10th August 2001 Archive
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Palm ate my Dell PC
Lawsuit claims HotSyncing too hot for PC mobos
Palm has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that its HotSync synchronisation system fries certain PC motherboards. The suit itself claims the HotSync process "damages or destroys the motherboards on certain PC brands", a statement the legal firm behind the action, the San Francisco-based Pinnacle Law Group, refined to include …
Personal 10 Aug 2001, 09:07
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Palm readies m125 pro-'sumer PDA
Brings top-end m500 features to low-end m100 family
Palm is preparing the release of its next consumer PDA, the m125, Web site PalmInfocenter has claimed, citing "two independent sources". Essentially, the m125 brings the m10x family into line with the standards Palm has adopted through the m50x series. So, the m125 will be the first of its kind to ship with a Secure Digital …
Personal 10 Aug 2001, 09:11
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Intel steps up pressure on VIA
Promises to sue makers of unauthorised Pentium 4 chipsets
Intel has stressed that it will consider using legal action against anyone who produces a Pentium 4 chipset without its approval. Chen Chun-shen, president of Intel's Asia-Pacific operation, reiterated that only three Taiwanese firms have the company's permission to produce P4 chipsets and that those who haven't will face legal …
Channel 10 Aug 2001, 09:38
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Vandals and phreakers plague MSN Internet park bench
Gates gets surprise call
Bill Gates this week become the victim of pranksters at MSN's latest UK project, the cyber-park bench. On Tuesday Neil Woodman and Dan Sanderson from Bury St Edmunds took a phone handset down to the town's public gardens, where the bench is located. When the 17-year-olds plugged it into one of the phone sockets in the bench's …
Music and Media 10 Aug 2001, 09:39
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ATI to launch R200 next week
Next-gen chip to debut at SIGGRAPH claims third-party press release
ATI will launch its R200, likely to be called the Radeon 2, at next week's SIGGRAPH show, one of the graphics chip specialist's partners has let slip. Face-modelling software developer LifeFX has just put out a press release noting that ATI will bundle a custom version of its code with the R200. LifeFX says it will demo the …
Channel 10 Aug 2001, 10:07
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Japan arrests woman for email snooping
Tokyo worker first to fall foul of law
A Japanese woman has been arrested for allegedly snooping around a colleague's email account. Kumiyo Kishi is the first person in the country to be arrested for breaking the electronic communications projects law, the Mainichi Daily News reports. The 30-year-old from Tokyo is accused of using a computer at work to read emails …
Security 10 Aug 2001, 10:07
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‘If AOL UK paid full VAT it could fund heart transplants’
Freeserve goes for the jugular
Freeserve has gone for AOL UK's jugular claiming that in the last ten days the US-based ISP has avoided paying £82,000 worth of VAT - enough cash to fund four heart or lung transplant operations. Britain's biggest French ISP has jumped on the news that the British Government is to bail out a privately-owned loss-making heart …
Music and Media 10 Aug 2001, 10:10
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Intel to launch DDR i845 chipset this month?
Hynix's self-congratulatory statements seem to say so
Hynix has been blowing its own trumpet, claiming the 1.7 million 128Mb DDR SDRAM chips it sold in July give it 45 per cent of the market. That figure, the company boasts, leaves it "the undisputed leader in DDR SDRAM shipments worldwide". Hynix expects its 128Mb shipments to increase considerably during August - to over three …
Channel 10 Aug 2001, 10:29
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Stinger: The Sneak Preview
MS reference device falls into journo's lap
Microsoft has a reputation of crushing all the companies who stand in its way - it's often seen as the Seattle giant that uses its software might to take on plucky start-ups and win. The company which crushed Netscape. The problem with being big and successful is what to do next. Microsoft has expanded into two directions. X-box …
Personal 10 Aug 2001, 10:46
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MS internal network whacked by Code Red
Boneheaded employee strikes...
