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17th October 2001 Archive

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  • Freds and Threads knot AMD's Hammer

    MPF Waiting for The Beast

    You know you're getting older when the Freds you meet at chip conferences start looking younger. The Freds you expect to meet should look something like this: aged late forties, possibly early fifties; taciturn, but always ready with an anecdote about the 8-bit days when processors had no MMUs; grey haired, and possibly with a …

    Channel 17 Oct 2001, 06:40

  • How Sun swerved to avoid Rambus

    MPF Roadkill on memory lane

    If semiconductor conferences had half a dozen Kevin Normoyles they'd be packed to rafters. Fortunately, we found one: Sun's very own project lead for its Hello-Pino USIIIi processor, and he proved fabulously good value. (Although much of what was offered can't be printed. And mostly because it defames us.) Normoyle ran through …

    Channel 17 Oct 2001, 06:42

  • Win-XP denounced as terrorism tool

    The security's too good, a forensics 'expert' laments

    A computer forensics specialist warns that default security features in Windows-XP might bring civilization to its knees at the hands of pedophiles, tax cheats, and, of course, international terrorists. Forensics outfit New Technologies' President, Michael Anderson, a former Fed himself, is claiming that the secure file-wipe …

    Software 17 Oct 2001, 07:43

  • Intel Q3 sales down 25%, income down 96%

    But decline appears to have bottomed out

    Intel put a brave face on it, but its Q3 sales - described by CEO Craig Barrett as "solid... in a turbulent environment" - showed but a slight improvement over Q2 and a 25 per cent fall on the same period last year. Revenue totalled $6.5 billion, in the middle of the range the company specified in its pre-report forecast. Worse …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 09:31

  • Egg to axe up to 50 jobs

    Still on target to break even in Q4

    Egg is to shed between 30 and 50 jobs as part of a restructuring exercise, the company confirmed today. The jobs cuts - modest in nature compared to the 2,000 or so currently employed by the online bank - will be finalised by the end of the month. The job losses are part of a "comprehensive organisational review" currently …

    e-Business 17 Oct 2001, 09:39

  • Rambus shines through economic gloom

    Litigation tarnishes the gleam

    Rambus' fourth quarter proved to buck the trend in the chip market, showing not only sequential growth but an improvement over the same period last year. The company's figures certainly make a change from the long list of statements announcing declining sales and earnings. Revenue for the three months to 30 September hit $27.9 …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 10:02

  • Andradi slaps BT's broadband knockers

    Blames regulatory environment

    Ben Andradi, President and COO of BTopenworld, has hit back at critics who claim that BT's DSL service is too expensive and that the monster telco was not truly focused on broadband because of its continuing obsession with reducing its debt mountain. Speaking at the Broadband Communications Europe trade show at Olympia, London …

    Telecoms 17 Oct 2001, 10:32

  • Apple insider trading suit expanded

    Alleges executives sold stock on inside knowledge of profit warning

    Lawyers Milberg Weiss' claim that Apple directors deliberately sold $22 million worth of AAPL shares just three weeks before announcing a massive revenue downturn has been granted class action status. The suite was filed a wee while back on behalf of the Hawaii Structural Iron Workers Pension Trust Fund. Essentially, it alleges …

    Mac Channel 17 Oct 2001, 10:43

  • IBM PC business takes a hammering

    Services look rosy

    IBM has reported a 19 per cent decline in Q3 profits, saying sales were dragged below estimates by the global economy downturn. Sales for the quarter, ended 30 September, hit $20.4 billion, down from $21.78 billion a year earlier. PC, hard disk, and distributed software sales were all hit by deferred spending. The company's …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 10:43

  • Transmeta CEO replaced after seven months

    Board shuffles management just ahead of Q3 result statement. Oh dear...

