnet, the US electronics distribution giant, yesterday announced the official launch of its Applied Computing Solutions division in Europe. It will be headed by Jerry Kagele, already a senior Avnet exec. The business unit is one of three within Avnet's Applied Computing division, all of which target system builders. The …

Channel 10 May 2001, 09:23
BT unveils first-ever loss

Oh that it should come to this (sniff)

BT has announced its first-ever loss of £1.03 billion. The company - once famous for the amount of profit it made per second - has slipped into the red thanks to acquisitions, expensive 3G licences and faltering businesses. Most significant was a £3 billion goodwill write-off for boosting its stake in German mobile company Viag …

Business 10 May 2001, 10:28
UK business confused about DSL

Never 'eard of it, mate

Britain's broadband providers are failing to deliver the message about the benefits of DSL services according to a quarterly report from telecoms regulator Oftel. While a third of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) said they were likely to use broadband services sometime in the future (a figure unchanged since the last …

Telecoms 10 May 2001, 11:33
Cube8 buys Freeloader business

Online games has 'enormous potential'

Cube8, the mini-internet incubator, has bought the Freeloader online games business from Pure Entertainment for £600K in new shares. Pure Entertainment, now a cash shell, shut down the Freeloader games download site, following the collapse of the games advertising online earlier this year. In a statement Tim Dean-Smith, …

Games Industry 10 May 2001, 11:41
AMD Palomino to ship as Athlon 4

Free the Pentium 4

AMD will dub the next member of the Athlon family, codenamed Palomino, the Athlon 4, according to an anonymous source cited by Ace's Hardware. Said throat claims AMD is already using the term in its internal documentation. The logical conclusion is that the company has chosen the name - if, indeed, it has - to improve Athlon's …

Channel 10 May 2001, 11:50
NTL on target for 100K broadband punters

Swell, just swell

NTL is signing up new 1,500 new broadband customers a week and maintains it is well on target to have 100,000 cable modem customers by the end of the year, according to figures published today. Releasing its pre-announced Q1 results, the outfit said that it currently had 26,800 broadband cable modem customers with a monthly …

Telecoms 10 May 2001, 12:05
Hunt on for porn-meddling virus writers

Outbreak of Homepage worm under control

The hunt is on for the authors of the Homepage worm amid signs that the outbreak of the virus has been brought under control. Homepage masquerades as a harmless Web site recommendation but in reality it directs users to one of four porn sites. It is also said an email copy of itself to everyone in an infected user's Outlook …

Security 10 May 2001, 12:23
IBM confirms Intel Itanium 29 May launch date

Has to wait 'til then for Intel's say-so to launch machines based on the chip

IBM will launch its upcoming Itanium-based workstation, the IntelliStation Z-Pro 6894, when Intel tells it that it can and not a moment sooner. "It's ready to ship as soon as Intel allows us to do so," said Steve Horobin, IBM Personal Systems Group's EMEA workstation marketing chief with special responsibility for the finance …

Channel 10 May 2001, 12:26
'I'm not a quitter and I love my critics' – BT's Bonfield

Sir Pete is staying. Until the end of next year anyway

Sir Peter Bonfield, BT's CEO, told reporters this morning that he has not intention of leaving the beleaguered telecoms giant. "I'm not a quitter," he said. "I like working with the people here." Asked if he would like to take a samurai sword to his critics, he said: "Critics are good - they chivvy us along. I would never …

Business 10 May 2001, 13:14
What's in BT's bargain bin?

The great telecoms sale

BT is returning to its roots. Sir Peter Bonfield accepted at a press conference this morning for the company's annual results that BT's global plan of a few years ago has been flushed down the toilet. "We had a very big global ambition for BT. But now we've looked at it and said it is beyond our financial means at this moment …

Business 10 May 2001, 13:18
Sophos rebuffs virus-spreading charge

McAfee software thought rival's alert was the Homepage worm

Antivirus vendor Sophos has been forced to deny spreading viruses itself after the virus scanner of rival McAfee flagged up an alert as a copy of the Homepage virus. Sophos said that some versions of McAfee's VirusScan issued the false alarm because its write up of the Homepage virus used the phrase "VBSWG", the name of the …

Security 10 May 2001, 13:22
Oops – MS mounts DoS attack on own WinXP telecon

Some imbecile published the phone number. Ah, yes...

