7th April 2003 Archive

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800MHz FSB Pentium 4s appear in Japan

Engineering samples

Sample versions of Intel's upcoming 800MHz quad-pumped frontside bus Pentium 4 have appeared in Japan, local web site PC Watch reports. At least one store in Tokyo's Akihabara district is showing off the processor, though as yet it has not put the chip up for sale. It's showing two chips, rated at 2.6GHz and 2.8GHz, both with a …

Channel 7 Apr 2003, 09:00
KPN talks takeover with mmO2 – report

A very long way to go

KPN and mmO2 have been having talks about having talks about merging, the Observer reports. Exciting, yes? Er, no: takeover discussions have not yet reached the starting stalls. Says the Observer: "Informed sources stressed that the talks, held within the last two months, were informal and nothing was currently being discussed …

Mobile 7 Apr 2003, 09:33
Rebranding kiss of death strikes Deloitte Consulting

LogoWatch RIP Braxton

The rebranding kiss of death has struck again, with the latest victim to succumb to SARS (Severe Acute Rebranding Syndrome) being none other than Deloitte Consulting - the company almost formerly known as Braxton. Deloitte Consulting had been due to split from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, but now the amicable divorce is off. The …

Bootnotes 7 Apr 2003, 09:43
RIAA agrees webcasting rates… with non-webcasting AOL, Microsoft

Your radio future

What's wrong with this headline? It's from an Associated Press wire story published on Friday: Webcasters reach agreement on online music fees "The [recording industry and Internet music broadcasters] agreed Thursday on how much big webcasters like Yahoo!, America Online, Microsoft and RealNetworks must pay to broadcast songs …

Music and Media 7 Apr 2003, 10:00
Adobe updates Acrobat for the XML era

Version 6.0 bridges proprietary PDF to open XML

Adobe has melded its Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML, updating its Acrobat family of PDF creation tools to version 6.0 in the process. The move encourages organisations to use XML to encode their business information which retaining the popular PDF format to ensure that information can, where appropriate, be shared and …

Software 7 Apr 2003, 10:01
Security glitch with SETI@home screensaver

Aliens not implicated in medium risk flaw

Dutch security researchers have discovered a set of security vulnerabilities with the popular SETI@home program. Various versions of the screensaver, which helps in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by analysing data captured by the world's largest radio telescope, is vulnerable to Information leakage and remotely …

Security 7 Apr 2003, 10:34
ATI unveils All-in-Wonder 9800 PRO TV-on-PC card

Reg Kit Watch Plus: Sony's 4x DVD+RW drive, and HP has a new iPaq in the works

Graphics ATI will release its latest All-in-Wonder graphics card, the 9800 Pro, this Spring, the company said today. Beyond upgrading its family of TV-on-a-PC cards to its top-end Radeon 9800 Pro graphics chip, the new All-in-Wonder will feature an on-screen home cinema configuration system, EazyLook. The Radeon 9800 sports a …

Personal 7 Apr 2003, 10:34
Backup and Recovery… er… what's that?

String and tape

"Backup and Recovery", the foundation of nearly all data management processes, continues to be overlooked in many organisations, according to a Storage Networking Industry Association Europe (SNIA-E) survey, writes Tony Lock, of Bloor Research. Between September 2002 and January 2003 the SNIA-E received 100 responses to a …

Storage 7 Apr 2003, 10:34
Dell to offer Broadcom 802.11a/g card

$69 mini-PCI upgrade

Broadcom has begun shipping what it claims is the first mini-PCI card to support both standard 802.11a and draft spec. 802.11g wireless networking for notebooks. Dell, for one, will today offer the three-chip card as an optional extra for certain Latitude notebooks, Broadcom said. It will offer the card as a $69 upgrade. It …

Wireless 7 Apr 2003, 11:18
Apache urges update ahead of DoS risk alert

Do something now! We'll tell you why later

The Apache Software Foundation has updated its popular Web server software to guard against a serious, as yet unspecified, denial of service risk. Users of version 2.x of the Web server on all platforms are urged to upgrade to version 2.0.45. Sites running 1.x aren't affected. Details of the problem, discovered by security …

Security 7 Apr 2003, 11:44
Nvidia to support 400MHz FSB Athlon XP with new chipset

AMD still mum

Nvidia has become the second company to say it will support AMD's 400MHz frontside bus Athlon XP - even though AMD itself has yet to announce such a chip. Last week, mobo maker Abit said its motherboards would support AMD's "latest 333MHz FSB CPUs, the Barton 2500+, 2800+, 2900+ and 3000+, as well as the 400MHz FSB Barton 3000 …

Channel 7 Apr 2003, 11:58
BT salvages new identity from corporate scrapheap

LogoWatch Hello John, got a new logo?

