The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

22nd October 2003 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Amazon posts slim profit without Santa's help

    Foreign cash puts store in black

    Amazon.com's overseas operations did their part in the third quarter, helping the company to its first ever quarterly profit not aided by holiday sales. Amazon posted $1.13 billion in net sales for the period ended Sept. 30. This is a 33 percent increase over the $851 million posted in the same quarter a year ago. The sales …

    Business 22 Oct 2003, 00:09

  • Google part-restores baseball blockage

    Letters Do you like to Watch?

    It might now be simply a vast advertising franchise, but Google Inc. still cares about the little piece of technology which once give it its reputation: its search engine [*]. Although struggling of late, Google has applied some more stickly plaster to the cranky machine, and given baseball fans in London something to cheer. …

    Music and Media 22 Oct 2003, 00:10

  • Adieu California – Intel CEO

    Barrett slams the Golden State

    Continuing a remarkably frank series of speeches, Intel's leadership now doubts that continued investment by the company in California plant is viable. "We're investing outside California," said CEO Craig Barrett. Asked if he could justify further expenditure on manufacturing facilities in the Golden State, at an industry …

    Business 22 Oct 2003, 02:00

  • Sony to ship PSX for $750

    PS2 meets TiVO

    Sony will offer its PSX PlayStation-cum-personal video recorder for under $800, the consumer electronics giant said yesterday. Two models will ship later this year in Japan, one with a 160GB hard drive, the other with 250GB of hard disk storage - the latter enough to hold 13 and a half days' worth of TV programming, and both …

    Personal 22 Oct 2003, 08:27

  • NTL staff in ‘white powder’ scare

    False alarm

    Ten NTL workers from Guildford were rushed to hospital yesterday following the discovery of unidentified white powder in a package. Emergency services - along with CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear)-trained officers - attended the scene before cordoning off the cableco's offices. Staff who came in contact …

    Telecoms 22 Oct 2003, 08:30

  • Microsoft launches self-destructing email (false)

    Urban myth gets disavowed

    An urban myth has grown up around today’s launch of Microsoft Office 2003 which suggests that the product features technology that allows embarrassing emails to “self destruct” after a specified time period. If you believe early reports, the inclusion of an Information Rights Management technology within Microsoft Office 2003 …

    Software 22 Oct 2003, 08:44

  • Sagem springs hotspot in a box

    Home brew

    The Wi-Fi revolution seems to have been fought from the ground up, writes Rob Bamforth of Bloor Research. War chalking, hitching a ride on unprotected corporate wireless LANs. It all seems very subversive. The truth is somewhat different. Like other ideas before it - radio, home computers, the Internet, cybercafes - wireless …

    Wireless 22 Oct 2003, 09:05

  • Egg to cut 70 jobs

    Holds talks about future of French ops

    Egg is to cut 70 London jobs before the end of the year, reducing the Internet bank's UK headcount to around 1,700. The restructuring will cost £5m and produce annual cost savings of £7m. Egg today reported an operating profit of £20 million in Q3. Elsewhere, Egg responded to mounting speculation that the bank intends to cut …

    Business 22 Oct 2003, 09:56

  • Typical child porn user is white male IT pro

    Oh dear

    The typical British consumer of child pornography, is a white male professional, probably working in IT. An survey of 200 child porn suspects caught by the Thames Valley police in Operation Viola revealed that every one was male and no-one came from an ethnic minority. As the Thames Valley is the heartland of the computer …

    Music and Media 22 Oct 2003, 10:25

  • Toshiba PDA to offer VGA screen

    Quadruples traditional Pocket PC screen size

    Toshiba's next Pocket PC PDA will take a leaf out of Palm's book by offering a large format LCD display bigger than anything seen on the platform to date. The e805 will sport a 480 x 640 screen, according to a number of US and Taiwanese web sites. Traditionally, Pocket PCs offer a display offering a quarter of that resolution, …

    Mobile 22 Oct 2003, 11:06

  • How to beat the 419 scammers

    Money for nothing, chicks for free

    So you think those wacky Nigerians who promise you compensation for assistance in moving funds from foreign countries to banks in Europe, are operating from scruffy cyber-cafes in Lagos? Think again. When the police last year raided a flat in the Amsterdam suburb of Bijlmer as part of an investigation, they couldn't believe …

