12th December 2003 Archive

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The Death Star storms into consumer Net phones

AT&T bring VoIP home

VoIP pioneers such as Vonage Inc, which boasts 75,000 pretty happy users, have been touted as revolutionary upstarts which would mortally threaten the incumbent telcos. Vonage offers cut-price telephony using your existing broadband connection for as little as $14.99 a month, and throws in features familiar to GSM cellphone …

Telecoms 12 Dec 2003, 02:18
DVD Jon appeal ends: verdict before Xmas

But how did it even get this far?

The appeal trial of Jon Lech Johansen ended yesterday in Norway, with prosecutors repeating their demand for a suspended custodial sentence. Johansen circumvented the CSS encryption scheme on DVDs, allowing him to watch movies he had already bought on his Linux computer. Johansen was acquitted in January. The judge is expected …

Personal 12 Dec 2003, 02:19
Flextronics demos open source chips

No strings attached

Contract manufacturer Flextronics has been demonstrating a board based on open source processor technology. The demonstration system-on-a-chip uses the OpenRisc 1200 processor core based on the OpenCores project and Flextronics is making reference boards available to its ASIC customers. The SOC integrates Ethernet and PCI bus …

Channel 12 Dec 2003, 02:21
Record PC shipments in '03

Laptops, govts drive growth

Strong consumer demand for laptop PCs, as well as an upsurge in demand from the public sector, has driven demand for a record 152 million PCs in 2003. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, total PC shipments in 2003 are expected to exceed 152 million. This is 8.8 per cent higher than 2000, the previous highest year …

Channel 12 Dec 2003, 09:14
Dothan debut due 15 February

'D' day

Intel will officially launch 'Dothan', the 90nm version of its Pentium M mobile processor, on 15 February, a date also earmarked for price cuts to its desktop Pentium 4 line. Dothan will launch at 1.8GHz, as expected, and be priced at $637 - Intel's traditional price-point for new top-end CPUs. It will also ship at 1.6GHz and 1 …

Channel 12 Dec 2003, 09:38
Intel to produce 802.11g WLAN module by year end

Second generation wireless tech

Intel will begin mass-producing its long-awaited 802.11g wireless networking module at the end of this month, a senior Intel Asia Pacific executive has said. The Pro Wireless 2200BG unit will be offered alongside Intel's existing 802.11b and 802.11a/b products, all components of the chip giant's Centrino platform. The new unit …

Wireless 12 Dec 2003, 10:01
Ofcom to probe UK telecom sector

Here we go...

The UK's monster communications regulator, Ofcom, is to conduct a year-long review of the UK's telecommunications industry. Beginning in January, it will be the first comprehensive assessment of the sector for 13 years and will examine matters such as its importance to the UK economy as well as investment and innovation trends …

Telecoms 12 Dec 2003, 10:04
Time to reassess Brew

As Qualcomm gets serious about Europe

The mobile operators' increasing obsession with content as the way to maintain or boost margins in the future is pushing content download/delivery platforms out of their niches and into the strategic mainstream. Whether or not we believe that content will really compensate the carriers for the commoditization of the voice market …

Mobile 12 Dec 2003, 11:00
NTT DoCoMo spurns Windows for 3G

Hi-diddle-dee-dee (Symbian, Linux for me)

Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo has dealt a blow to Microsoft Windows Mobile by excluding the operating system from its 3G strategy and saying it will recommend Symbian and Linux to its handset partners. DoCoMo has huge influence on the Japanese market, where operators have much greater input into the design choices of their …

Mobile 12 Dec 2003, 11:01
Linux share grows in UK SME sector

Moving up the value chain

The use of Linux is growing in the UK SMB market, According to a survey of 200 small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the UK, conducted in September this year by Vanson Bourne on behalf of IBM. The survey indicates that 26 per cent of small businesses already deploy Linux. Of those not yet using Linux, 15 per cent said they are …

Small Biz 12 Dec 2003, 11:13
Hitachi readies fuel cell for PDAs

AA battery-sized unit due 2005

Hitachi and Japanese ciggie lighter maker Tokai will ship a direct methanol fuel cell system for PDAs in 2005. And they have already built the prototype, the pair said this week. The two companies believe they can develop the prototype into a device the size of a AA battery, as their concept design shows. Inside the cell, …

Mobile 12 Dec 2003, 11:18
Dump Lindows name or we'll take all your money, says MS

Another day, another injunction for Robertson...

Lindows.com CEO Michael Robertson steps into the hotel lobby, shakes hands and then picks up the latest Microsoft death threat from his pigeonhole. Microsoft legal affairs has pursued him across Europe this week, setting off explosions in the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Finland, but this one's fairly minor - a response to …

Software 12 Dec 2003, 11:32
Siemens to shift 10k software jobs to Eastern Europe – report

Eastward ho!

Siemens is preparing to move 10,000 software developer to lower cost countries, the Finacial Times reports. This represents one third of software developers employed worldwide by the German industrial giant. In Siemens' case, eastwards means Eastern Europe, rather than India. Which means that developers in Germany, its biggest …

Hardware 12 Dec 2003, 11:37
Aiirnet to blanket US city with Wi-Fi

Hotzone to cover 8.6 square miles

Work to create what will arguably be the world's largest Wi-Fi hotzone is expected to begin in Cerritos, California next month. When completed, the zone will cover all 8.6 square miles of the city, situated some 26 miles south east of Los Angeles, Associated Press reports. That's enough to provide almost all of Cerritos' 51,000 …

Wireless 12 Dec 2003, 11:59
Navman GPS 4400 Bluetooth navigator

Reg Review Are we there yet, dad?

