The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

21st June 2001 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Apple sued over printers it no longer makes

    HP already caved in on laser patent infringement case

    Apple has been sued for allegedly infringing a single patent in products it hasn't produced or sold for over three years. The plaintiff, US-based mail handling and document processing specialist Pitney Bowes, claims its intellectual property - the so-called '272 patent' - is integral to Apple's LaserWriter laser printer, and …

    Mac Channel 21 Jun 2001, 09:35

  • Compaq top of the SAN tree

    Sells more than Sun, EMC, IBM put together

    Compaq installs one in two storage area networks across the world. In other words it sell more SANs than its competitors (if you miss out 'others', a perennial favourite) put together. In 2001, Compaq sold more than 24,000 SAN-attached storage units, equating to a 48.5 per cent market share, Gartner Dataquest estimates. And …

    Business 21 Jun 2001, 10:03

  • Quanta to beat Toshiba as lead notebook maker

    Strong portable PC sales and having Compaq, Dell, IBM, HP on client list helps

    Taiwanese notebook maker Quanta reckons it will become the world's biggest producer of portable PCs this year, beating market leader Toshiba to the top of the totem pole. As regular Register readers will know, Quanta and a handful of other Taiwanese notebook manufacturers make almost all of the world's portable computers. Buy …

    Business 21 Jun 2001, 10:23

  • Gameplay knocks itself off Net

    Updated Web sites vanish

    Both Gameplay's Web sites (.com and .co.uk) vanished this morning, sparking rumours that the troubled company had been stripped and left to die. We tried to contact the company but its phone kept ringing off. The company PR assured us that there was no intention to kill off the sites. In fact, Gameplay.com is to be marketed as …

    Games Industry 21 Jun 2001, 10:42

  • ICL brand put to the sword

    33-year old business taken under Fujitsu wing

    Fujitsu is to kill off ICL, arguably the oldest and best-known brand in British computing, in a move that follows the failure to float the software and services business. ICL (International Computers Limited), whose business has been trading for 33 years, will adopt the Fujitsu corporate name by the end of March 2002. Full …

    Business 21 Jun 2001, 10:55

  • Reg faces blasphemy charge

    Praise the Lord or face the consequences

    Well, you know you've arrived when the God Squad starts waving bibles at you. This missive arrived this morning at Vulture Central. We haven't got the faintest idea what it's about, but ignorance is no excuse. ----- Original Message ----- From: Net Authority Investigations To: The Register Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 7:51 …

    Bootnotes 21 Jun 2001, 11:08

  • Antitrust: MS is at it again with WinXP, say attorneys

    But no new lawsuits...

    Two of the state attorneys general who've been involved in the Microsoft antitrust action have damned the company's conduct since the prosecution rested. They specifically focus on what the company's up to with XP but stress that they're not planning a second antitrust suit. In which case one wonders what the point of the …

    Software 21 Jun 2001, 11:21

  • Canadian Commodore faces net porn keelhauling

    Cue seamen jokes...

    One of Canada's most senior naval officers has been suspended following revelations that he enjoyed a soft-porn website on his navy laptop. Commodore Eric Lehre, 52, may now have to walk the plank after admitting the offence, albeit committed off-duty and via his own Internet account. He has been charged with 'conduct to …

    Media 21 Jun 2001, 12:06

  • 2001 worst DRAM year in history of world ever – the stats

    That's $14bn to you, sir

    The spot price for 128Mb DRAM chips fell below $2 for the first time this week, and contract prices are below $3, Gartner Dataquest says. This means most DRAM makers are selling at a loss, and they will continue losing money through to 2002. It's been a rotten year for DRAM makers (but good news for customers) with prices …

    Channel 21 Jun 2001, 12:08

  • Ballmer: no contingency plans for break up of MS

    A year on, he still hasn't noticed the court order, apparently...

    After a long layoff, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is once again telling people that the company has no contingency plan to cover the possibility of it losing the antitrust case. This time he made the shock revelation in an interview with the Washington Post, erroneously adding that the lack of such a plan didn't suggest the …

    Software 21 Jun 2001, 12:12

  • Commie cell in MS secretly pushing GPL to customers

    The cancer spreads through Redmond itself...

    Bill Gates' trenchant warning about the Pacman-like qualities of the GPL this week has come too late. GPL-toting commies are already inside the organisation and busily subverting Microsoft in order to overthrow the US economy. Or at least, the Internal Revenue Service - but doesn't that amount to the same thing? Unbeknownst to …

    Software 21 Jun 2001, 13:21

  • IDC puts Linux use at 27 per cent

    Finger in the air method needs recalibrating

    IDC has pegged Linux server shipments at 27 per cent - more than three times the figure that the Gartner Group issued a month ago. That doesn't, of course, mean that Linux has had a sudden surge in popularity in the last month. It's just that analysts have their own ways of counting what really constitutes a 'shipment'. And …

    Software 21 Jun 2001, 13:22

  • Reader Poll Do you want to know who Gharlane of Eddore is?

