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18th October 2001 Archive

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  • Taleban can't hack – UK govt

    Stay calm

    The head of the UK Government's Computer Emergency Response Team has hit a welcome note of commonsense by stating that the September 11 terrorist attacks have changed nothing in the way the country needs to defend against electronic attack. Stephen Cummings, director of the National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre ( …

    Security 18 Oct 2001, 07:08

  • ARM details roadmap, next gen silicon by end-2002

    MPF Good endians and bad endians

    Microprocessor Forum ARM gave details of its next generation instruction set today, Architecture v6, and said that silicon using the instructions should be available towards the end of next year. ARM has two parallel roadmaps, one for the instruction set and one for the actual core, and it was only the former that got …

    Channel 18 Oct 2001, 07:10

  • AMD blames PC price war for red ink

    Ugly

    AMD's founder, at outgoing CEO Jerry Sanders blamed an "ugly" price war for his companies whopping loss last quarter. AMD lost close to $100m on its operations, and after additional items were accounted for posted a $186.9 million loss for the quarter. In a shrinking PC market where almost every player is being bruised, AMD is …

    Business 18 Oct 2001, 07:11

  • Tiscali in E5m French buy-out

    Infosources says 'oui'

    Tiscali has continued its European expansion with the acquisition of the French Internet and portal activities of Infosources for E5 million (£3 million) in cash. The company said the acquisition will strengthen its position in France and yield higher operating margins. At the last count Infosources had around 250,000 active …

    e-Business 18 Oct 2001, 08:50

  • NTL calls for 'new, bold' broadband initiative

    Education, education, education

    NTL has called on the Government to use education to give broadband a much-needed shot in the arm. The cableco believes that a three-pronged strategy with education at its heart would stimulate interest and hasten its progress to a mass-market product. It believes the Government should launch an awareness campaign - similar to …

    Telecoms 18 Oct 2001, 08:51

  • Apple Q4 figures down but in line with forecasts

    Warns of further decline next quarter

    Apple's financial forecasts proved correct last night when the company posted its Q4 2001 results: a profit of $66 million (19 cents a share) on sales of $1.45 billion. But it warned that the situation is set to worsen next quarter. Both figures show sharp declines on the figures Apple announced this time last year, when in …

    Mac Channel 18 Oct 2001, 09:39

  • OnStar abandons satellite broadband in Europe

    Bother

    OnStar Europe - the information, entertainment and communications arm of General Motors Europe - has pulled the plug on its broadband over satellite service. In an email to resellers Orlando Bustos, chief exec of OnStar (Europe) Ltd, said: "From 10 October 2001, the 'Beam' service (broadband internet access via satellite) will …

    Telecoms 18 Oct 2001, 09:42

  • Apple to brief staff on ‘breakthrough device’ Monday

    'Insane' security means even insiders don't know what it is

    Even Apple's own staff don't know just what kind of "breakthrough digital device" the company is going to launch next week - on the same day that Microsoft will officially unveil Windows XP, interestingly enough. We asked our sources and they're all in the dark as much as we are. "Security," we hear, "is insane". However, it …

    Mac Channel 18 Oct 2001, 09:56

  • Athlon XP 1800+ gets flagged as 1.8GHz

    That Quantispeed really does work

    Mesh Computers has been caught out plugging an Athlon XP 1800+ PC as a 1.8GHz machine. Someone at Mesh had made a mistake and made the same kind of mental leap that AMD expects punters to make - that an XP 1800+ chip, boasting 'quantispeed technology' runs at 1.8GHz+. The XP 1800+ runs at 1.53GHz, but using the AMD rule of …

    Channel 18 Oct 2001, 10:25

  • Recording industry ‘copyright DoS attack’ rumored

    Too good to be true?

    We know the entertainment industry has sought to slip language into current anti-terror legislation which could result in blanket immunity from prosecution for hacking file-sharing networks. We know the entertainment industry fervently desires to parlay the secular sacrament of copyright into a monopoly on content production …

    Security 18 Oct 2001, 10:56

  • PowerPC G5 performance ‘stunning’ – sources

    But it won't come cheaply

    Motorola's PowerPC 8500 - aka the G5 - continues to move steadily toward its scheduled release, our Apple sources tell us. The G5 is the next major version of the PowerPC architecture and includes a new internal bus structure, a longer, ten-stage instruction pipeline, redesigned integer and floating-point maths units. It will …

