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10th September 2003 Archive

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  • RIAA keeps 12-year-old quiet with $2,000 bill

    We showed her

    The RIAA took quick steps to blunt a public relations atrocity by agreeing to settle out of court with a 12-year-old girl accused of trading copyrighted songs. It took all of twenty-four hours for young Biggie Brianna to be hit with a lawsuit and then pay up for her alleged crimes. The youngster's mother has agreed to shell out …

    Music and Media 10 Sep 2003, 00:28

  • IBM refreshes server and storage products

    Momentum rising

    Fresh off a an impressive quarter for both its server and storage divisions, IBM is wasting no time upgrading kit in preparation for the rest of the year. First up, IBM has started selling its second Itanium 2-based server - the x382. The server has arrived a month late, but that's no surprise. IBM is a less than enthusiastic …

    Servers 10 Sep 2003, 03:48

  • Switching on PC is too technical for many users

    <dummy mode on>

    The results of a study released this week confirms what the world's BOFHs and sysadmins have known for ages: that users are a dangerous menace who should not be allowed near anything more advanced than a fridge. A staggering one in seven technologically challenged employees needs help even switching their computers on and off, …

    Small Biz 10 Sep 2003, 09:04

  • J2EE bigger than .NET in Europe

    Battle is far from over

    The fight to control the application development environment is far from over, according to the latest research from QNB Intelligence. The analyst firm interviewed 415 senior decision makers and influencers across Europe, and found that 75 per cent had adopted J2EE while 58 per cent had chosen Microsoft’s .NET for their …

    Hardware 10 Sep 2003, 09:12

  • Open Source Windows replacement, MPEG coming out of the East

    Highly feasible

    The Japan news daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun last week revealed that China, Japan, and Korea are planning to jointly develop a new open-source operating system aimed at replacing Microsoft's Windows, something that the Linux community has been trying to do for years. Given that most of the major Japanese firms feel enslaved in …

    Software 10 Sep 2003, 09:26

  • Sony to tie online music service into hardware

    Phones and stuff

    Sony lifted its skirt an inch this week to reveal the beginnings of a game plan on music, which is could potentially copy on film too, with its US head of Sony's entertainment operations telling journalists that Sony would launch its own online music services. Dubbed Net Music Download, the key messages were that it will launch …

    Music and Media 10 Sep 2003, 09:33

  • Dixons upbeat on summer sales

    Fan-tastic

    Dixons has reported better than expected trading figures for the summer. Although like-for-like sales in the UK were flat, some analysts had expected a drop in revenues. International like-for-like sales for the UK's biggest electrical goods retailer grew 3 per cent. Group retail sales for the 18 weeks to 6 September advanced …

    Channel 10 Sep 2003, 09:37

  • NY Times hacker surrenders, is released

    $250k bond

    SACRAMENTO, Calif.--A federal judge ordered Adrian Lamo released to his parents Tuesday afternoon, but barred the hacker from using computers, and ordered him to obtain full-time employment pending trial. Federal magistrate judge Gregory Hollows ordered Lamo released on a $250,000 bond, part of it secured by his parent's house …

    Security 10 Sep 2003, 09:59

  • Lack of rural broadband still a ‘challenge’ – eminister

    Big lever

    Getting affordable broadband to areas currently regarded as commercially unviable continues to be a "challenge", according to eminister Stephen Timms. But he's convinced that aggregating public sector demand will provide a big enough incentive for private sector companies to invest in bringing broadband to areas currently …

    Telecoms 10 Sep 2003, 11:29

  • 3Com cuts 1,000 jobs

    Outsourced

    3Com is to outsource manufacturing operations, a move which will see 1,000 staff lose their jobs Approximately 640 people will be made redundant with the closure of 3Com's Dublin, Ireland manufacturing facility, by the end of February 2004. Over the next six months, 3Com will hand over manufacturing for its enterprise …

    Data Networking 10 Sep 2003, 11:47

  • Rapid Group buys ailing Apple dealership

    Core Logic

    Rapid Group has bought the assets of rival Apple dealership Logic for an undisclosed sum. The company is taking on all of the Bournemouth-based reseller's engineering and sale staff, customer lists and name. Rapid CEO Garret Doyle told MacWorld that Logic had been unable to weather the Apple product drought of the summer. …

    Channel 10 Sep 2003, 12:58

  • Two Brits charged with releasing TK worm

    Conspiracy to crack

    Two British men were charged on Monday with conspiring to take over computers using malicious code. Jordan Bradley, 20, of Bates Avenue, Darlington, and Andrew Harvey, 22, of Scardale Way, Durham, are believed by the National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) to be members of an underground cracking group called the "Thr34t-Krew" …

    Malware 10 Sep 2003, 13:38

  • Camera phones tempt European handset buyers

    Sales up 166% last quarter

    Camera phones are beginning to revitalise the European cellphone market, bringing consumers back into shops to buy new handsets. So says market watcher Canalys, which today reported that shipments of camera phones jumped 166 per cent during the second quarter over the same period last year. Just under 3.9 million camera phones …

