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4th September 2002 Archive

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  • Judge takes Napster off life support

    No sale

    The proposed sale of Napster's remains to German media powerhouse Bertelsmann has been blocked by bankruptcy judge Peter Walsh in Wilmington, Delaware on concerns that the executive in charge of the batered file sharing outfit, Konrad Hilbers, was a bit too cozy with the German brass and his motives in repeatedly subsidizing the …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 08:05

  • Greek govt bans all computer games

    Better ban hallucinogenic drugs, too

    The government of Greece is making heroic efforts to humiliate the nation in front of the entire world, by banning all electronic games. That's right; something as innocent as playing computer chess on your laptop in a hotel lobby is now a crime with penalties of up to three months in stir and a fine of 10,000 euros. The …

    Software 4 Sep 2002, 08:05

  • Inrange joins 2Gbps Fibre Channel club

    Playing catch-up

    Inrange Technologies Corp has at last caught up with the competition in the SAN switching market, and ready to ship SAN hardware supporting the current 2Gbit version of Fibre Channel. The company announced this week that IBM has qualified the 2Gbps I/O cards needed to make Inrange's FC/9000 directors support the standard, …

    Data Networking 4 Sep 2002, 08:06

  • HP merger is ‘marriage made in hell’

    Plaudits for IBM + MS, brickbats for Oracle

    The IT market will get worse before it gets better with little prospect of recovery in spending until 2004. That's one of the main predictions made by influential analyst Martin Butler during a session of crystal ball gazing with IT hacks in London this afternoon. Butler, president of founder of the Butler Group, was upbeat …

    e-Business 4 Sep 2002, 08:09

  • Google, China work to unblock site

    Driven round the U-bend

    Google says it is trying to resolve a problem that left users in China unable to access it popular search engine. In a short statement the company said: "We are currently working with Chinese officials to get our full service restored to the millions of Chinese users who depend on Google every day." Over the weekend it emerged …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 08:13

  • HP targets penny pinchers with Unix server refresh

    05 series

    HP today introduced a trio of entry-level Unix servers aimed at meeting the needs of its increasingly more budget conscious customers. All three models in HP's new 05 series line feature PA-8700 processors running HP-UX 11i. The 05 range comprises: the HP Server rp2405, with 1 and 2 processor configurations; the HP Server …

    Hardware 4 Sep 2002, 08:14

  • Oracle preps UK job cuts

    No immunity

    Oracle is wielding the job axe on its UK consulting organisation. In a statement, the database firm said that it had issued provisional redundancy to a number of staff". Word on the street is that the cuts are substantial, but Oracle is not talking numbers yet. Instead it says it is "where possible ... re-deploying employees …

    Business 4 Sep 2002, 08:15

  • IBM acquires Access360 for identity management

    Tivoli plug-in

    IBM Corp has reached an agreement with Access360 Corp to acquire all assets of the privately held identity management and provisioning software vendor for an undisclosed amount. IBM plans to integrate Irvine, California-based Access360 into its Tivoli systems management portfolio. The company will integrate functionality …

    Hardware 4 Sep 2002, 08:15

  • EU seeks bidders for European domain

    Liege, Vassals

    The European Commission is looking for an organization to run .eu, the top-level internet domain name the Commission hopes to create for companies and individuals in European Union member states. This week, the Commission issued a call for expressions of interest from organizations that want to run the domain, which has …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 08:15

  • DoCoMo erects i-mode anti-spam defences

    Kinda basic

    Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo Inc is the first operator in the world to launch anti-spam protection for its mobile users. The company has announced that it will automatically start blocking all spam (unsolicited email advertising) for the users of its i-mode email services from later this year. Under a new Japanese …

    Mobile 4 Sep 2002, 08:16

  • Microsoft shut e-commerce Wallet

    That's a way of making it secure

    Microsoft Corp is closing down its Passport Express Purchase service for MSN Wallet, following scrutiny of US trade officials. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft yesterday said Passport Express Purchase would be discontinued next year, enabling Passport to focus on its "core mission". That mission is "robust, online …

    e-Business 4 Sep 2002, 08:16

  • Sun may play greater Open Source role

    Out of the bath tub

    Its new role as a Linux evangelist could see Sun Microsystems Inc release features found in enterprise-level operating system servers to the open source community. A senior executive at Palo Alto, California-based Sun last week didn't rule-out the company's possible donation of high-end technologies to the open source …

    Software 4 Sep 2002, 08:16

  • Napster sale blocked

    Hear Kitty, Ded Kitty

    A Delaware court has blocked the sale of Napster to its chief sponsor Bertelsmann. The German media giant says it will accept the decision, which means that Napster is now effectively dead. The once mighty P2P music-sharing service, already operating under Chapter 11, issued severance notices yesterdat to all 42 employees, …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 08:17

