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20th November 2003 Archive

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  • Europe in Brief Telework hasn't taken off (D'oh!)

    Policy makers once envisaged that by the turn of the millennium most, if not all, clerical workers would be familiar with teleworking. That's hasn't happened, a University of Tampere (Finland) study concludes. Much like getting rid of paper in offices, escaping the constraints of time and space has proven difficult even with the …

    Music and Media 20 Nov 2003, 09:30

  • HP's big iron back in the black

    Servers, storage up but Alpha, NonStop decline

    After swimming in an ocean of red ink since the merger with Compaq, Hewlett Packard's enterprise system group recorded a profit of $106 million. Overall HP recorded pre-tax profits of $1.43 billion on revenue of $19.85 billion, largely powered by a billion dollar profit (on income of $6.2 billion) from the printing division, …

    Servers 20 Nov 2003, 09:31

  • Domain owner seeks to revolutionise Scottish legal system

    ‘Monopolistic’ Law Society of Scotland under pressure

    An aggrieved domain name owner has embarked on a campaign to revolutionise the Scottish legal system by ending the Law Society of Scotland’s “monopoly” on legal services. Tommy Butler - owner of Scottishlawyer.com as well as numerous other high-profile Scottish domains, including Glasgow.com - is hoping to force a change in the …

    Music and Media 20 Nov 2003, 09:33

  • BT and Vodafone named and shamed by Oftel

    top customer complaints table

    BT and Vodafone has been named and shamed by telecoms regulator Oftel for having the most customer complaints in Internet access and mobile services respectively. Measuring complaints made to Oftel between April and September this year, BT was the villain of the Internet with 0.7 complaints per 1,000 customers - nearly double …

    Telecoms 20 Nov 2003, 09:43

  • Cryptophone locks out snoopers

    For the paranoiac who has everything

    A German firm has launched a GSM mobile phone that promises strong end-to-end encryption on calls, preventing the possibility of anybody listening in. If you think that you'll soon be seeing this on the shelves of your local mobile phone shop though, think again. For a start, the Cryptophone sells for €1,799 per handset, which …

    Mobile 20 Nov 2003, 10:18

  • China unveils ‘DVD killer’ video disk format

    'HDTV quality'

    'If you can't join 'em, beat 'em' appears to be the maxim guiding the Chinese government's decision to fund the development of an alternative video disc standard to DVD. The specification detailing the new format, called EVD (Enhanced Video Disc), is now complete, and was formally presented in Beijing on Thursday to the Chinese …

    Personal 20 Nov 2003, 10:35

  • ‘Lost generation’ of bosses blamed for IT mediocrity

    Come on, say what you mean

    UK companies are wasting buckets of cash and throwing away the chance to compete in the world economy - and all because they're failing to make the most of their £50 billion a year investment in IT. It gets worse. There are dangers that much of the technology being used is creating headaches for staff, denting their morale. …

    Business 20 Nov 2003, 10:37

  • DTI builds SME data portal

    Strike up the band

    The Department of Trade and Industry yesterday brought all the Government's information services for UK small and medium-sized businesses under the umbrella of a single website. Business Link, the DTI-backed business advice service, fronts the site. Trade and industry Minister Jacqui Smith. said the site was created to help the …

    Small Biz 20 Nov 2003, 10:44

  • Martha Lane Fox leaves Lastminute

    Gone, but not forgotten

    Dotcom darling Martha Lane Fox is stepping down from lastminute.com, the company she co-founded. While the best-known name of the UK's dotcom era steps back from the day-to-day running of the business, she will still have close ties with the travel and gift outfit as a non-exec director and major shareholder. Ms Lane Fox will …

    Music and Media 20 Nov 2003, 10:59

  • Court limits in-car FBI spying

    But only because it crippled some safety features

    An appeals court this week put the brakes on an FBI surveillance technique that turns an automobile driver's on-board vehicle navigation system into a covert eavesdropping device, after finding that the spying effectively disables the system's emergency and roadside assistance features. The case arose from a 2001 FBI …

    Security 20 Nov 2003, 11:02

  • US railroad uses Wi-Fi to run ‘driverless’ trains

    World's biggest train set?

