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4th April 2002 Archive

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  • UK Govt backs talking fridges

    Cool

    The UK Government is pledging £20 million to help develop intelligent fridges and conscientious boilers. In total, £40 million has been set aside to fund the virtual Interdisciplinary Research Centre (vIRC) - a coalition of technology businesses and universities including BT, Dyson, IBM UK, Microsoft and the University of …

    Personal 4 Apr 2002, 05:18

  • US courts claim jurisdiction over Sklyarov

    Setback for ElcomSoft

    A Federal judge has turned down a motion to dismiss the prosecution of ElcomSoft in the first case brought under America's controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). During a pre-trial hearing on Monday, lawyers argued that since ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor, which can circumvent the weak copyright …

    Security 4 Apr 2002, 05:26

  • Sun to debut high-end servers next Tuesday, too

    Stealing IBM's thunder?

    Sun Microsystems Inc says that it will "unleash" another high-end server in its Sun Fire family of UltraSparc-III servers next Tuesday, Timothy Prickett Morgan writes. Exactly what Sun is up to is unclear, but it is probably not a coincidence that IBM Corp is set to make its pSeries 670 debut on April 9, the same day that …

    Hardware 4 Apr 2002, 05:48

  • Taiwan PC vendors see patchy March

    Who's patchy March?

    Taiwan PC makers did not shift as much equipment as expected in March, preliminary research from Merrill Lynch suggests. Motherboard shipments look set to be 12% to 13% up on February, well under the 17% rise originally expected. However, notebooks should hit the 20% growth rate expected. Overall, growth should be around …

    Personal 4 Apr 2002, 05:48

  • MS President Belluzzo resigns

    To do his own thang

    Microsoft Corp is losing its president and COO, Rick Belluzzo, after one year on the job, in a reorganization which will see the firm's business groups assume greater accountability, Kevin Murphy writes. Belluzzo, who will leave his position at the end of May and the company in September, said he intends to head his own …

    Business 4 Apr 2002, 05:49

  • Michael Dell does not wear cowboy boots

    And he just loves iced water

    Michael Dell does not wear cowboy boots, he drinks water from a bottle, but not in front of a camera, and his flunkeys scatter notebooks whenever he descends upon his factory in Limerick, so he can check email wherever he stops. Oh, and he doesn't eat lunch and there's no chair in his office (as he always stands up), if rumours …

    Personal 4 Apr 2002, 06:46

  • Gateway waves goodbye to tech support firm

    Not cheap enough

    Gateway has given notice to quit its tech outsourcing contract with Sykes Enterprises, after failing to agree better terms. The contract ends in June. Sykes currently has 800 people supplying tech support for Gateway customers, and expects to issue pink slips to 500 of these, with most working in Bismarck, North Dakota, when …

    Personal 4 Apr 2002, 08:05

  • MS contract saves world from Compaq Harry Potter PC

    Whew...

    Microsoft's OEM agreements have a positive side after all, apparently. In antitrust trial testimony AOL VP John Borthwick reveals that they saved us from several varieties of computers from hell, including a nightmarish-sounding "Harry Potter PC." That of course isn't quite how he put it. Borthwick was arguing infavour of the …

    Software 4 Apr 2002, 09:07

  • DDR333 modules get OK for VIA chipsets

    Validation

    VIA is stepping up the PR pace for its DDR333-supporting chipsets. Early results for the validation programme it's running with Advanced Validation Labs (AVL), of California, show that Kingston Technology and Micron's DDR333 memory modules work just fine with its new chipsets, VIA says. The validation programme is intended to …

    Channel 4 Apr 2002, 11:11

  • Lego pays homage to Lord of the Rings

    Plastic nonsense

    What is this obsession with Lego? First we had Lego porn! Hot and plasticky. Then a plastic brick re-enactment from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Now, we've got selected scenes from the Lord of the (bloody) Rings. It's enough to make you give it all up and go on some mad-cap quest. ®

    Bootnotes 4 Apr 2002, 11:13

  • BTo broadband gets the brush-off

    Broom, broom

    BTopenworld - which is chucking £10 million at marketing its broadband service - has been spotted holding a photo shoot at Stansted airport. One of El Reg's vulture-eyed readers was travelling back from France on Tuesday and had to night-stop at the near-London airport. But his kip on an airport bench was interrupted by flash …

    Telecoms 4 Apr 2002, 11:14

  • Flash glitch throttles bandwidth

    Media Player 6 bug irks developers

    A problem in Flash Player 6 means users are unable to stop the download of large files once they have been started, resulting in a bandwidth drain to surfers. In previous versions of the Macromedia Flash Player, loading another file, leaving the web site, or closing the browser window will stop this transfer but this doesn't …

    Security 4 Apr 2002, 13:21

  • Swiss Energis heads for the hills

    Cheerio

    Energis' Swiss business is expected to begin insolvency proceedings after its troubled UK parent confirmed today that it would no longer continue funding the operation. Although the future of Energis Switzerland AG now looks bleak, Energis plc said it is still holding discussions with potential buyers of its businesses in …

