13th December 2001 Archive
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Laptop thief kills have-a-go hero
Run down
A have-a-go hero who attempted to stop a thief stealing laptops from a college was killed after the would-be robber mowed him down in a car. Charles Tandy, 56, a trainee college lecturer from Birmingham, spotted a man trying to make off with college equipment and, having prevented the theft, gave chase as the robber tried to …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 06:45
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‘Sucks’ online is a good thing: official
WIPO in Wonderland
Every American and a great many Europeans will presume that if you say something "sucks" you mean it isn't any good. In fact, the slang use of it is in many dictionaries: "to be very bad or inferior". But you (and we) are all wrong when it comes to using the phrase online. And that's official. Welcome to the world of the World …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 06:55
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‘Cybersquatter’ Sallen in landmark court case
UDRP rules in jeopardy
Jay D Sallen - the man found guilty of cybersquatting on the domain Corinthians.com by domain name arbitrator WIPO in July last year - is poised to change ownership in cyberspace forever, and for the better. Mr Sallen was ordered to hand over the Corinthians.com domain to a Brazilian football team of that name by a sole WIPO …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 06:59
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Yahoo! wants! HotJobs!
Spanner in Monster.com works
Yahoo! wants to buy HotJobs, the US job board currently being acquired by TMP Worldwide, Monster.com's owner. The portal is offering a cash and stock deal worth $10.50 a share - $463m - to buy HotJobs, the world's second biggest recruitment site (behind only Monster.com). This represents a premium of 6 per cent over the TMP all …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 07:17
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MS rolls out security obscurity bribe program
A glittering treasure chest for your silence
MS has rolled out its Faustian bargain for security vendors. Sign up with the Microsoft Certified Security Partner Program and saddle up with a heap of free software and deep discounts worth many thousands of dollars. Just look at these giveaways: Up to five licenses for Visio 2002 Pro and Project 2002 Pro Up to ten licenses …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 08:24
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Intel treads on Sun telco toes
Carrier Class
Intel is driving into Sun's telco heartland with its first industry-certified carrier grade servers. The chip giant is offering two form factors, both conforming to reliability and robustness standards ordained by the Network Equipment Building Specification (NEBS). These are a 2U-sized dual Pentium III processor server and the …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 09:15
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Nokia 5510: the wrong way around
Review Price is the key
The first thing which strikes you about a Nokia 5510 is that it's the wrong way round, with the display in the middle instead of at the top and the keys in a horizontal formation more like a games console than a mobile. At 134x58x28mm and 155g, it's noticeably larger than the 3330, on which it is based. Carphone Warehouse is …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 09:57
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AMD to reveal 300mm fab partner any day now
That's what it promised earlier this year
Where is AMD going to build its first factory to produce 300mm wafers? The plant, timetabled by the chip maker to go on stream as a pilot sometime in 2003 before beginning volume production in 2005, has yet to be located. What is known is that AMD is seeking to operate the facility as a joint venture with a second, as yet …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 11:22
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SonicBlue sues TiVo
ReplayTV owner gets bolshie over patents
SonicBlue has followed up on its threat to sue TiVo by filing a patent infringement suit against the digital video recorder company. Ken Potashner, SonicBlue's CEO, threatened TiVo with legal action earlier this week after his company announced it would like to talk to its rival about licensing opportunities. Two weeks ago, …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:04
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Psion mulls Teklogix writedown
Trading statement
Psion is reviewing the value of its Teklogix business following a tough year for the division in the North American market. In a trading statement today Psion said its results for 2001 could include a write down on the value of the Canadian maker of software and wireless-comms kit, bought last year for $360 million. Psion …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:17
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Egg makes first profit
Where credit's due
Internet bank Egg reported a profit for November, keeping its promise that it would break-even by the end of the year. The news helped push Egg's share price up 6p in early morning trading before falling back to its opening price of 154p by mid-morning. Egg's performance was boosted by its credit card business, which has made …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:21
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Fujitsu takes 10 mins to process PC orders
Down from 2.5 days
Fujitsu has slashed its PC order processing time from two and a half days to ten minutes by using an e-commerce ordering system. Taking longer than two days to process an order doesn't sound that speedy, but ten minutes sounds pretty swift. Dell says it processes orders the same day they are placed, then builds them within five …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:22
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Chips, chipsets & mobos, Intel i845D
HWRoundup And personal transportation devices
Mobos, chipsets and other inner bits: X-bit labs has a lengthy piece discussing Intel's i845D chipset, the first one from Chipzilla to support DDR SDRAM (up to DDR266). It's much the same as the existing i845 chipset, but with a modified memory controller. There's no new support for any new things like USB 2.0 or ATA 133, …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:31
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Watch out! There's an anti-terrorist law about
Home Secretary explains new police spying powers
Yesterday, the Anti-Terrorism Bill was discussed for a second time in the House of Commons and Home Secretary David Blunkett succeeded in persuading MPs to vote against just about every amendment put forward by the Lords. Here are his arguments, contained in an edited version of the debate in the Commons yesterday. The full …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:31
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NTL sorry for email gaffe
Honest mistake
Troubled cableco NTL has apologised for an administrative cock-up which resulted in the personal details of more than 800 employees being published without their consent. The incident happened Friday, 2 November but has only recently come to light following a forum posting on nthellworld.com. More than 50 people who were …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:33
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Appeal Court upholds Intel ex-staffer's email injunction
Hamidi not allowed to contact Intel employees at work
The US Third District Court of Appeal in California has ruled that ex-Intel staffer Kourosh 'Ken' Hamidi did indeed commit an act of trespass upon his former employer's computer system when he sent anti-Intel emails to 65,000 company workers. The Court's decision essentially upholds the judgement of the lower court, made in …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 12:56
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ARM finance chief quits
Shares fall 4%
ARM yesterday admitted that its finance director, Jonathan Brooks, is to leave the chip developer next February after seven years with the company. Brooks' departure is likely to be an amicable one - why else would he stay on for another two months - though chairman Robin Saxby did say he thinks the company needs "some new …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 13:07
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Beast of Redmond rants at rebel States
A welcome return to fine foaming form by the massed attorneys...
