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3rd March 2004 Archive

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  • Google founder dreams of Google implant in your brain

    Body modification - or channel ploy?

    Body modification is all the rage these days, as any parent with teenage children knows. Pack them off to the school disco, and the next thing you know, they've come back with a fabric of piercings and tattoos that only a supercomputer can decipher. Our very own Kevin Warwick - or "Captain Cyborg", to regular readers - was just …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 09:12

  • Napster schedules UK launch

    End-of-summer release

    Napster will launch a service dedicate to UK music buyers by "the end of summer", the company revealed today. Such a date puts it behind Apple's iTunes Music Store, which is expected to launch in Europe during Q2. The Apple service is also expected to cover a number of European territories and not just the UK. However, Napster …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 09:28

  • Free IT training for London SMEs

    Reader offer Amazing deal from El Reg and Internet Exchange

    Those unfortunate enough to live outside London can only look on in awe and wonder at the privileges granted to inhabitants of that great city since the inception of mayor Ken Livingstone: bendy buses, congestion charging and a Thameside HQ building closely resembling a glass testicle. And there's more. London businesses can …

    Site News 3 Mar 2004, 09:33

  • Disappearing disks punish Seagate

    2003 was so much more fun

    Disc drive maker Seagate warned on Tuesday that its third quarter numbers will likely come in at the low end of forecasts, due to broad declines in demand for its storage products. Seagate saw demand taper off in the early part of 2004 after an unusually strong December. January sales, in particular, for both mobile storage and …

    Storage 3 Mar 2004, 09:35

  • DVD Forum mandates Microsoft for HD disc spec

    All your HD DVD belong to us

    The governing body behind the DVD specification has provisionally approved the incorporation of Microsoft's Windows Media 9 technology as a "mandatory" component of HD DVD. The DVD Forum yesterday said it has granted "provisional approval of MPEG 2, Microsoft-developed Windows Media 9 and H.264 as mandatory for the upcoming …

    Personal 3 Mar 2004, 09:51

  • Chip sales fell in January

    Well up on January 2003, though

    World chip sales dipped three per cent in January, with revenues falling to $15.55bn from December 2003's $16.03bn, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported yesterday. January revenues are traditionally lower than those of December, but year-on-year comparisons are favourable - 26 per cent higher than January 2003' …

    Channel 3 Mar 2004, 10:03

  • Attack of the Profit-Killer Worms

    ISPs take it on the chin

    Internet worms are costing Broadband ISPs a fortune - as much as $370m worldwide in 2004. Customers foot some of the bill through higher subscription charges, but most is soaked up by their On any given day, around five per cent of the home customers of a typical ISP will be infected by some kind of worm, according to a new …

    Malware 3 Mar 2004, 10:08

  • Drugs agency calls for crackdown in e-pharmacies

    Illegal trade targets the vulnerable

    Governments must do more to crack down on the illegal trafficking of pharmaceutical drugs online. Inconsistent laws and the failure to enforce legislation already in place has led to an explosion in the trade of pharmaceutical drugs online. Some can be bought via Web sites while other are touted openly in spam emails, making it …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 10:12

  • AMD to start 90nm production next month…

    ...but we won't see product until late Q3

    AMD's 90nm Athlon 64 and Opteron chips will start rolling off the company's Dresden production line in the second week of April, but you won't be able to buy a machine based on the parts until late Q3 / early Q4. So said AMD senior VP and CFO Robert J Rivet during a presentation at the Morgan Stanley Semiconductor and Systems …

    Channel 3 Mar 2004, 10:33

  • MSI to launch ATI-based graphics card line

    Nvidia 'exclusive' over

    MSI will end its exclusive deal with Nvidia next month when it launches a range of ATI-based graphics cards, Chinese-language newspaper the Commercial Times has claimed. The cards will be demo'd at CeBIT later this month. MSI will continue to offer Nvidia-based products, the paper said. The company's move toward ATI is a …

    Channel 3 Mar 2004, 10:42

  • Sony confirms PSP to PS2 game portability

    Play games at home, then take them on the road

    The PlayStation Portable will allow developers to create games that can be played both on the move and on a home PS2 or PSX console, Sony has confirmed - but the emphasis will be on new titles, not on ports of existing games. Speaking with Mainichi Shimbun in Japan, Sony's CEO in charge of marketing, Fumiya Takeno, said that …

    Personal 3 Mar 2004, 11:05

  • AT&T threatens MCI with price war

    Telco threatens nose punching...

