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11th June 2001 Archive

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  • Web's total pants and I hate it, says dotcom chairman Elstein

    Thunderous vote of confidence for his new company...

    A week into his chairmanship of dynamic UK-based Web operation silicon.com, former Channel 5 boss David Elstein reveals that he thinks the Internet's total pants. Granted, some of the movers and shakers interviewed for the Guardian's regular Monday My New Media column have in the past been less than enthusiastic on the subject, …

    Media 11 Jun 2001, 09:20

  • Affinity buys breathe for £1.75m

    Pass the parcel ISP finds new home

    Modern urbanist ISP breathe has been bought for the second time in six months in a paper deal worth £1.75 million. Affinity Internet Holdings announced this morning that it had bought the ISP from Great Universal Stores (GUS), the outfit behind catalogue retailer Argos. GUS will retain the multi-device access technology …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 09:29

  • Palm brings cheaper PDAs to European developers

    Exclusive 40% discount moves across Atlantic

    Palm has extended its 40 per cent developer discount on its older PDAs to Europe. Like the US deal, announced late last month, the UK offer knocks 40 per cent off the retail price of the Palm Vx, IIIc, IIIxe, m100 and m105. Equally, both offers limit developers to three of each PDA. Despite the fact it's taken Palm three weeks …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 09:38

  • Reg readers multiply – ABCe results in

    More participation than a UK election

    The Register submitted its log files for the month of March, 2001 to ABCe for auditing. And here are the results. Page impressions 15,341,241 Users 1,592,329 Visits 4,401,793 Sessions 7,256,963 We're very pleased. This makes us far and away the biggest UK IT news site. The Register has risen without trace. In May, 1998, …

    Site News 11 Jun 2001, 09:43

  • Captain Cyborg goes on a lecture tour

    Extending gibberish to our Europeans cousins

    Captain Cyborg aka Kevin Warwick, professor of a made-up science at Reading University, is to spread his peculiar brand of sci-fi fantasy and gibberish masquerading as serious research to Switzerland. That's right. So impressed with Kev's Royal Academy lectures were the bods in Geneva running the NetFinance show, that they've …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 09:52

  • Nokia to cut 300 staff in German plant

    More mobile job losses

    Nokia plans to lay off ten per cent of staff in its phone production factory in Bochum, Germany. The 300 layoffs were announced today, and the plant will now focus on the final assembly of mobiles. Part of the current board assembly will be shifted to other Nokia factories or to subcontractors. The Finnish phone outfit said …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 09:53

  • AMD, Micron to bundle DDR to boost Athlon

    If Intel can do it with RDRAM...

    AMD will begin bundling DDR SDRAM from memory maker Micron with its own Athlon-based 761 chipset next quarter. The scheme's a simple one: to persuade mobo makers to back Athlon in the face of Intel's Pentium 4 price cuts and the arrival of the chip giant's PC133-based chipset, the 845, aka Brookdale. AMD may also be out to …

    Channel 11 Jun 2001, 10:14

  • HP ad blamed for Birmingham rock throwers

    They're having a laugh, right?

    Hewlett-Packard UK has pulled a TV ad in which children pelt a tram with snowballs, in response to accusations that it could be responsible for a copycat incident in Birmingham. Except the children were throwing rocks. We understand HP's concern to avoid being tainted with the brush of hooliganism, but question why the company …

    Bootnotes 11 Jun 2001, 10:22

  • Vote! Vote! Vote! For Kieren McCarthy!

    Reg hack in moonlighting shocker

    We know that Vulture Central is not among the industry's big hitters when it comes to salaries, but little did we realise how bad things had become for young Kieren McCarthy. In a desperate bid to balance the books, the poor boy has been moonlighting as an Alliance Party of Northern Ireland member of the Northern Ireland …

    Bootnotes 11 Jun 2001, 10:24

  • EC investigates Euro DVD high pricing

    Responds to punter complaints

    The European Commission is chasing up consumer complaints that DVDs cost too much in the EU. According to the FT, EU competition commissioner Mario Monti is going address a meeting of consumers in Stockholm today, and tell them the Commission has got in touch with Hollywood film companies to quiz them on their pricing …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 10:34

  • The UK's new political landscape for IT

    Not good news

    Well, Labour won its landslide (down six seats), William Hague quit as Tory leader after they gained just one seat, the LibDems were up six and Others down one. And following this "vote of confidence" in New Labour, Tony Blair has embarked on a fairly hefty reshuffle of the cabinet, with resulting effects on the future of IT …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 10:38

