15th March 2004 Archive

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EC backs down on MS (a little)

But too much for Microsoft?

The European Commission is watering down proposals to force Microsoft to behave more competitively. The recomendations from Competition Commissioner Mario Monti are expected to get the green light today, according to reports. The Commission has already decided that Microsoft abused its dominant position in the market. The …

Software 15 Mar 2004, 09:12
EDS to sell software unit for $2.1bn

Debt shrinks and cash pile grows

EDS is close to selling its data management software business for $2.1bn. The Texas company hopes the sale will help cut debt from $5bn to zero by the end of the year. In a statement released on Sunday the company confirmed it had reached definitive agreement to sell the company to three private equity groups. EDS will sell UGS …

Hardware 15 Mar 2004, 09:23
Intel ‘to adopt performance ratings’

Leaf from AMD's book

Intel appears to have conceded at last that a processor's clock frequency isn't the be-all and end-all of chip performance. It is to begin adding performance ratings to its processors, the better to distinguish one model from another. The sound you hear in the background is AMD's workforce dancing for joy. Having been forced to …

Channel 15 Mar 2004, 10:25
Corporate demand drives up DRAM prices

PC makers already stockpiling

PC vendors are bulk-buying DDR SDRAM to beat anticipated price rises in the near future, market watcher iSuppli reports. It's a typical supply and demand issue, the researcher says. Indications are that big business is once again buying new PCs. DRAM supplies are tight but within the levels required by PC manufacturers. However …

Channel 15 Mar 2004, 10:26
EC objects to Oracle takeover

Regulators queue up to kick Larry...

Oracle's hostile takeover of PeopleSoft suffered another blow late last week - the European Commission has objected to the deal. The database giant said on Friday it had received a statement of objections from the EC. It said it was glad to know what the concerns were and would address them, according to CNN. The US Department …

Hardware 15 Mar 2004, 10:50
eBay halts auction of Vietnamese girls

Seller wanted $5400 for three

eBay last week pulled the plug on an attempt to sell three Vietnamese women to the highest bidder. The Taiwanese user, who wanted at least TWD180,000 ($5392) for the trio, has had his eBay membership terminated, the company said. The auction opened on 2 March - the day after the unnamed Taiwanese user became an eBay member - …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 10:52
Chrysalis flogs songs for ringtone lovers

Ringtone 'tastic

Radio and music specialist Chrysalis is to sell mobile ringtones and other downloads. The group is setting up a separate division - Chrysalis Mobile - headed up by Ian James to target mobile phone users. It will offer monophonic and polyphonic ringtones, real tunes, images and full song downloads. It estimates the European …

Mobile 15 Mar 2004, 10:54
WS Reliable Messaging creeps forward

Two standards, one year, little progress

One year after BEA, IBM, Microsoft and Tibco (BIMT) published a draft specification for WS Reliable Messaging - hot on the heels of a rival spec from an Oracle, Sun, Sonic, Fujitsu, Hitachi and NEC consortium - the question is this: has any progress actually been made, asks Bloor Research analyst Peter Abrahams. WS Reliable …

Hardware 15 Mar 2004, 10:55
Boffins spot planetoid at 8bn miles

Distant 'Sedna' welcomed to solar system

NASA-funded astronomers at the California Institute of Technology have discovered the furthest-known body in the solar system - a distant eight billion miles out. It orbits the sun on a highly elliptical path which, even at its perihelion, puts the planetoid more than twice the average distance from the Sun to Pluto. The body …

Science 15 Mar 2004, 11:25
Security fears tip Spanish election

Analysis The pitfalls of politicizing national security

The terrorist atrocity in Madrid last week claimed 200 souls, and affected the outcome of a national election held only days later. The conservative Popular Party, a Washington tributary outfit led by Prime Minister José María Aznar, had maintained a slim lead over its Socialist opposition, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, …

Security 15 Mar 2004, 11:26
Skype secures £11m funding

Voice over IP gets City backing...