It's not just MSN - Code Red has just ripped through Microsoft's internal network too, according to our spies in Redmond. The unleashed worm is claimed to have whacked numerous servers on the corporate network; something of an embarrassment for Microsoft this, as it can only mean we hadn't quite got our act together on the patch …
Software 10 Aug 2001, 11:39
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Sklyarov case shows business outweighs First Amendment
Crypto expert weighs into DMCA
Noted cryptographer Bruce Schneier has produced a damning critique of the way the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was used to jail Russian software researcher Dmitry Sklyarov. Schneier, chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security, and inventor of the Blowfish algorithm, will argue in the next issue of his Crypro- …
Software 10 Aug 2001, 11:55
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Sonera pulls out of Norway 3G
Returns licence to government, writes off £8 million
Finnish mobile company Sonera has pulled out of the Norwegian 3G market following the decision by equal partner Enitel to concentrate on its fixed-line business market and scrap its UMTS holdings. Enitel and Sonera, under the name Broadband Mobile, paid £15.6 million for one of the four next-generation mobile licences in Norway …
Data Networking 10 Aug 2001, 11:58
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Mesh phone system sabotaged by burglars
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger
UK PC builder Mesh Computers has fallen victim to burglars for the second time this year. But the intruders, who forced their way into the outfit's London offices on Wednesday night, seem to have been more intent on vandalism than theft. Wires in the company's telephone system were cut, which resulted in the phone lines being …
Channel 10 Aug 2001, 12:00
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Napster ist nicht tot
New CEO Hilbers promises everything will be great
New Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers has given a short interview to German mag Stern assuring them (himself?) that Napster isn't dead and giving details of the site's future charging system. Asked bluntly if Napster was kaput, he replied: "Napster ist nicht tot [Napster is not dead]. The name is very valuable and we are working very …
Music and Media 10 Aug 2001, 12:07
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NTT DoCoMo rethinks London listing
Worried about value of foreign investments
NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese mobile company famous for the success of its i-Mode mobile system, is reconsidering listing on the New York and London stock exchanges, reports the FT. The company had planned to list next month to get itself known internationally and expand its financial options but is concerned about the recent drop …
Business 10 Aug 2001, 12:10
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Summer camp set up for sacked dotcom workers
Don't worry, be happy
Laid off dotcom workers are been encouraged to forget their problems and go to summer camp. Recessioncamp.com, which was itself set up by two former Internet high-fliers, is offering activities like hiking and golf to the casualties of the dotcom recession. The firm is certainly not short of prospective clients. Since that …
e-Business 10 Aug 2001, 12:13
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ISA links up with Daisytek
Delists from Stock Exchange
ISA International, Europe's biggest computer supplies distie is joining forces Daisytek, in a move that will see its US counterpart take over the company. Daisytek is pumping in &163;10m into ISA, receiving &163;8m worth of convertible preference shares that give it the right to own 50 per cent+1 share of ISA's enlarged share …
Channel 10 Aug 2001, 12:18
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SiPix Mobile
Review Portable printer
We've seen a number of small, portable printers before, but nothing quite like the SiPix Mobile. It has its roots in the belief that road warriors still like to work from hard copy. It can be connected up to a notebook or PDA via an infrared or serial connection, allowing you to print out from either. Installation and use is …
Personal 10 Aug 2001, 12:41
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Dell tops (Intel) server satisfaction poll
Prices are the key
Dell has topped the Technology Business Research Q2US corporate customer satisfaction poll for Intel servers, desktops and notebooks. During the quarter, the PC vendor made "some spectacular gains...across all three form factors", TBR says. Dell's performance in Q2 wipes out most of its losses in the previous three quarters, …
Hardware 10 Aug 2001, 12:45
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Meet Marvin, the paranoid Web server
Douglas Adams tribute page raises a chuckle
Dutch fans of author Douglas Adams have set up a script on a Web server that returns errors in the style of a famous character from the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Surfers trying to access a page on a site run by an association for electronics students at the University of Twente are treated to an error message from a …
Music and Media 10 Aug 2001, 13:07
