15th March 2002 Archive

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Reg readers take the Intel A train

Letters Model replies

My observation about Intel's use of 'A' to differentiate between two P4 processors, both clocking at the same speed, drew a large and mostly disapproving, response. First, a summary of the lines of attack, and then we publish some letters. Intel has been using A, E and M naming conventions for a long time - remember the Celeron …

Channel 15 Mar 2002, 09:31
VIA takes on Intel (again), moves into China

CeBIT It's a set-top box world

VIA Technologies pulled out all the stops at CeBIT yesterday with launches in five product families. First up, and probably most significant in terms of the company's main line of business today, is the Apollo P4X333 chipset. Next, we have a mobile version of the low-power C3, taking VIA's budget-price x.86 CPU family into the …

Channel 15 Mar 2002, 09:33
Worm turns Japanese

Fbound impounded

A worm which tries to disguise itself as a security patch is hitting Asia particularly hard. Fbound normally arrives as an email with the subject line 'Important' and has an attached file called 'Patch.exe'. Once activated, the worm forwards itself to everyone in the victim's email address book using its own SMTP routines. …

Security 15 Mar 2002, 10:02
Vodafone MMS deal up for grabs as Ericsson fumbles?

Single European deal may not be viable

The world's largest mobile operator Vodafone Group Plc is being forced into a major reversal over the award of a key contract to supply software and systems for mobile multimedia messaging (MMS) to nine of its international subsidiaries. The deal was awarded to Swedish mobile equipment vendor LM Ericsson AB, and was valued …

Mobile 15 Mar 2002, 10:42
US recovery fails to filter through to Oracle

Tech spending uptick will lag, says company

The US economy may be showing sparks of life, but they have yet to re-ignite the market for Oracle Corp's software, the database vendor revealed yesterday. The Redwood Shores, California-based vendor revealed third quarter results yesterday that showed sales were down 16.6% to $2.2bn. License revenues in the quarter ending …

Business 15 Mar 2002, 10:47
AOL switches from IE to Netscape in beta test

Browser wars resumed, or a weird historical footnote?

AOL has - finally - shipped a beta of its software that uses Netscape technology rather than IE. This suggests, barring major breakages in the interim, that the company could contrive a defection from the Microsoft camp with the rollout of of AOL 8.0 software later this year. The current test software, being referred to as …

Software 15 Mar 2002, 11:34
BT mulls adverse ruling over hyperlink patent

Decisions, decisions

BT's legal battle with US ISP Prodigy over the telco's claim that it owns the patent to hyperlinks received a knock yesterday, following an initial ruling by a US Federal Court. According to reports, Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the patent - filed in 1976 and granted in 1989 - might not actually cover what we know today as …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2002, 11:38
ICANN abolishes Net democracy, but Esther steps in

The old fruit's back

As expected, the domain name quango ICANN yesterday affirmed its commitment to "meaningful participation and representation for individual users" by abolishing the board elections in which you or I could vote for who sets key Internet policy. The British chair of ICANN, Stuart Lynn, had outlined the proposal a fortnight ago, so …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2002, 12:06
DoCoMo to kick off 802.11b trial

And why not?

NTT DoCoMo, the company currently blazing the trail with 3G mobile phone services in Japan, is to run a trial of 802.11b wireless LAN services over the next three months, according to a Reuters report. 3G is intended to be capable of delivering broadband data services, and is therefore sometimes seen as a rival to WLAN systems …

Mobile 15 Mar 2002, 12:11
Ali G prank recording breaks into BT help line

hand that's da troof

BTopenworld has launched an investigation into how an offensive Ali G-style message appeared on a recorded telephone help line. The message, a poor imitation of the cult comedic figure, appeared around midnight 12th/13th March and was removed after about 15 minutes. According to one reader, who asked to remain anonymous, the …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2002, 12:14
Affinity expands Down Under

Triffick

The UK's Affinity Internet Holdings plc is to acquire Australian ISP Phoneware Online Pty Limited, in a paper deal worth around A$600,000 (£221,000) Phoneware has around 8,000 ISP customers who generate around A$3 million (£1.1 million) a year in turnover. Execs at Affinity reckon they can save around A$250,000 (£92,000) a …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2002, 13:36
Old Morpheus still works for unhacked users

Updated P2P networks hack given a fresh twist

Older versions of the Morpheus file sharing utility still work, Register readers have discovered to their surprise. Earlier this month Music City Morpheus ditched support for the P2P stack supplied by developer FastTrack and embraced the open source Gnutella protocol, with the launch of Morpheus Preview Edition. The move was …

Software 15 Mar 2002, 13:41
Back Orifice for Unix flaw emerges from obscurity

Mind the gap

A vulnerability involving an obscure UDP protocol might permits crackers to obtain remote control of Unix workstations, security experts have warned. Security firm ProCheckUp has issued an advisory warning that anonymous XDMCP connections allow remote attackers to obtain a remote console identical to a local X-Windows session, …

Security 15 Mar 2002, 19:10
SGI opens fire on parked Sun graphics scooters

But where's The Lawn Ranger?

Silicon Graphics Inc has responded to Sun's graphics workstation announcement with guns blazing. Sun launched a very nice piece of kit earlier this week, the Sun Blade 2000 which takes top spot in the floating point benchmarks. With its new MAJC-based graphics accelerator it should compete very well in the CAD market. But Sun's …

Hardware 15 Mar 2002, 20:10