Skype, the London-based Voice over IP firm, has raised £11m($18.8m) in second round funding. Skype offers voice calls over the internet using a free download. It has been downloaded 8.1m times since launch in August 2003. It offers basic telephony and conference calling. The basic service will remain free but the company will …

Data Networking 15 Mar 2004, 11:32
Asus SK8V AMD Athlon FX-51 mobo

Review Top performer

I'm fairly sure that a lot of you have glanced at AMD's Athlon 64 FX-51 at one stage or another and wished you could afford one. But it's not only the processor that will set you back a small fortune as you need special memory and a specific type of motherboard for it to work. A cheaper alternative would be to get one of the 14x …

Reviews 15 Mar 2004, 11:53
WorldCom gets sums wrong – by $74bn

It's only money

The true scale of WorldCom's financial woes has been revealed after the telecoms outfit announced a whopping $74.4bn restatement of income. Back in 2000/01 - while WorldCom was reporting that it was making a profit - the company was actually making a loss. Described as the "largest and most complex financial restatement ever …

Business 15 Mar 2004, 12:04
Great Wall not visible from space: official

Chinese pour cold water on popular myth

The Chinese authorities have moved swiftly to airbrush from history the popular myth that the Great Wall is visible from space. Schools textbooks face immediate revision after the country's first astronaut confirmed that - after 21 hours in orbit - he had been unable to spot the monumental structure. "The scenery was very …

Science 15 Mar 2004, 12:06
Malicious code threats celebrate bumper 2003

Privacy under backdoors and blended assault

Malicious code threats to privacy and confidentiality increased rapidly in the final six months of last year - up 148 per cent on the first half of 2003. Virus writers increasingly targeted backdoors left by other attackers and worms in their attempts to spread malicious code, according to the latest edition of Symantec's …

Security 15 Mar 2004, 13:10
MS drives Lindows from Benelux

Legal assault effective pending appeal

Lindows has pulled out of the Benelux region following robust legal action from Microsoft. MS asked local courts to fine Lindows €100,000 per day for failing to prevent visitors from the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg from reaching its site. Lindows says it has done everything it can to comply with the earlier injunction …

Software 15 Mar 2004, 13:10
KPN closes wallet on mmO2 offer

No more cash on table

Dutch mobile operator KPN will not increase its offer for mmO2. KPN chief executive Ad Scheepbouwer said the deal was "off the table" and KPN would not increase its bid for mmO2 even if a competing bidder emerges, according to the Financial Times. Scheepbouwer believes the valuation was fair. Reports suggest the offer put mmO2 …

Mobile 15 Mar 2004, 13:11
Napster parent increases revenue forecasts

On track for $5.5m in music service sales

Roxio will sell around $5.5m worth of songs through its Napster online music service during its current fiscal quarter, the company said today. That figure represents a jump of 34.6 per cent over the $3.6m the company recorded for Napster's Q3 revenue. Its fourth quarter comes to an end on 31 March. Of course, Napster …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 13:42
Wippit adds 10,000 BMG tracks to catalogue

Download service makes sweet music with Bertelsmann

British-based commercial P2P music company Wippit will begin selling Bertelsmann Music Group's back catalogue through its upcoming pay-per-download digital music service. The BMG deal, struck earlier this year but not made public until today, adds a second major label's repertoire to Wippit's catalogue. Last year it won the …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 13:51
Sony ‘confirms’ 2004 PSX European launch

Console prepared for CeBIT debut

Sony confirmed today that it is pushing to release PSX in Europe this year, just as the console prepares to make its European debut at CeBIT. "We can confirm that SCEE will be handling the sales and marketing for PSX," a Sony spokesperson told gi.biz this morning. "We are looking to launch it before the end of this year and …

Personal 15 Mar 2004, 14:10
Ten years old: Apple's Power Mac line

Born: 14 March 1994

Almost ten years to the day, this reporter was in New York listening to then Apple CEO Michael Spindler and hardware chief Jim Gable launch the first Power Macs: the 6100, 7100 and 8100. Quite apart from offering a big performance jump over older, 680x0-based Macs, the new models were going to blast Intel out of the water. …

Mac Channel 15 Mar 2004, 14:13
Australia gets tough on Net paedos

Up to 15 years' jail for serious offenders

Australia has released drafts of proposed Internet laws which will see serious offenders serve up to 15 years in prison. Anyone convicted of accessing, making or transmitting child pornography over the Internet could be sentenced to up to 10 years. Anyone using the Internet to procure children for sex would face 15 years …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 15:25
EU shoppers don't trust Web

