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15th October 2001 Archive

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  • AMD ships 1.53GHz Athlon MP

    QuantiSpeed comes to dual-CPU systems

    AMD announced three faster Athlon MP processors this morning, as we predicted a wee while back, running at 1.33, 1.40 and 1.53GHz, respectively. And - surprise, surprise - the new parts are named according to AMD's new relative performance naming scheme. Last week, AMD's PC processor chief, Dirk Meyer, said the company would be …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 09:23

  • MS-Gov talks fail, mediator appointed

    They've now got till 2nd November

    Judge Colleen Kollar-Kottelly has appointed a mediator in a final attempt to squeeze an agreed antitrust settlement out of Microsoft and the US government team. To no-one's great surprise the two sides reported on Friday that they'd hadn't been able to agree on their own, and Judge Kollar-Kottelly issued an order, released on …

    Software 15 Oct 2001, 09:36

  • Tempers cool in Pay to Play Web row

    Knives, forks buried

    The W3C has invited Bruce Perens and Free Software Foundation counsel Eben Moglen to join the next round of debate on whether to allow companies the right to charge for using future web standards that come under its proposed 'RAND' license. The two are to join the W3C's Patent Policy working group, as "invited experts", the W3C …

    Software 15 Oct 2001, 09:49

  • Transmeta announces 1GHz integrated graphics Crusoe 6000

    But we're still waiting for the 1GHz 5800...

    Transmeta hasn't got its long-awaited and much-anticipate 1GHz Crusoe TM5800 processor out of the door yet, but it's already announcing its next chip, the TM6000. Intriguingly, the 6000 is also expected to ship at 1GHz. Transmeta announced the 5800 last summer, but running at 800MHz and not the gigahertz frequency many …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 09:55

  • NTL to lose 8,200 jobs

    Update Oh well

    NTL is to shed 8,200 jobs by the end of next year in a bid to reduce its massive £12 billion debt mountain, according to the FT. Chief exec, Barclay Knapp, told analysts last week that the job cuts would save £275 million. It also plans to increase the average amount of cash it gets from each customer from £39 a month to £46 a …

    Business 15 Oct 2001, 10:02

  • Shot in the ARM

    Results are shiny, happy

    Increased licensing revenue allowed UK chip designer ARM to post an upbeat third quarter results scorecard today. Quarter-on-quarter revenue growth from Q2 was up four per cent (representing a 42 per cent rise from Q3 2000 to £37.6 million. This brought profit (before tax) to £12.9 million, which is up 46 per cent from Q3 2000 …

    Business 15 Oct 2001, 10:08

  • Palm still very strong in US retail arena

    But Sony is closing in fast

    The Palm OS continues to command the lion's share of the PDA market, at least as far as the US retail sector goes. The platform accounted for 82.5 per cent of the handhelds sold online and in stores during August, while PocketPC took 13 per cent of the market, according to the latest numbers from NPD Intelect. Overall, the …

    Personal 15 Oct 2001, 10:31

  • UK Net use: October 1999 – September 2001

    A trip down memory lane

    Jupiter MMXI has spent the last two years researching and charting the habits of home Net users in the UK. Celebrating its second anniversary as the record keeper of UK Net behaviour it's published a potted history of the last two years online. So, if you've go nothing better to do for the next couple of minutes, settle back …

    Music and Media 15 Oct 2001, 10:45

  • TSMC capital spending to fall this year – and next

    Still no sign of chip market rebound

    Intel may be resolutely sticking to its 2001 capital spending target of $7.5 billion, but few of its rival chip makers are sticking to their own projected levels of spending. TSMC certainly isn't. Speaking at the International Symposium on Semiconductor Manufacturing in San Jose last week, company chairman Morris Chang said …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 10:49

  • Marconi stops taking in water

    Shows signs of stability

    Marconi has reported second quarter results in line with reduced expectations, giving some signs of stability at the end of an 'Annus Horribilis' for the struggling telecoms manufacturer. The firm reported an operating profit of £5 million for its second quarter ending September 30, compared to a loss of £227 million in its …

    Business 15 Oct 2001, 11:35

  • Socket 478 Pentium 4 shortages to end in December

    Sufficient Socket 423 parts should have been sold by then, sources say

    Don't expect the shortage of Socket 478 Pentium 4 processors to improve any time soon, sources inside Taiwan's mobo makers have claimed - at least not until December. So claims a report over at DigiTimes, which essentially lays the blame at the door of the world's top ten PC companies, all of whom have so many PIIIs and Socket …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 11:36

  • Renewed orders a false dawn for Taiwan's OEMs

    It's just short-term stock-piling, industry watcher warns

    Increasing sales to major US PC companies are almost certainly not a sign of the long-awaited industry revival, Taiwanese component and computer manufacturers have been warned. Quite the reverse, the island's Institute for the Information Industry (III) has said, according to a Commercial Times report: the renewed ordering …

    Business 15 Oct 2001, 11:46

  • VIA enters mobo market

    How else is it going to sell its Pentium 4 chipsets?