Telecom's monolith BT has moved with astonishing, Ferrari-like speed to produce a new logo to replace the universally-reviled prancing trumpet bloke, just recently muted. Company supremo Ben Verwaayen reckons the new logo represents "BT as being in-tune with the multimedia age". That makes sense, because it's none other than the …

Bootnotes 7 Apr 2003, 12:11
‘Adios Google’

Letters Readers repelled by PR subterfuge

: Re: Google News: press releases are OK - Official On Friday (April 4, 2003), Google confirmed that it included lobby group and corporate press releases as News, "but generally we don't lead with them". The reaction from readers, below, can be summed up as: "How did they think they could get away with it?" Revulsion and …

Letters 7 Apr 2003, 12:25
AntiCap lobby group calls for BB freedom

'What don't we want? Caps. When don't we want them? Now'

A new Internet lobby group has been launched committed to campaigning for unlimited broadband services. AntiCap UK wants to become the voice of all those Net users who get a rough ride from bully-boy broadband service providers. AntiCap was formed following the wave of protests that accompanied NTL's decision to cap its …

Telecoms 7 Apr 2003, 12:27
Al Jazeera and the Net – free speech, but don't say that

You can say what you like, so long as not too many people notice

Arabic satellite TV network Al Jazeera's efforts to build an English-language web site have run into another speed bump. Akamai Technologies, whose "Accelerated Networks can stand up to unpredictable traffic and flash crowds for even the largest events," fired Al Jazeera last week. Akamai issued a statement saying it had worked …

Music and Media 7 Apr 2003, 13:27
UpMyStreet is For Sale

Buy this Now!

No, we couldn't bring ourselves to write "titsup" in the headline. UpMyStreet, the brilliant UK info-by-postcode web site, has gone into administration, after funding talks fell through. Here is the press release. RSM Robson Rhodes is handling the sale of business assets, which include "new public sector solutions and …

Music and Media 7 Apr 2003, 14:07
Schools use SMS to fight truancy

Oi u ltl sh*t, get bk 2 skool now

Parents of kids playing hookey in Yorkshire are to be told their little darlings are skipping school - by text. A trial in the East Riding of Yorkshire will enable schools to broadcast texts from a PC to parents informing them of all the latest info from school. Text alerts could be about class closures or up-and-coming school …

Mobile 7 Apr 2003, 14:09
Security attacks jump in Q1

Updated The Slammer effect

Security incidents and attacks were up 36.6 per cent over the first three months of this year. According to security tool firm ISS' quarterly Internet Risk Impact Summary Report (IRIS) security attacks rose by a third from Q4 2002 to Q1 2003. Security attacks are up 84 per cent from Q3 2002 to Q1 2003, according to revised …

Anti-Virus 7 Apr 2003, 14:55
Symbian to unveil open source dev language at Expo

Here comes OPL for mobile phones

Symbian is expected to go live with the open sourcing of the OPL development language at the Symbian Developer Expo in London at the end of this month. OPL was the development language for Psion's range of handhelds prior to Symbian's arrival on the scene, but has suffered somewhat in the intervening period. Symbian's intention …

Mobile 7 Apr 2003, 15:00
RIM: bumper BlackBerry harvest

Still in the Red

Wireless email pioneer Research In Motion brought some cheer to the deflated mobile computing sector when the company revised its sales forecast after unexpectedly strong growth in users of its BlackBerry service. Recent agreements with several wireless technology vendors look set to boost Research In Motion's revenues even …

Mobile 7 Apr 2003, 15:26
FreeBB reports ‘change of emphasis’

Surprised? Us neither

FreeBB - the outfit which claimed it could offer punters "free broadband" in return for their loyalty - reports that it is having a "change of emphasis". According to its latest newsletter, 53 people have declined to take up the offer of a free broadband connection. Stunned by the lack of take-up, freebb.co.uk appears to be …

Telecoms 7 Apr 2003, 19:49
Verisign, nCipher tout hardware-based SSL certs

Security at a price

VeriSign and hardware encryption specialist nCipher are coming to market with hardware-based SSL Certificates, designed to boost protection against online data theft and Web site spoofing. The VeriSign Hardware Protected SSL Certificate, available from next month, proves that the private key associated with the certificate is …

Security 7 Apr 2003, 20:09
Unisys turns to the midrange

Xeons everywhere

Unisys has added to its server line with new 4-to-32 processor systems all geared up to run Windows Server 2003 and to give the company formidable hardware in the midrange. The two classic midrange systems are the ES7000 Aries 510 and 520 servers. The Aries 510 holds between 4 and 8 Xeon chips from Intel, supports one domain …

Servers 7 Apr 2003, 20:13