24th September 2001 Archive

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Face recognition software gets a boost

And other 'collateral damage' in the war on civil liberties

Face recognition software is attracting interest in the US Department of Transportation, which, according to reports in the Washington Post, is considering installing the Visionics 'FaceIt' system at National Airport when it reopens. This is going to make us all safer by scanning crowds for terrorist look-alikes. When the cops …

Assault on America 24 Sep 2001, 09:12
All Black gets first XP PC

Up'n'down under

The PC Company, a New Zealand computer assembler and retailer, shipped the world's first XP-loaded PC this morning. The official date XP can ship on PCs is today, Monday 24 September, and as New Zealand's capital Wellington is 16 hours ahead of New York, and 11 hours in front of London, the PC Company probably did ship the …

Business 24 Sep 2001, 10:49
Make ID cards compulsory, urges Oracle boss

And here's how I can help...

Larry Ellison has offered help in the creation of a National ID card for the United States by donating Oracle software. Ellison told San Francisco TV channel KPIX that the US needed a national database containing biometric information on its citizens to prevent terrorism:- "We need a national ID card with our photograph and …

Business 24 Sep 2001, 10:52
Ding Dong Tiny Calling

PC Make over time for Avon

Tiny Computers, the consumer PC manufacturer and retailer, is trying to crack the corporate PC market to boosts its sales by 25 per cent. It sees a gap for itself in supplying PCs to corporates and SMEs which want to get their employees tech literate, and are introducing staff PC purchase schemes. In other words its gunning for …

Channel 24 Sep 2001, 10:59
Short term XP memory

Stuff your PC fast - Crucial

Surprise, surprise, Crucial Technology, the memory retailing arm of Micron, has jumped into the Great-How-Much Memory Does Windows XP Need Debate? It points users towards 256MB. XP seems to be about creating up-sell opportunities for everyone in the PC business, but caveat aside, we think it's worth running through Crucial's …

Channel 24 Sep 2001, 11:11
Boots boots out bootsphoto.com

Lights! Cameras! Inaction!

Boots has closed the shutters on its online photo service - bootsphoto.com - with the loss of around £17.5 million. The service was launched in September last year but demand for the online album service and related online products never materialised, the high street retailer says As a result, bootsphoto.com is expected to …

Business 24 Sep 2001, 11:15
Earthlease still sniffing around BT's local loop

To make formal offer soon, says paper

Earthlease will wait until after the demerger of BT's mobile phone business, mmo2, in November before it makes another stab at trying to convince BT to sell its local loop network. According to the Guardian Earthlease will make a formal offer for the cables and wires that link customers to the phone network once BT has …

Data Networking 24 Sep 2001, 11:25
BT releases its demerger plans

To be put to shareholder vote

BT has released all the formal details of its demerger plan today, sent a copy to every shareholder and announced an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in Birmingham on 23 October to ask for official approval. There's not much in it that you won't already know. The main point of course is that the company will be split into …

Business 24 Sep 2001, 11:47
Palm confirms Motorola, Nokia smartphones axed

You read it here first

Six months after we broke the news that Motorola's PalmOS smartphone was being deep-sixed, Palm has finally come clean and admitted the product will not now appear. Palm has also axed its Nokia collaboration, which would have seen the Palm UI running on Symbian's core OS. Palm's share price fell by 18 per cent on the news on …

Data Networking 24 Sep 2001, 12:30
Oops! Symantec forgets to renew Norton.com domain

Antivirus critic helps out

A critic of antivirus software has stumped up the $35 renewal fee for Symantec's Norton.com domain, after the company forgot to pay. Brad 'RenderMan' Haines, operator of AntiAV.com, stepped into the breach on Saturday, and settled the bill which had been due earlier in the week. Last January Renderman performed a similar …

Security 24 Sep 2001, 12:42
Upstarts profit from BT cutbacks

European Powers

Today is the start of BT's resurrection with the formal release of its demerger information - when the wireless business will be floated off as a separate arm and the rest of BT reinvents itself. However, two announcements also made today show that while BT is retrenching to its UK, its future rivals are making the most of it …