    MCI, the company formerly-known as WorldCom, is about to emerge from Chapter 11 bankrupcy protection but faces a rocky start, according to new AT&T president William Hannigan. He would rather cut prices than lose customers to MCI: "we are not going to lose our customers," he told the FT. If competitors try to take them we will …

    Telecoms 3 Mar 2004, 11:12

  • Passwords are passport to theft

    How secure are you?

    It seems incredible that although millions of people world-wide now routinely carry out significant financial and other transactions via the Internet, so little action is taken to prevent identity theft, writes Bloor Research analyst Tony Lock. A recent study conducted by Opinion Research Corporation and commissioned by RSA …

    Security 3 Mar 2004, 11:58

  • Swift justice for Berlin motoring miscreants

    Europe in brief Siemens to blame for speedy penalties

    Russia: Peterstar buys ComSet Peterstar, one of the St. Petersburg's largest telecommunications operators, has acquired Internet provider Kompyuternye Seti, or ComSet, for about half of the company's annual revenues. According to the St. Petersburg Times, ComSet's client base is growing by 12,000 subscribers per month. …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 11:59

  • Linksys falls off Wi-Fi bridge

    Breakdown of communication with Netgear, er, gear

    The Wi-Fi Alliance won't like this: a simple compatibility test of two mainstream wireless devices by Computing Which? failed to get a Netgear bridge to talk to a Linksys router. The current edition of the magazine has a whole section on wireless, at the end of which the editors conclude that a lot of it is "too hard to use". …

    Wireless 3 Mar 2004, 12:01

  • UK science to get out of the labs and onto the balance sheet

    Talking 'bout money, money

    Britain's future as a scientific leader is in the hands of industry, chancellor Gordon Brown said yesterday. Outlining a 10-year programme of investment, he said the corporate world must match the government's committment to science. Improving industrial productivity cannot be left solely to academia, and depends on companies …

    Science 3 Mar 2004, 12:16

  • Windows Shorthorn is ‘dead-on-arrival’

    In for the Longhaul

    When will Windows boss Jim Allchin bring his warring Windows factions under control? The troops are leaking, and beginning to fly some quite speculative kites, all of which gives us little confidence that the Windows project is under any kind of control at all. We've become conditioned to such a long delay before Longhorn, that …

    Hardware 3 Mar 2004, 12:20

  • Clerk stashes 20m porn pics

    'Utterly vile' collection of indecent images

    A 34-year-old accounts clerk has been jailed for five years after being convicted for possessing almost half a million indecent images of children. Andrew Tatam, 34, from Moulton near Spalding in Lincolnshire, admitted to possessing 495,524 images - thought to be to UK's largest collection of illegal images of children. He …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 13:01

  • Sun shuts Bristol and Cambridge offices

    Staff asked to work at home

    Sun Microsystems is closing two UK offices. Bristol and in the Cambridge Science Park will both close because there are too few staff to justify keeping them open. In an internal memo seen by The Register, Sun said that the number of people using the offices meant they could no justify keeping them open. Staff will be offered …

    Business 3 Mar 2004, 13:03

  • DiData reshuffles board

    Channel Flannel Disties! Dealers! More Disties! More Dealers!

