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1st August 2001 Archive

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  • Justice mysteriously delayed for ‘Melissa’ author

    So what's David Smith been up to lately?

    Nearly twenty months after entering guilty pleas in state and federal court, David Smith, the confessed author of the infamous 'Melissa' Outlook worm, remains free on bail with no sentencing date in sight, while the prosecutors who once ballyhooed Smith's arrest as a model of swift and certain information age justice have …

    Security 1 Aug 2001, 02:34

  • Intergraph extends patent claims to Itanium

    PIC on this

    Intergraph is stepping up its patent war against Intel, with claims that the chip giant's Itanium chip utilises two of its proprietary technologies. Intergraph has a couple of patents which - it claims "define key aspects of parallel instruction computing (PIC)". This patented PIC technology is in turn "an essential component …

    Channel 1 Aug 2001, 09:28

  • Cost of Net access to rise in Europe

    Had to happen

    Consumers in Europe can expect to pay more for Net access next year, according to Merrill Lynch. In a study of the European Internet marketplace, the investment bank concludes that there is little downward pressure on Net access prices. Instead, it suggests that there is room for ISPs to hike their subscription packages - …

    Media 1 Aug 2001, 09:35

  • LogoWatch MySQL swims with the dolphins

    Hippies hijack cetecean and save the planet

    You know how it is - let a dotcom yuppie off the lead and before you know it they're running round naked hugging trees and re-aligning the corporate logo to more adequately match the child within. At some stage this naturally involves a dolphin. What dolphins know about the Internet can be written on the back of a very …

    Bootnotes 1 Aug 2001, 09:38

  • AMD's Dresden fab clocks up 10m Athlon dies

    Get the bunting out

    AMD's Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany, has shipped its 10 millionth Athlon chip die. The milestone comes after 13 months of production. The fab is working at 60 per cent production capacity according to AMD which reckons it can hit 100 per cent by then end of the year. Hector Ruiz, president and CEO, said that the best was yet to …

    Channel 1 Aug 2001, 10:20

  • T-Online losses widen

    DSL subscriber numbers soar

    Losses at Europe's biggest ISP have increased tenfold, T-Online reported this morning. Announcing its preliminary half-year figures ending June 30 the German giant reported pre-tax losses of E123.3 million (£75.8 million) compared to E11.7 million (£7.2 million) for the corresponding period last year. The widening loss comes …

    Business 1 Aug 2001, 11:14

  • Intel licenses ARM's sixth-generation architecture

    Motorola too - it just hasn't said so yet

    Intel and Texas Instruments have officially licensed ARM's ARM 6 architecture a week after both companies announced partnerships with Palm as part of the latter's shift to the ARM processor platform. Both Intel and TI had some say in the development of the ARM 6, apparently, as did Motorola - the other ARM partner working with …

    Channel 1 Aug 2001, 11:14

  • DRAM production reduction talks fail

    The World's main memory makers just can't agree to do it

    Some of the world's largest DRAM makers have failed to talk their fellows into a production reduction before the bottom drops out of the memory market completely. With supply outstripping demand, you can understand why memory companies might well want to limit output, to prevent prices spiralling downward even further. …

    Channel 1 Aug 2001, 11:22

  • Coming Soon: The Plastic Bag Tax

    Special to Ireland

    Irish retailers could soon face a massive tax bill for placing goods in plastic bags - or rather their customers will pay. But how much - and what exactly is -for tax purposes - a plastic bag, anyhow? Contained in The Waste Management Amendment Bill 2001 which has already passed into law is a provision for a levy of up to 15p/ …

    Channel 1 Aug 2001, 11:27

  • Sun axes 300 jobs

    Small Potatoes?

