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2nd July 2001 Archive

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  • Mac OS X 10.1 not ready until September?

    Unlikely to ship at Macworld Expo claim sources

    Mac OS X 10.1, codenamed Puma, may not ship later this month at Macworld Expo New York as many Apple watchers are expecting. However, long-awaited DVD playback functionality is likely to be released during the show, which is set to kick off in two weeks' time. Sources close to both the OS' development and its beta testers …

    Mac Channel 2 Jul 2001, 08:24

  • Monster swallows Hot Jobs

    No.1 and No.2 job boards combine

    TMP Worldwide, owner of Monster.com, the world's biggest online job board, is buying HotJobs.com, the world's second biggest job board for $460m in newly issued shares. This is a 21 per cent premium over HotJobs share price at close of play on June 28, 2001. TMP's move represents a significant consolidation in the fragmented …

    e-Business 2 Jul 2001, 09:23

  • VIA reports bad June

    Falling demand

    VIA, the Taiwanese chipset-to-CPU-designer, blames falling demand for PCs for falling sales in June, its worst period for 16 months. Sales were down just 0.1 per cent to NT$2.02 billion ($58.7 million) from June last year. And sales were down a quarter on May, which in turn was a rotten month for Taiwanese motherboard makers. …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 09:50

  • Infineon's having a 60m new shares fund raiser

    Should put $1.4bn in the pot

    Infineon is raising cash by selling up to 60 million new shares, which Bloomberg reckons will be worth E1.7 billion ($1.4 billion). The shares will be priced on 12 July and start trading on 13 July. Infineon expects to report a pre-tax loss as high as E600 million ($512 million) for its Q3 ending 30 June. Chip price crashes, …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 10:26

  • BT to announce death of Concert

    About time. But will it take time?

    BT is to announce it will finally scrap its loss-making joint venture with AT&T, Concert, according to numerous reports. Concert has been a thorn in the side of BT for years and current estimates are that the company - which supplies long-distance telephony to business customers - is losing £20 million a week. The announcement …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 10:31

  • Compaq UK's McNally is retiring

    Big Joe goes at the end of July

    Joe McNally, the man who set up Compaq UK in 1984, is retiring at the end of July. He grew the UK and Irish business into a £1 billion enterprise by 1997 - the first Compaq subsidiary to hit that target. John Nicholson, group sales director, wrote a letter to the Compaq dealer channel to tell them the news. "He will be greatly …

    Channel 2 Jul 2001, 10:35

  • Australian financial giant stalks III

    Offer on the table

    AMP, the Australian financial services giant, has tabled an offer for Interactive Investor International, the UK's biggest financial information Web site. In a statement today, III said the bid was a small premium to the company's cash reserves. Interesting to see how much there is left - on March 31, III had £51m left in the …

    e-Business 2 Jul 2001, 10:37

  • Call my bluff – how smart is reverse engineering .NET?

    Besting or Boosting the Beast?

    So who's calling whose bluff? An intriguing game of chicken is enveloping Microsoft's plans to port its C# language and run-time to BSD, with software libre leaders vowing to give the Beast a taste of its own embrace n' extend medicine. How wise this high profile and risky counter attack will prove to be, we shall examine in a …

    Software 2 Jul 2001, 10:42

  • Verified: you can get anybody you want kicked off Hotmail

    It's official - the support staff don't read the emails at all

    When we reported Hotmail's zero-tolerance spam policy last week we thought it just might be possible to get the innocent Hotmail user of your choice kicked off the system with a simple email to abuse@hotmail.com. But it was just a thought - the single incident we reported last week was surely just a mistake, and there's …

    Media 2 Jul 2001, 10:58

  • Now it's Vodafone's turn to do a 3G link-up

    With the only people left - Hutchinson

    Vodafone is due to announce a similar 3G sharing deal as BT and Deutsche Telekom, and Orange and One2One anytime soon. Who with? The only company left that has a 3G licence in the UK - Hutchinson 3G. The mobile giant previously ruled out any sharing agreement on building 3G networks, saying that it had the cash to do it itself …

    Data Networking 2 Jul 2001, 11:14

  • Hoax virus alert targets MP3

    Dirty tricks campaign against Napster, Gnutella users

    A hoax alert warning MP3 users that they might have downloaded songs infected with viral code is doing the rounds on the Internet. The note, posing as a press release, warns of an "imbedded hybrid virus" called MusicPanel which, according to the hoax, targets fans who have "downloaded unauthorised songs from Napster, Gnutella …

    Security 2 Jul 2001, 11:20

  • Broadband start-up goes titsup.com OnCue

    D'oh!

