The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

18th July 2002 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Mac drought fails to lift Street, spirits

    Widescreen iMac, iPod... er, that's it

    Perhaps Steve Jobs has found the real solution for dealing with "rumor" sites: make keynotes so short of new product that no one wants to read the advance rumors. A kind of "don't announce anything" strategy. There may be some truth behind this gag, as Apple appears to be favoring dedicated launch events for new products, and …

    Mac Channel 18 Jul 2002, 00:19

  • Copyright enforcer Ranger Online caught stealing content

    Do as we say, not as we do

    Internet spyware outfit Ranger Online has taken considerable heat for a little gimmick it's developed which, in the words of MSNBCi columnist Bob Sullivan, "cruises file-swapping networks like Gnutella to find copyrighted materials, hunts down the IP address of the poster, then discovers which Internet service provider is being …

    Music and Media 18 Jul 2002, 03:52

  • HP Continues Compaq's Detente with EMC

    Swaps, not support

    Even though EMC Corp and Hewlett Packard Co yesterday tried to play up the extension of the storage technology-swapping deal started between EMC and Compaq, HP predictably declared that the deal in no way implies support for EMC's WideSky middleware initiative, writes Tim Stammers. The agreement covers the use of either …

    Servers 18 Jul 2002, 06:42

  • Chinese mobile to outstrip fixed lines in a year

    Whopping rises continue

    The number of mobile phone users in China hit 176m in June, the Ministry of Information Industry said this week. This represented an additional 31.35 million users hooking up in the first half of this year, the Xinhua news agency reported. By comparison, the number of fixed line subscribers was 198 million, up 19.9 million …

    Mobile 18 Jul 2002, 06:46

  • Reading the runes of IBM's Q2s

    6 per cent down, but maybe good all the same

    IBM Corp reported its financial results for the second quarter yesterday, and John Joyce, the company's chief financial officer, spent a great deal of time explaining the ins and outs of charges due to restructurings, layoffs, and the ongoing (and as yet uncompleted) sale of its hard disk drive business to rival Hitachi …

    Business 18 Jul 2002, 06:49

  • Internet monopoly alert!

    Verisign up to its old tricks again

    VeriSign is attempting to push through a proposal which will effectively see one company control .com and .net Internet domain names, despite huge opposition from everyone else in the market. Under its proposals, a new domain "wait listing service" (WLS) will be set up that supersedes all other domain renewal services and run …

    Music and Media 18 Jul 2002, 06:53

  • Symantec buys SecurityFocus, Riptech, Recourse

    So that's who's got the cashflow...

    Symantec Corp yesterday said it will spend $355m to buy three privately held security companies, following a fiscal first quarter in which it turned a loss into a profit on sales up almost 40%. Riptech Inc, Recourse Technologies Inc and SecurityFocus Inc will all help beef up Symantec's intrusion detection and warning …

    Security 18 Jul 2002, 06:56

  • AMD chalks up huge loss, admits to extended red zone

    AMD up agin it may be a sign the economy's returning to normal...

    Advanced Micro Devices Inc yesterday admitted that it will continue to bleed red ink for the immediate future, as it unveiled a massive loss for its second quarter. The company will be under further pressure in the months ahead, as it tries to make the best of what is likely to be no more than an anemic recovery in the run …

    Channel 18 Jul 2002, 06:59

  • BT ordered to cut cost of Net access

    Don't you love it when Oftel talks tough?

    Oftel is to force BT to cut the cost of its wholesale unmetered dial-up Internet access by 8.5 per cent. In a ruling published today the telecoms regulator said that it was able to impose the price cut following a review of BT charges. Originally, Oftel had recommended that the price be cut by 7 per cent but decided to nudge- …

    Music and Media 18 Jul 2002, 11:14

  • Deloitte Consulting has Monday: on its mind

    More: rebranding: malarkey: from: the: wonderful: world: of: consultancy:

    It certainly has been a busy year on the roller-coaster ride that is international consulting. The latest firm to take its clients on a rebranding white-knuckle experience is Deloitte Consulting, who will soon formalise its split from accounting giant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Not to be outdone by PwC Consulting, which, as we …

    Bootnotes 18 Jul 2002, 11:17

  • Redbus row rumbles on

    Cliff launches Portal of Discontent

    There's a row at Redbus Interhouse - and it's getting ugly. Cliff Stanford - he of Demon Internet fame and the man behind the investment outfit Redbus Group - is unhappy at the way Web hosting company Redbus Interhouse is being run. Yesterday, Cliff Stanford - who helped set up Redbus Interhouse - wrote to shareholders …

    Business 18 Jul 2002, 11:23

  • Virgin.net pilots broadband

    Full launch in September

    Virgin.net is to pilot a broadband service ahead of a full launch in September. The service costs £28.49 a month. Punters signing up to the service will also have to pay a one-off activation fee of £59. Oh, and £84.99 for a self-install Virgin.net Broadband Starter Kit, which includes a high-speed SpeedTouch modem. Err, and …