    Business 4 Apr 2002, 13:23

  • Nuking MS Messenger

    In spite of Billg

    We've been blessed with scores of memos from readers offering numerous tips for nuking Microsoft Messenger, since we reported that an update which MS is touting as 'critical' sneakily re-installs it. First, if you're sure you'll never use it, you can take the flamethrower approach and delete the entire Messenger directory (C:\ …

    Software 4 Apr 2002, 13:44

  • LINX lights up 10Gbps Ethernet network

    Updated again Blisteringly fast, MAN

    LINX, the UK's main peering centre for ISPs, has become the first European organisation to implement 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The London Internet Exchange has gone live with the latest super high-speed networking technology using Foundry Networks' Layer 3 BigIron 800 and 1500 switch technology. Initially, the new Foundry technology …

    Data Networking 4 Apr 2002, 14:07

  • Dell pushes up Q1 estimates

    Pushes down costs

    Dell has revised its sales guidance upwards, or rather less downwards, for Q1. The PC giant now expects revenues to come in at $7.9bn, 2 per cent less than the previous quarter. On February 16, the company forecast lower sales of 3 to 5 per cent. Dell reckons that it profited from falling component prices last year more than …

    Personal 4 Apr 2002, 14:08

  • MS secures contract for NHS health portal spec

    Producing £250,000 study

    The UK's National Health Service Information Authority has awarded a single tender for the specification of national electronic health record system to Microsoft, which does seem to suggest that a certain company will do well out of the ensuing project. The decision was taken at the NHSIA management board meeting on 7 February, …

    Software 4 Apr 2002, 14:08

  • AltaVista in “Bible club” web search porn outrage

    Query returns burning bush and second coming

    Let's face it, it's difficult enough to protect web-surfing kids from a barrage of filth and pornography without apparently innocent search engine queries pointing your impressionable offspring to the hardest XXXX sites on the web. Beware, then, of AltaVista and its propensity for displaying porn banners in response to any …

    Music and Media 4 Apr 2002, 16:28

  • Telewest mocks BT for ‘unlimited’ slap

    Dictionaries at 20 paces

    Telewest was in impish mood today when they pitched up outside BT's HQ in London to poke fun at the monster telco's latest brush with the adverting watchdog. Yesterday the ASA ruled that BT misled punters when headlined a direct mail campaign with 'unlimited free calls' only to say later that the "free" calls were only …

    Business 4 Apr 2002, 16:30

  • Think before you use your mobile overseas – Oftel

    Gawd bless 'em

    Oftel has published some research in a bid to raise awareness about using mobile phones abroad. It claims many consumers are still unaware of the cost of using their mobile phone when travelling. According to the research, nearly half of UK consumers with a pre-pay mobile phone are unaware that they can be charged for incoming …

    Mobile 4 Apr 2002, 16:36

  • Weak crypto casts shadow over ecommerce

    Short, vulnerable keys

    US export restrictions and local legislation on cryptography still casts a shadow over the security of ecommerce site even years after regulations to permit the use of strong encryption. That's according to a survey of SSL servers by Netcraft, carried out last month, which discovered 18 per cent of supposedly secure servers use …

    e-Business 4 Apr 2002, 16:40

  • Anti-Unix site returns – on MySQL?

    Back door puzzle

    The Microsoft/Unisys promotional site wehavethewayout.com, which has added so much gaiety to our lives in recent days, has returned. Gone is the striking artwork of a naked man, tarred with purple paint and feathered with pages torn from a Solaris sysadmin's manual, leaping from a tall tower onto a Unisys ES7000. (Actually we …

    Hardware 4 Apr 2002, 18:00

  • TiVo recorders ‘unusable’ with Philips TVs

    Updated UK problem only?

    Users of TiVo's digital video recorder are reporting a number of bizarre glitches in how the device interacts with recent models of Philips TVs. A lengthy thread on TiVo's community forum (since moved, see below) reports how their wide screen TVs unexpectedly switch to standby mode and a number of other problems, such as …

    Personal 4 Apr 2002, 18:08

  • Apple buys FireWire biz

    Viva Zayante

    Apple has bought Zayante, a designer of chips and software for FireWire, the high speed connectivity standard of choice for the iMac. Terms were undisclosed, which means that Apple probably isn't paying very much. Zayante used to be called Firefly and it was set up by geezers who helped frame the FireWire standard, officially …

    Mac Channel 4 Apr 2002, 18:50

  • Apple tarts up Nvidia drivers

    OS 9.2 update

    Apple today released a new Nvidia driver for IMacs running on OS 9.2.2. This will improve "stability and compatibility of Nvidia cards in the PowerMac G4 when used in combination with the Matrox RTMac Card." Is that your kit? Get the update for "better quality playback and filtering". Download is here. ®

    Mac Channel 4 Apr 2002, 19:06