    Reseller giant Dimension Data is splitting the role of chief executive and chairman, in line with recommended best business practice. DiData chief operating officer Brett Dawson is made chief executive. Jeremy Ord moves from executive chairman to non-executive chairman. Malcolm Rutherford resigned from his post as chief …

    Channel 3 Mar 2004, 13:36

  • Calls to regulate ‘failing’ AV industry

    RSA Be careful of what you wish for

    The perceived mounting cost of computer virus attacks has prompted calls for tighter regulation of the "failing" anti-virus industry. Sections of the AV industry love quoting gargantuaan headline figures from studies of damage caused by viruses. So it is little surprise that other vendors are picking up on this trick. At last …

    Malware 3 Mar 2004, 13:56

  • Portsmouth airs UK's first online soap

    'Chalkhill Lives' hits the screens

    Monday saw the launch of the UK's first online soap - Chalkhill Lives. The programme is "starring, written, and produced by Portsmouth residents of all ages", and has lofty ambitions of "working with disadvantaged individuals to help improve their self confidence, self-esteem, communication and literacy skills". The literacy …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 13:57

  • Welcome to the PowerDesk cyberkitchen

    Updated Integrated chic or threat to mankind?

    Our warnings about the inexorable rise of intelligent furniture appear to have gone unheeded. No sooner did the inhabitants of Canneto di Caronia in Italy run screaming from their homes after the spontaneous combustion of domestic appliances, than PowerDesk and DuPont decided it would be a good idea to unleash a cyberkitchen on …

    Bootnotes 3 Mar 2004, 13:59

  • Kill the EU IP Rights Enforcement Bill!

    Hunting mosquitos with nukes

    Civil liberties and consumer rights groups are calling on MEPs to reject the EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive. Today (3 March) is the last day that amendments can be tabled before the final debate and vote, from 8-11 March. IP Justice, an international coalition of civil liberties groups and consumer …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 14:19

  • Lastminute buys Online Travel Corp

    Big deal

    Online travel agent lastminute.com has bought Online Travel Corporation for £54.9m The deal values OTC shares at 31p each or .1319 of a new lastminute share for each OTC share. Lastminute has received irrevocable undertakings from 26.6 per cent of OTC shareholders and from the company's board. OTC claims 15 million customers …

    Business 3 Mar 2004, 14:42

  • El Reg badly misguided on cyber-terror threat

    Black Ice author Dan Verton sorts us out

    Our recent, negative review of Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism by Dan Verton drew a good deal of reader mail, including a request by the author to debate the issues raised in our article, and his book. When Verton invited us via e-mail to "do a Q&A to give me the chance to refute the ridiculous claims you …

    Security 3 Mar 2004, 14:43

  • EDS job cuts on the way

    Internal memo tells the story

    Services giant EDS is about to start cutting jobs in the UK According to an internal memo seen by El Reg, the company is looking for redundancies in its UK Solutions Centres. The memo, sent to staff on Monday, said: "EDS needs to increase its cost competiveness in order to stabilise and grow out business." It continues:"Over …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 14:43

  • Bernie Ebbers faces criminal charges

    Colleague turns on former WorldCom boss

    Bernie Ebbers, the disgraced Worldcom boss, will face federal criminal charges after his former boardroom colleague turned supergrass. Ebbers is charged with fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of WorldCom in July 2002. Scott Sullivan, ex-CFO, pleaded guilty to similar charges and is co-operating with investigators. …

    Business 3 Mar 2004, 14:53

  • Sysadmins suffering VoIP headaches

    Tense, nervous network?

    Sysadmins will suffer from increasingly painful network management headaches as they struggle to cope with voice over IP (VoIP) roll-outs. They will have to deal with time-critical voice traffic clashing with data for limited bandwidth across converged infrastructures. After years of empty vendor hype, the voice-data …

    Data Networking 3 Mar 2004, 15:05

  • 419ers register own TLD

    A good effort by the lads from Lagos

    Despite yesterday's highly amusing observation that we are perhaps giving Nigerian advance fee fraudsters too much coverage, aficionados of the genre can rest assured that we will continue to squeeze the 419 news pig until it squeals. To prove it, here is a nice typo from an email forwarded by reader Daniel Butterfield. The …