  • Affinity Q1 losses stack up

    Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy

    Affinity Internet - which today announced it bought trendy ISP breathe - posted a pre-tax loss of £6.6 million for Q1 to March 31 against a profit of £1.24 million in the same period last year. Turnover for the Internet services group more than doubled from £2.07 million in Q1 2000 to £5.6 million in Q1 2001. Announcing its Q1 …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 10:55

  • Rambus storms through chip IP market

    ARM still top of the totem pole, though

    Rambus is the world's third largest semiconductor intellectual property provider behind ARM and MIPS, according to the latest stats from Gartner's Dataquest subsidiary. The global chip design market was worth $689 million last year, an increase of 40 per cent of 1999's figure of $492 million. ARM is the sector's leader - …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 11:00

  • Review Dell Latitude L400

    If PC Advisor's new sub-notebooks chart has proven anything, it's that one size does not fit all. Last month, readers could have chosen from the ultra-portable 1.6kg Rock, the highly charged but comparatively weighty 1.9kg Elonex and the measured Hi-Grade, a versatile performer that succeeded in most departments without …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 11:16

  • Doctor Who is back!

    And solely on the Internet

    The Timelord known only as the Doctor is to return after a break of five years - and it'll be solely over the Internet. The half-hour, purely audio episode is called Death Comes To Time and reprises Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace. Also starring are Stephen Fry as a mysterious timelord, John Sessions as …

    Media 11 Jun 2001, 11:20

  • MP3 gone from WinXP, and it's not coming back

    Uh oh - there goes the air supply...

    MP3 ripping is gone for good from the Windows XP beta, and will not return in the shipping product. WinXP will include instructions on how to install third party MP3 encoders, which will then allow Windows Media Player to rip MP3, but quite clearly development is proceeding according to a tried and tested blueprint, and MP3's …

    Software 11 Jun 2001, 11:44

  • Intel boffins shrink chip transistors to 20nm

    What's the big deal? It's what they're paid to do

    Intel has produced transistors nine times smaller than the current standard for microprocessors, and probably as small as chip transistors can go. The transistor measures 0.02 microns, rather smaller than today's 0.18 micron transistors and the six-and-half times more compact than next-generation 0.13 micron transistors. Where …

    Channel 11 Jun 2001, 11:48

  • Nintendo groupies narked by Nazi salute

    Morons with modems flame fest

    IGN editor-in-chief Brandon Justice has fallen on his sword and resigned after Nintendo-loving readers felt he'd called them all Nazis. The games sites' forum went into overdrive following Justice's post E3 article which included this paragraph - "The bottom line is, Nintendo did little more than show up, and everyone is …

    Games Industry 11 Jun 2001, 12:07

  • How to squeeze your network supplier

    Make their pips squeak

    It's the same old, same old: companies reward their longstanding customers by charging them more than new customers. It happens with mortgage banks, it happens with ad serving companies and it happens with networking equipment vendors and resellers. Big companies -i.e Fortune 500 size - can waste $500,000 a year on network …

    Data Networking 11 Jun 2001, 12:09

  • US expands Echelon spying in UK

    Hundreds to move from Germany to Menwith Hill

    The US is to station hundreds more NSA staff in the UK's spying base in Menwith Hill, Yorkshire, the Sunday Times reported yesterday. Those involved are being transferred from Germany following the closure of its spying base in Bad Aibling in the south of the country. Germans had protested heavily about the US intercepting …

    Media 11 Jun 2001, 12:33

  • Vigilantes threaten to post photo of Bulger killer on Net

    Cue lynch mobs beating up innocent youths

    Vigilantes are threatening to post a recent photo of one of Jamie Bulger's killers on the Net. The picture is of Robert Thompson and was grabbed from a CCTV recording made last year. The Guardian has reported the claims will be made in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be broadcast tomorrow. Thompson, and his co-killer Jon …

    Media 11 Jun 2001, 12:57

  • CUT calls time on unmetered campaign

    Internet lobby group bows out victorious

    The Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications (CUT) - which did so much to champion the cause of flat-rate Net access in Britain - is to fold. At its annual general meeting (AGM) its membership voted unanimously to dissolve the pressure group after conceding that its task of fighting for unmetered net access had been won. In a …

    Media 11 Jun 2001, 13:49

  • Bonfield to quit BT in six months

    ...says newspaper report

    BT has dismissed reports that CE Sir Peter Bonfield is to quit at the end of the year with a £4 million-ish pay-off. London's Evening Standard reports that Sir Peter's departure is "likely to follow the demerger of BT's mobile phone arm, BT Wireless, scheduled for the autumn". Quoting an unnamed source it claims Sir Peter's …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 14:37