    Music and Media 22 Oct 2003, 11:18

  • Fujitsu HDD fiasco to end in $42.5m pay-out

    Defendants settle out of court

    Lawyers fighting a class action brought against Fujitsu, HP, Gateway and others over allegedly faulty hard drives have successfully forced the defendants to settle out of court. The settlement centres on the foundation of a $42.5 million pool of cash to be used to pay "any consumers and other end users who bought certain …

    Personal 22 Oct 2003, 11:44

  • Ballmer on why Windows is more secure than Linux

    A trip to Disneyland

    Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer yesterday defended the company's record on security, arguing that, contrary to popular opinion, Windows was easier to secure than its open source rivals. During a showpiece Interview with analysts during Gartner's ITXpo in Orlando, Ballmer went as far as suggesting data from security …

    Software 22 Oct 2003, 13:11

  • Microsoft: no Office party

    Opening the throttle

    Microsoft has opened the throttle on marketing the latest edition of Office, now tightly integrated with various collaborative and server products via XML. Office 2003 also introduces Microsoft's first application-level Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, Information Rights Management (IRM) restricting who can copy, read, …

    Software 22 Oct 2003, 13:11

  • Open Text: big, bigger, biggest

    Now is the winter of our content

    Canadian software maker Open Text is offering a friendly bid of around $233 million to buy Ixos Software. By merging, the two companies hope to create the world's largest enterprise content management software vendor, and defend their positions against their fast-growing rivals. If its proposed acquisition of Ixos goes through …

    Hardware 22 Oct 2003, 13:12

  • WiFi hotspots top 45,000

    The quickening

    The number of WiFi hotspots in the world is set to double this year, according to Pyramid Research. At the end of last year there were fewer than 20,000 hotspots dotted around the world. At the end of 2003 figure there will be in excess of 45,000, Pyramid says.. The pace of deployment has quickened in the last three months, …

    Wireless 22 Oct 2003, 13:16

  • Palm settles legal challenges to Handspring takeover

    Way open for next week's shareholder vote

    Handspring and Palm have persuaded two litigants to settle out of court legal action brought against Handspring. Both cases centre on Palm's acquisition of Handspring, which the plaintiffs - Kathleen Goldhirsch and, separately, Varant Majarian - clearly objected to the deal, almost certainly because they believe it undervalues …

    Mobile 22 Oct 2003, 13:24

  • Archos launches modular MP3 player

    Reg Kit Watch Plus: O2 names the XDA II release date

    MP3 Players Archos has introduced a pair of portable music players that can be customised to better reflect the user's needs. One of them, the Gmini 220, is the world's smallest player with a 20GB hard drive, Archos claimed. The Gmini 120 and 220 essentially allow the user to bolt on a series of accessory modules, including a …

    Personal 22 Oct 2003, 13:47

  • UK banks and police proffer anti-phishing advice

    Beware of the two-tiered email scam

    The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) and the UK banking industry today issued guidelines to help consumers protect themselves against Internet fraudsters. The advice was prompted by a two-tiered email scam that has emerged in the past two months. The first part of the scam involves emails being sent to UK consumers claiming …

    Security 22 Oct 2003, 13:53

  • Apple updates iBook with G4 CPU

    At last

    Apple has at long last upgraded its iBook family to the G4 processor, ending months of speculation that new G3-class processors from IBM - the PowerPC 750GX - would continue to drive the consumer-oriented notebook line As before, two models are on offer, one with a 12in screen, the other with a 14in display. The 12in version …

    Mac Channel 22 Oct 2003, 14:02

  • IT upturn on its way – Gartner

    'bout time too

    The much-talked about IT recovery is on its way, Gartner says. According to Michael Fleisher, CEO of the analyst firm, more and more corporate IT managers plan to replace aging equipment, apply new technologies to improve efficiency, and pursue new opportunities created by advances in open-source software and wireless …

    Business 22 Oct 2003, 14:08

  • SuSE opens up to Outlook users with Openexchange 4.1

    I can see your task

    With the latest version of its Openexchange server, SuSE Linux is making it a little bit easier for Microsoft Outlook users to work with their open source comrades. Version 4.1 of SuSE's collaboration product will, for the first time, let Outlook users tap into calendar and contact information as well as access documents stored …