Data Networking 24 Sep 2001, 12:57
Lastminute.com soothes fears over US attacks

Predicts buoyant Q4

Online bucket shop Lastminute.com, has moved to reassure investors in the wake of the terror attacks in the US earlier this month. In a statement issued to the Stock Exchange it said that in the last 14 days 382 bookings (0.2 per cent of the company's travel-related bookings over the last six months) have been cancelled. The …

e-Business 24 Sep 2001, 14:59
Nominet rules against Findlay Steele for FSA.co.uk

Software company to appeal against very dubious decision

The UK root registrar, Nominet, has ruled against small software company Findlay Steele in the ongoing dispute with financial watchdog FSA over the domain www.fsa.co.uk. In its decision, Nominet cites the fact that a firm of solicitors sent a confidential email to Findlay Steele at fsa.co.uk, rather than to the Financial …

Media 24 Sep 2001, 15:00
Corporate portals – the security risks

You are the Weakest Link. Hello

Corporate portals, heavily touted by numerous vendors as a way to open up business processes on the Web, could also make life easier for hackers, the Yankee Group warns. The analyst firm has issued a cautionary report, Corporate Portals Open the Door to New Security Concerns, pointing to the dangers inherent in extending access …

Security 24 Sep 2001, 15:43
NTL terminates Net access for CWC customers

Shame

NTL is to pull Net access for an undisclosed number of former Cable & Wireless Communications customers at the end November because of "technical reasons". The cableco acquired the retail cable business of CWC last year and had pledged to keep the CWC Net access service running until November 30th 2001. Now that deadline is …

Media 24 Sep 2001, 15:51
MS prices will ‘damage UK business’

To the tune of £900m, group claims

Microsoft's new software pricing policy has sparked trade body The Infrastructure Forum (TIF) to complain formally to the DTi. This comes on top of a similar complaint and letter earlier in the month by the British Computer Society's forum for IT directors, Elite; Imis, the IT management professional body; and Socitm, a local …

Software 24 Sep 2001, 16:41
Internet will become ‘unusable’ by 2008

Yeah. Right

The Internet "could become unusable as a means of communication" if something is not done about email viruses, security firm MessageLabs warns. The company which scans the email of corporate clients for viruses, predicts that one in ten emails transmitted via the Internet will contain a virus by 2008, and as many as one in two …

Security 24 Sep 2001, 17:02
BTopenworld sends Trojan to subscribers

Bad trip from BadTrans

BTopenworld has accidentally sent its customers an email carrying a Trojan horse virus. Several Register readers have written in to inform us they were sent a copy of the BadTrans when they responded to an email from billing@btopenworld.com, pointing to infection of an unknown numbers of PCs at BTopenworld. BT is said to have …

Security 24 Sep 2001, 17:36
Lucent turns off ‘flagship’ switch

Can WAN

Struggling telecoms equipment manufacturer Lucent has stopped the development of a key switch for the telco market, just weeks prior to its scheduled release. The Multiservice Core Switch 25000, an ATM switch designed to sit at the heart of a telco's high-speed network, has been dropped as part of Lucent's ongoing product …

Data Center 24 Sep 2001, 18:15
Brits want ID cards, not worried about privacy

You name it - we'll show it

The issue of national ID cards is raising its head in the UK for the umpteenth occasion (FT: Blunkett puts the case for ID cards). For 30 years, Britain survived the IRA entirely without the imposition of ID cards. But now, in the wake of the US terror attacks, the government may well succeed in turning its wish for compulsory …

Security 24 Sep 2001, 18:38
MS shows toppling towers in ZDNet advert

Taste -- hello??

MS UK has been running advert for its putatively un-crashable Enterprise Server Software showing two rectangular buildings, not unlike the WTC twin towers, toppling. The 'art concept' here seems to be the hands of a clock, but both towers were unfortunately leaning in different planes, giving the impression that they're poised …

Software 24 Sep 2001, 19:29
Reg Seti@home crew chomps 1,000 years of CPU time

At some point today

At some point today, Vulture Central's 1,300-plus Seti@home crew should complete 1,000 years of CPU time on behalf of the world's biggest search for extra-terrestrial life. At time of publication, our intrepid team has already chomped its way through a stonking 999.444 years of processor time. Respect. If you want to join the …

Site News 24 Sep 2001, 21:14
Ditch Microsoft IIS now, says Gartner

And put .NET plans on ice until rewrite

We don't know if it's virus fatigue that caused us to overlook this, along with world+dog, last week. But the Gartner Group has issued a remarkable advisory recommending - in the strongest terms - that enterprises abandon their investments in Microsoft's web server IIS (Internet Information Server). In the usually cautious, …

Software 24 Sep 2001, 21:56