3rd November 2003 Archive
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September world chip sales rise 6.5%
Accelerating growth
The chip business' fortunes have cycled round to a more positive time, if the latest figures from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) are anything to go by. The each month's increase in sales over the previous month does appear to be accelerating. September's worldwide chip sales totalled $14.4 billion, up 6.5 per cent …
Channel 3 Nov 2003, 10:07
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Why Spamcop got yanked
Joker.com hiccup
Anyone who tried reporting spam to the popular Spamcop service this weekend got a nasty surprise. The site had bizarrely disappeared. And no, it wasn't a server outage. Joker.com, the German service that registered the Spamcop.net domain name, decided to yank the Spamcop.net domain name from its database, citing false Whois …
Music and Media 3 Nov 2003, 10:23
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Thus ups revs, narrows losses
'Steady trajectory'
Thus, the Scottish telecoms outfit behind the Demon Internet brand, reckons it's on course to make some cash. For the six months to the end of September, turnover was up 10 per cent to £157.5 million, compared to £143 million last year. At the same time, Thus narrowed its pre-tax loss by 67 per cent to £10.2 million - down …
Business 3 Nov 2003, 10:25
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Dangerous Mimail variant knocks over anti-spam sites
Updated Noxious viral variants plague PC users
AV vendors are warning of the spread of a dangerous worm, called Mimail-C, which offers racy pictures but delivers only fresh misery for credulous Windows users. Another variant, Mimail-D, which attempts to DDoS anti-spam sites, is also causing considerable Net disruption. Mimail-C normally spreads through email using its own …
Malware 3 Nov 2003, 10:27
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Apple blames Oxford for Firewire data loss bug
And Oxford blames drive vendors...
Apple and 1394 chip maker Oxford Semiconductor are each blaming others for data lost when some Mac users upgraded to Mac OS X 10.3, aka Panther, in the week following its release on 24 October. The problem emerged on official and third-party support forums early last week, when users who had upgraded to Panther while their …
Mac Channel 3 Nov 2003, 10:34
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Mobile operators as content providers
Analysis Risky business
We are all now familiar with the dilemma faced by the mobile operators – revenue from traditional cellphone services is slowing, despite the boost from camera phones and mobile email, just as carriers are trying to pay off the huge capital investment in 3G. And to make matters worse, software houses, content owners and handset …
Mobile 3 Nov 2003, 10:36
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Switch start-ups turn to WLAN security
But shake-out looms
The anticipated shake-out in the overcrowded wireless LAN switch market shows signs of starting, with the star of the sector, Vivato, making yet more cutbacks and Trapeze laying off more than one-third of its workforce. The market has become packed with start-ups in the past year, far too many to survive, especially with Cisco …
Wireless 3 Nov 2003, 10:51
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El Reg seals TechnoDepot apparel pact
Cash'n'Carrion Tech-savvy shirts for discerning geeks
Injecting a little bit of sunshine into a blustery November is the news that Reg shop Cash'n'Carrion has signed a landmark deal to sell TechnoDepot apparel. TechoDepot's range will more than satisfy those who like their t-shirts both in black and with a snappy tech-savvy slogan, to wit: Binary - "There are 10 types of people …
Site News 3 Nov 2003, 11:30
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MS to intro hardware-linked security for AMD64, Itanium, future CPUs
NX technology becomes the standard from XP SP2
Microsoft is to introduce hardware-linked security technology with Windows XP Service Pack 2, and beyond that will make "additions to Windows" supporting the technology, execution protection (NX). The feature is already supported by shipping AMD K8 and Intel Itanium processor families, and according to Microsoft: "It is expected …
Software 3 Nov 2003, 11:38
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A dossier on every UK citizen?
Bureaucratic creep fears over life records plan
The Government plans to establish a database of life records which could be used to create a dossier on everyone in the country, privacy advocates fear. The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) has called on the Government to ensure that a new electronic database of life events - births, marriages, deaths etc. - …
Music and Media 3 Nov 2003, 11:38
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Amazon hobbles full text search
No more printing
Amazon.com quietly changed its recently introduced book-searching feature, following concerns by some authors that users could also print out several pages surrounding the places where the phrase appears. Printing is now disabled. On October 23, the Internet retailer introduced a new feature called Search Inside the Book, which …
Music and Media 3 Nov 2003, 11:54
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Drivers ignorant about mobile phone law
Huh?
Almost half of UK drivers are still clueless that from next month using a hand-held mobile phone while driving will be illegal. The survey from the Association of British Drivers (ABD) and hands-free kit maker, JABRA, supports research from a leading motoring organisation last month which revealed widespread ignorance …
Mobile 3 Nov 2003, 12:35
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Brazilian script kiddie arrested in Japan
'Member of Cyber Lord' defacement gang
A Brazilian teenager has been arrested in Japan last Friday on suspicion of membership of an international hacking group. Japanese police believe the unnamed 17 year-old is an active member of a gang of Web site defacers called Cyber Lords, which is blamed for the defacement in recent months of 1,032 Web sites in 33 countries …
Security 3 Nov 2003, 13:29
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Freeserve loses AOL VAT case
Oh well
Freeserve has lost its long-running campaign to force AOL to pay VAT in the UK. The High Court dismissed an attempt by Freeserve to challenge HM Customs and Excise's decision not to charge VAT on AOL's Internet service in the UK. The High Court also turned down Freeserve's bid to appeal the decision. The rulings - handed out …
Music and Media 3 Nov 2003, 14:47
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Vodafone slashes IT contractor rates
Lops off 10 per cent
Vodafone today confirmed it is to slash cIT ontractor pay rates from the end of this week. A Vodafone spokesman told The Register that "some contractor pay rates" will be reduced by 10 per cent. Pay rates have been "adjusted to reflect current market rates", he added. Last week Vodafone sent out a memo to contractors (copy …
Small Biz 3 Nov 2003, 14:49
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All the stupid people. Where do they all come from?
