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4th March 2004 Archive

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  • 'We're just like the RIAA,' says SCO

    Is your daughter safe?

    The SCO Group's masterful public relations tacticians have demanded that the company be compared to fellow IP (intellectual property) crusaders at the RIAA. "We believe that there are important similarities between our recent legal activities against end users and those actions that have taken place in the recording industry," …

    Software 4 Mar 2004, 09:41

  • EC blesses Samsung – Tosh storage union

    Getaway vehicle

    The European Commission has waved through the merger of the optical disk drive operations of Toshiba and Samsung. It ruled yesterday that the proposed joint venture will not affect customer choice as it does not "significantly alter the competitive landscape which is characterised by a number of competitors both big and small …

    Storage 4 Mar 2004, 09:54

  • Gateway waves goodbye to another 2,000

    Life by a thousand cuts?

    Gateway is to pink-slip 2,000 staffers, in the wake of its takeover of eMachines. This will reduce headcount to c.5,500 within a few months. Roderick Sherwood, CFO at the PC maker, dropped the bombshell yesterday in a presentation at the Morgan Stanley Semiconductor & Systems Conference. We trust the staff were informed first …

    Channel 4 Mar 2004, 10:11

  • Alcatel ponders Chinese takeaway

    Oriental intervention to save ailing handset business?

    Alcatel is apparently looking to sell its mobile handset division in a bid to stem spiralling losses in the operation. French media reports have linked Chinese manufacturer Nanjing Panda Electronics as a possible purchaser. If these reports prove well founded, a deal with a Chinese company could prove to be a shrewd move in …

    Mobile 4 Mar 2004, 10:40

  • Barging ants solve network congestion

    Data packets are just too polite

    Ants could help to manage the flow of data through networks, according to researchers at Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. Vincent Fourcassié and his team studied how ants manage to avoid banging into each other on foraging trails. They discovered a pragmatic approach: faced with a blockage, an ant will simply barge …

    Science 4 Mar 2004, 11:03

  • Verton slips on Black Ice

    Letter Oi! Watch it with the intellectually bankrupt

    The polemic surrounding Thomas C. Greene's recent review of Dan Verton's Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism continues unabated. The following is a letter from Jay G. Heiser, columnist for Information Security magazine and occasional Register contributor. It is published in full: Dan Verton is apparently not …

    Security 4 Mar 2004, 11:22

  • E-pharmacies guilty of ‘blatant disregard for health’

    Which? attacks online quacks

    It's still all too easy for people to buy prescription drugs from online pharmacies. That's the warning contained in this month's edition of consumer mag Computing Which?, which reckons that Internet pharmacies display a "blatant disregard for the health of those buying from their websites". Posing as ordinary consumers, …

    Music and Media 4 Mar 2004, 11:24

  • Revealed: the true cost of broadband

    Move to Sweden, avoid Switzerland

    The average cost of a 512Kbps broadband service in Europe is €74.61 per month. Those seeking the best deals should consider a move to Sweden, while avoiding Switzerland. The figure comes from a study by consultancy firm Quantum-Web. Their report - entitled "European Broadband Benchmarks" - covers 83 operators in 12 countries …

    Telecoms 4 Mar 2004, 11:51

  • Eidos profits defy Legacy of Kain

    Revenues up despite struggling titles

    Eidos plc - the software outfit behind Lara Croft - racked up increased profit even though half-year revenues dipped after two titles failed to perform as expected. The UK's largest video games developer and publisher said that weaker than expected sales for two of its titles in the US market had contributed to the dip in …

    Business 4 Mar 2004, 12:23

  • Softbank punters run online protest auctions

    Personal details up for grabs

    Two customers angry at the derisory amount Softbank offered in compensation for a serious breach in customer security are staging online protest auctions on a Yahoo! Japan site. Personal details are up for grabs. Softbank - which together with Yahoo! operates "Yahoo! BB" in Japan - offered a miserly 500 Yen (£2.50) certificate …

    Business 4 Mar 2004, 12:43

  • Email ‘leak’ suggests SCO got up to $100m from MS

    Updated VC and IP deals cited as the route

    An email apparently leaked from SCO suggests that SCO is far more dependent on Microsoft financial backing than previously thought. If genuine, it means that the company has already received something approaching $100 million, and that Microsoft has substantially larger sums, which it would by preference wish to transfer …