Microsoft yesterday filed a Proposed Final Judgment and an accompanying "explanatory brief" with the DC court. As one would expect, the PFJ is as previously agreed with the DoJ, and therefore dull and unsatisfying. But the brief is largely a hilariously incandescent onslaught on the nine holdout States who filed their own, …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 13:12
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Commons reject Anti-Terror amendments
Bill returned to Lords; data retention powers back in
The House of Commons rejected nearly all Lords amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Bill yesterday, setting up a battle between the two. Home Secretary David Blunkett complained of the "disembowelling" and "knee-capping" of his bill by the House of Lords earlier in the week. He made various concessions, including …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 13:24
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Buffer the overflow slayer
/bin/login exploit
A buffer overflow vulnerability in login programs used by Sun Solaris and IBM AIX systems could allow crackers to take control of servers, security experts warn. The flaw arises from the way System V derived implementations of Login work in conjunction with remote access protocols such as Telnet and Rlogin, which are enabled by …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 13:28
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Palm to buy corporate wireless software op
ThinAirApps goes for $19m
Palm's Solutions Group is to buy corporate data-oriented wireless applications developer ThinAirApps in a stock-swap deal worth $19 million. The deal comes after an attempt to buy Extended Systems - which, like ThinAirApps, develops software to hook PDAs into corporate information systems - came to nothing early last summer. …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 14:56
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Online Xbox gaming in six months
US and Japan
Microsoft will launch online gaming services for its Xbox console in the US within the next six months, presumably around May. The Japanese market, scheduled to get Xbox by late February, will get their broadband gaming services around August - or within six months of its arrival there. Microsoft and NTT communications …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 16:05
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Gateway ships 25 millionth PC
UK sales didn't help it reach the milestone
Gateway is shipping its 25 millionth PC today, 16 years after the company started. As is the way of such things, Gateway has selected a worthy customer to be the focus of the celebration for reaching this sales milestone. In this case its Quentin and Theresa Vasconcellos of Glendale, Arizona, who ordered the Gateway 500X PC …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 16:07
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BT chiefs face early test
Where's yer loyalty
BT's new boss faces an early showdown with chairman Sir Christopher Bland in what could prove to be the first power struggle at the monster telco. Relations between BT's new chief exec, Ben Verwaayen and chairman, Sir Christopher, could be put under strain just a day after the Dutchman takes up his new appointment at the …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 16:15
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The Microsoft Secure PC: MS patents a lock-down OS
Denial of Sharing attack
Remember the Microsoft Research Project for a "Secure PC" that we told you about in March? A formal patent claim for a "digital rights management" - i.e. share denial OS - was granted on Wednesday and has surfaced, via the Cryptome web site. The authors include Secure PC team leader Paul England and distinguished Xerox PARC …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 16:51
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ATI to launch Mac Radeon 8500 next month
Macworld Expo show guide reveals all
ATI will unveil Mac versions of its Radeon 8500 and 7000 graphics cards at Macworld Expo San Francisco next January, according to the graphics company's show guide blurb. The Radeon 8500 is based on ATI's second-generation Radeon chip, codenamed R200. The 7000, however, is based on the original Radeon technology that power ATI' …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 16:58
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Kangaroo domain court
Aussie rules
A joint venture between RegistrarsAsia and Afilias has been awarded the com.au, net.au, asn.au, id.au and org.au second-level domains. The decision deepens the controversy regarding ownership of the .au country top-level domain for Australia. Following a long battle, Robert Elz, a reclusive but respected IT engineer, lost …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 17:06
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Telcos sidestep BT goons
BT hopping mad
Telecoms operators can have unescorted access to BT's exchanges telecoms watchdog, Oftel, confirmed today. The ruling means that operators are not subject to unnecessary costs for providing broadband services over unbundled local loops. Instead, escorted access will only be necessary where BT requires its own contractors to be …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 17:13
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Messiah does not play pirate software, humans do
Mod-chip distie argues toss with Sony
Channel Technology has slammed Sony for forcing it to to stop distributing a PlayStation mod-chip product. On its web site, the company attacks legal actions from the consumer electronics giant and defends the legality of its Messiah mod-chip. The site's owner, calling himself Gazza, says the mod-chip can be used for legal …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 18:05
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Reg hack debating brain fingerprinter on CourtTV today
In this corner....
I'll be doing battle with Larry Farwell, PhD, promoter of brain fingerprinting as a counterterrorism measure, on CourtTV's Catherine Crier Show at 5:30 PM Eastern and Pacific time Thursday. You may recall our skepticism of this techno magic. The format is simple: Farwell will demonstrate his kit, and I'll attempt to debunk it …
Business 13 Dec 2001, 19:15