    The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) has found a novel use for Wi-Fi. It has started using the wireless networking technology to control trains remotely. BNSF locomotives carry freight across the continental US. However, it is using wireless technology to move units around its rail yards. It reckons the …

    Wireless 20 Nov 2003, 11:39

  • We reveal major UNIX™ IP violations

    Exclusive And it's SCO

    This week The SCO Group hinted that BSD distributions would be next under the Utah microscope. SCO carefully safeguards the intellectual property rights to UNIX™ and has demonstrated its willingness to defend them by suing IBM for $3 billion damages for letting this IP seep into Linux. SCO this week said it was "examining" the …

    Software 20 Nov 2003, 11:43

  • Symbian Q3 revenues dip

    Update As phone shipments slow

    Smartphone operating system company Symbian today opened up its books to offer the world a glimpse of its financial performance during the three months to 30 September, the company's third quarter. Symbian reported revenues of £9.4 million for the period, down both sequentially and year on year by 21 per cent and six per cent, …

    Mobile 20 Nov 2003, 12:01

  • AMD selects Dresden for 300mm plant

    Fab 36

    It's official: AMD has chosen Dresden as the location for its first 300mm wafer fab, next door to its 200mm Fab 30 plant. Fab 36, as the new facility will be known, is due to go into volume production in 2006, employing some 1,000 staff, AMD said. That's the main reason why the chip maker has received what CFO Bob Rivet called …

    Channel 20 Nov 2003, 12:18

  • US cybercrime push ‘imperils personal security’ of Americans

    Even the Serbians will look up your records

    White House plans to ratify a Council of Europe Cybercrime treaty will be a disaster for the privacy and security of Americans, Privacy International (PI), the human rights watchdog, claims. President Bush this week urged Senators to back the adoption of the mutual assistance Treaty into US law. The Treaty, designed to …

    Security 20 Nov 2003, 12:53

  • SanDisk delays Wi-Fi SD card Palm support to Q1 '04

    Technical and non-technical reasons

    SanDisk's highly-anticipated Palm OS drivers for its Wi-Fi SD card will not now ship until Q1 2004, the company has confirmed. A recent report on PDA-watching web site InfoSync World suggested that the drivers had been delayed until December. Originally scheduled for a summer release, SanDisk's Palm OS 5 drivers were in August …

    Mobile 20 Nov 2003, 13:59

  • IBM to add clock throttling tech to 90nm G5 chip

    PowerTune saves... er.. power

    IBM is adding Intel SpeedStep-style clock frequency and core voltage scaling technology to the 90nm version of its PowerPC 970 processor, aka the G5. IBM engineers will be discussing the technology, dubbed PowerTune, next February at the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Conference, scheduled to be held in San Francisco. According to …

    Mac Channel 20 Nov 2003, 15:09

  • Moratorium on RFID chips urged

    Supermarket sweep

    A clutch of consumer, privacy, and civil liberties groups is calling for a voluntary moratorium on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging. The 30 signatories to the petition are concerned about the privacy implications of RFID tags in consumer products. Tiny RFID tags can be embedded in all kinds of consumer products …

    Security 20 Nov 2003, 15:15

  • Check Point looks beyond the perimeter

    Joined-up security

    Check Point Software is to place greater emphasis on internal and Web security technology in future product development. The company is best known to date for its perimeter security VPN and firewall products. The thinking behind the revised product strategy is to supply Check Point with the means to deliver an integrated …

    Security 20 Nov 2003, 15:27

  • O2 launches digital music player

    Reg Kit Watch And a UK music download service, too

    Forget about downloading songs to your PC, mobile phone network: O2 wants you to use your mobile phone. And just as you might transfer songs from your computer to a portable player, O2 has introduced the Digital Music Player (DMP) to beam your phone-found tracks too. And it has launched an online music service to keep the …

    Personal 20 Nov 2003, 15:43

  • US agencies arrest 125 in Operation Cyber Sweep

    Net fraud crackdown

    A massive US crackdown on Net fraud has led to the arrest or conviction of 125 people, according to a statement by American law enforcement groups issued today. The crackdown - dubbed Operation Cyber Sweep - brings together more than 100 investigations in which more than 125,000 victims worldwide are believed to have lost in …

    Security 20 Nov 2003, 21:51

  • Yahoo! shatters! world! yodelling! record!

    Swiss and Germans no match for American might

    It's clear that relations between Yahoo! and yodelling cowboy Wylie Gustafson are even better than we previously reported. To recap, Gustafon threatened to sue after Yahoo! used his trademark yodel for its ads. They later kissed and made up, and today this loving relationship pretty well turned into a full-blown marriage as the …

    Bootnotes 20 Nov 2003, 21:52