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22nd January 2004 Archive

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  • Open Source thieves stealing my American code – SCO boss

    National security threat

    SCO Group chief executive Darl McBride has attempted to nudge the Homeland Security Advisory alert back up towards Red, by accusing foreign interests of undermining US national security in a draft letter to Congressmen. How are they doing this? "Instead of UNIX from any number of US companies or Windows from Microsoft, …

    Software 22 Jan 2004, 04:20

  • BT paves way for ‘innovative’ ADSL

    Kinda

    BT Wholesale is to shake-up the way its customers pay for wholesale ADSL access. The UK's dominant telco reckons the measures - which are due to be introduced later this year - will give operators and ISPs "more flexibility to innovate in packaging consumer and business ADSL services". BT also reckons that this "flexibility" …

    Telecoms 22 Jan 2004, 09:57

  • Buoyant Qualcomm proves R&D pays

    Billion dollar quarter

    Qualcomm turned in profits of $352 million on turnover of $1.2 billion in the last quarter, citing higher than expected demand for its CDMA phone chipsets. Profits are up 13 per cent year on year, despite Qualcomm increasing R&D investment by a third. Qualcomm produces CDMA chipsets for the US and Korean markets, and WCDMA 3G …

    Mobile 22 Jan 2004, 09:59

  • Mobile numbers up for grabs

    Europe in Brief Pay to play

    Subscribers to mobile operator Orange in the Netherlands can now choose their own mobile number, a luxury most European telcos do not yet offer to consumers. However, there is a catch. While US telcos usually let you select from a few options at no charge, in Orange’s case you have to cough up €100 or more. The company also …

    Mobile 22 Jan 2004, 10:16

  • KPN to shed 800 jobs

    Usual reasons

    KPN is to shed some 800 jobs over the next year in its fixed network services division as part of an efficiency drive, the Dutch telecoms giant announced today. Around 300 marketing and sales jobs at the company's HQ will go as part of a compulsory redundancy scheme. The rest will be lost through "natural wastage". It seems …

    Business 22 Jan 2004, 10:17

  • Prison time for unlucky phisher

    Moral: don't try to scam an FBI agent

    An Ohio woman who used forged e-mails from "AOL security" to swindle America Online subscribers out of their credit card numbers was sentenced to 46 months in prison Tuesday, after a federal judge in Virginia rejected her plea for a reduced sentence. Helen Carr, 55, pleaded guilty last October to one count of conspiracy for her …

    Security 22 Jan 2004, 10:20

  • AMD quietly drops universal chip speed metric plan

    Other chip makers not keen, apparently

    AMD's attempt to define an industry-standard performance measure for modern microprocessors has been quietly shelved, according to the executive in charge of the initiative. The appropriately named Hal Speed, head of AMD's True Performance Initiative (TPI) told The Tech Report that the TPI no longer has such a goal. The TPI …

    Channel 22 Jan 2004, 11:39

  • Redmond was worsted in ‘Microsoft’ Aussie pillow fight

    Featherweight beat The Beast

    An Australian pillow manufacturer has been selling products using its "exclusive new non allergenic and thoroughly hygienic Polyester Fibre 'Microsoft'" for some years now, and successfully rebuffed a legal challenge from The Mighty Redmond in 1997, the Sydney Morning Herald reveals exquisitely. Purax Feather Holdings lodged a …

    Bootnotes 22 Jan 2004, 12:14

  • Intel ‘Tejas’ launch slides a quarter

    Longer market life for Prescott?

    Intel's 'Tejas' desktop processor, the successor to 'Prescott', has been delayed again, pushed back a further quarter to Q2 2005. So claims Xbit Labs. Roadmaps that surfaced through 2003 showed Tejas earmarked for first Q4 2004 release date, then a Q1 2005 launch. Such a delay shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given how …

    Channel 22 Jan 2004, 12:15

  • Christmas bonanza drying up for UK web retailers

    Must try harder

    Although UK Web retailers enjoying record breaking sales over Christmas and in the January sales, many are losing out on potentially millions of pounds of further business because of failure to turn the festive shoppers into regular customers. Failure to buikld relationships with these new customers will be the big "missed …

    Small Biz 22 Jan 2004, 12:15

  • Intel preps Centrino Wi-Fi support for Linux

    Driver coming... but when?

    Intel is to develop Linux drivers for its Centrino platform, providing the open source OS with access to the notebook system's wireless networking technology. The driver will be released initially under a proprietary licence, but Intel general manager of software and solutions, Will Swope, did suggest that the driver could …

    Mobile 22 Jan 2004, 12:24

  • 1,000th BT exchange triggered for broadband

    'Great day'

    Needham Market in Suffolk has become the 1,000th exchange to be converted to ADSL as part of BT's broadband registration scheme. The monster telco reckons it's a "great day for everyone involved with the registration scheme", which enables exchanges to be converted to ADSL once a set number of people register their interest in …

    Telecoms 22 Jan 2004, 12:41

  • How to hide a phone mast

    I talk to the trees and they transmit to me

    We love our mobile phones. Can't live without them. But we hate the masts that come along with them. We don't want them in our backyards or on top of our appartments. And there are more masts to come. Analyst firm Ovum says 3G providers need at least 10,000 new masts in the UK, on top of the 40,000 GSM pylons already deployed. …

