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13th March 2003 Archive

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  • Beeb calls time on ‘my BBC’

    Few noticed

    The BBC pulled the plug on its personalised Web-based information service my BBC yesterday. Said one Register reader: "Probably not missed by many, by the 'my BBC' service on the BBC (their rather average portal attempt) has been suddenly discontinued." A message on the my BBC Web site reads: "The my BBC service has been …

    Media 13 Mar 2003, 09:45

  • HP debuts pay per use pricing on Superdome

    Utility computing

    HP yesterday introduced a new utility pricing model to its top-of-the-range Superdome severs, based on automatically measuring how much computing power customers use every month. The company has refined existing capacity on demand pricing models, which are based on the number of Superdome processors a company uses, to create …

    Servers 13 Mar 2003, 09:49

  • Reg Kit Watch

    For starters, Samsung's Palm OS smartphone, Time's Tablet PC

    PDA Samsung has unveiled its Palm OS 5-based smartphone, the SGH-i500, the GSM/GPRS version of the already-announced SPH-i500. The SGH-i500 runs Palm OS 5.2, the next major release of the operating system and the first version to drop the original Graffiti text-entry system. Instead it uses Graffiti 2, based on Jot licensed …

    Personal 13 Mar 2003, 10:36

  • Beeb axes 100 new media jobs

    'Step change in its activity'

    The BBC is axing around 100 jobs in its new media division in a bid to scale back spending. The Beeb said the job cuts - including editorial and techie staff - would be achieved through "natural wastage, voluntary redundancy and redeployment" over the next 12 months. Those areas fingered for the job losses include interactive …

    Media 13 Mar 2003, 11:12

  • IT spending: the Y2K effect, Mark II

    Options are not pretty

    A few years into their IT systems cycles, businesses are looking at the next development stage. Many companies are reluctant to upgrade again, often with good reason, but changes in the market mean that they would be likely to gain more valuable benefits than previously. In the run-up to Y2K, ERP-related sales rocketed, the …

    Data Center 13 Mar 2003, 11:29

  • Nvidia brings latest GeForce FX chips to notebooks

    Go 5200 and Go 5600

    Nvidia today followed up last week's desktop GeForce FX 5600 and 5200 launch with the introduction of two mobile versions. The GeForce FX Go 5600 and GeForce FX Go 5200 both mirror their desktop equivalents. The 5600 is fabbed at 0.13 micron, the 5200 at 0.15 micron. While the 5600 delivers Nvidia's IntelliSample anti-aliasing …

    Channel 13 Mar 2003, 12:12

  • Sparks fly as BTo hit by electrical fault

    300,000 punters hit

    Up to 300,000 of BT Openworld's customers suffered an Internet blackout on Monday after an electrical fault damaged the ISP's kit. The exact details are not known but BT's ISP has described the incident as a "serious electrical fault" that knocked out part of its service for three hours on Monday afternoon. Normal service to …

    Media 13 Mar 2003, 12:26

  • Lindows opens Click-N-Buy shop

    Third-party Linux apps

    Lindows.com, the Linux distro for consumers, is opening an online shop to sell software downloads from third-party vendors to owners of LindowsOS PCs. Punters confirm that they want to buy an app, then click once: the program is downloaded, configured and installed. Credit cards are billed automatically. The commercial service …

    Software 13 Mar 2003, 12:48

  • Opera in fresh browser security drama

    Soap Opera as browser slip ups crop up, again

    Opera today released a fix for a serious security flaw with its browser which could let crackers load and execute malicious code on victim's PCs. The vulnerability, which involves both version 6.x and 7.x of the browser, revolves around incorrect handling of very long filenames in the Opera's Download Dialog box. "This allows …

    Security 13 Mar 2003, 13:01

  • Creative preps MS-based Nomad video player

    Update Time to dust off that video iPod, Steve

    When Apple failed to launch a video iPod earlier this year, as it had been rumoured to be planning, it disappointed many of its fans. And now it looks like Microsoft is going to get just such a device to market ahead of it. The software giant today said it was partnerning with Creative Technology, developer of the Nomad range …