    Software 4 Mar 2004, 13:08

  • Return of the Register polo shirt

    Cash'n'Carrion Top-quality kit for the discerning punter

    We're delighted today to announce the relaunch of the black Register polo shirt, one of our original lines and still as chic now as it was when last seen at the Cash'n'Carrion warehouse. The 100 per cent cotton shirt features out famous Reg logo tastefully embroidered on the left breast. It's available in sizes ranging …

    Site News 4 Mar 2004, 13:23

  • Sun Java site running sluggish on decaf

    Doctor orders cache injection

    Sun is beefing up the capacity of its main Java development site to resolve intermittent access problems that have irked users over recent days. Since Tuesday, several Reg readers have complained that java.sun.com is either down or not working. A test on the site showed that response times were unusually sluggish and downloads …

    Software 4 Mar 2004, 14:34

  • Internet governance: who will take the helm?

    Me. No, Me. NO, ME

    The debate on Internet governance almost reduced the first World Summit on the Information Society last December to anarchy. But what exactly is Internet governance? Last week, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ran a workshop in Geneva - the first in a series of events trying to come to grips with this slippery …

    Music and Media 4 Mar 2004, 15:11

  • High speed Internet helps drive NTL

    Revs up, losses dip

    New customers spending even more on TV, phone and Net services have helped NTL increase revenues, the cableco reported today. NTL - which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2003 - added 58,400 new punters during the three months to the end of December, taking its total customer base to 2.87m. During this …

    Telecoms 4 Mar 2004, 15:13

  • California offical in court over Oracle mega-deal

    'Falsification of reports'

    An aide to former California governor Gray Davis appeared in court yesterday on charges of falsifying evidence in the investigation into California's megabucks licensing deal with Oracle. Kari Dohn did not enter a plea, but listened quietly while the charges against her were read out, the San Diego Union Tribune reports, She is …

    Business 4 Mar 2004, 15:21

  • Cisco's SAN biz bores McData CEO

    Ho-hum

    Despite its best efforts to crack the storage switch market, Cisco Systems' performance doesn't have one of its main rivals terribly concerned in the near term. "I don’t want to minimize their growth in the last quarter, but it was a ho-hummer for a company the size of Cisco,” said John Kelley, the CEO of McData, in an …

    Storage 4 Mar 2004, 16:02

  • Confess about XP Reloaded quick, Gartner tells MS

    Windows - a journey without roadmaps...

    Microsoft should level with us, soon, on whether or not it intends to ship an interim 'XP Reloaded' version of Windows, and if it is getting the green light, it should discuss the timeline and feature sets immediately, says Garter. The research outfit's recently-issued 'First Take' is actually directed at giving upgrade advice …

    Software 4 Mar 2004, 16:47

  • Russian boffins in arctic base ordeal

    Buildings lost, rescue uncertain

    Russia's revitalised polar research programme has come to a sudden halt following the disappearance of much of its floating base into the cruel Greenland sea. The 12 researchers at North Pole-32 - situated 700 km north-west of the Spitzbergen archipelago - escaped intact but now face an ordeal reminiscent of John Carpenter's …

    Science 4 Mar 2004, 17:04

  • Japanese deploy bi-lingual talking PDA

    Domo origato, me old china

    Visitor's to Tokyo's Narita airport can avail themselves of a bi-lingual PDA which translates between English and Japanese. The "e-Navi" contains 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English words and is reckoned to be able to cope with slang. Punters just speak into the device, and are given an almost instant translation. NEC is behind …

    Science 4 Mar 2004, 17:04

  • IT bosses baffled by new products

    What's this button here do?

    IT directors are either oblivious to, or sceptical about the benefits of new products - despite growing confidence in the economy and bigger budgets at their disposal. 3G services, tablet PCs and Blade servers are all apparently causing confusion. Andrew Brown, IDC’s mobile computing head, told The Register that businesses didn …

    Business 4 Mar 2004, 17:26

  • Michael Dell to relinquish CEO title, command of ‘brain’

    President Rollins grabs the motor functions

    Michael Dell plans to step down as Dell CEO in July and hand over the reins of the company he founded to current president Kevin Rollins. Dell will retain the title of Chairman, while Rollins will become president and CEO of the PC, server and storage maker. Dell and Rollins have run the company together since 1997 in a two-in- …

    Business 4 Mar 2004, 18:04