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13th June 2001 Archive

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  • BT completes £2.3bn property sale

    Debt edging downwards

    BT has secured the £2.3 billion sale of its property portfolio in a move that could see its debt mountain fall to just £13 billion. The deal with Telereal Holdings Limited - a 50:50 joint venture owned by Land Securities Trillium and The William Pears Group - is subject to Telereal raising the cash on the bond markets. BT's …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 09:39

  • Apple may issue profit warning – analyst

    Why? Cause it doesn't have a PDA. Go figure...

    Expect Apple to issue a profit warning for its current, third fiscal quarter. So says analyst Elyssa Jaffe at little-known (to us, at any rate) IDEAadvisor. Jaffe's prognosis certainly is very gloomy. She's right to point out that the PC market has yet to recover from the current downturn, and that this could certainly hit …

    Mac Channel 13 Jun 2001, 10:20

  • BT wireless appoints first chairman

    Loves fast cars

    BT has appointed unemployed executive David Varney as chairman of BT wireless. He will lead the mobile phone business through its demerger from the BT Group, which is planned for later this year. Varney, 55, will become chairman-designate later this month and will work with BT management and BT wireless CEO, Peter Erskine, in …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 10:43

  • Rambus plots fivefold expansion in RDRAM bandwidth

    Roadmap extended to 1.2GHz, adds 32- and 64-bit RIMMs

    Rambus unwrapped its latest roadmap in Japan yesterday at the company's Developer Forum. At the forefront of Rambus' plans: to provide new devices that will boost memory bandwidth by 400 per cent with only "minimal changes" to existing RDRAM-based mobos. Rambus' roadmap projects memory clock speeds increasing to 1066MHz and …

    Channel 13 Jun 2001, 10:57

  • 90% Windows, 5% Mac, 5% Linux? Not true!

    Do the maths

    I took an inventory of the computers and operating systems in my household, and found that my wife and I have a total of nine copies of Windows, one copy of Mac OS 9.1 and one purchased Linux distribution. But this doesn't tell the truth about our computer use patterns any more than the recent Gartner Group survey - the one that …

    Software 13 Jun 2001, 11:11

  • Review SonicBlue Rio 800

    The Rio 800 is the latest player from Diamond/S3/SonicBlue or whatever it's calling itself now. Similar in size and appearance to the 600, the 800 is the top-of-the-range model with added bells and whistles. It comes with 64MB of RAM (roughly two hours' worth of music), uses the same backpack system as the 600 and upgrades are …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 11:29

  • No one's using Linux, claims Microsoft

    Not quite what Mr Gartner says...

    Gartner Dataquest has pegged the proportion of Linux servers shipped in the United States at 8.6 per cent. Gartner analyst Jeffery Hewitt claims that this figure - which includes 'white box' shipments, but excludes server appliances such as Sun's Cobalt range - is dramatically lower than the 20 per cent plus cited by arch …

    Software 13 Jun 2001, 11:47

  • Telewest escapes ad slap

    Updated Oh...

    Telewest has been cleared of producing misleading advertising after it claimed that its broadband service was ten times faster than its dial-up service. Four people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) questioning the accuracy of an ad which boasted its broadband service was "Nearly 10 times faster than your …

    Music and Media 13 Jun 2001, 11:48

  • Music CD piracy grew 25% in 2000

    Rise of CD-Rs to blame

    The number of pirated CDs sold worldwide soared by 25 per cent in 2000, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). And the rise is blamed on low-budget CD-R copying operations. The IFPI's report says "pirate CD-R sales worldwide nearly tripled last year to 165 million units and now account …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 11:56

  • German domain registry warns against .de billing scam

    'A senseless and dubious service'

    German domain registry DENIC eG has issued a warning about "an attempt to extract money from customers for a senseless and dubious service." This, the second such scam to come to DENIC's notice this year, takes the form of a letter apparently designed to convince people they have to cough up DM270 in order to keep their .de …

    Music and Media 13 Jun 2001, 12:04

  • Transmeta to launch 1GHz Crusoe on 26 June

    800MHz TM5800 expected at PC Expo too

    Transmeta will officially launch its two newest Crusoes - the TM5500 and the TM5800 - at the end of the month at PC Expo. So says the company's CTO, Dave Ditzel, in an interview with Asia BizTech. Both parts will be fabbed at 0.13 micron - as anticipated - cutting the die size from 88sq mm to 55sq mm. Transmeta is reducing the …

    Channel 13 Jun 2001, 12:18

  • ARM chips get maths and Java

    Core curriculum

    ARM wrapped up recent announcements with news of a revamped co-processor for its ARM 9E-S family. The ARM VFP9-S floating point unit adds a third more transistors to the chip, but requires only a square millimetre and a half of extra die space. ARM says the maths benchmarks run ten times faster than using software emulation …

    Channel 13 Jun 2001, 12:50

  • SonicBlue axes third of workforce

    Desperate bid to get into profitability

    SonicBlue, the company launched on the back the emergence of the Internet appliance business that has... er... yet to emerge, has rid itself of 30 per cent of its workforce. The company currently employs 813 people around the world. That will be reduced by around 244 workers, a move that will cost SonicBlue $120 million. That …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 12:59

  • GSM Association launches new standard for next-gen mobiles

    Wakes up, smells coffee

    The GSM association has launched a new mobile phone standard today, called M-Services, for next-generation phones that will enable graphics and games etc. to be downloaded. The standard, supported by just about every major manufacturer and operator, will (it hopes) make up for the WAP debacle, boost take-up and sales of next- …

    Data Networking 13 Jun 2001, 13:01

  • McVeigh lives on!