    Democracy in action

    Voting has finished Following on from our story about Usenet legend Gharlane of Eddore's death and the search for his identity in real life, we have been inundated with emails. A number have, of course, told us his real identity, something that we have resisted from posting as yet. That is because of another group of emails …

    Media 21 Jun 2001, 13:58

  • Americans have broadband – at work

    Entertainment vs information

    Up to a third of Americans have access to broadband - but mostly at work. Thirty per cent of the population can get onto broadband, 64 per cent of that 30 per cent get broadband access through work (and, although it's not clear from the press release, school), and 37 per cent at home. There's not much overlap - 15 per cent have …

    Broadband 21 Jun 2001, 14:19

  • Mac OS X's Finder: Cocoa rewrite not the answer

    Learning to live with Mac OS X Carbon just as good - if not better

    Mac OS X's Finder: love it or loathe it, the two points that unite almost everyone who has used Apple's next-generation operating system are that it's not up to scratch and that Apple's reason to write it using OS X's Carbon API is the chief reason why. No, say so many observers, Apple should have written Finder using OS X's …

    Mac Channel 21 Jun 2001, 14:58

  • Epson Perfection 1240U

    Review Scanner

    Although Epson's latest scanner isn't the cheapest model on offer, the Perfection's consistently high performance and unsurpassed scan quality make it the obvious choice for the professional user. It isn't a small unit, but the Perfection's trio of one-touch buttons allow for quick operation. We were also impressed by the 1240U' …

    Business 21 Jun 2001, 15:40

  • Windows Minesweeper is an ‘offence to mine victims’

    Ban it now

    "Windows Minesweeper (Winmine) is an offence against the victims of the mines, and to those who sacrifice themselves, risking their own life, clearing the lands contaminated by these implements," says the International Campaign to Ban Winmine (ICBW). So it wants you to delete the programme and replace it with its own Winflower …

    Media 21 Jun 2001, 15:46

  • Arrow, Avnet hit profit skids

    Component meltdown

    Arrow Electronics and Avnet, the world's two biggest electronics components disties, have issued profits warnings. Both companies have substantial computer parts wholesaling arms too. Arrow today said Q2 earnings would fall more than anticipated because of falling demand in North America, Europe and Asia. It now expects to …

    Channel 21 Jun 2001, 15:55

  • Choc-coated insect sales challenge Trading Standards

    Call to beef up e-commerce consumer protection

    Sales of food over the Internet have being described as an "enforcement nightmare" by Trading Standards officers, whose job it is to look after consumer rights in the UK. Early work conducted by Staffordshire County Council Trading Standards, discovered such luxuries as 'chocolate-coated insects' and 'cricket lick-it' lollipops …

    e-Business 21 Jun 2001, 15:55

  • Readers turn searchlight on stealth controversy

    Does 'mobile phone' detection system really pose a threat?

    Our article yesterday on UK company Roke Manor Research's stealth detection system provoked some interesting discussion. Nick Brown, features editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, was kind enough to send us a heads-up about the F-117 shot down over Kosovo: As it happens, our major feature last week at Jane's Defence Weekly was on …

    Business 21 Jun 2001, 16:02

  • New.net threatens to change Internet forever

    But what of the beast ICANN?

    New.net has just opened a UK office, and in celebration offered a further 10 domain name extensions to its current 20. We popped along for a chat with the boys who ICANN have taken a disliking to and who Willie Black (head of Nominet in the UK) recently called nothing but script kiddies. First of all, you need to know what New. …

    Media 21 Jun 2001, 16:19

  • Reg victim of blasphemy hoax

    Hook, line, sinker. Plus two smoking barrels for the perpetrators

    Well, it all looked like it was going to get a bit nasty this morning when 'Net Authority Investigations' threatened us with action over alleged blasphemy. To be frank, we thought that they were having a laugh. We did, however, fall for it completely. Then, within about 15 minutes of the story going up, we received alerts from …

    Bootnotes 21 Jun 2001, 16:33

  • Palm preps ‘m300’ PDA

    Mid-way between m100 and m500, apparently

    Palm is working on a mid-range PDA between its m10x and new m50x families, The Register has learned. Industry sources who've been briefed by Palm on its plans say that the device is positioned up from the current m105. They also say it will sport the same connection interface used by the old V and Vx PDAs. That seems odd to us …

    Business 21 Jun 2001, 16:36

  • Nokia ships BOFH wonderphone

    Yoorp now, Merca later

    Nokia finally ships its 9210 Communicator this week in Europe – eight months after its launch in Prague last year. If its budget stretches to it, Symbian is entitled to pop a few champagne corks too, as it's the first open platform phone to ship with the much hyped platform. So it's Symbian's coming out party. And very nice it …

    Business 21 Jun 2001, 16:53

  • Oracle bugs threaten database DoS attacks

    Look out!

    Oracle has admitted that a potentially devastating security flaw could allow crackers to mount successful denial of service attacks on NT servers running its database software. For Oracle on Windows NT, the Oracle listener process redirects connection requests to a new port and the Oracle database server creates a new thread …

    Security 21 Jun 2001, 16:56

  • This is how Microsoft will end up running the Internet

    Be afraid, be very afraid

    Dear The Register Your Internet licence is due for renewal in two weeks. Please contact your local Microsoft branch for an extension. If you do not pay within 30 days of the termination date, we will downgrade your connection. There will be a $500 reconnection charge. Yours, Microsoft Corporation Okay, so that may be a …

    Media 21 Jun 2001, 17:01

  • Porn spam flood swamps Usenet

    Trojan frustrates users of security groups

    A Windows-based Trojan horse program has swamped Internet discussion groups, including a forum for discussing computer viruses, with child pornography ads. Called NewsFlood, the program is responsible for a form of denial of service attack targeted at Usenet discussion forums. According to antivirus firm Sophos, NewsFlood …

    Security 21 Jun 2001, 17:04

  • Checkpoint ‘abuses dominant position’

    Rival complains to EC

    Security firm Stonesoft has lodged a complaint to the European Commission alleging Checkpoint Software has abused its dominant position in the firewall software market. Once upon a time, The pair were partners. That was until March this year when Stonesoft released a software firewall and VPN product, which competed head-on …

    Security 21 Jun 2001, 21:39