16th November 2001 Archive
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Eco site fuels anti-Esso protest
Time to tame the tiger in your tank, say protesters
Environmental pressure groups have relaunched a protest Web site in time for a boycott of Esso petrol stations on December 1. The StopEsso campaign's new site - backed by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and People & Planet - has been constructed by a group of Web experts who've given their time and services free of charge. …
Music and Media 16 Nov 2001, 06:28
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The obstacle to US wireless nirvana
Prices not gadgets
We're loathe to draw parallels between the US and European mobile phone markets, because they're structurally and geographically so very different. But in one area they're depressingly similar: with the US networks mirroring the European carriers' tentative approach to selling packet data. Despite the launch of two spanking-new …
Data Networking 16 Nov 2001, 06:31
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Sun shuns MS ‘gutter’ benchmark challenge
Not exactly a ceasefire
Sun's Pet Shop Boys - reponsible for the J2EE Pet Store application - say they won't be drawn into a benchmark dogfight with Microsoft. Or even a catfight. Microsoft has made much of a head-to-head which pits the showcase Sun code against a clone written for .NET. This purports to prove that .NET is leaner and faster than Java …
Software 16 Nov 2001, 06:42
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IP conference: copyright law has gone too far
Let battle commence
The recording industry and the Business Software Alliance squared off against the Electronic Frontier Foundation and US Rep. Rick Boucher Wednesday in a debate over laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act aimed at protecting large copyright holders, with the hearts and minds of a crowd of Washington, D.C., decision- …
Music and Media 16 Nov 2001, 08:18
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Dell: Profits down, market share up
Flat Q4 ahead
Dell yesterday posted its third quarter results, showing a net income of $429 million on the back of $7.47 billion revenue. Looking year on year, its net income declined 36 per cent and revenue was down 10 per cent from $8.26 billion in the same period last year. The sharper drop in profits was attributed to a price war, but …
Business 16 Nov 2001, 09:34
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802.11b market grows
Future bright
The worldwide 802.11b wireless networking market grew nine per cent in Q3 with revenues of $310 million, up from $284.5 million in Q2 and $178 million in Q3 2000. Cisco led the pack for the quarter, reporting a strong 68 per cent growth to hold a 21 per cent market share. Its share bottomed out last quarter at just 14 per cent …
Business 16 Nov 2001, 09:36
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Yahoo! to! shed! 400! jobs!
More casualties of the dotcom downturn
Yahoo! is to axe 400 jobs. Most of the losses will come from its international and broadcast operations. According to Reuters some middle management positions are also likely to be shed. But Yahoo! also says that it will recruit in some growth areas, resulting in a net loss of around 300 jobs - or around ten per cent of its …
e-Business 16 Nov 2001, 10:43
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Motorola hints at chip biz sell-off – again
This time, only if it does make a profit
Profitability may not be enough to save Motorola's chip operation from being sold, the parent company's chairman and CEO, Chris Galvin, suggests. Despite a return to profitability, Motorola's government business wing was sold off last September, and Galvin draws parallels between that division and the Semiconductor Products …
Mac Channel 16 Nov 2001, 10:52
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What feud? HP boss turns on media
The Ragged Trousered Financialist
Lazy reporting is to blame for the tepid reaction to the SirCam merger, HP boss Carly Fiorina told staff yesterday. There are no feuds, and the portrayal of the merger as new money vs old is a figment of reporters' imaginations. "Most of the media, especially here in the Bay Area, is positioning the merger with Compaq and the …
Business 16 Nov 2001, 11:27
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SuSE 7.3 rocks Red Hat and flips XP the bird
The Joy of Computing
The first thing a PC user notices about SuSE is that it comes with the kind of documentation that Microsoft has almost - but not quite - eradicated from the far reaches of your long-term memory. A good 800 pages worth in four manuals, such as you used to curl up with in an easy chair, in some lost era of elegance and style …
Software 16 Nov 2001, 11:27
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WHSmith mulls legal action against WHSpliff.net
Don't hold your breath
WHSmith is musing over whether to take legal action against a pro-cannabis Web site which bears a remarkably similar name to the high street stationer's brand. WHSpliff.net was set up in August and campaigns for the legalisation of cannabis in the UK. Under the catch line "we don't sell stationery - we aim to make you …
