10th July 2003 Archive

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RFID spy-chippers leak confidential data on the Web

And they want to track your every move

Public relations flacks eager to win the public over to the benefits of mass RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip proliferation have ironically managed to leave their own confidential plans unprotected on the Web. An outfit called CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) discovered the trove …

Security 10 Jul 2003, 07:23
Yahoo! posts! record! quarter!

Success! Success! Success!

Advertising money is coming back, and Yahoo! could not be more excited, as the company hit record profit marks in its second quarter. Yahoo saw revenue rise to $321.4 million in the period ended June 30. This is a 42 percent jump over the $225.8 million posted in the same quarter a year ago and marks the most revenue for a …

Business 10 Jul 2003, 07:26
Legato: EMC supplies lifeline

Was there a bidding war?

EMC has confirmed its long-rumored intention to buy Legato Systems, announcing a $1.3 billion stock swap for the storage management and backup software supplier. A lifeline for struggling Legato, the deal will help EMC reach its aim of seeing around a third of revenue come from software by 2004. Leading storage vendor EMC is …

Storage 10 Jul 2003, 07:34
IE bugs keep coming

Patch Redmond

Microsoft issued a patch Wednesday for a critical vulnerability in most versions of Windows that gives attackers remote control of a user's machine though Internet Explorer. But if the results of a new survey are any guide, most users won't install it. The bug is a buffer overflow in an HTML conversion library used by a number …

Security 10 Jul 2003, 07:42
Sherwood accepts Sungard offer

Trading update

Sherwood International's board has accepted a 140p a share cash offer from Sungard Data Systems which values the UK insurance software company at £65.1m. Sungard is to combine Sherwood with its own insurance system business. The US company derives more than half of its $2.3bn annual turnover from selling software to the finance …

Channel 10 Jul 2003, 08:52
Kingston targets gamers with 500MHz DDR

World first, apparently

Memory specialist Kingston Technology yesterday began offering memory modules based on 466MHz and 500MHz DDR SDRAM. The latter, built to meet PC4000 specifications, is the first of its kind, Kingston claims. The lower-clocked part is a PC3700 module. DDR is typically clocked to 400MHz for inclusion in PC3200 modules. Kingston …

Channel 10 Jul 2003, 09:39
Ali chipset targets 800MHz FSB Pentium 4

No Serial ATA, no worries

ALi has launched a North Bridge part that supports the Pentium 4's 800MHz effective bit rate frontside bus, courtesy of the company's ULi subsidiary. The chip, dubbed the M1683, provides support for up to 400MHz DDR SDRAM - installed on no more than three modules - in a single-channel configuration. It also provides an AGP 8x …

Channel 10 Jul 2003, 10:07
RIAA sues Spanish music site

Out of tune

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said Wednesday it has filed a lawsuit against the Spanish company Puretunes.com, claiming the service had defrauded its customers into believing that its service was licensed by record labels. Puretunes disappeared last month without any explanation, leaving behind many …

Music and Media 10 Jul 2003, 10:26
Rambus renames Yellowstone as XDR DRAM

Faster, cheaper than DDR, developer claims

Rambus has rebranded its Yellowstone memory interface technology. From now on, the system will be known as XDR, the company said today. Yellowstone licensees Toshiba and Elpida said they will ship XDR-branded DRAM. Yellowstone/XDR operates at 3.2GHz, providing eight times the bandwidth of what Rambus dubs is today's "best-in- …

Channel 10 Jul 2003, 10:34
Sony recalls 18,000 Vaios

We're shocked. Shocked!

Sony is to recall 18,000 Vaio laptops capable of giving their owners a very mild electric shock. The company blames a dodgy modem. The model fitted with this little shocker is the FV (or FVR if you bought it in the States). The units due for recall are mostly in Japan, - around 13,000, with another 3,000 and 2,000. Repairs and …

Personal 10 Jul 2003, 10:51
BT sets trigger level for 500 more exchanges

Groovy

BT set broadband demand trigger levels for another 500 exchanges (PDF list) today. Revised targets mean means 56 exchanges will go straight into BT's ADSL upgrade programme, after enough local people expressed interest through the monster telco's demand registration scheme to meet required trigger levels. Cost saving and …

Telecoms 10 Jul 2003, 10:56
AMD to replace Duron with Athlon FX?

No dilution of Athlon XP brand

Farewell, Duron. Hello, Athlon FX. That's the name AMD will adopt for its future low-end processors, if unnamed sources cited by DigiTimes are anything to go by. The Athlon FX will be based on the Thorton core, essentially a version of the top-end Athlon XP's Barton core with half the cache: 256KB instead of 512KB. Said …

Channel 10 Jul 2003, 10:57
Sun: Rave on over to the other side

'Visual-style' JDE

Sun's Rave environment will face competition from several similar products. But worse, it could actually help competitors succeed at Sun's expense. Sun hopes to grow the community of developers building applications with Java in Rave, but these individuals might be quickly filtered away to rivals' Java platforms. Sun …

Hardware 10 Jul 2003, 11:59
Bill Gates tops email hoax list

Unwilling daddy of useless chain mails

Bill Gates isn't only the richest man in the world - he's also the subject of more email chain letters, virus hoaxes and scams than any other person or subject on the planet. The Bill Gates fortune email chain letter tops a list of hoaxes compiled by AV vendor Sophos. Despite the frankly ludicrous claim that the Microsoft's …

Music and Media 10 Jul 2003, 16:31
HP sends SMI-S invite to partners

Be open with us

HP has kicked off a new developer program designed to make it easier for storage software partners to design and promote SMI-S code for HP storage gear. On some levels, the HP SMI-S Developers Program seems a bit redundant. The SMI-S standard - formerly called Bluefin - was created by SNIA (Storage Networking Industry …

Storage 10 Jul 2003, 16:33
Prescott to clock higher at launch than anticipated

Intel roadmap confirms recent reports

Prescott, the next generation of Pentium 4, is likely to debut at a higher clock speed than previously anticipated, if the latest leaked Intel roadmap is adhered to by the chip giant. The leaked roadmap, sent this time to Cnet,, pegs Prescott at 3.4GHz rather than 3.2GHz, ramping up to 3.6GHz during Q1 2004. The chip, which …

Channel 10 Jul 2003, 16:43
PS2 gaming service browser hacked

Access any site, not just Sony's

A PlayStation 2 owner has figured out how to access non-Sony web pages using the browser software provided with the console's online gaming service. The PS2 typically points to a Sony server, and displays pages minus the web navigation tools computer owners are accustomed to using to surf the Net. Brook's self-confessed "hack" …

Personal 10 Jul 2003, 17:19
Intel's Tanglewood pumped full of DEC Alpha goodness

Bannon's dream lives on

Intel's recent hiring of Alpha guru Peter Bannon has helped provide a clearer picture as to what the Tanglewood processor will look like. A old Compaq presentation (.PPT) authored by Bannon gives a nice indication of where Tanglewood's future may lie. Bannon, after all, is Mr. Tanlgewood so his interests in integrated memory …

Servers 10 Jul 2003, 21:32
London police quiz suspected US DoE cracker

'Music downloads'

An 18 year-old Londoner suspected of commandering US Department of Energy computers to store illicitly obtained music and video files was arrested and questioned by police yesterday. Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Computer Crimes Unit were asked to investigate unauthorised access to 17 unclassified computers at a US …

Music and Media 10 Jul 2003, 21:39