    VIA has begun offering motherboards based on its own controversial P4X266 chipset and has formed an independent subsidiary to handle the sales - and, we presume, any legal action the move provokes Intel into launching. Said subsidiary is the VIA Platform Solutions Division, which the company announced today. Superficially, it …

    Personal 15 Oct 2001, 12:16

  • AMD primed to ship 1.6GHz Athlon XP 1900+ this quarter

    And 1.733GHz part early next year, apparently

    AMD will launch one more 0.18 micron Athlon XP processor this year, clocked to 1.6GHz but shipping as the 1900+, followed by two more early 2002 before launching its 0.13 micron die-shrink, codenamed Thoroughbred during the first quarter of next year. So suggests what appears to be (though is as yet unconfirmed) an internal AMD …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 13:10

  • ATI A3 chipset to support Athlon XP

    Not just Pentium 4, it seems

    ATI's upcoming A3 chipset, the graphics company's attempt to tackle arch-rival Nvidia's nForce initiative head on, will support AMD's Athlon XP processor as well as the Pentium 4. Yes, we were surprised too. Given the recent cosying up between AMD and Nividia, and Intel and ATI, we, like many others, assumed these four …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 13:12

  • Athlon MP rumpy-pumpy

    HWRoundup Benchmark boogie

    A few reviews have sprung up around the Web regarding AMD's new Athlon MP chips, an update on the older MP chips, which ran at a maximum clock speed of 1.2GHz. On the whole, they seem to be fairly identical to the recently launched Athlon XP chips, but with multi-processor support. AMDZone has a piece benchmarking the new 1800 …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 14:28

  • US Net user saves Brit trapped in shed

    Transatlantic SOS cements 'special relationship'

    Police rescued a Blackburn man locked in a shed after receiving a tip-off from a Net user in the US. The man - who has a PC and Net connection in his shed but no phone - posted a message on an user group early Friday morning claiming a gang of yobs had locked him in. In a short posting he said: "This is not a hoax. I am …

    Music and Media 15 Oct 2001, 14:47

  • Baboons ape humans in abstract thought

    Boffins, PCs, and joysticks do the tests

    Baboons may be capable of abstract thought, boffins reckon, following tests on personal computers that suggest hitherto unrecognised levels of intelligence in our distant cousins. Researchers from France and the US found baboons could spot similarities between different images, a talent that suggests they are capable of …

    Bootnotes 15 Oct 2001, 15:09

  • Thousands could be booted from BT Anytime

    'Gross violation' of Ts and Cs to blame

    Thousands of people could be evicted from BTopenworld's Anytime if they continue to ignore calls to temper their usage. The ISP wouldn't say exactly how many are at risk of being disconnected, but it appears that a significant number are on the brink of being kicked off. Ben Andradi, President & COO of BTopenworld, told The …

    Music and Media 15 Oct 2001, 15:55

  • AOL notches up 5m users in Europe

    Tres bien, sehr gut, muy bien

    AOL Europe has more than five million subscribers, the Internet company announced today. The company believes this shows that it's on track to be the leading ISP in a number of European countries. Giving little away, AOL said that its flat-rate members in the UK and France average more than an hour a day online. German …

    Music and Media 15 Oct 2001, 16:04

  • The recordable DVD clinic

    Do we need to drop CD-RW?

    Last week Hewlett-Packard (HP) dropped the news that is was exiting the add-on CD-RW market in order to concentrate on the emerging recordable DVD market. For the company, it seems to make sense: CD-RW has become a commodity product, meaning that margin in that business in now negligible (not as bad as the SDRAM market, but …

    Personal 15 Oct 2001, 16:31

  • AMD to cut Athlon XP prices on 29 October

    The day after Intel's price chop

    AMD is cutting the prices of its Athlon XP processors on 29 October - the day after Intel kicks in with its own price cuts. The new prices are XP 1500+ $115 XP 1600+ $124 XP 1700+ $152 XP 1800+ $210 The chips arrived on 9 October priced at XP 1500+ $130 XP 1600+ $160 XP 1700+ $190 XP 1800+ $252 The …

    Channel 15 Oct 2001, 16:48

  • The451.com is not dead (but very poorly)

    Durlacher severs lifeline

    Paid-for online IT news serviceThe451.com is in urgent talks with potential investors to continue in business. Last week, Durlacher, the niche investment bank and lead backer in The451.com, told the publishing business that it was pulling the plug. But Paul Taylor, managing editor of The451.com, said that reports that the news …

    Business 15 Oct 2001, 17:33

  • Big storage for little laptops

    Mountain pass

    UK-based Mountain Solutions today released a new storage product for the laptop market. The ABSplus (Automatic Backup System) is a storage product that allows users store up to 48GB of data on a removable and portable drive. The device has a PCMCIA interface with a ribbon cable leading to a 2.5-inch hard drive. It launches …

    Personal 15 Oct 2001, 17:37

  • Anti-terror bill may regulate Carnivore use

    But other troubling provisions remain

    Momentum is gathering on Capitol Hill for anti-terror legislation which will give the US government unprecedented freedom to conduct surveillance of suspects, including their comings and goings via the Internet; and yet the FBI's controversial packet sniffer, Carnivore, has been singled out for regulation. Beyond that, the …

    Security 15 Oct 2001, 17:54

  • Help! I can't cancel my sex site subs

    iBill blames 'extraordinary growth'

    Subscribers to thousands of web sites may face excess credit card charges due to technical difficulties at iBill, the online sex industry's favourite billing company. Problems last week took iBill's client database offline for two days, leaving site owners without access to customer records and account administration. The …

    Music and Media 15 Oct 2001, 17:54