Navman is well known for its GPS systems for individuals, transport fleets and the like. In addition to dedicated devices, it has offered a clip on unit for HP's iPaq Pocket PC devices. Recognising that those machines aren't the only PDAs out there, the company recently launched the GPS 4400 a standalone module that connects to …

Reviews 12 Dec 2003, 12:25
Mugabe rails against colonialist Internet

Britain deploys e-weapon against Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe has stepped up his war against Western "white racist bullies" by accusing Britain of using the Internet to destroy his country. Laughing Bob, addressing the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, asserted that information technology is dominated "by a few countries in the selfish …

Music and Media 12 Dec 2003, 12:35
Anti-spam law will tie up UK firms up in red tape

Spammer in the works

The Government's legal attempt to crack down on email spam and unwanted phone calls has been condemned as a recipe for disaster that will hit law abiding UK businesses much harder than the spammers it is trying to stop. According to hi-tech industries' trade association Intellect, the increased costs of managing and storing …

Small Biz 12 Dec 2003, 13:12
UK firms drowning beneath tide of e-crime

MS to the rescue

UK businesses are drowning beneath a rising tide of computer crime, says Microsoft which is coming to the rescue with new chums the National High Tech Crime Unit, Business Watch and the British Chambers of Commerce. Almost half of UK small firms suffer at least one malicious security breach every year, ranging from major …

Small Biz 12 Dec 2003, 13:12
CA shakes up web services management market

Muscling in

Computer Associates has entered the web services management field with the shipment of its Unicenter Web Service Distributed Management product, which has come out of its acquisition of Adjoin last summer. CA aims to shake up this market, which has been the preserve of small specialists, with its own weight and with a host of …

Hardware 12 Dec 2003, 13:12
Oracle ships 10g application server for grids

Grid unlock

Oracle has announced the availability of its 10g application server for grid computing, first launched with great fanfare in September. Application Server 10g uses workload management techniques to share loads across large numbers of processors in a grid configuration. The server is accompanied by software tools designed to …

Hardware 12 Dec 2003, 13:12
BT suspends orders for broadband satellite service

Expect Spring relaunch

BT has suspended registrations for its one-way broadband satellite service. A customer service operative told The Register: "Orders have been suspended pending a review of the service." He also told us that due to a backlog, it would be up to eight weeks before BT could carry out any installations. But a BT spokesman denied …

Telecoms 12 Dec 2003, 15:18
HP email abuse dismissals unfair, says tribunal

Inconsistent

Three workers at Hewlett Packard’s plant in Renfrewshire, Scotland, who were fired after sending or receiving e-mails of a sexual nature, have won a claim of unfair dismissal, according to local newspaper reports. The tribunal found that HP had not been consistent in its response to abuse of the company's email system, …

Business 12 Dec 2003, 15:41
PlusNet unveils 150k DSL service

Tiscali wins wholesale deal

Sheffield-based ISP PlusNet is offering a cut-price DSL service for the same price as many unmetered dial-up services. At £14.99 a month, DSL Connect provides download speeds up to 150k and has been just been launched on a trial basis. Orders taken now should be fulfilled early next year. Unlike some other operators that …

Telecoms 12 Dec 2003, 15:43
Microsoft wants non-standard media for Xbox 2?

Job ad gives another hint about Xenon

A job advertisement posted on Microsoft's careers website suggests that the company may be considering moving to a proprietary disc format for its next console, in an effort to make piracy on the device more difficult. According to the ad, Microsoft's Xbox team is seeking an engineer "to manage the design and development of the …

Personal 12 Dec 2003, 16:17
Windows Longhaul? Longhorn could be 2008, says Gartner

Why this could be a big problem for Microsoft

Longhorn in 2005 seems definitely off the agenda, and while it might ship in 2006, it could be delayed until 2008 or 2009, according to Gartner. According to a report of the Gartner Data Center Conference in Information Week, Gartner research VP Tom Bittman puts the likely release window between late 2006 and mid-2008. The …

Software 12 Dec 2003, 17:38
Sun adds a little more juice to v1280

Some say 30 percent faster

Sun has upgraded one of the weirder servers in its product line, adding 1.2GHz chips to the 12 processor v1280. Sun launched the v1280 back in February as a kind of low-cost alternative to some of its other midrange gear. The system does not have all of Sun's more advanced, read more expensive, mainframe like qualities for …

Servers 12 Dec 2003, 18:44
IBM cuddles up to Red Hat

High-end file system boost too

While IBM is most often found touting SuSE Linux, the company this week firmed up its ties with open source rival Red Hat via a sweeping server upgrade. Doing the basics, IBM is now ready to ship Version 3 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux across all of IBM's server line. And when IBM says all, it means it. The operating system will …

Servers 12 Dec 2003, 19:28
Living Tomorrow Today

Home of the Future in Amsterdam

A washing machine that warns you not to mix the red socks with white clothing and automatically selects the right washing cycle? All that is possible when smart tags - an antenna-bearing chip smaller than a grain of rice - are attached to your pants, socks or underwear. It is one of many innovations showcased at Living Tomorrow …

Music and Media 12 Dec 2003, 21:11
World Summit is wholesale triumph

Geneva If you listen to the organisers...

They’re packing up the RFID detectors at Geneva’s Palexpo conference centre as the first meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society grinds to an end. Everyone will be back again in 2005 for the second stage in Tunisia, but for now the delegates, diplomats, hacks, liggers and hacktivists (even the ones who are here …

Music and Media 12 Dec 2003, 21:34