    Transmeta has replaced its president and CEO, Mark Allen, after barely six-and-a-half months on the job - just two days ahead of the publication of its Q3 results. We've yet to hear a more sinister harbinger of trouble ahead - doubly so when the chairman has to stress his confidence in the company: "I remain extremely positive …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 11:05

  • VIA preps Pentium 4 ‘clone’

    Beat them at their own game

    If Intel won't give us a Pentium 4 bus licence, we'll make our own Pentium 4. That, in effect, is what VIA told attendees at the Microprocessor Forum yesterday. The chip - described in an interview with EBN as a "Pentium 4 clone" - is codenamed CZA and will run at 2GHz, utilise an 18-stage pipeline to get it there, and employ a …

    Channel 17 Oct 2001, 11:27

  • MS-Samsung sign Windows home network, digital music deal

    Embed with Bill Gates...

    A Microsoft-Samsung deal signed in Korea yesterday could take the software company further into the hardware business. At the Shilla Hotel, Seoul (a venue well-known to Register hacks) Bill Gates and Samsung Electronics Digital Media Group president Chin Dae-je signed a memorandum of understanding covering co-development of home …

    Software 17 Oct 2001, 11:47

  • Intel's Server Roadmap

    Updated Nocona extends Xeon line into 2003

    You might think that Intel's server processor release schedule would be settling down a little after the problems the company has had over the last quarter or so with late shipments of Pentium III Xeons and the delays to Foster, the 0.18 micron Pentium 4-derived Xeon processor. And indeed Intel's latest roadmap does show the …

    Channel 17 Oct 2001, 11:55

  • Intel unveils Prestonia's successor, Nocona

    Bringing Banias to servers too

    Intel's IA-64 Itanium isn't going to kill Xeon - at least not before 2004. Instead, server-oriented processors based on the IA-32 architecture will continue to be developed and launched through 2003. So the company said at Microprocessor Forum yesterday, when it announced Nocona, a Pentium 4-derived processor aimed at the "high …

    Channel 17 Oct 2001, 12:09

  • Infineon and Toshiba close to DRAM deal

    Agreement would merge both firms' memory operations

    Infineon and Toshiba are a spit and a handshake away from merging their DRAM production operations. The official line, following Infineon's admission a month or so back that it's talking to Toshiba, is that they are still talking. But sources close to the German semiconductor company have told EBN/I> that the two are on the …

    Channel 17 Oct 2001, 12:26

  • New MS division to push developer relations, .NET

    Keep the important people inside the tent...

    18 months on from merging its Developer Group and Platforms Division, Microsoft is again spinning it out, this time as the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division, with the special brief to schmooze developers and evangelise .NET. VP Technical Strategy Eric Rudder is being promoted to senior VP to head up the division, which …

    Software 17 Oct 2001, 12:29

  • IR35 ‘escape case’ knocked down by legal experts

    Of course employment law and tax law are unrelated (eh?)

    The case of Martin O'Murphy vs Hewlett-Packard - which has been viewed by many as an effective escape to IR35 - will have little bearing on the widely-criticised tax legislation, legal experts have warned. The unfair dismissal case, started in March this year and closely followed by Web site AccountingWeb, concerned IT …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 12:34

  • Intel unwraps designer cybershirt

    Cor, check the chips on that

    Move over McCartney. Give it up Ghost. Saddle up Oldfield and get out of town. Yup, the days of the celebrity fashion designer are today numbered with the news that Intel is moving into hi-tech haute couture. Chipzilla has teamed up with Helena Rosén of London's Central St Martins College of Art and Design to take the …

    Bootnotes 17 Oct 2001, 12:37

  • Telewest ticked off by ad watchdog

    Tsk, tsk

    Telewest has been ticked off by the Advertising Standards Authority following a complaint from BT. The monster telco whinged that one of Telewest's direct mailing campaigns - which sought to show how the cableco's phone charges compared to BT's - was misleading. BT reckoned the direct mailing failed to include a 3.5p …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 12:45

  • Compaq preps iPaq with integrated wireless

    Due to ship mid-2002, apparently

    Compaq is preparing a version of its iPaq PDA will built-in wireless networking, one the company's contract manufacturers has let slip. South Korea's LG Electronics said this week it had received an order from Compaq to build iPaqs for shipment mid-2002, DigiTimes reports. LG wouldn't say how many iPaqs it has been contracted …

    Personal 17 Oct 2001, 12:45

  • Tom Clancy style look at war porn software

    How many lines of code command US super gunship?