    Broadband in Britain was dealt another blow last week after OnCue Telecommunications called in the liquidators on Friday with the loss of 100 jobs. The start-up was set up 18 months ago to offer broadband services to businesses as part of local loop unbundling in Britain. Its backers include Soros Private Equity Partners, …

    Broadband 2 Jul 2001, 11:33

  • Teen charged with hacking into NASA research centre

    The wrong stuff

    A New Mexico teenager has been charged with hacking into a NASA-run research centre. Jason Schwab, 18, has been charged with computer abuse and conspiracy to commit computer abuse connected with an April 2000 attack by crackers against NASA's Ames Research Centre in California. Associated Press reports that Schwab allegedly …

    Security 2 Jul 2001, 11:37

  • More online deaths: one tragic, one faked

    Gharlane, Nowheremom now Whitey and Divi-chan

    The ongoing glut of newsgroup deaths continues. This time we have examples of both types: the real and the imagined. Gameplay users have been saddened by the apparent suicide of one of the site's most popular users, Whitey. Yesterday, one of the moderators on the Counter Strike newsgroup posted a message stating that he had …

    Media 2 Jul 2001, 11:44

  • Sun, Compaq fight Alpha email marketing war

    FT.com reaps rewards

    Sun Microsystems UK's quick-witted marketing bunnies, have booked some text ads with FT.com's Information Technology email newsletter to exploit confusion over the Compaq's decision to sell Alpha to Intel and to adopt the Itanium as its server platform. This is the text ad in full: Will Compaq's decision to dump Alpha cause …

    Data Center 2 Jul 2001, 12:30

  • Tarantella targets Sun channel

    Hires Clarity

    Tarantella has signed up Clarity Technology to wholesale its thin-client product portfolio into the UK Sun reseller channel. Clarity is what used to be called a VAD - or value-added distributor. In other words, it will try to create a market for Tarantella, as well as fulfilling reseller orders. The distie based in Warrington …

    Channel 2 Jul 2001, 13:03

  • I am Canadian and I do not suck!

    Colonial clubs entire world + dog

    We battled-hardened journos at Vulture Central are used to a bit of abuse, but never before has Pran 'The Man' Oza - Reg adsales supremo - been the victim of a vicious verbal flame assault. Suffice it to say, he was last seen outside the Pitcher and Piano, spritzer in hand, attempting to set fire to the Canadian flag. Here's …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 13:38

  • Readers slam UK govt. spam sham

    Bing, bang, spam-a-lama-ding dang

    UK Govt's stand on spam provokes angry backlash Well, it's to be expected that the UK government will sit back and do nothing about spam while you inbox fills up with junk. Moaning about it's one thing. What about a solution? Our anonymous correspondent writes: I think people are taking the whole thing out of context! There …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 14:38

  • AMD cluster sneaks in Supercomputer top 500 list

    439 with a bullet

    The Top 500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers contains an AMD-powered machine for the first time. This is the PRESTO III, a Beowulf cluster of 78 AMD Athlon processors, built by the Tokyo Institute of Technology, which appears at no. 439 in the lastest supercomputer hit parade. Dr Satoshi Matsuoka, who led the …

    Data Center 2 Jul 2001, 14:42

  • Dell sales mask true horror of US PC market

    Competitors hurting

    Strip out Dell's sales and the US PC market performed even more horribly in Q1 than everyone thought. Speaking today in Zurich, CEO Michael Dell noted that US sales fell 8 per cent year-on-year in Q1, but exclude Dell, and sales fell a whopping 18 per cent. Dell will "continue to grow faster than our competitors and continue …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 14:43

  • MS Xbox will rule games universe

    Punter and retailer deploy crystal ball

    How the hell can you say GameCube will outsell Xbox by 2005? Well, how the hell can you say that, eh? Simeon White gives it to us from the horse's mouth: I manage a video game store, and i know for a fact Xbox will outsell Gamecube. By and large most hardcore gamers r sick of nintendo. Kid games...spells failure. And please …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 14:43

  • Cubase kills your love of music

    Ah, so it's not Andrew Lloyd Weber after all...