    Mobile 22 Jan 2004, 12:46

  • Software distie ordered to pay piracy damages, goes titsup

    Debts of £1m-plus

    UK software distie Infinite Global Solutions has been forced into liquidation with debts of more than £1 million. The liquidation follows a court order to pay Microsoft an undisclosed damages settlement in relation to Infinite Global Solutions' dealings in counterfeit and illegal software. It is unclear to what extent this …

    Channel 22 Jan 2004, 12:54

  • Phone sales drive Nokia Q4 profitability

    But phone growth will be slower in 2004

    Nokia reported its fourth quarter financial results today, with minor dips in quarterly and annual sales but strong performance from its mobile phone division. Sales for the three months to 31 December 2003 totalled €8.79 billion, down a single percentage point on the year-ago quarter. However, sales of the product for which …

    Mobile 22 Jan 2004, 13:00

  • IBM claims massive power cut for 90nm G5

    Good news for AMD - but not Intel

    You can see why Apple waited for the 90nm version of the PowerPC 970 before launching a G5-based Xserve 1U rackmount server: the latter's heat dissipation characteristics. While Intel continues to have problems with the power consumed by its 90nm 'Prescott' processor - 100W at around 3.2GHz - IBM's own documentation claims the …

    Mac Channel 22 Jan 2004, 15:19

  • EMC booms in Q4

    Disk everywhere

    Boosted by acquisitions and improved demand for storage hardware, EMC Thursday reported strong results for both its fourth quarter and fiscal year. EMC churned out $1.86 billion in revenue for its fourth quarter. This is a 25 percent surge over the $1.49 billion reported in the same quarter last year. Net income also rose to $ …

    Storage 22 Jan 2004, 15:55

  • UK text message volumes break record. Again

    My thum hrtz

    More than 20 billion text messages were sent in the UK last year, according to official figures released today. Looking ahead, the Mobile Data Association (MDA) predicts that 2004 could well be another record year. It expects the number of texts sent to reach 23 billion in 2004, with the average number of texts sent each day …

    Mobile 22 Jan 2004, 16:05

  • Prescott pipeline longer than Northwood's – Intel

    New P4s may be slower than old

    Intel has confirmed that its 'Prescott' processor features a long instruction pipeline than the current desktop Pentium 4. The announcement lends weight to media claims that the chip will run more slowly than its predecessor. When Intel launched the P4, it upped the chip's pipeline to 20 stages, from ten. The move was widely …

    Channel 22 Jan 2004, 16:18

  • Personal Computer Science boss loses Oz extradition battle

    The Forsyth Saga Continues

    Former PC tycoon Charles Forsyth, who fled the UK in 2002 as the Serious Fraud Office investigated the collapse of his company Personal Computer Science, is to be extradited to the UK to face trial. Forsyth, who is currently in custody in Australia, last week admitted defeat in his battle to try and stay in Australia and ‘ …

    Channel 22 Jan 2004, 16:23

  • Siebel earnings rise as revenue slips

    Cost cutting pays dividends

    Siebel's earnings were up 9 per cent even as sales fell 7 per cent for the quarter ending 31 December. The company, one of the biggest makers of software used to manage business functions, said that net income in its fourth quarter came to $41.5 million, or $0.08 per share, compared with a net loss of $38 million, or $0.08 per …

    Hardware 22 Jan 2004, 16:38

  • Did Sun help itself by being last to Linux?

    Analysis Go on, show me your front-end

    It's all well and good to call Linux mature, but one of the most painful phrases in the IT industry proves it's not. That phrase is "end-to-end," and among the major hardware players out there, it's a surprisingly taboo concept. That is, surprisingly enough, except for one vendor - Solaris worshipper Sun Microsystems. About …

    Servers 22 Jan 2004, 17:31

  • Savage discounts from MS flush OSS desktop from London council

    Open Source wins everything except the contract

    Newham Council has agreed in principle to stick with Microsoft, and is in the final stages of negotiating a deal with the company that slashes licence costs and includes substantial free support. The Register also understands that the deal includes, as we suggested yesterday, a mechanism whereby Newham's outdated Microsoft …

    Software 22 Jan 2004, 18:11

  • Techno utopians' Net Candidate falters

    Campaign 2004 Potty training at the edge of the network

    Did the bloggers blow it? For the past several months - before a single vote was cast in the process of choosing a Democrat Presidential nominee - we've been hearing how politics as usual has been transformed. The Howard Dean campaign, which on Tuesday crashed on its first encounter with the ballot box - has been a remarkable …

    Music and Media 22 Jan 2004, 22:09

  • Not all Apple users are idiots, you idiot!

    Letters They're Christians - Nietzsche

    re: FoTW: Apple is the most successful company ever, you idiot! Is it worth it? Is it worth posting letters from level-headed Apple afficionados to redress the damage caused by the partisans? Is it worth giving the Apple kingdom yet another opportunity to explain why they may or may not be crazy? Is it worth mentioning yet …

    Letters 22 Jan 2004, 23:25