    Personal 13 Mar 2003, 13:13

  • Suddenly, the personal phone hub is respectable

    With Samsung, Motorola

    A year ago, the idea of the personal mobile gateway was just a piece of speculative fiction from IXI. Suddenly, both Motorola and Samsung have launched conspicuously similar bits of technology around the concept. The concept is ingenious. Instead of having a single device which attempts to do everything from phone, PDA, mobile …

    Mobile 13 Mar 2003, 14:11

  • UK.gov blows £1.5bn on botched IT projects

    Shake-up aims to stem losses

    More than £1.5 billion in taxpayers' money has been wasted on delayed or cancelled UK government projects over the last six years. That's the damning assessment of a leaked report by the Treasury department in charge of Government spending, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), obtained by Computing this week. The paper …

    Data Center 13 Mar 2003, 14:42

  • Decoding Centrino

    Analysis Intel stands on standards. What's the point of the P4-M now? Techical treats. Hotspot mania. And more...

    There's no doubt that Intel's Centrino platform is impressive technology. Exactly how much performance it delivers over existing processor solutions, and how much longer it will allow mobile users to operate on battery power we'll see in the coming months as Centrino notebooks are put through their paces. And all the …

    Broadband 13 Mar 2003, 14:55

  • UK sees strong DSL growth

    BB is 'telecoms success story'

    The number of DSL lines in the UK grew 90 per cent in the second half of 2002, according to the latest stats from broadband research outfit Point Topic. The UK outstripped France (87 per cent), Finland (82 per cent) and Switzerland (78 per cent) - only coming second to China, which notched up DSL growth of a whopping 214 per …

    Broadband 13 Mar 2003, 14:56

  • Big church group urges states to punish WorldCom

    'To prevent future misdeeds'

    WorldCom may be clawing its way back to financial stability. But it isn't out of the woods yet - the perpetrator of the world's biggest fraud has been ambushed by theologians. And they are calling for retribution. Step forward the United Churches of Christ (UCC), a major American Protestant church group, which is urgeing the …

    Data Networking 13 Mar 2003, 15:29

  • NatSemi CEO looks to China

    Interview And working out with Microsoft

    ExtremeTech's Jim Louderback had a chance recently to sit down with Brian Halla, CEO of National Semiconductor to get an idea of how National is approaching the future. Since this interview was conducted, things have gotten dicey for the Silicon Valley chip company. The company announced that it was shedding its system-on-a-chip …

    Servers 13 Mar 2003, 15:36

  • IDC forecasts 2003 will be a good/bad* year for Itanium

    *Delete as applicable when IDC figures out which it is

    IDC appears to suffering from some confusion concerning the future of Intel's Itanium processor. According to an Intel spokesman, citing someone called 'Bozman', the research agency has predicted that a staggering 25,000 servers based on the Itanium processor will ship this year. That's very good news for Intel and no doubt …

    Servers 13 Mar 2003, 15:36

  • ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 to sport on-chip DDR RAM

    GDDR-2M support too

    Not to be outdone by Nvidia's GeForce FX Go 5200 and 5600 announcement, ATI had a mobile chip launch of its own today, unveiling the Mobility Radeon 9600. It also announced the Mobility Radeon 7000 Integrated Graphics Processor. The 9600 is the first mobile graphics chip to support GDDR-2M, a DDR 2 variant incorporating power- …

    Channel 13 Mar 2003, 16:40

  • New Symbian phones from Mitsubishi, BenQ, Samsung

    Swivel is the new black

    The next wave of Symbian OS phones is well under way this week, with groovy new designs from Mitsubishi, BenQ and Samsung. Cameras, big screens, swivelling bits - yup, looks like we're about to witness an entertaining envelope-pushing contest. The Mitsubishi, on show at CeBIT, is a concept really, but a jolly interesting …

    Mobile 13 Mar 2003, 17:12

  • Dell shuns Microsoft's hate-radio toilet shockjock

    Pulls ads

    A hate-radio shockjock whose toilet rants have proved too deranged even for readers of the extreme right-wing Free Republic has received a massive career boost thanks to Microsoft here in the United States. The self-styled "Michael Savage" debuted on the MSNBC TV channel last week, a station jointly owned by General Electric, …

    Business 13 Mar 2003, 22:15