    Thanks to idiots

    A conversation we had in the office yesterday: "Now, if someone's got any sense they'll put out a virus called McVeigh today, say it's a picture or video or something". "Yeah, and millions of people would be stupid enough to open the attachment." Eh voila! A McVeigh "bootleg video clip" of the Oklahoma bomber dying. Follow the …

    Security 13 Jun 2001, 14:16

  • CMGI loses $1bn in Q3

    Are they sure it's lost and not just mislaid?

    Internet holding group - CMGI - continues to throw good money after bad following its announcement that it lost $1 billion in its third quarter. News of the hefty loss is fuelling the doom merchants who believe CMGI is burning out and heading for disaster. However, in a conference call yesterday, CMGI chairman and CEO, David …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 14:21

  • Have you been smart tagged? WinXP IE6 has a little list

    Actually, not so little...

    Recent builds of the Internet Explorer 6 beta have included the IE implementation of Microsoft's smart tag technology, prompting choruses of disapproval from the media. Which is of course understandable - smart tag technology parses its way through a web page, underlines the words it's been pre-programmed to react to, and …

    Software 13 Jun 2001, 15:01

  • 49 uses for an illuminated keyboard

    The full and unexpurgated list - plus our competition winners

    Well, the results of our illuminated keyboard competition are in - proof, were it needed, of our readers' fertile minds. So great was the response, that we can't possibly list all of the inventive uses you thought up. We have, nevertheless, distilled the best into the following list. For your reading convienience, we've …

    Bootnotes 13 Jun 2001, 15:15

  • GSM goes Jerry Springer on us

    Includes a fight and a final thought

    The GSM Association and assorted mobile industry top bods congregated in the Four Seasons hotel in London this morning to tell us about its new standard for next-generation mobile phones, M-Services. It was only after a surprisingly entertaining hour-an-a-half though, walking back through Mayfair, that we realised quite what we …

    Bootnotes 13 Jun 2001, 15:18

  • Server sales slump in Q1

    Unix down, Windows up

    Sales of servers dropped in Q1 with worldwide revenues slipping four per cent to $13.3 billion. IBM is still top dog in the sector and didn't suffer from the general market downturn. Its sales grew 13 per cent in the period to $3.3 billion. The market figures come from IDC, which is releasing its research into the server …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 15:21

  • Gamble or get orgasm tips on your mobile

    Quartez jumps on text message bandwagon

    Mobile messaging company Quartez has come up with a way of making a bit of money from text messaging - competitions and orgasm tips. We know, it sounds horrendous but then it's gonna work because people are horrendous. Who the hell would want to pay anything up to a £1 to text Quartez with the word "gamble" in the hopeless …

    Music and Media 13 Jun 2001, 15:23

  • Would you pay £25k for NEC's 61-inch plasma display?

    They will let you haggle

    How much would you pay for a 61-inch plasma display? The NEC beast going on sale in Japan from 23 July will arrive in the UK next month and probably cost between £22,000 and £25,000. The company says it hasn't set pricing so its probably hanging on until the last minute to see how exchange rates are working out. The above …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 16:08

  • Local loop laggards face EU legal action

    There ain't no getting away from it

    Europe is to take legal action against Euro zone countries that have failed to make any headway towards unbundling local telephone loops. European telecoms commissioner, Erkki Liikanen, said that while he was in a position to start legal proceedings now, he has decided to wait until a report on the matter is published in …

    Telecoms 13 Jun 2001, 16:25

  • ICANN CEO gets all headmasterish on Mueller-Maguhn and Auberach

    And friend of the people Joe Sims chips in

    ICANN new CEO M. Stuart Lynn has hit back at claims by at-large board members Andy Mueller-Maguhn and Karl Auerbach that life at the Internet organisation was like "old East Germany". M. Lynn responded to Wired after an article in the mag a few days earlier. He was particularly upset about the accusation that the ICANN board …

    Music and Media 13 Jun 2001, 16:32

  • SonicBlue at loggerheads with Psion over PDA stockpile

    What's to be done with all those unsold Diamond Makos?

    SonicBlue does indeed appear to have a problem shifting its Diamond Mako PDA (see SonicBlue axes third of workforce). And we hear that its partner, UK PDA pioneer Psion, is unwilling to help it out. SonicBlue signed up to rebadge Psion's Revo Plus handheld under the Mako name last October. Since then SonicBlue appears to have …

    Business 13 Jun 2001, 16:46

  • EU's safer Internet site hacked and down

    Irony? Yep

    The European Union's attempt to promote a safer Internet and "tackle the controversial issue of illegal and harmful content on the Internet" has been hacked and is still down a day later. The unknown hackers left this message on SaferInternet.org: "This is our world! We are god and we make the rulezzzzz Happy finding us! The …

    Security 13 Jun 2001, 16:59

  • IE6 will not monster our cookies, says Doubleclick

    P3P policy on the way before final release

    Doubleclick cookies may be entirely blocked by the current beta versions of IE6, as detailed in our story yesterday, but the king of the adservers insists that this won't be the case by the time the finished version of IE6 ships, this August. According to Jules Polonetsky, Doubleclick chief privacy officer and special counsel, …

    Music and Media 13 Jun 2001, 19:24