Music and Media 16 Nov 2001, 11:47
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Transmeta: delayed chips to ship by year end
But 1GHz part still no closer, it seems
Transmeta reiterated its roadmap at Comdex yesterday and pledged that its delayed 0.13 micron 667MHz TM5500 and 800MHz TM5800 Crusoe processors will ship in volume by the end of the year. That may pacify key Transmeta customers Sony and Fujitsu who this week gave the chip company a public whipping for not shipping the Crusoes …
Channel 16 Nov 2001, 12:12
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DoJ exculpa: why the MS deal doesn't stink at all, honest
And nobody will believe this one either
The Department of Justice's Competive Impact Statement, intended to explain why the deal it struck with Microsoft will tame The Beast and not, as widely advertised, simply renew its licence to kill, is as one might expect a lengthy mea exculpa. The flaws in the Proposed Final Judgment, which was unveiled earlier this month, have …
Software 16 Nov 2001, 12:20
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HPaq execs pocket millions in merger payola
But peanuts for the staff
HP boss Carly Fiorina yesterday promised staff a bonus of two days pay for bearing through the protracted SirCam merger with Compaq. But this contrasts with the remuneration on offer to their senior management. As a reward for sacking some of the 15,000 staff who won't be needed in the merged HPaq, HP's top management will …
Business 16 Nov 2001, 12:38
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Comdex cars, Radeon drivers, Itanium issues
HWRoundup Oh, and breaking open an Xbox
Comdex 2001 is struggling to keep visitor's attention. In its slowest year for a long, long time, there is a definite absence of crowded corridors, with automobiles receiving almost as much coverage as the stuff inside the halls. AMD resorted to taking journos drag-racing down a quarter-mile strip outside Vegas in three flashy …
Personal 16 Nov 2001, 12:40
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Confidentiality Claws
A better way of security assessment
Researchers at Imperial College, London are developing mathematical and programming techniques to better assess the extent that systems prevent the leakage of confidential information. Typically, models for confidentiality characterise the absence of information flow by trying to establish non-interference between units of a …
Security 16 Nov 2001, 12:50
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Scientists tune in to molecule-sized transistors
nano é nano
Boffins continue to try to shrink the size of the micro-circuitry from which processors are built, to allow chips to be designed that offer ever more features yet don't rapidly become too hot to operate - and before their transistors reach one clear physical limit: the size of a single molecule. Working molecular transistors, …
Channel 16 Nov 2001, 13:08
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Dixons capo is new Tory bagman
Kalming influence
Sir Stanley Kalms, the outspoken Dixons chief, has landed a big challenge to fill his retirement days - he's the new treasurer and fundraiser for the Conservative party. The Tories took a severe hammering in the last two elections, so passing the hat around will be a tough job.But arch Euro-sceptic Sir Stan, who already funds …
Channel 16 Nov 2001, 13:09
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Nazi trinkets not banned in France
Letters Blame the bewildered judge
Surf Nazis Must Die! In reply to Mr Davidson's email stating that Nazi memorabilia was banned in France. This is not true, but this fact failed to be recognized by most of the media, The Reg included. I pointed this out to Kieren McCarthy who made the mistake in one of his articles, but oops, he did it again the last time he …
Letters 16 Nov 2001, 14:50
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Nortel intros europartner prog
Partners in name only
Nortel Networks has reorganised its European channel marketing programme to make it more flexible in meeting demand for converged voice and data networks. The EMEA partner programme now includes a 'multi-tier' relationship model and accreditation scheme designed to allow a greater degree of specialisation. Tiers include: …
Channel 16 Nov 2001, 14:53
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Western Europe server sales down, again
RISC/Unix sad, Dell happy
The Western European server market continued to decline in the third quarter, as it did in the first half of the year. Unit shipments fell 7 per cent year on year from 3Q 2000, while revenues dropped 21 per cent year on year to $3.26 billion. The figures, fresh in from Gartner Dataquest, show Compaq at the front of the pack …
Hardware 16 Nov 2001, 14:55
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Brakes slammed on world's fastest DVD drive
Tech support pulled