    Mobile 10 Sep 2003, 14:29

  • Microsoft and friends roll out new storage OS

    HP, Veritas first on board

    HP and Vertias have rushed to Microsoft's side to show their support the version 3.0 of the Windows Storage Server. Microsoft is delivering the NAS (Network Attached Storage) OS right on time. The company said earlier that it expected vendors to start shipping kit with the software in September, and sure enough they are. HP and …

    Storage 10 Sep 2003, 15:23

  • Businesses shun Wi-Fi, homes embrace it

    European laggards

    A new US-based study on Wi-Fi shows that it is more widely used in the home than in the workplace, but analysts say businesses will catch on. The survey of 2,500 people showed that 34 per cent of respondents used a wireless LAN (Local Area Network) at home compared to 27 per cent who used it at work. The sample for the study …

    Wireless 10 Sep 2003, 15:26

  • Japan and China clock up DSL growth

    46.7m DSL lines now hooked up

    Demand for high speed Net access in Japan and China is on the up accounting for almost half of all new DSL lines in the first six months of the year. In all, 10.7 million DSL lines were added in the six months to June 30, a growth rate of 30 per cent, with Japan and China accounting for 4.5 million new subscribers between them …

    Telecoms 10 Sep 2003, 15:31

  • Stiff sentences for biggest UK credit card fraudsters

    Three crooks jailed for 17 years

    The computer technician at the centre of Britain's biggest ever credit card fraud was yesterday jailed for nine years. Sunil Mahtani, 26, a former IT worker at Checkline plc, the firm that processed Heathrow Express's credit card transaction, pleaded guilty last week to downloading almost 9,000 credit card numbers from …

    Security 10 Sep 2003, 15:35

  • Cisco boosts SAN over WAN

    SDH interface

    Cisco yesterday unveiled technology that boosts its Fibre Channel-based storage-area-network (SAN)-extension services over Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH) wide area networks. The networking firm's SL-Series interface for its Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) steps up …

    Storage 10 Sep 2003, 15:53

  • Orange to launch Handspring Treo 600 next week

    Network operator will brand the device as its own

    Orange is to re-brand Handspring's next-generation smartphone, the Treo 600, as the Orange Treo 600, The Register has learned. The launch of the device is imminent - possibly as early as next week. Orange and Handspring announced last April that they were partnering to develop "future smartphones". In June, Orange reiterated …

    Mobile 10 Sep 2003, 16:20

  • SMEs don't know, don't care about broadband

    Why should they?

    Lack of understanding rather than lack of service availability is the biggest factor inhibiting broadband take-up among small and medium-sized firms in the UK. A whopping 80 per cent of small companies that can get broadband in their area have no plans to upgrade from dial-up Internet access during the next 12 months, a recent …

    Small Biz 10 Sep 2003, 16:25

  • Sobig-F is dead

    Good riddance

    The prolific Sobig-F virus stopped spreading today, marking the end of arguably the worst single email-borne viral epidemic to date. Managed services firm MessageLabs blocked the virus a staggering 16.5 million times during its month-long spread. At the height of the epidemic, one in 17 emails the firm scanned were viral (other …

    Malware 10 Sep 2003, 19:36

  • MS amends anti-Blaster fix

    Vulnerability deep, risk high

    Microsoft today issued an amended antidote to the Windows vulnerability infamously exploited by the Blaster worm. Today's fix for flaws with Microsoft's implementation of Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) within its Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) framework supersede a patch Redmond issued in July. It also replaces a fix ( …

    Malware 10 Sep 2003, 19:41

  • Music lobby frightens Congress with P2P kiddie-porn nightmares

    KaZaA promotes child rape

    The RIAA's vendetta against file sharing is entering a new phase, applying the taint of child pornography to foul the waters. Not content to sue twelve-year-old children, the music industry is now marshaling its flacks on Capitol Hill to stigmatize P2P technology as a vehicle of kiddie porn. The Senate Judiciary Committee held …

    Music and Media 10 Sep 2003, 20:01

  • Foundry pours Wi-Fi into melting pot

    Looking for an edge

    Foundry Networks has dipped a toe in the crowded wireless networking market with a line of 802.11a/b/g kit that is designed to work with its existing layer 2 and layer 3 edge switches. The firm's IronPoint wireless range, due to ship commercially next month, includes its IronPoint 200 IEEE 802.11a/b/g multi-mode access point, …

    Data Networking 10 Sep 2003, 20:07

  • First UK ruling under new email marketing regime

    Explicit consent confirmed

    A landmark decision published today confirms that you need to check for explicit consent before using a marketing list for an email campaign, even if you believe in good faith that the list comprises only those who opted to receive marketing. That is the view of the UK's Advertising Standards Authority, which today published …

    Small Biz 10 Sep 2003, 20:27