    Bootnotes 3 Mar 2004, 15:06

  • Universal builds 20TB digital music archive

    Ready to sell songs to Apple, Napster, et al

    Universal Music Group's everywhere-other-than-the-US operation, Universal Music International (UMI), today said it had finally digitised around 300,000 songs from 25,000 albums from its European catalogue. That means they are all now available to "online retailers and distributors" in Europe, which of course actually means they …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 16:20

  • MP3 DRM to demo at CeBIT

    Fraunhofer Institute comes late to the game

    The MP3 digital audio format has been extended to allow the inclusion of digital rights management technology. The Fraunhofer Institute - the company behind the development of MP3 - will demonstrate the technology during a presentation at CeBit later this month. Fraunhofer's Light Weight Digital Rights Management System (LWDRM …

    Music and Media 3 Mar 2004, 16:21

  • NTL notches up 1m ‘broadband’ punters

    Cableco struts its stuff

    NTL reckons it's top dog for broadband after announcing today that it has become the first UK ISP to rack up one million broadband customers. Said the cableco's chief exec, Simon Duffy: "NTL continues to be the driving force behind the growth of broadband in the UK. We are proud to be the first ISP to have over one million …

    Telecoms 3 Mar 2004, 16:28

  • SCO takes Linux-loving auto industry to court

    Stop the servers!

    The SCO Group looks set to stop the use of Linux in the car industry with plans to file lawsuits today against DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone. Earlier this week, SCO warned that it would add to lawsuits against IBM, Red Hat and Novell by going after Linux users. Later today SCO will make good on these promises by filing a suit …

    Servers 3 Mar 2004, 16:41

  • Deutsche Telekom cuts broadband tariffs

    EC antitrust probe does the trick

    Deutsche Telekom has agreed to cut the charges rivals must pay to access its local telephone network or local loop. The decision is in response to European Commission antitrust charges which resulted in the company being fined €12.6 million last year. German DSL outfit QSC complained about unfair fees and Deutsche Telekom paid …

    Telecoms 3 Mar 2004, 16:57

  • Gambling Anglo-Saxons lose 419 shirt to rampaging virus

    Letters It can only be Letters

    Today we learn about poker. VeriSign calls ICANN bluff in world’s biggest game of poker I'm no poker expert, but wouldn't ITU need a king to have a royal flush? -Paul Komarek If Verisign plays the poker analogy of a Four of Kind with Kings, then no opponent can have a royal flush. Four kings can only be beaten by Four Aces …

    Letters 3 Mar 2004, 17:07

  • Nokia's N-Gage ads are ‘violent and sinister’

    Very sorry. We won't do it again

    Nokia has been banned from showing a number of ads plugging its N-Gage games device after they were branded violent and sinister. One of the ads showed a photograph of an alleyway at night. The text in the middle of the advertisement stated: "This is where I took on three guys...and made them cry like babies." Those who …

    Personal 3 Mar 2004, 17:10

  • Windows source code sharers face chop

    Knock it off or get cut off, says BT

    BTopenworld this week began firing off warning letters to customers fingered for sharing illegal copies of Windows source code across P2P networks. Users who continue to share the purloined source code are in violation of BTo's acceptable use policy and risk having their connection cut off, the broadband operator warns. …

    Software 3 Mar 2004, 18:29

  • Darwin raised from grave to explain Sun's JES evolution

    Stacking up

    Even for close Sun Microsystems watchers, it's often tough to figure out exactly what software is in or out of the Java Enterprise System (JES) stack or exactly how Sun is pricing the package. This confusion is unsurprising, given Sun officials' own position that the software experiment is in constant flux. In an effort to add …

    Software 3 Mar 2004, 21:26

  • War of the worms turns into war of words

    Netsky and Bagle authors having a ding-dong?

    The unknown authors of the Netsky and Bagle worms are battling in cyberspace for control of vulnerable Windows PCs. Maybe. New versions of the Bagle worm (e.g. Bagle-J) make derogatory comments about the Netsky worm's creator within their virus code. Meanwhile, three new Netsky worms designed to remove Bagle and MyDoom …

    Malware 3 Mar 2004, 22:17