    Radiohead bassist slams Cubase software So, Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood doesn't much like Cubase. He's not alone, finding an ally in Ben Parrish: Ok i may not be quite as far into music biz as that guy from radiohead, but he sure has got a point - but it's been widely noted in music mags for years that logic has the edge …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 14:46

  • Reg Tariff lands us in the merde

    Frenchman nonplussed by culture of corruption

    Well, our Register Tariff 2001 has certainly proved a hit with many readers. It has also contributed greatly to the solvency of Vulture Central, giving as it does the opportunity for paying clients to dictate Reg content. Not everyone, however, is happy, Etienne Boisjoly included. Etienne is French: So by what im seeing her …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 14:54

  • Crap Europe could wipe $150bn from IT market

    Doomsayer forecasts

    The IT sector could see $150bn wiped off their sales ledgers over the next three years - if the European economy gets any worse. So says IDC, the market research firm, which notes "new economic data pointing to the possibility of a more severe downturn in Western Europe". This increases the likelihood that the technology …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 15:06

  • How to own a Cisco router in one easy step

    Small biz most at risk from IOS vulnerability

    A potentially serious security flaw involving the Web administration tool used by Cisco routers has come to light. The networking giant has issued a security notice warning that the HTTP server component of its Cisco IOS system software could allow a cracker to take control of a router and change its configuration. Such an …

    Security 2 Jul 2001, 15:14

  • BT cuts cost of phone bill

    Project Pelican takes off

    BT is to make phone bills cheaper for people who pay their bills by direct debit. From October 1 punters who pay automatically - or use a monthly payment plan - will see their phone bills fall by 49 pence. At the same time, those who insist on paying BT with a cheque - or even cash - at their local village post office because …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 15:14

  • Flat panel price hunt uncovers £235 display

    Looks like a long summer of price slashing

    Following our story on £299 flat panel displays hitting the high street, courtesy of PC World, Register readers scoured the Web looking for better deals. At £299, flat panel displays are likely to take-off as a mass market purchase. Best price around seems to be online player Insight which is punting out the Medion 14.1-incher …

    Personal 2 Jul 2001, 15:34

  • Dell gets curious about AMD merits

    Considering a chip switch for home PCs?

    Dell has started asking consumers if they would prefer AMD rather than Intel chips in their PCs. The Intel-only vendor has set up an online quiz entitled "Intel vs. AMD Research Survey", asking users about the pros and cons of the two companies' chips. "If you were purchasing a new personal computer for your household today, …

    Personal 2 Jul 2001, 15:34

  • Vodafone employees get vast share options

    Might make up for the massive price drop

    Vodafone is dishing out £375 million worth of shares to all its employees worldwide in a bid to keep them motivated. Employees who have picked up attractive share options in the past have been upset to see the share price halve over the last year. This is due to the huge acquisitions the mobile monster has made recently, …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 15:35

  • Palm retail sales revived in May

    m505 PDA hits ground running

    Palm experienced something of a rebound in retail sales in May, according to the latest figures from US market watcher NPD Intelect. Palm's US retail marketshare hit 69.4 per cent, up from 62.1 per cent in April and the highest share Palm has taken since September 2000. Driving Palm's revival was its colour iPaq-esque m505 PDA …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 15:45

  • Compaq to pull PC production from Mitac

    Turns to FIC instead

    Compaq will no longer outsource desktop PC production to Mitac, industry sources have claimed, but will instead contract Taiwan's FIC and Foxconn to build its desktops. The deal with Mitac was set to be terminated this past Saturday, according to a DigiTimes report posted on Friday. The move calls into question the future of …

    Business 2 Jul 2001, 15:45

  • Elitegroup preps Palm clone

    Compatible hardware ships with alternative OS on Flash

    Palm may soon get its first true clone, courtesy of Taiwanese hardware company Elitegroup. Elitegroup is apparently preparing a PDA, the EPD 30, that mimics a Palm device in all respects but one: it doesn't ship with the Palm OS. The EPD 30 is based on a 16MHz Motorola Dragonball and contains 2MB of Flash memory and 4MB of …