    In the absence of solid news about what exactly is going on in Afghanistan as the US, and to a lesser degree us in the UK, bomb the hell out of the country, western newspapers have inevitably turned to features about the equipment we are using to bomb the hell out of the country. But while a national newspaper editor may ask: …

    Assault on America 17 Oct 2001, 13:49

  • BT and One2One lose 3G court battle again

    Don't think that'll stop em though

    BT and One2One have lost in their second attempt to sue the government for £85 million a piece for "lost" interest on 3G payments. A High Court appeal in June (stemming from a decision against them made a year ago) made its decision today and that was: Stop bloody whingeing and get on with it (or words to that effect). It all …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 13:55

  • Scumbag virus writers try to whip up ‘Anthrax outbreak’

    Fail due to super-lame coding

    Pond life virus writers are trying to spread mass mailing email worms under the guise of important information about the Anthrax bacteria. Fortunately their efforts have proved futile because the malicious code they designed fails to work. Analysis of the worm's code by antivirus experts at Kaspersky Labs has revealed that …

    Malware 17 Oct 2001, 13:59

  • Zeus rips platform to splatter Apache

    Screaming Web server

    Zeus Technology, best known as the fastest Web server for static content, is trying to extend the appeal of its software outside its hosting heartland by improving dynamic content delivery with a major new release. Available form October 23, Zeus Web Server Version 4.0 is claimed by its developers to allow twice as many people …

    e-Business 17 Oct 2001, 14:06

  • Brazil beats UK in DSL stakes

    Life, football, broadband - it's all the same

    When it comes to broadband, the UK is being leapfrogged by nations such as Brazil, according to the latest research from London-based Point Topic. Its latest analysis of the global DSL marketplace found that at the end of June 2001 there were more than 10 million DSL lines offering broadband access - an increase of 354 per cent …

    Telecoms 17 Oct 2001, 14:10

  • Westlife subscription website in teen fleece outrage

    When Irish tills are ringing...

    Highly talented Irish gusset-moisteners Westlife have created a storm of protest over plans to charge fans a whopping £14.99 for special access to their new website. The boy band claims that subscription to 'Westlife Platinum' - due to a 29 October launch - will give hormone-crazed teens extra footage and interviews. …

    Bootnotes 17 Oct 2001, 14:15

  • EMC to ditch another 4,000 workers

    Records first quarterly loss in 12 years

    Fresh from getting ousted by IBM at its flagship customer Wal-Mart, EMC has reported its first quarterly loss for 12 years. And it's going to can about 4,000 jobs, which will leave it with around 19,000 workers by the end of the year. Sales have free-fallen 47 per cent in the quarter ended 30 September, to $1.21 billion. Losses …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 14:48

  • Why UK Internet had a bad hair day yesterday

    LINX recovers from major problem

    LINX, the UK's biggest Internet peering exchange, has resolved a major networking problem that affected the performance of the Internet across Britain yesterday. Early yesterday morning, an unnamed member of LINX (London Internet Exchange) began spewing broadcast traffic onto the exchange. The Foundry switch it was connected to …

    Music and Media 17 Oct 2001, 15:51

  • AOL revenues up…

    Losses widen

    AOL Time Warner has delivered some upbeat news with the publication today of its Q3 results. The monster Internet and media group reported that total revenues for the three months ended September 30 increased six per cent to $9.3 billion from $8.8 billion during the same quarter last year. Earnings before interest, tax etc ( …

    Business 17 Oct 2001, 15:53

  • Apple to launch ‘digital device’ next week

    Not a Mac, apparently

    Apple will try to move beyond the computer market next Wednesday when it launches its first non-Mac product for years, something the company describes in invites to the launch as "a breakthrough digital device". The possibilities for what it might be are endless - and almost all of them have been rumoured at some time to be …

    Mac Channel 17 Oct 2001, 16:13