1st October 2001 Archive

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Excite@Home goes titsup.com

Files for bankruptcy, sells business to AT&T

Excite@Home is to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and flog its broadband operation to AT&T for $307 million in cash. The announcement - which came late on Friday - came as no surprise to industry watchers who correctly predicted that the dotcom was heading for bankruptcy. The company said that the Chapter 11 filing …

Telecoms 1 Oct 2001, 10:11
World's first 3G network live today

DoCoMo sticks with 1 October launch

The world's first 3G network goes live today in Tokyo, Japan. Run by NTT DoCoMo, the networks will enable subscribers to watch video clips and listen to music on new mobile handsets. If two people use the handets they will be able to see one another thanks to an in-built camera on the device. The service, called Freedom Of …

Data Networking 1 Oct 2001, 10:43
West LB still sniffing round BT's network

Set to offer more than £20bn

German investment bank, West LB, is set to make a renewed offer for BT's fixed line phone network, according to the Times. Earlier this year BT rejected an £18 billion approach for its network by the same outfit. However, it appears West LB is prepared to up its offer to more than £20 billion in a bid to get BT to reconsider …

Data Networking 1 Oct 2001, 11:10
Nimda worms its way to top of September virus chart

Sircam slumps

The Nimda worm was the most infectious computer virus last month, according to the number of calls logged by anti-virus vendor Sophos. The prolific worm, which spreads via email or by scanning and uploading itself onto vulnerable Web servers (among other methods), accounted for 71.1 per cent of calls to Sophos' support centre …

Anti-Virus 1 Oct 2001, 11:52
WinXP Plus! pack has ‘issues’ with ATI, Nvidia, 3DFX cards

Including XP-certified ones...

The "powerful 3D rendering and animation environment" that comes with the Windows XP Plus! pack isn't entirely compatible with several major graphics chipsets, according to the relevant system requirements page. ATI Radeon and Rage 128, Nvidia RIVA TNT2 and GeForce won't run some (unspecified) Plus! features, while 3DFX Voodoo, …

Software 1 Oct 2001, 12:08
Speculation rife over £15bn Motorola/Siemens tie-in

But does joint handset/wireless venture make sense?

Motorola and Siemens are looking at creating a new joint venture to cover their handset and/or wireless infrastructure business, according to the Wall Street Journal. A joint venture would be valued at between £14 billion and £17 billion, the article says. The talks have been going on since the start of summer but have …

Business 1 Oct 2001, 12:46
The free Web's over, as W3C blesses Net patent taxes

Pay to Play, Part 94

A belated storm of protest has greeted a move by the World Wide Web Consortium to bless fee-bearing patents as official web standards. The proposal would allow patents, such as the notorious GIF image format, to become web standards, thus giving the patent owners the right to exploit them commercially. Since so much …

Music and Media 1 Oct 2001, 12:54
Athlon XP pricing is killing some system builder support

Others like it

The prices AMD is setting for its Athlon XP processors is turning at least one system builder away from the chip. Having lost Gateway and Tiny from its roster of system builders, AMD must be concerned about losing more. We've got an email from one decent sized player saying: "I am VERY disappointed. Their prices are well over …

Channel 1 Oct 2001, 13:02
ebookers to cut jobs

Uncertain time for staff

Pan-European online travel agency, ebookers.com, could axe up to 120 jobs as a result of the slow-down in the travel industry following the terror attacks in the US on September 11. Staff were told on Friday that the company was looking to make cuts at its operations. At this stage it's too early to say exactly where the axe …

e-Business 1 Oct 2001, 13:05
Intel mobilises on CPU front

12 new SKUs

Intel today launches 12 new mobile CPUs, designed to cover "every PC segment". These include the PIII-M 1.2GHz, the world's "fastest mobile" PC CPU and the PIII-M 700MHz, the world's lowest-power-consuming" PC processor, which consumes less than half a watt of power. Both are made using 0.13m manufacturing technology. All …

Channel 1 Oct 2001, 13:21
Cisco staff buy rival kit on Amazon

Updated Drones get value in Linksys boxes

Cisco staffers are buying competitors' products from Amazon.com. A record of people giving Cisco email addresses in purchases with Amazon.com (which is available via a feature called "Purchase Circles") reveals that the top-selling electronics product is a Cable/DSL router from Linksys. Three of the top eight products listed in …

Bootnotes 1 Oct 2001, 13:38
UK plc wastes £17bn a year on IT

Because managers are idiots

UK businesses are wasting £17 billion a year through IT expenditure because managers haven't bothered to apply proper asset management concepts, says a new report by KPMG. An initial estimate of the money being wasted - based on a similar report in the US - was £11 billion; however KPMG was so amazed at UK managers' ignorance …

Business 1 Oct 2001, 13:56
UK leads Italy in broadband stakes

Surely reason enough for a national holiday

Britain is trailing yet another broadband league table giving rise to further concerns about the future of broadband Britain. According to the latest stats from NetValue, the UK is seventh in a league table of eight European countries when it comes to home use of broadband. With just 2.3 per cent of UK households - that's …

Telecoms 1 Oct 2001, 14:29
Mac OS X: Our First Impressions

News At Ten (Point One)

Apple's OS X finally looks like becoming a contender, with the 10.1 update providing the much-hyped speed boost. File operations and application launch times are much speedier. Running a timer over the two, we found that the new Internet Explorer started in 5 seconds as opposed to the 13 seconds it took under 10.0.4, the …

Mac Channel 1 Oct 2001, 15:14
Fayrewood profit warning

Challenging

Fayrewood, the UK-listed networking distributor, issued a profit warning today - it now expects operating profit before goodwill in H1 to be 45 per cent lower than same time last year. Its German subsidiary, Computerlinks AG (51 per cent owned by Fayrewood and listed on the Neuer Markt), which trades in the UK as Unipalm, …