    Mac Channel 18 Oct 2001, 11:02

  • Q3 PC shipments down

    So where's the surprise

    Third quarter worldwide PC shipments have dropped 11.6 percent to 30.6 million units (last year this time 34.6 million units were shipped). Dell extended its lead in this market, growing from 11 per cent to 13.8 per cent, according to a Dataquest market report. Compaq's piece of the pie shrank from 13.4 to 10.4 per cent in the …

    Business 18 Oct 2001, 11:05

  • Nominet stands up for little (wo)man over government quango

    FSA gets sweet fsa.co.uk

    The UK domain registrar Nominet has maintained its tradition of evenhandedness and decided strongly in favour of a small software company based in Bournemouth over a government quango in a domain dispute case. Following an independent expert's judgment that Findlay Steele Associates should retain the domain www.fsa.co.uk …

    Music and Media 18 Oct 2001, 11:23

  • Handspring loses $32.7m

    Better than last quarter, but short-term future doesn't look good

    Handspring is having a tough time of it. The PDA maker has just posted revenues of $61.4 million for the three months to 29 September - its first quarter of its 2002 fiscal year. That's down 13 per cent on the same period last year and less than one percentage point up on the previous quarter (which is still better than last …

    Business 18 Oct 2001, 11:30

  • Local loop charges below EU average, says Oftel

    Update Yes, but..., says Bulldog

    Bulldog Communications - one of the few operators still involved in local loop unbundling in the UK - has welcomed Oftel's local loop charges for shared lines. The winged watchdog claims that charges to provide broadband access over unbundled local loops are now some of the lowest in Europe. Publishing the final charges today …

    Telecoms 18 Oct 2001, 11:37

  • Worms boost Symantec sales

    Net Q2 loss, but underlying business healthy

    Acquisition right downs caused Symantec to report a loss for its second quarter but strong growth in antivirus sales point to the health of its underlying business. Symantec posted revenue for the quarter of $242.4 million, as compared to $226.4 million for the same quarter last year. It recorded a net loss of $11.8 million. …

    Business 18 Oct 2001, 11:49

  • SafeWeb ain't all that

    Logs kept seven days

    What a total idiot I am. I never asked Web anonymizer SafeWeb exactly what they mean when they say they "collect NO logs or user data beyond what is required for performance tuning and security monitoring of our servers. Any such data is carefully safeguarded, only analyzed statistically, and is destroyed soon thereafter." To …

    Security 18 Oct 2001, 12:08

  • Wanadoo revenue up 34 per cent but shares fall

    Freeserve shifting people onto subscription service

    France Telecom's ISP business Wanadoo - also the owner of UK ISP Freeserve - has posted a 34 per cent increase in revenue for its third quarter, although its share price fell 4.4 per cent on the news. The company, which also holds ISP interests in Belgium, Spain, Morocco and the Netherlands, announced revenues of 407 million …

    Business 18 Oct 2001, 12:22

  • MS says stop discussing hack exploits

    Gives a blueprint for worms

    Microsoft's security chief has accused the security industry of creating "information anarchy" by openly discussing exploits when security vulnerabilities come to light. In an essay, Scott Culp, manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center, said that the full disclosure approach to issues taken by the security community …

    Security 18 Oct 2001, 13:43

  • BTopenworld buys Games Domain

    Which is nice

    BTopenworld has acquired Games Domain in a bid to boost its online gaming content. Financial details concerning the deal were not revealed. However, today's announcement does fit BTopenwoe's latest strategy to provide a few key destination sites for its broadband service rather than a walled garden of more general portal …

    Telecoms 18 Oct 2001, 15:17

  • BSA stomps Warez.at

    Looking for more pirate scalps

    The Business Software Alliance shut down 118 UK warez (pirate software) sites between January and September 2001. It also issued a further 584 with takedown notices. The BSA is most proud of claiming the scalp of www.warez.at, "a major illegal software site, which crossed at least nine international boundaries". The system …

    Software 18 Oct 2001, 15:19

  • IBM patents Web page template tool

    Patently absurd

    We thought the US patent office outdid itself when it granted Network Associates' McAfee division a patent for updating anti-virus software over the Internet, but we should have remembered it has form for this sort of thing. After all who could forget the ongoing BT hyperlink patent debacle? The august institution's latest …