So what did Jim Allchin say at the big WinXP teleconference yesterday? Tricky - The Register failed to connect from both sides of the pond, repeated dialing of the 1-800 number simply netted an engaged tone. And we note from a trawl round that with the exception of a couple of IDG sites, the usual suspects seem a little light on …

Software 10 May 2001, 13:32
Europeans love the Net

It's a way of life don't you know

Almost two thirds of European Net users would prefer an Internet-enabled PC instead of a TV or telephone if they were ever stranded on a desert island. Putting aside the pedantic practicalities of the being in such a situation with said machine this little titbit of information is, no doubt, meant to demonstrate just how much a …

Music and Media 10 May 2001, 15:01
German chancellor's wife gets Victorian on your ass

Children should be seen and not heard

The wife of the German chancellor Gerhard Schroder, Doris, has gone a bit mad in an interview with a German magazine and insisted, among other things, that kids shouldn't have mobile phones. Mrs Schroder-Kopf went all Victorian when Bildwoche magazine popped round for a chat. "We must bring our children up better and teach them …

Bootnotes 10 May 2001, 15:40
Gateway and Siemens flout the law

Monitor monitor - the Reg turns supergrass

Gateway and Fujitsu Siemens are due a slap on the wrist from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) - they're plugging away with old-style monitor advertising, and not revealing the true size of the screen that's viewable to the user. The ASA has ruled it will no longer accept standard industry practice of giving CRT ( …

Business 10 May 2001, 16:14
BOFHs will legally need licence to work

Legislation slips past in last week of Parliament

The ludicrous Home Office legislation that has accidentally involved sysadmins in its aim to licence security people such as bouncers and wheel-clampers has been passed in the last week of Parliament before the election and is now law. As we've reported before, thanks to some sloppy drafting the new law failed to include the …

Business 10 May 2001, 16:32
Gateway drops customers' pants in public

Web security gaffe

A security gaffe by Gateway 2000 has resulted in the exposure of sensitive customer information on the PC vendor's web site. Up until late this afternoon searching for 'delivery cost' (hardly the strangest request) on Gateway's UK site returned two copies of an Excel spreadsheet containing order details, customer contacts and …

Security 10 May 2001, 16:51
Leaked ICANN budget apportions $0 for elections

And shows $1m profit for the non-profit Net name quango

A draft of ICANN's annual budget prepared in April by Maximum CFO Mike Roberts* has surfaced on the web. The budget shows ICANN is planning for higher revenues, up 20 per cent to just over $6m, with staffing raised from 15 and a third to 21, although some slight savings result from a reduced dependence on contractors. Although …

Music and Media 10 May 2001, 18:28
Opera 5.0 for Linux to ship next week

The third force makes its play...

The production version of Opera 5.0 for Linux is ready to roll, and will be available next. week, although as of this afternoon the company hadn't yet identified the precise release day. The Linux version of Opera, the 'other' browser, has been in public beta for a while now, in a free ad-supported version or an ad-free variety …

Software 10 May 2001, 19:07
ASUS releases games cheat drivers (Boo! Hiss!)

Bunch of lamers

ASUS, the Taiwanese components maker, has released its much-criticised video card drivers that allow online game players to cheat. The drivers, which allow players to see through walls, were first announced in July last year and were immediately condemned by players and gaming organisations. At the time, ASUS boasted: "There …

Games Industry 10 May 2001, 21:10
Chipsetastic

HWRoundup ALI SiS etc..

Ace's Hardware has a lot of goodies to tempt you... first up there's a useful update on ALI's chipset releases. Then it goes upscale to cover the release of HP's PA-8700 specs. Not really one for the geeks. But interesting, nonetheless. FiringSquad has a (p)review of the new SiS 735 chipset here. Much good things are …

Hardware Roundup 10 May 2001, 21:47