European Consumer Day a black one for ecommerce

Lack of trust is stifling the growth of ecommerce across Europe as punters remain reluctant to shop online. Only 16 per cent of people in the EU currently flash their cash online at the moment, while one in four people who don't use ecommerce say they just don't trust it. One way to improve trust in e-shopping could be through …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 15:25
Self-taught geek aces Brain Academy

Wins place at Uni and £15k bursary

A 17-year-old self-taught programmer has won Microsoft's Brain Academy competition. Adam Kramer beat 200 other entrants to a £15,000 bursary to study Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London. The competition was held online in three stages. There were maths questions, a written element and a programming assignment. …

Science 15 Mar 2004, 15:25
Spooks want more Web-tapping powers

Black helicopters on standby, please

US ISPs will be required to make high-speed networks wiretap-friendly, if regulators approve far-reaching plans to tighten up existing surveillance regimes. The Justice Department, the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to tighten up telecoms regulations. They are …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 15:26
Hotmail back online

Extensive outage

Microsoft has blamed an internal problem for leaving millions of Hotmail users unable to access their email on Friday. The service, along with MSN Messenger, suffered an outage early Friday evening (UK time), although it is now understood that the service is fully up and running again. A spokesman for MSN told The Register …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 16:44
The $5 ‘no moving parts’ fluid zoom lens – twice

Is Philips offering something somebody else prepared earlier?

This week at CeBIT Philips will formally unveil a cheap, no moving parts lens system that could make it feasible for a camera to come as standard with virtually anything electronic. But last month at 3GSM a similar system from French company Varioptic broke surface; the two appear to be unrelated, and as Varioptic has previously …

Mobile 15 Mar 2004, 16:55
Bagle the 13th spread defies belief

When will the madness end?

To nobody's great surprise, another Windows-infecting mass mailing worm began spreading over the Net last weekend. Bagle-N is spreading rapidly and most anti-virus firms rate it as medium to high-level risk. Email filtering outfit MessageLabs has intercepted 11,105 copies of the worm since Saturday. The worm normally spreads …

Anti-Virus 15 Mar 2004, 16:56
KPN prunes Belgian mobile sub

200 jobs to go

Around 200 jobs are to be axed at Base, the Belgian mobile outfit wholly owned by Dutch telco KPN. Execs want to ensure that Base focuses on its "core activities" so that it can "substantially grow its customer base in the coming years". It also plans to outsource some of the company's non-core activities. However, the cull …

Mobile 15 Mar 2004, 16:57
UK Gov's open source ‘mandate’ policy attacked

Lobbyists get paranoid, with some justification

The UK's proposed policy on the use of open source software within government has come under fire from the Institute for Software Choice, which claims the policy will make it "compulsory for public sector organisations to use Open Source Software as a default in R&D projects." The ISC, which has substantial backing from …

Software 15 Mar 2004, 18:10
Veritas to restate results after probe

Second time is the charm

Veritas will restate two years of financial statements after an investigation uncovered a variety of accounting practices not in line with generally accepted methods. The software maker plans to restate statements for fiscal 2001 and 2002 and will delay filing of its annual report for 2003. The new statements should have …

Storage 15 Mar 2004, 19:59
Apple notches up 50m music downloads

50m more to go (with Pepsi's help)

Apple's iTunes Music Store customers are downloading songs at the rate of 2.5 million a week, a statistic that rather puts Napster's claim to five million downloads in the first four months in the shade. Apple made the claim this evening while announcing its 50 millionth download, not including songs downloaded gratis courtesy …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 20:40
Zombie PCs must die!

Comcast performs radical surgery on clueless users

Comcast, the US cable giant, is threatening to disconnect customers whose infected PCs are being used to relay spam messages. Up to 30 per cent of spam is now spewing from hijacked "zombie" PCs. Spammers use Trojan horses and worms to take over PCs and use them as spam engines, a practice that can severely disrupt the operation …

Anti-Virus 15 Mar 2004, 22:27
State Attorney – the MPAA's man – urges P2P ban

Elected official flaks for Hollywood

The democratic veneer over the business of buying the legislation you want has never looked thinner. California's State Attorney General Bill Lockyer has been caught acting as a public relations front for Hollywood's big money copyright holders, only on the public's dime. Nominally, the role of Attorney General is to act on …

Music and Media 15 Mar 2004, 23:43