    Software 18 Oct 2001, 15:40

  • Check Point says Sept 11 cost it $15-$20m

    Still showing profit, taking on staff

    Check Point Software, best known as a supplier of firewall and VPN products, has reported healthy third quarter profits despite estimating the tragic events of September 11 cost it between $15-$20 million, due to interruption of its business. Revenues for Check Point's third quarter were $118.0 million on which it recorded a …

    Business 18 Oct 2001, 16:06

  • SAN sanity, TCO parity

    Storage Expo Who's not the NAS, just a buzz

    Storage Expo 2001 kicked off yesterday at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre with a surprisingly good turnout of vendors. Most of the usual suspects were on display, complete with flashy lights, lots of pamphlets and plenty of big boxes called 'SAN Station' and 'SAN in a Van', among other things. Q Associates, a big Sun …

    Hardware 18 Oct 2001, 16:18

  • Infineon shrinks 256Mb SDRAM

    Moves to 0.14-micron

    German chip maker Infineon has moved its production process in Dresden to 0.14 micron (from its previous 0.17 micron facility), enabling it to announce a new, freshly shrunk 256Mb SDRAM memory chip, which it claims is the smallest in the industry. The size reduction (about 18 per cent smaller than before) also translates into a …

    Channel 18 Oct 2001, 16:29

  • Storage virtualisation is love

    Storage Expo But what the hell is it?

    Storage Virtualisation was getting the hard sell at the Storage Expo, housed in Birminghams' NEC, yesterday. It must have been a tough sell as well because research launched at the show suggested companies weren't aware of it. A storage survey run by a storage reseller Q Associates revealed that the storage virtualisation was …

    Hardware 18 Oct 2001, 16:58

  • DRAM market to shrink 19% next year – Gartner

    After falling 67% this year

    Gartner's outlook for the world's DRAM producers could be read as good news - just. After a disastrous year which, the market research organisation reckons, will see sales shrink 67 per cent, business isn't going to contract anywhere near as much during 2002. Given the DRAM market is now worth less than a fifth of what it was in …

    Channel 18 Oct 2001, 17:00

  • Sony tries to take its tape mainstream

    Storage Expo Big, fast, and non-compatible

    Storage Expo at the Birmingham NEC saw Sony with an impressive looking tape library on display, and a big robotic arm whirring around the cassettes much like a dog chasing its tail. This was part of Sony's new assault on the enterprise tape market. The company has been flogging its DTF-2 (Digital Tape Format) to the broadcast …

    Hardware 18 Oct 2001, 17:07

  • Cash'n'Carrion signs landmark deal with Need To Know

    Lamb lies down with Lion

    The champagne corks were flying today at Vulture Central as Cash'n'Carrion, the merchandising tentacle of the mighty Register, signed an exclusive marketing deal with Need To Know. The agreement, expected to pumps pounds into the dotcom economy, gives Register readers the chance to buy two NTK classics - '80 million' …

    Site News 18 Oct 2001, 17:13

  • Lame attempt to disguise viruses as MS security update

    Scumbag trick

    It's hardly likely to fool anyone but virus writers have once again taken to disguising viruses in emails purporting to give security patches from Microsoft. First things first: Microsoft NEVER distributes patches by email, it sends digitally-signed email alerts which details where patches can be downloaded from its site. …

    Malware 18 Oct 2001, 17:16

  • The best cartoons of the war so far?

    You will laugh. Or get offended. Or something

    These have to be the best cartoons of the war so far. And because we live in the West, we get to view them on some fancy hi-tech piece of hardware (the thing you're reading this on right now). [Apologies to all readers from East and South] Cartoons are all about style and this has bags of it. It consists of nothing more than a …

    Bootnotes 18 Oct 2001, 19:31

  • InterTrust seeks XP injunction

    Extends claims to WPA, .NET

    Digital rights management specialist InterTrust has applied for an eleventh hour injunction to prevent the release of Windows XP. InterTrust today added three more patents to its claim against The Beast, and now argues that Microsoft's product activation feature, as well as the distributed .NET services to be included in XP ( …

    Software 18 Oct 2001, 20:16

  • Reg Reader Research blasts off

    Share your expertise for the benefit of mankind

    Vulture Central is pleased to announce the launch of Reg Reader Research, a joint venture between the Register and Metafacts. What is this initiative, you may well ask? Well, we want you to share your IT savvy on one of our expert panels. Full details and a link to the sign-up page are available here. Pop along and give it a …

    Site News 18 Oct 2001, 21:38