    Servers 22 Oct 2003, 15:33

  • Yahoo! sets decoy email traps for spammers

    Cut and run

    Yahoo! has rolled out email enhancements and tools that enable users to set up hundreds of disposable decoy addresses, which if compromised by spammers and swamped by junk mail, can be deleted without affecting the primary account. In much the same way that good old-fashioned pop3 accounts have long allowed users to set up …

    Music and Media 22 Oct 2003, 15:33

  • HP and Microsoft flog NAS to small.biz

    As you do

    HP and Microsoft have teamed up to flog network attached storage (NAS) products and services to the burgeoning, but notoriously difficult to target European small and medium-sized business sector. The snappily titled "Easy as NAS" programme will offer storage advice to smaller organisations, which typically do not have large - …

    Storage 22 Oct 2003, 15:40

  • Email snooping custody battle woman escapes jail

    DivorcE-mail

    An Arizona woman who intercepted the email of her husband's ex-wife has been sentenced to 60 days home detention. Angel Lee, 28, admitted snooping on at least 215 emails sent over a two month period last year to Duongladde Ramsay, former spouse of Lee's husband, Jeffrey. Lee, from El Mirage in Arizona, was able to spy on …

    Music and Media 22 Oct 2003, 16:16

  • BT confirms 1Mbps launch

    Prices, dates etc

    BT today confirmed the wholesale pricing for its new 1Mbps ADSL service, which becomes commercially available from November 20. The wholesale connection charge for this self-install product has been set at £50 - although existing BT ADSL punters should be able to upgrade for £35. The wholesale fee for the BT IPStream Home 1000 …

    Telecoms 22 Oct 2003, 16:25

  • HP e3000 users join World Wide Wake

    Collective cry on Oct. 31

    HP e3000 users the world over are set to console each other and put the venerable product into the grave as part of a giant, shared wake. Many tears were shed when HP announced that the e3000 would meet its maker at the end of this month. But loyal fans of the product will meet on Oct. 31 at bars and restaurants around the …

    Servers 22 Oct 2003, 16:29

  • Microsoft Office 2003 hits the streets

    Information rights management

    The latest version of Microsoft's Office suite, Office 2003, has hit the streets. It incorporates improved collaborative and server products underpinned with XML compatibility. Office 200 lacks dramatic improvements to the core systems elements such as Word or Excel, but it debuts Microsoft's first application-specific Digital …

    Software 22 Oct 2003, 16:36

  • Georgia runs from the MATRIX

    The proles are safe but pederasts must fend for themselves

    The state of Georgia has pulled out of the U.S. Department of Justice sponsored MATRIX information collection program, leaving data only on its felons and sexual offenders behind in the Orwellian database. Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has cited both privacy concerns and costs as the two key reasons the state will no longer …

    Security 22 Oct 2003, 19:52

  • Opera in minor security drama

    It ain't over till the buffer overflow is fixed...

    Opera users are advised to update their browser software following the announcement of a potentially serious security problem this week. Vulnerable versions of the Opera browser (prior to v7.21) are subject to a heap buffer overflow vulnerabilities that can cause the browser to crash when rendering certain HREFS. Security …

    Security 22 Oct 2003, 20:07

  • Sun ready to link Solaris x86 boxes into the SAN

    Emulex on board

    Sometimes a host bus adapter driver is more than just a host bus adapter driver. Such is the case with a new set of Emulex HBA drivers geared for Sun Microsystems' Solaris x86 operating system. It's not often that an HBA driver announcement will jump out from the stack of marketing e-mails churning though our in-box. Storage …

    Servers 22 Oct 2003, 20:24

  • Lucent posts first Q profit in three years

    But sales still falling

    Lucent Technologies has posted a profit - its first in more than three years. After 13 straight quarterly losses dating back to March 2000, the beleaguered telecoms equipment maker recorded profits of $77 million, or $0.02 per share, for the three months to 30 September. Same quarter last year, Lucent posted a loss of $2.88 …

    Data Networking 22 Oct 2003, 20:58

  • Sun and Fujitsu to combine Unix server businesses – report

    Match made in SPARC

    Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu are to combine their server businesses as early as 2004, according to a report out of Japan. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun is reporting that Sun and Fujitsu plan to standardize their Unix server architectures and have a Fujitsu subsidiary manufacture the gear. Both companies currently make Sparc/Solaris …

    Servers 22 Oct 2003, 21:29