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2nd June 2003 Archive

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  • IT staff save bosses loadsastress

    And loadsadosh

    Many IT staff feel they are of little importance to their employers, even though they save the average UK SME £1.28 million a year by maintaining vital computer systems. On average, UK IT staff have to cope with 19 hours of downtime and spend 22 hours sorting out crashes and rescuing data each month, according to a survey …

    Small Biz 2 Jun 2003, 08:37

  • World chip sales static through April

    Up on last year, not on last month

    World semiconductor sales remained static during April, according to the latest sales figures released by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The headline-grabbing statistic is that April's sales were up 9.7 per cent on the same month last year, but with April 2003 seeing sales worth $12.1 billion, exactly the same …

    Channel 2 Jun 2003, 09:09

  • Wi-Fi Alliance ‘caught with pants down’ says chip maker

    Trojan Horse revisited

    The Register's Wireless LAN Channel Almost all the people who make Wi-Fi silicon chips have signed up to Cisco's new wireless networking standards, CCX - but not all of them have done so willingly. We interviewed one reluctant recruit, who thinks this is the biggest threat faced by the Wi-Fi Alliance so far. Our source is a …

    Wireless 2 Jun 2003, 09:29

  • Sharp goes clamshell for new PDAs

    Mini-keyboard

    As smart phones blur with PDAs, and PDAs in turn blur with laptops, what's a Tablet (writes Rob Bamforth, of Bloor Research)? Sharp Corporation has introduced two new models to add to its Zaurus Linux based organisers. In reality the SL-C750 and SL-C760 are two versions of the same unit, differing only in on-board memory, …

    Mobile 2 Jun 2003, 09:36

  • 802.11b chipset prices could fall 75% this year

    New suppliers buying their way into the market

    The Register's Wireless LAN Channel WLAN chips based on the 802.11b standard are set to get even cheaper as Taiwanese vendors start pushing low-cost wireless networking parts during the second half of the year. And 802.11g parts are expected to become rapidly less expensive now that the specification has to all intents and …

    Wireless 2 Jun 2003, 09:56

  • A Special Needs Class

    The Little Red Book of Computer Viruses

    The University of Calgary's new course in virus-writing begs the question: is it a cheap publicity stunt or just boneheaded educating, asks SecurityFocus columnist George Smith. Did you hear the one about the college professor and his virus-writers course? For the final exam students had to work up viruses that land them in …

    Malware 2 Jun 2003, 09:59

  • Polar Tech goes under after stock swiped

    Update Insurance payout came too late

    Award-winning Stockport, UK-based PC maker Polar Technology closed its doors on Friday, with the loss of 15 jobs, after almost all of the company's stock of PCs, notebooks, servers and components was stolen. An insurance payout expected promptly after the eight-year-old company was burgled failed to materialise leaving the …

    Channel 2 Jun 2003, 10:37

  • Gateway named in Fujitsu HDD class action suit

    Scope widened

    Gateway has been named a defendant in the class action launched by US legal firm Shepherd Finklemann Miller & Shah (SFMS) over allegedly dodgy hard drives produced by Fujitsu and sold by HP and others. The action centres on Fujitsu's MPG3xx family of drives. Last October, SFMS lodged its complaint with the US Supreme Court, …

    Personal 2 Jun 2003, 11:16

  • Wi-Fi makes a splash

    18 marinas hooked up

    The Register's Wireless LAN Channel Wi-Fi is taking to the waves. Eighteen marinas in the UK are being equipped to offer wireless Internet access. The service is being run by Square Mile International - a wireless ISP (WISP) - along with the UK-wide broadband Wi-Fi hot spot network, The Cloud. According to the PR fluff, it …

    Wireless 2 Jun 2003, 11:20

  • ATI to ship P4 chipset this month – analyst

    RS300 and RS300M coming soon

    ATI will ship its RS300 and RS300M Pentium chipsets with integrated graphics this month, Goldman Sachs has told its clients. ATI has held a Pentium 4 bus licence for some time. Back in March, it said it had licensed Intel's Pentium M bus, allowing it to offer chipsets that use the same processor as Intel's Centrino platform. …

    Channel 2 Jun 2003, 12:33

  • Intel's 3.2GHz Pentium 4 to ship 23 June

    Or maybe 16 June

    The 3.2GHz Pentium 4 will be launched by Intel on 23 June, sources familiar with the chip giant's plans have told Xbit Labs. Or maybe 16 June, as Intel may change its mind, the site suggests. It's all a matter of choosing the time with the maximum marketing impact, since the product itself is already shipping, apparently. The …