    Personal 2 Jul 2001, 15:46

  • World chip sales down 7% in May

    US takes brunt of sales tumble

    Chip prices continued to fall in May, with worldwide revenue dropping seven per cent. Around $12.7 billion worth of chips were sold during the month, compared to $13.7 billion in April. This represented a 20 per cent drop on May 2000, according to figures from the Semiconductor Industry Association. The US was hit hardest, …

    Channel 2 Jul 2001, 15:49

  • New .eu domain edges closer to reality

    Official reports this time - not just consultative

    The .eu top-level domain is getting closer to becoming a reality with a report finalised in the European Council and the first official report on this matter expected soon from the European Parliament. If all goes according to plan, the new domain will go live early next year. The European Council has agreed on the proposal for …

    Media 2 Jul 2001, 15:58

  • Jadetec MicroPC

    Review A PC in a walkman

    PC manufacturers are a conservative lot, and have found it hard to deviate from the beige box. As a result, the PC faithfuls have been forced to cast envious glances towards Apple' designer Macs. Refusing to run with the crowd, however, is newcomer Jadetec. Its MicroPC compresses an entire PC into a compact 950g box, roughly …

    Personal 2 Jul 2001, 16:03

  • France Telecom shafts French Net users

    AOL hikes cost of unmetered access in France

    AOL France is to increase the cost of its unmetered Net access from FFR 199 (£18) to FFR 327.98 (£30), according to newswire AFX. The ISP has blamed France Telecom (FT) for forcing the rise claiming FT's new rates for wholesale unmetered Net access are 75 per cent higher than levels offered in the UK. AOL France also claims …

    Media 2 Jul 2001, 16:14

  • Click here for hot Hotmail spam action

    An amusing compendium of your Hotmail experiences

    Random executions: Hotmail gets tough on spam Well, hotmail may well be getting tough on spam. It's also getting tough on people like Andrew Williamson: I recently had a hotmail account cancelled despite having done nothing with it except use it as a reply address from usenet. I never sent one email with it. I got notice that …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 16:23

  • FOTW I could take the lot of you Easy®

    Big words from a friend of Stelios 'The Jet' Haji-Ioanno

    The Easy way to crush dissenting voices Easy now: Stelios calls to explain his company's behaviour Our analysis of Easyjet tycoon Stelios Haji-Ioanno's attempt to control domain names beginning with 'easy' has upset an anonymous correspondent: Dear Sir/Madam, You seem to have a problem with EastGroup and I cant think why?? …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 16:26

  • Solaris bug takes the shine off Sun servers

    Rare flaw could result in data corruption

    Sun Microsystems has discovered a flaw in its Solaris operating system which, under rare circumstances, could result in the silent corruption of data stored on its enterprise servers. The bug came to light when Sun's development engineers reviewed the code used to implement dynamic reconfiguration in the process of developing …

    Data Center 2 Jul 2001, 16:35

  • Readers' Letters Nice and Easydoesit®

    Easycome®, Easygo® for 'Easy' domains

    The Easy way to crush dissenting voices Easy now: Stelios calls to explain his company's behaviour Regarding Easyjet's Stelios Haji-Ioannou apparent ownership of domain names starting with the word 'easy', Bo Bendtsen can see the blindingly obvious: Easy Group might own the trademark "EASY", however it a normal English word …

    Letters 2 Jul 2001, 17:06

  • Cops using high-tech surveillance in Florida

    Face recognition for the masses

    Tampa, Florida police are using video cameras and face recognition software to scan the streets in search of -- you guessed it -- sex offenders. Software called Faceit provided by security outfit Visionics quickly compares the face of a target against a database of people wanted on active warrants from the Hillsborough Sheriff's …

    Software 2 Jul 2001, 19:46

  • BT drops out of IRC

    Community Spirit

    BTinternet is to pull the plug on its IRC server on Wednesday (July 4). Fewer than 100 users use the server that BTinternet has set aside for IRC (Internet Relay Chat) discussions, according to a BT spokesman, who said the ISP's subscribers could still use the protocol to connect to IRC servers run by other ISPs. IRC is a non- …

    Media 2 Jul 2001, 20:50