    Sun Microsystems is cut its headcount by 300 people over the next year as part of a plan to ask some people to find different jobs within the server giant, or accept a redundancy package. Sun's redeployment programme will involve around two per cent of its 43,600 - or around 872 employees - mostly within its software and system …

    Business 1 Aug 2001, 11:33

  • Infogrames makes big games gains

    Forecasts fab 2002

    Infogrames today said sales leapt 52 per cent in the fourth quarter. The French games giant told French newspapers it had revenue of 183 million euros ($161 million) for the three months ended June 30. Full year sales grew 29 per cent to 672 million euros. It also confirmed its sales forecast of 1 billion euros for the …

    Games Industry 1 Aug 2001, 11:35

  • Mac OS X 10.1 leaks confirm speed bump

    Less bounce to the ounce

    Three versions of the long-awaited Puma upgrade to Mac OS X - version 10.1 - appear to be in circulation, according to BetaNews, and some fairly authoritative reports confirm that the speed improvements demonstrated by Steve Jobs at Macworld Expo New York are very real*. Accelerate Your Mac has the most detailed examination …

    Mac Channel 1 Aug 2001, 11:38

  • Priceline hits the black

    Ditching staff and products works

    Name your price Web business Priceline.com has turned in its first ever profit. It's feeling pretty confident and has raised its revenue and earnings per share forecasts for the current quarter. Accounting for restructuring and other one off charges, Priceline's net income for its Q2 was $2.8 million, or a penny per share. This …

    e-Business 1 Aug 2001, 11:41

  • Intel Pentium 4 price cuts put pressure on mobo makers

    Panic buying of components begins

    Intel's aggressive Pentium 4 price reduction programme, with big cuts coming on 26 August and 28 October, is frustrating mobo component suppliers. Here's what's happening: Intel is attempting to ramp up demand for the P4. It's doing that through price cuts and by first sidelining and then retiring the desktop Pentium III. The …

    Channel 1 Aug 2001, 11:48

  • Palm, Compaq head-to-head in Euro PDA market

    Latest stats

    Palm needs to work very hard on promoting itself in Europe if it's to avoid being eclipsed by Compaq's iPaq. The latest figures from market researcher Gartner Dataquest, for the year's second quarter, give Palm a mere two-and-a-bit per cent marketshare lead over Compaq. Palm shipped 164,029 units in Western Europe, down 41.0 …

    Personal 1 Aug 2001, 12:04

  • Cisco Training For Dummies

    That's Certifiable!

    From October, Cisco plans to halve the length of its Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) programme exam to just one "extended" day. Cisco claims that it is just eliminating redundancies and moving some basic tasks to into another examination. However, with the CCIE being possibly the most valued certification around, the …

    Data Center 1 Aug 2001, 12:17

  • Anti-rip CD system bypassed

    Macrovision's SafeAudio not too safe, apparently

    Macrovision's SafeAudio technology, designed to prevent PC-owning music fans from ripping CD tracks onto their hard drives, has been bypassed. Commercial CDs protected by Macrovision's technology went on sale to the public in the US and elsewhere last month, part of a test programme to ensure listeners aren't upset by the …

    Personal 1 Aug 2001, 12:41

  • You want loyalty? Get a dog!

    Survey reveals IT staff as nomads

    IT professionals switch jobs on average every three years, with more than half jumping the joint within this time. According to an annual pay survey, from New Jersey-based People3, a Gartner sub, the way to the hearts of Tech staff is not solely through their pay packets (Yeah, Right). Training; giving workers the use of new …

    Business 1 Aug 2001, 13:06

  • Sony Vaio Music Clip MC-S50

    Review Digital music player

    Sony has an uncanny knack of coming up with the 'must-have' products of the moment, seemingly unhindered by their high price tags. The Music Clip digital music player maintains this trend - it's delightfully dinky, but has a less-than-petite price tag. Styled in the eye-catching silver and purple Vaio livery, it proves yet …

    Personal 1 Aug 2001, 13:50

  • Do you want to own the Trojan Room coffee pot?

    Web history for sale on eBay

    The world famous coffee pot in the Trojan Room of the Computer Science Department of Cambridge University is for sale on eBay. It was going to be chucked away as the department is moving to new premises, but instead its been decided to sell this little piece of Net history. The coffee pot was the star of the first ever Webcam …

    Media 1 Aug 2001, 13:54

  • Elitegroup preps fresh Palm clones

    Follows PDA pioneer down ARM route

    Taiwanese computer maker Elitegroup is to grow its family of Palm clones with three more models. In addition to the EPD30, which caused such confusion a month or so back (see Elitegroup preps Palm clone), Elitegroup is preparing a more advanced version, the EPD50. And, following the path stepped upon by Palm last week, it's …

    Personal 1 Aug 2001, 14:42

  • UK's E-envoy upbeat about e-conomy

    Have we missed something?