  • Time Computers squashes maverick staff site

    The best source for UK system builder info is censored

    The highly entertaining website, which aired the views of current and ex Time employees, has been taken over by the company. Go to tahirmohsan.co.uk now and you'll find a Time homepage plugging the company's offers. The site had achieved a cult following with system builders and computer retailers. Staff at Dixons and Tiny …

    Channel 11 Jun 2001, 14:42

  • Govt and business security spend to grow tenfold by 2011

    But that'll just be 4% of revenues

    Governments and businesses are going to spend 10 times more on info security by 2011 than they do now. According to the analyst firm Gartner, on average, only 0.4 per cent of a company's revenue is dedicated to information security in the US, but by 2011 that figure will increase by 10 times to four per cent of revenue. …

    Security 11 Jun 2001, 15:19

  • Zelerate software to live, promises ex-CEO

    New version, rename promised

    The open source software from former e-commerce poster child Zelerate will live on, despite the company's demise in March, former boss Rob Ferber has promised. The All Commerce software was issued under the GNU General Public License, and boasted customers such as MCI, before joining the dot.com deadpool. In an update posted at …

    Software 11 Jun 2001, 15:21

  • Ziff Davis takes aim at Dr Tom, Anand and ‘other homegrown’ sites

    Hello Extremetech.com

    Ziff Davis Media is taking on the US major IT pubs and what it calls 'homegrown' sites with Extremetech.com. Launching tomorrow with 30(!) staff, Extremetech (tagline: "Passionately committed to Technology") is pitched at "hardcore technologists". It will supply "this early adopter audience with technical detail that goes well …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 15:38

  • US judge to rule on the Internet

    Major Yahoo/Nazi auction case fall out

    A US judge is to decide the future of the Internet. According to the BBC, Judge Jeremy Fogel has agreed to consider whether law courts can determine what Web sites based in other countries can host. Judge Fogel is becoming a bit of a specialist in IT and Internet matters, but it doesn't take a legal genius to work out that the …

    Media 11 Jun 2001, 15:46

  • German 3G ruling to increase corporate welfare clamour

    We're hurting!

    European wireless operators are likely to increase their clamour for corporate welfare, if a ruling by Germany's winged watchdog sets a precedent. The Germany Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Posts (RegTP) has ruled that the nation's 3G license holders Deutsche Telecom and Vodafone will have to share their …

    Data Networking 11 Jun 2001, 16:12

  • Kyro II Ultra, Kyro III details emerge

    Hardware transform and lighting coming, as expected

    Imagination Technologies' successor to its Kyro II graphics chip will sport a completely redesigned core featuring a transform and lighting engine - as the rumour mill has long suggested - in a bid to take the fight to market leaders Nvidia and ATI. And the current Kyro II, aka the STG4500, will be upgraded a few months down …

    Channel 11 Jun 2001, 16:22

  • Windows XP hits where Apple's Aqua misses?

    Learning to live with Mac OS X Why is Apple's new user interface just prettier than the old one?

    I'm going to get a lot of stick for this, but it has to be said: Mac OS X's Aqua user interface isn't the revolutionary leap forward Apple thinks it is. Believe me, I like Aqua. I didn't think I would, but it has grown on me. My initial concerns that ten years in the classic Mac OS groove would make the jump to Dock and Finder …

    Mac Channel 11 Jun 2001, 16:27

  • Home Office punished for drafting poor IT legislation?

    Responsibilities shifted to other Whitehall departments

    The Home Office has finally got its comeuppance for four years of sloppy and civil rights-infringing legislation. Following his re-election, Tony Blair has made a number of tweaks in the machinery of government. The most extensive of which is the streamlining of the Home Office. The official line is that the Home Office will " …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 16:55

  • Top IT execs suffer salary and benefit cuts

    Check here to see if you're underpaid

    Top IT bosses can now be bought for lower salaries and smaller benefit packages than they could six months ago. This is the first time this has happened since 1985 according to analysts Janco Associates, which has just published its mid-year IT salary survey. The benchmark salary for a CIO in a large corporate was $434,416 six …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 16:58

  • Compaq almost doubles iPaq sales in Q2

    Will ship 450,000-500,000 of 'em, exec claims

    Compaq's CFO, Jeff Clarke, has said that his company will ship 450,00-500,000 iPaq PDAs this quarter - 80 per cent more than Compaq sold during Q1. This despite the problems Palm and Handspring have been having selling their own machines. Handspring last week halved its quarterly sales forecast following a significant downturn …

    Business 11 Jun 2001, 17:10