    Channel 2 Jun 2003, 13:09

  • Intel slashes Centrino prices by up to 30%

    Ships 1.7GHz Pentium M too

    Intel yesterday introduced a 1.7GHz Pentium M processor, as expected. It also cut the prices of the rest of the range by up to 34 per cent, which we'd suspected but had no firm evidence for. Intel also introduced a Low-voltage 1.2GHz Pentium M and a 1GHz Ultra-low Voltage part, again as we reported last week. The new chips are …

    Channel 2 Jun 2003, 13:12

  • VX writers release sequel to infamous Sobig worm

    Spoof from bill @ microsoft spreading rapidly

    Anti-virus firms are warning of the outbreak of yet another mass-mailing virus. Sobig-C, which spreads by email or (less commonly) network shares, has been intercepted more than 15,000 times since its first appearance on Saturday by message filtering outfit MessageLabs. This virus has now reached 'high level' outbreak status, …

    Malware 2 Jun 2003, 13:37

  • Archos ships ‘cinema-to-go’ mobile video player

    Reg Kit Watch Records movies too

    Handheld media player Archos has shipped its AV300 family of personal video players to the US retail channel, the company said today. The AV320 and AV340 - with 20GB and 40GB hard drives, respectively - sport a 3.8in, 320x240-pixel, 24-bit colour LCD. The machine uses MPEG-4 for video for "near DVD" quality playback. It also …

    Personal 2 Jun 2003, 13:51

  • Bargain Hosts ‘disappears’ thousands of sites

    Despite server fixes

    A punter angry at continued problems with Web hosting firm bargainhost.co.uk has set up a protest site to publicise his concerns. Ian Stacey's site was set up last week after he was left without email from or FTP access to a football supporters' site, Northern Canaries, hosted by bargainhosts.co.uk. More than a week on from the …

    Music and Media 2 Jun 2003, 14:04

  • 419 gang scam themselves into the slammer

    Dutch authorities take dim view of advance fee fraud

    Six 419 scammers were last week taken out of circulation by the Dutch courts who sentenced them to between 301 days and 4.5 years. They were also ordered to return £205,702 each to an unnamed victim. One Swiss professor - presumably he wrote his doctorate on complete stupidity - gave the gang $482,000 on the promise of a $9 …

    Music and Media 2 Jun 2003, 14:25

  • Tiscali boots off heavy users

    Carries out threat

    Tiscali UK is to boot off a bunch of heavy users tomorrow after they ignored requests to reduce their online usage to less than 150 hours a month. Earlier this month Tiscali amended its Ts&Cs to impose the cap on its AnyTime dial-up service. At the time it claimed that some people were using the service excessively and that …

    Music and Media 2 Jun 2003, 15:15

  • Dixons and Freeserve deny split

    Still talking

    Dixons has held secret talks with AOL and BT in a move that could signal the end of its close relationship with its former ISP, Freeserve. According to the Sunday Telegraph, Dixons has told Freeserve's French owner, Wanadoo, that it is pulling the plug on a joint venture that promotes Freeserve in Dixons' stores. If true, then …

    Channel 2 Jun 2003, 15:18

  • Fossil puts back Palm Wrist PDA launch to 2004

    MS SPOT-based alternative still on time?

    Smartwatch buffs eagerly awaiting the arrival later this month of their Palm OS-based Fossil Wrist PDA are going to be disappointed. The trendy timepiece company today admitted that the watch will now not ship until early next year, The Register has learned. The watch, which crams Palm OS 4.1, 33MHz Dragonball VZ, 4MB of memory …

    Personal 2 Jun 2003, 15:59

  • PeopleSoft plunks down $1.7bn for J.D. Edwards

    Consolidator

    PeopleSoft is to gobble up J.D. Edwards for $1.7 billion in shares. The two companies have combined annual revenues of $2.8 billion, which would rank second behind SAP in the enterprise applications market. The deal should help PeopleSoft expand its reach in the services and manufacturing industries. The two companies …

    Hardware 2 Jun 2003, 17:03

  • Next gen wireless data services leap like dachshund

    Cannibals sighted

    European consumers are shunning next generation wireless data services in their droves. Newly launched messaging services such as Multimedia Message Service (MMS) and Instant Messaging (IM) will not reach double-digit (10 per cent) penetration before 2007, according to market research firm In-Stat/MDR. The prospects for 3G …

    Mobile 2 Jun 2003, 17:43

  • Microsoft backs servers with billions

    Revs new storage OS

    Microsoft used the first day of its TechEd conference to announce a $1.7 billion investment in R&D for Windows Server products and a new version of its storage operating system. All told, Microsoft is throwing more than $2 billion at improving and promoting its server products. The $1.7 billion will go to bulking up the …

    Servers 2 Jun 2003, 21:13