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Old code defeats new CD anti-ripping technologies
CloneCD defeats SafeAudio and Cactus, we hear
Macrovision's SafeAudio and Midbar's Cactus - both new technologies designed to prevent CDs from being copied successfully - may have been defeated by software released over two years ago. CloneCD, from German developer Elaborate Bytes, was written to duplicate discs bit by bit. The code requires a CD-R or CD-RW drive that …
Personal 10 Aug 2001, 14:07
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BT sacks 4000 in German cost cutting
Viag Interkom loses 13 per cent of workforce
BT is to get rid of 4,000 staff at its German mobile subsidiary Viag Telekom - 13 per cent of the total work force. The chairman of Viag, Joachim Preisig, told the FT in Germany that the job losses will come from "normal personnel fluctuations" and the company was hoping to avoid redundancies. Viag Interkom, he said, was trying …
Business 10 Aug 2001, 14:29
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Microsoft releases Content Management Server
Price Bomb
Earlier this summer Microsoft acquired the Canadian company NCompass and its Resolution content management product. This has now been released as Content Management Server (CMS) 2001. The two biggest differences between Resolution and CMS are their platform support and their pricing. As far as platform support is concerned the …
e-Business 10 Aug 2001, 14:38
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PC gloom to continue through to 2003 – IDC
Windows XP, Pentium 4 price cuts won't help
Intel's hopes that September's back-to-school sales period and the arrival of Windows XP on 25 October - plus the Pentium 4 price cuts it's set to make on 26 August - will reinvigorate PC sales aren't shared by market watcher IDC, it seems. IDC now reckons the eagerly awaited recovery in the PC market will not take place until …
Hardware 10 Aug 2001, 14:52
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El Reg's favourite Haxploitation films
And the winners are...
After our recent stories listing films featuring hackers or hacking (see The Reg guide to hackers in film and Haxploitation: the complete Reg guide to hackers in film) we thought it only right that we come up with a top ten list for you to disagree with. So after a straw poll in the office, here's a list of our favourite films …
Bootnotes 10 Aug 2001, 15:21
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Oftel gets touchy feely
Won't make any difference though
In its crusade to become the most loved UK watchdog, Oftel has taken touchy feely to new lengths. In a new set of guidelines, the winged watchdog (which should be checking up on the telecoms sector) plans to spend so much time asking us, the public, what we think that it will hardly have any time to do any enforcing. It won't …
Data Networking 10 Aug 2001, 15:32
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‘How can you have a shooting in England’
Americans fumble with reality
Shooting Rampage disrupts Reg ops A plague of locusts decended upon The Register this week, with a combination of technical glitches and gun-toting maniacs disrupting many hours of 'normal' news staff work practice. The shooting caused a stir with American readers, who seemed alarmed that anything more dangerous than a croquet …
Letters 10 Aug 2001, 15:38
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Captain Cyborg crops up in Focus magazine
How'd he get past the dogs?
Captain Cyborg aka Kevin "Wally" Warwick has managed to sneak back into the country and continue his self-publicising tour of gibberish masquerading as science. But worse than that, he's managed to get into Focus magazine. How does he do it? We were sure everyone had been alerted to the professor of cybernetics and his …
Bootnotes 10 Aug 2001, 16:01
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Channel laughs at Compaq $20m rebate fraud lawsuit
Not fraud, just "inventive with the truth"
Compaq accuses brokers of $20m rebate fraud Compaq's decision to sue a handful of brokers after they allegedly defrauded the company out of $20 million in rebates ruffled a few feathers in the channel. Angus Dorbie seemed to find Compaq's approach a little cheeky: This is funny. Companies have no problem trying to stuff the …
Letters 10 Aug 2001, 16:40
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Powerful supercomp grid for US boffins
13.6 Teraflop system will feature McKinley processors
Four US research centres are to be linked to create an interconnected series of Linux clusters capable of processing 13.6 trillion calculations a second. The computer 'grid' system - known as the Distributed Terascale Facility (DTF) or TeraGrid supercomputer- will enable American boffins to share computing resources over the …
Hardware 10 Aug 2001, 16:48
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Readers Letters ‘You are a blackard of the first water’
Queen mum fans demand Reg hack's head on a plate
Elizabeth the Queen Mother is dead Our report on the Yorkshire Evening Post's premature coverage of the death of the Queen Mother caused outrage among royalist Register readers. Here's one tongue-lashing Lester Haines received from someone who chose to identify themselves only as 'Vagabondo': Lester.... You do a diservice to …
Letters 10 Aug 2001, 16:53