    Government e-Envoy, Andrew Pinder, is confident that e-business is having a positive impact on the economy despite the continued fall-out from the downturn in the sector. Speaking yesterday at a talking shop devised to kick-off a Government sponsored UK portal for Internet entrepreneurs - called "Beyond Bricks" - he said: " …

    e-Business 1 Aug 2001, 14:51

  • Life, the universe and supercomputers

    Updated British boffins hope Sun cluster will answer cosmic conundrums

    Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt yesterday switched on a supercomputer at Durham University which academics hope will give fresh insights into the origin and creation of the universe. The Cosmology Machine, which can perform 228 billion floating point operations per second and costs a cool £1.4 million, will take …

    Data Center 1 Aug 2001, 15:02

  • Net ‘misuse’ costs corporate America $2,000 per second

    Stop reading, you're wasting your boss' profits

    Internet misuse costs corporate America more than $63 billion per year in lost productivity...says a report out today. This fantastic figure, which works out at a cost of around $2,000 in lost US man hours every second, claims the cash is being poured down the toilet by staff surfing for entertainment, shopping and porn while …

    Media 1 Aug 2001, 15:26

  • Nintendo will ship 500,000 GameCubes at Japan launch

    1.1 million for the US in November

    Nintendo plans to ship 500,000 GameCubes for the Japanese launch of the console on 14 September according to games site Famitsu. Most of these will probably go to pre-orders, but thousands will pack into the centre of Tokyo's Akihabara district in time-honoured tradition to pick up their consoles. The console will only be …

    Games Industry 1 Aug 2001, 15:33

  • Motorola Accompli 008 communicator

    The Reg Smartphone Roundup Part 1: A smartphone for the rest of us?

    We've been playing with three new gizmos here that are touted as the future of the mobile Internet, and we'll be taking a long and sceptical look at these smartphones from Motorola, Nokia and Mitsubishi this week. Particularly to see whether they measure up to two respects: if they're so smart, will they replace the PDAs …

    Personal 1 Aug 2001, 16:31

  • Freeserve takes swipe at AOL's tax free status

    It's getting bitchy

    The row over AOL UK's exemption from paying tax has spilled into adverts littering today's newspapers. Yesterday, Freeserve CEO, John Pluthero, said he didn't have a "beef" with AOL UK over the legal loophole that meant it doesn't have to pay VAT on its service. He even told El Reg that if he was in AOL UK's shoes he'd do the …

    Media 1 Aug 2001, 16:36

  • Mainstream wireless networking extended to 3km

    Saves techies from stringing out shorter range kit

    PC component and peripheral maker Buffalo Technologies has stretched out wireless networking kit so that it works at a range of up to 3km. Documents on Cisco's Web site suggest that IEEE 802.11b, which is compatible with Buffalo's product for wireless connections of 11Mbps, could be used for links of up to 25km (at least …

    Data Networking 1 Aug 2001, 17:07

  • July's cyber casualties revealed

    Deaths drop 30% from June

    With much of the Internet carnage neatly swept away, the number of dotcom deaths carried on falling in July. Thirty-two Net oufits either shut down or declared bankruptcy in July, a drop of 30 per cent from a month ago, and the lowest number since September 2000. Casualties included online grocers Webvan and HomeRuns.com. …

    e-Business 1 Aug 2001, 17:10

  • Microsoft turns the drill on Bluetooth

    Open wide - this won't hurt a bit

    Give The Beast some credit: it's never one to let an industry standards agreement pass by without taking the opportunity to kick somebody's shins. As the St Francis of Redmond almost said: where there is harmony, let us sow discord. Right on cue, Tuesday's formal rubber stamping of the wireless networking standard 802.11b was …

    Data Networking 1 Aug 2001, 22:34