Opinion Campaign to Re-Educate the Public
Microsoft's best chance for regaining the revenue lost to security concerns isn't in eliminating bugs, writes SecurityFocus columnist Tim Mullen. Two years ago I wrote about how security would become critical to the success of Microsoft, and how the challenge of combining "simplicity and security" would represent the highest …
Security 3 Nov 2003, 15:14
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HP pads Itanium server line with midrange kit
Midrange Unix under Itanic attack
It took a while, but HP now has an Itanium-based server replacement for just about every PA-RISC box it sells. On Monday, HP added two new midrange servers to its Itanium line - the eight processor rx7620 and the 16 processor rx8620. These systems fill a gap between the 1- to 4-way and 64-way Itanium servers already on sale …
Servers 3 Nov 2003, 15:39
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8.5GB DVD+R discs, drives to ship April '04
Dual-layer technology
Expect double-layer, almost double-capacity DVD+R drives and media to hit the stores next April, members of the DVD+RW alliance say. The technology, co-developed by drive maker Philips, and media specialists Verbatim and Mitsubishi Kagaku, adds a second recording layer to a standard-thickness DVD+R disc, taking the medium's …
Personal 3 Nov 2003, 15:40
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College kids are thieves, thieves, thieves
FoTW Software recidivists
Re: College students care more about beer than software Well, well, well... If it isn't A$$lee beating the old software Piracy drum again???? SOS DD huh, ASSlee??? Your implied attitude that stealing of software by college students is no big deal is nothing new now is it A$$lee. Interestingly the BSA's report sounds an …
Letters 3 Nov 2003, 15:50
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Vodafone adds Blackberry to mobile office offerings
Email on the move
Mobile phone carrier Vodafone will begin offering an own-branded version of RIM's Blackberry 7230 handheld to European businesses later this month. The device - and the back-end systems that connect corporate Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino or vanilla POP servers to Vodafone's GPRS network - will be positioned alongside …
Mobile 3 Nov 2003, 16:18
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Microsoft picks IBM as Xbox 2 processor partner
PowerPC or x86?
Microsoft has signed up IBM to manufacture chips for the "future" generations of its Xbox console. According to a statement offered by both companies, Microsoft has "licensed leading-edge processor technology from IBM for use in future Xbox products and services to be announced at a later date". That's the same language used …
Personal 3 Nov 2003, 16:28
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Draft ID card bill slips into Queen's speech
Keeping options open
A draft bill to introduce ID cards in the UK is expected to be included in the Queen's speech later this month. Although the move keeps the government's options open, the Sunday Times reports that it is increasingly unlikely that ID cards will be brought in before the next general election. Instead, the paper sees the scheme …
Security 3 Nov 2003, 16:32
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MPs take aim at eBay in gun smuggling report
Warning
Guns are being smuggled into the UK using online auction sites such as eBay, according to a report by MPs due out this week. Although the sale of weapons is illegal on eBay, the report is expected to say that villains are getting round the barriers by buying component parts, such as barrels, firing mechanism and triggers. …
Music and Media 3 Nov 2003, 16:34
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Intel ships $925 Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
Extremely expensive
Intel today released its Pentium 4 Extreme Edition - the exceptionally expensive gamer-oriented version of the chip giant's desktop processor - as we reported last week. As anticipated, the chip will cost $925 a throw. The chip is clocked to 3.2GHz and features 2MB of on-die L3 cache alongside its 512KB L2 cache. Like other …
Channel 3 Nov 2003, 16:44
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New Gov.UK Plans Off to Bad Start
Carry on regardless
Whitehall plans to encourage businesses to compete with Government to offer citizens eGov services are to go ahead - despite an official, three-month consultation attracting just one response from the general British public. The lack of citizen input into the Office of the e-Envoy's proposals has emerged only through analysis …
Music and Media 3 Nov 2003, 19:35
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Reg Review PalmOne Treo 600 smartphone
Handspring's second generation smartphone is a marvel of good hardware and human interface design. It's a GSM/GPRS (or CDMA 1x) phone with built-in camera, QWERTY buttons and stylus, that's backward compatible with the vast selection of PalmOS 5.0 software, and features an SD/MMC expansion slot. While the Treo 600 doesn't have …
Reviews 3 Nov 2003, 20:24
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AMD claims Microsoft delays are not ‘substantial’
Who needs 95 per cent of the market
After watching Microsoft cast AMD's 64-bit processor line to the backwoods of the Windows release cycle, you have to ask - did Jerry Sanders do enough? Two weeks ago Microsoft dropped a bomb. It pushed the first Windows Server 2003 Service Pack back to the second half of 2004. And along with the Service Pack go new versions of …
Servers 3 Nov 2003, 22:06