    Music and Media 18 Jul 2002, 12:45

  • AOL “cooked books” as dot.com bubble burst

    Revenue "not of highest quality". Right

    AOL misrepresented its accounts in three quarterly periods as the 'New Economy' bubble was bursting, according to an investigation by the Washington Post. The Post examined $270 million worth of deals made during 2000 and 2001, a period when dot.com collapses - a key source of AOL's ad revenue - were threatened to the online …

    Business 18 Jul 2002, 12:45

  • UK boffins get supercomputer boost

    Million dollar brains

    Cheshire is to become the site of a £53m high performance computer centre which will be used by UK academics to spearhead research in fields as diverse as drug design and aircraft safety. The high performance computing service, to be known as the HPC(X) service, will be based on IBM POWER 4 technology and will provide an …

    Servers 18 Jul 2002, 12:46

  • FoTW: Bad language breeds Bad language

    Letters C# barbs fall flat

    Re: Why Microsoft makes a complete hash out of C# Re: Why Microsoft C# is 'paralysed or dead' A double dose of Flames for this Week. These two erudite contributions were prompted by the ongoing debate about whether C# is really a pound, hash or a legitimate note. An etymological diversion, as Drew called it, but one that drew …

    Letters 18 Jul 2002, 13:09

  • Hello, I'd like to speak to Dr Really Evil please…

    404- Bond villain Not Found

    The normally smooth running of the Reg telephony department (John Leyden - VP in Charge of Customer Interface), was interrupted this morning when we received a call asking to be put through to "Dr Really Evil". This did not, however, completely throw the much put-upon John, since we regularly get mail addressed to Dr Really …

    Bootnotes 18 Jul 2002, 13:10

  • Amazon opens web services kimono

    But where's Henry Raddick?

    There's more to web services than the promise of sacking your call center casual labor, and obliging the public to use fully automated self-service applications instead, of semi-automated human wetware. On Tuesday Amazon.com opened its content to web services developers, easily the most significant e-commerce vendor to do so. …

    Software 18 Jul 2002, 14:43

  • ‘Dotcom millionaire’ pulls out of porn

    Benjamin Cohen refocuses

    Benjamin Cohen - one-time teenage "dotcom millionaire" - is pulling out of the porn business. He's decided to sell his two XXX search engines, dotadults.com and hunt4porn.com, because they are a drain on resources. Cohen reckons both sites are real goers, for the right person, but he doesn't want to do it himself. Instead, he …

    Music and Media 18 Jul 2002, 14:44

  • Deloitte Consulting rebrands as mineral water

    All hail Braxton!

    It seems that our timely piece this morning regarding Deloitte Consulting's impending rebrand provoked immediate and decisive action on the matter. As of right now, the company will be known as Braxton. Despite the fact that it sounds like a brand of mineral water, we applaud the organisation's restraint in this matter, …

    Bootnotes 18 Jul 2002, 15:06

  • Mac users outraged at iTools, upgrade taxes

    Read my lips: pony up

    $100 per year is too much for many Mac users to hold on to their mac.com email addresses, and Apple sysadmins have been furiously busy deleting the complaints that flooded Apple's own technical forums. Users are also unhappy that the upgrade to 10.2 costs a full $129, with no discount for existing Mac OS X users. Yesterday …

    Software 18 Jul 2002, 16:03

  • Hitachi creates splash with water cooled P4 notebook

    Well no, actually. The idea is it doesn't splash...

    Hitachi has begun selling a wondrous-sounding water-cooled notebook computer in Japan, according to a report by IDG Tokyo correspondent Kuriko Miyake. The machine runs a 1.8GHz mobile Pentium 4, and has a flexible tube which carries water over the chips in order to dissipate heat. And then (here comes the best bit) the heated …

    Personal 18 Jul 2002, 17:08

  • JPEGs are not free: Patent holder pursues IP grab

    And Sony's already coughed up

    A video conferencing company based in Austin, Texas says it's going to pursue royalties on the transmission of JPEG images. And it's already found a licensee: Sony Corporation. Formerly known as VTEL, Forgent Networks acquired Compression Labs in 1997, acquiring this patent into the bargain. The patent claim was filed in 1986 …

    Software 18 Jul 2002, 17:12

  • Nokia shares slip on lowered estimates

    Upsy-daisy

    Nokia hit its targets for profits and sales growth, but its shares slumped on the Stockholm exchange as the mobile sector continues to be stagnant. The mobile manufacturer said on Thursday that it expected handset sales to grow by between three and 10 per cent in the second half of the year. However, this new outlook compares …

    Business 18 Jul 2002, 17:15

  • Net access at work is a perk, say employees

    Or not, as the case may be

    Employees don't give a stuff about using their computers at work to access the Net. According to a survey by Which? Online workers don't give two hoots that they're wasting their employer's time and money emailing friends and family, and following the latest antics of the Big Brother household. It seems only 14 per cent of …

    Music and Media 18 Jul 2002, 17:17

  • Fair Use advocates silenced by Big Brother

    Commerce Dept. doesn't want to hear it

    Advocates trying to speak for regular Internet users were basically told to sit down and shut up during a "public" workshop on digital rights management dominated by IT heavyweights and Big Hollywood at the U.S. Department of Commerce Wednesday. Members of NYLXS and NY for Fair Use mostly had to settle for interjecting comments …

    Music and Media 18 Jul 2002, 18:58