The development of the world's fastest DVD and CD drives has hit a hitch - Zen Research has stopped giving free support to firms licensing its technology. Poor conditions in the PC market are blamed for the move. According to David Aber, Zen's chief financial officer, large manufacturers are concentrating on making the most out …
Personal 16 Nov 2001, 15:33
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Tech Data wins IBM euro-storage gig
New territories include UK
IBM has awarded disk drive storage franchise rights to Tech Data through out EMEA. New territories include the UK, the Czech Republic, Israel and the UAE. Tech Data Europe will drive the Deskstar and Travelstar HDD business through its Swiss-based European PC components division. This will meet the needs of pan-European systems …
Channel 16 Nov 2001, 15:59
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iPod-for-WinXP beta software due ‘within weeks’
Hooks into IE, Windows Media Player
Mediafour, the company behind XPod, the first commercial attempt to connect Apple's iPod MP3 player to Windows, hopes to release a public beta of the software "within a couple of weeks", a company spokeswoman said today. The existence of XPod emerged this week following the arrival of the iPod on US store shelves last weekend. …
Mac Channel 16 Nov 2001, 16:32
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C&W slides away from ASP
No demand, no service
Cable & Wireless backed away from the ASP (application service provider) sector yesterday leaving the immature market for such services looking positively juvenile. The withdrawal is a sorry blow to the already battered ASP market. C&W is one of the first of the larger, internationally-known organisations to launch and …
e-Business 16 Nov 2001, 16:41
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Apple patents perturb PNG programmers
Demand to know Mac maker's intentions
Developers of the open source graphics format PNG and its derivative, MNG, have called on Apple to clarify whether its ownership of key PNG component technologies will be used to hinder their work. At issue is patent number 5379129, filed by Apple in May 1992 and granted to the company in January 1995. The patent describes a " …
Mac Channel 16 Nov 2001, 16:44
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AutoDesk trademark appears in WinXP ad
Suddenly everything doesn't click
Microsoft may soon be running foul of graphics software specialist AutoDesk over its use of the phrase 'Suddenly everything clicks' in its UK Windows XP advertising campaign. Why? It turns out that 'Suddenly everything clicks' is an AutoDesk trademark, as the company states on its Web site. Microsoft UK has yet to respond to …
Software 16 Nov 2001, 16:52
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IEEE sets 802.11g (sort of)
More waiting
The IEEE 802.11 working group has tentatively set a new 802.11 wireless networking standard: 802.11g, which will allow theoretical data transfer rates of up to 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz spectrum. 802.11g is backwardly compatible with existing 802.11b-based networking kit, a major advantage for the standard. The (other) next …
Data Networking 16 Nov 2001, 17:54
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Reg reader trapped in McAfee Catch 22
Nimda spawns heuristic headache
A Register reader ran into a Catch 22 situation when he tried to inform McAfee that its antivirus software was generating false warnings about the Nimda worm. Alarm bells triggered when Russell Elliott tried to browse www.kingcomp.net, when McAfee's antivirus tools warned him that the site was infected with Nimda. Kingcomp was …
Malware 16 Nov 2001, 19:00
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Optical transport market in decline
DWDM in the doldrums
Sales of optical networking kit are in decline with sales down 11 per cent over the last quarter. According to analyst firm Dell'Oro Group, sales in all segments in the market (which includes Long Haul and Metro (Dense Wave Division Multiplex) as well as SONET/SDH kit) were down over the last three months. The DWDM-Metro market …
Data Networking 16 Nov 2001, 19:01
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Sun takes UltraSPARC past 1GHz
Clock watching
Sun is expected to announce the introduction of Gigahertz processors on Monday, the first time Sun has shipped SPARCS clocked higher than 1GHz. The SunBlade 1000 will be the first to receive the 1,050MHz SPARC IIIs. It isn't the first RISC chip to reach the milestone: Compaq's Alpha can claim that prize. But coming so soon …
Hardware 16 Nov 2001, 19:02
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Nokia Calypso smartphone pics leak
I am a camera
Industry sources contacted by The Register confirm Nokia will launch a colour Symbian smartphone on Monday, but reckon that two Swedish sites have not numbered the new device correctly. Rumours of a colour imaging phone codenamed Calypso have circulated in the industry for several months. Pictures of the 'Nokia 7650' can be …
Data Networking 16 Nov 2001, 19:07