Channel 1 Oct 2001, 15:18
Intel vs VIA mostly causing pain for, well, Intel

Customers think it's a waste of time

Realtime Distribution, one of the VIA co-defendants fingered in the UK round of Intel versus VIA P$ patent lawsuits (see more here), says its customers are getting increasingly annoyed with Chipzilla's heavy-handed tactics. Cambridgeshire-based Realtime is a £50m t/o wholesaler of PC components to the UK system builder market. …

Channel 1 Oct 2001, 16:01
New Reg logo t-shirts hit the streets

Cash'n'Carrion unleashes Autumn burst of colour

Register hacks were this morning like excited children at Xmas as an enormous lorry discharged its load of new logo t-shirts here at Vulture Central. Sadly, having to hump thousands of the things up three flights of stairs soon dampened their enthusiasm for ecommerce. Indeed, they are now too exhausted to even indulge in …

Site News 1 Oct 2001, 16:08
Nvidia launches Titanium today

In stores for Christmas

Nvidia today announced the launch of the Titanium family - three so-called GPUs positioned at the high and mid-ends of the PC graphics market. We say "announced" because there's no official pricing details yet or shipping product - the first add-in cards featuring Titanium chips are expected to reach the stores 45 days or so, …

Personal 1 Oct 2001, 16:38
AMD 1.1GHz Duron turn-on

The world seems impressed

Answering Intel's 1.1 GHz Celeron arrival at the end of August, AMD has released its budget-range 1.1 GHz Duron processor. Like its 1 GHz predecessor, the chip is based on the Morgan core, which includes nifty gizmos like SSE instructions and data prefetch. AMDZone, the biggest AMD fan site, gives it an impressive overall …

Channel 1 Oct 2001, 17:12
Beware the binary Beezlebub

First October? 011001, mate

The world has all manner of binary terrors to contend with this month. Computers are already public enemy number two after Ossie bin Laden and it looks like October they plan to reap their evil revenge. Yes, because today is 1 October 2001. But to a computer, October and the year are gibberish, it sees only 011001. If you were …

Music and Media 1 Oct 2001, 17:21
In the event of nuclear attack, your data is safe

Dr Strangelove-style hosting

A Ministry of Defence bunker, at a secret location in the north-east of London, is to be outfitted into a secure hosting facility, following its purchase for an undisclosed sum by AL Digital. The facility will become AL's second nuclear bunker/co-location centre and the firm said it had made the purchase after strong demand for …

Security 1 Oct 2001, 17:22
Alldas.de back online

Survives hack attacks

Defacement archive Alldas.de is back online after repeated hacking attacks forced it to find a fresh home. Alldas.de has been offline for a month after a series of DDoS prompted its former ISP (which was also affected) to refuse to renew its hosting deal. Alldas expressed fears that, this time around, it might be offline for …

Security 1 Oct 2001, 17:28
Experts demolish MS anti-Apache FUD

Letters Bug vs Bug Comparison Gets Readers Antsy

Re: MS targets Linux, Mac rivals with IIS Astroturf MS vows rewritten IIS, more patches In response to Gartner's recommendation that businesses investigate alternatives to Microsoft's Internet Information Server, the Beast sent its sales staff a crib sheet with the theme: "all web servers are vulnerable - but some are more …

Letters 1 Oct 2001, 18:03
ID Cards are good for you

Letters And what are we hiding?

Brits want ID cards, not worried about privacy Make ID cards compulsory, urges Oracle boss Kieren, An interesting article made only slightly more entertaining with the inclusion of your own opinions delivered with rapier-like subtely . Yes, I am one of those that agree that ID cards could benefit us all. Never mind terrorist …

Letters 1 Oct 2001, 18:04
Fonts, face-tagging and false frequencies

Letters Roundup Who's the SirCam winner this week?

Microsoft thinks rival web servers are equally vulnerable, but many of you think their comparisons are bunk. Find out why here. The ID card debate hots up too. The funniest comment on the topic comes from an Australian contractor:- "That Larry Ellison is such a warm caring person offering to give the US Govt a freebie. I only …

Business 1 Oct 2001, 18:38
We've cracked into bin Laden's bank – UK hackers

Sudanese Tease

A group of British hackers has claimed to have broken into the systems of banks in the Sudan, and extracted information on accounts related to Osama's bin Laden terrorist network. Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terror (Yihat) claims to have obtained data on accounts held by members of Al Qaeda, including bin Laden, held at …

Security 1 Oct 2001, 19:19
Straw slams civil liberties lobby

Do you speak Gibberish?

Foreign secretary Jack Straw launched a scathing attack on the civil liberties lobby in an interview on Radio 4 on Friday. Mr Straw, who pushed through some pretty Draconian laws while home secretary, complained to the Today programme that he was held back by civil liberties groups and was forced to water down police and secret …

Music and Media 1 Oct 2001, 19:39
SuSE wins fresh finance

Loses 120 staff

SuSE Linux, Germany's best-known contribution to the open source community, has secured E15m ($13.9m)in a new financing round. But out go 120 staff, from a total roster of 500, to be laid off by the end of the year. This continues a "course of consolidation that started this summer", and will re-align the company along specific …

Business 1 Oct 2001, 21:14
Q3 is a dog for Compaq

Sept 11 accelerates downturn

Compaq has let everyone know that its Q3, ended September 30, was an absolute dog, with sales and profits both dragged down in the aftermath of September 11. The company now expects sales to come in at $7.4bn to $7.5bn, 12 per cent down on Q2, worse than previously expected. And it's on course for an operating loss of 0.5 to 0. …

Business 1 Oct 2001, 21:48