  • Cheap thrills on the cyber-terror beat

    Disaster journalism hits new highs

    Did you hear of the computer virus that could "attack the Pentagon's ability to mobilize or communicate with its forces" and cripple all government services in a city? I read about it in the Center for Defense Information's July Defense Monitor newsletter. It would be part of an "electronic Waterloo," readers were informed. …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 08:49

  • Rebranding Fair Use – your answers

    Letters PAC to the future

    Re:Vote against a paid-for Pigopolist pol! We asked for more attractive terms for digital rights, as "digital rights" and "fair use" don't seem to be very effective. The word "GeekPAC" sucks too, so could you do better? (Some campaigns are designed to grab five minutes' attention, and although sincere, GeekPAC looks like it …

    Letters 4 Sep 2002, 09:57

  • Easynet ploughs on with LLU

    H1 revenue up, losses widen

    Easynet is providing broadband services to more than 850 customers over unbundled lines, the company confirmed today. In August the pan-European broadband provider added a further 254 punters and now provides 'own loop' DSL services at 71 BT exchanges in Greater London, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Brighton, …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 11:49

  • Telewest denies plan to axe 1,000 jobs

    'Speculative'

    Telewest has denied a newspaper report that it is to slash a further 1,000 jobs amid further restructuring at the hard-up cableco. The FT today said the cuts were part of a range of measures - including the rein back on capital spending by a third - designed to tackle its £3.5bn debt. Telewest will also reduce the number of …

    Business 4 Sep 2002, 11:55

  • Police arrest five in Net credit card fraud probe

    Dumpster diving

    Sussex police have arrested five people suspected of involvement in a scam in which goods were bought online using information harvested from purloined credit card receipts. Detectives believe the gang obtained the victims' credit card information from till roll receipts dumped in a rubbish bin by a garage in Eastbourne, Sussex …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 12:06

  • Boycott Hollywood for Thanksgiving?

    Letters We are all "Stuckists" now

    Re: The Stuckist Net - what is your post-Palladium future? A quick note before we start. There's a real Stuckist Art Movement, and it was the inspiration for us appropriating the term. Charles Thomson who coined the expression has written to us. They'd like to avoid confusion that it's a "Stuckist"-blessed project. Now the …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 12:09

  • RIAA servers still broken

    Pigopolist turns deaf ear to feedback

    Chaos continues at the RIAA's website after weeks of defacement activity. If you care to fill out the form on the feee0000dback page, you'll get the following message:- Error Occurred While Processing Request Error Diagnostic Information No SMTP Server Specified for CFMAIL In order to send SMTP mail messages, ColdFusion …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 12:11

  • I'll see your domain name in (US) Court!

    Extra-territorial landgrab

    Two little-noticed and otherwise unremarkable decisions from the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, decided on 23 August 2002, now affirm a principle that is perhaps worrying for those 20 million or so .com domain name registrants who live outside the USA. The cases deal with the question of the geographical location of a domain …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 13:18

  • Canoodling women and PC components don't mix

    'Gratuitous' says ad watchdog

    Using images of women kissing and fondling one another while trying to flog PC components is a big no-no, watchdogs ruled today. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint against Darlington-based SSG Technology after it ran a saucy ad for PC components in Computer Trade Only magazine. The full-page ad …

    Bootnotes 4 Sep 2002, 13:21

  • Wanadoo ups revs, narrows losses

    Broadband push

    Europe's number two ISP, Wanadoo, expects to have more than one million broadband customers by the end of 2002. Publishing half year results today the French ISP - which owns the UK's Freeserve - also reckons it will have some 15m customers throughout Europe by 2005, up from 6.8m active subscribers today. The monster ISP …

    Business 4 Sep 2002, 15:03

  • 9/11 prompts more govt surveillance

    Best Profile please

    Government surveillance increased throughout the West in the year following the September 11 terrorist attacks. A joint study by watchdogs Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International charts increased communications surveillance, weakening of data protection regimes, and increased profiling and identification …

    Music and Media 4 Sep 2002, 15:10

  • Sony chief Zens away Ericsson phone panic

    Karma down, willya?

    Sony boss Kunitake Ando has spoken out to quash fears over the future of its partnership with Ericsson to produce mobile cellular handsets. Everything's OK, he insists. Last week cash-strapped Ericsson - which despite almost a century of pioneering telephony work, is now trading at junk bond status - said it might withdraw from …

    Personal 4 Sep 2002, 19:35