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30th March 2004 Archive

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  • BT wins NI blanket broadband deal

    Time to snuggle down with DSL

    Northern Ireland is to become the first region in Europe with blanket broadband coverage following confirmation that BT has won the contract to supply high-speed Internet services by the end of 2005. BT was one of 27 companies and consortia from across Europe that responded to the tender. It was awarded the contract because it …

    Telecoms 30 Mar 2004, 07:45

  • Hutchison parcels up little telcos for debt relief

    3G bills need paying

    Hutchison Whampoa is to reduce the huge debt it picked up buying 3G licenses by selling off telecoms companies from eight countries on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The deal includes assets in Hong Kong, and in India, Thailand, Israel, Macau, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Paraguay, according to the Financial Times. Together these …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2004, 08:33

  • Intel 'spends $500-700m' on first 65nm kit

    Wants to be first to offer process

    Intel has begun buying 65nm chip-making kit, ordering equipment from the likes of Nikon, ASMI, ASML, Genus and Novellus, to name but five. The chip giant is keeping mum, of course, but sources cited by Silicon Strategies have proved willing to pass on the details. Each supplier is providing kit for one or more pieces for the …

    Channel 30 Mar 2004, 09:07

  • Wal-Mart download service goes live

    Late arrival to challenge Apple, Roxio et al

    Retail giant Wal-Mart, once again atop the Fortune 500 list, has just launched its digital musical download service. Despite stiff competition - in the form of Apple, RealNetworks and Roxio - coupled to its late arrival in the market, Wal-Mart says that of all the people who shop in its stores, two-thirds are connected to the …

    Financial News 30 Mar 2004, 09:29

  • Freeserve to sell capped, cut-price broadband

    Big Push

    Freeserve is gearing up to sell cut-price broadband in response to the likes of BT, which recently launched a service for under £20 a month. According to sources, the ISP is to unveil a capped ADSL service that will break the all-important £20-a-month barrier. Details of the new service could be made public as early as the …

    Telecoms 30 Mar 2004, 09:34

  • VC-9 essential patent holders, come on down

    MPEG Licensing Authority invites royalty land rush

    The MPEG Licensing Authority (MPEGLA) has called forward any firm that thinks it has a patent essential for the VC-9 Codec which runs in Windows Media 9. The call is a first step in taking over the management and collection of royalties for the codec and running them at arms length from Microsoft. But there is every chance that …

    Software 30 Mar 2004, 09:36

  • Ecommerce patent speculator drops suit

    PanIP's patent still valid

    The company representing a patent speculator who has been pursuing small commercial websites has called off its pursuit. Lawrence Lockwood was granted an e-commerce patent in 2001, USPTO No. 6,289,319, for a "Automatic Business and Financial Transaction Processing System" which was wide-ranging enough to potentially ensnare ATM …

    Small Biz 30 Mar 2004, 09:44

  • Net surrogate mum fleeced couples for £2,500

    Offered unborn baby on Web, pocketed cash

    A 33-year-old woman from West Yorkshire is up before the beak after she admitted taking money from two couples for her unborn baby. Moira Greenslade, 33, contacted the would-be parents via the Internet, eventually pocketing £2,500 from surrogacy agreements, Bingley Magistrates Court heard. In one case, Greenslade received £1, …

    Music and Media 30 Mar 2004, 09:45

  • Google promotes Froogle

    This one's got a few bugs, too

    A user interface revamp at Google has seen its shopping comparison service Froogle promoted to pride of place on the main page. It takes the place of Google's Directory, based on data from the Open Directory Project. Froogle made its debut as a labs project fifteen months ago, and is labeled as a Beta. Don't read too much into …

    Applications 30 Mar 2004, 09:47

  • Philips licenses PowerVR MBX core

    ARM sub-licensing deal pays off - again

    Philips has become the second chip maker to license Imagination Technologies' PowerVR MBX mobile graphics core, courtesy of the developer's partnership with ARM. Philips will license AMR's MBX R-5 core, derived from PowerVR MBX. Philips will combine it with an ARM 9 core in a processor aimed at the mobile market. In January …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2004, 09:51

  • Intel Dothan to offer 533MHz FSB at launch?

    Hynix implies Alviso chipset will arrive early

    Has Intel brought forward the release of Sonoma, its second-generation Centrino platform? A statement issued by memory maker Hynix suggests it has. Hynix yesterday launched what it claims is the world's first - aren't they always? - 1GB SO-DIMM based on DDR 2 SDRAM technology fabbed at 110nm. The process is crucial to Hynix's …

    Channel 30 Mar 2004, 09:53

  • TeliaSonera chairman ousted

    'Swedish political games'

    Tapio Hintikka, the Finnish chairman of TeliaSonera, has been forced out of the telco in a Swedish-backed putsch. TeliaSonera was formed in late 2002 as a merger between Finland's Sonera and Sweden's Telia. The Swedish government still owns 45.3 per cent of the combined company and the Finnish government has a 19 per cent stake …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2004, 09:53

  • Apple seeks iPod UI, scroll patents

    Mouse work

    Apple is attempting to patent the user interface for its iPod. The application was filed at the US Patent and Trademarks Office in October 2002 but only published last week. The eighteen month lag is typical, as is Apple's desire to prevent a simple, clean and consistent design innovation from being copied badly. It's …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2004, 09:57

  • BT struggles to repair Manchester fire damage

    'Poor' conditions hamper progress

    BT engineers have begun work to repair the damage that wiped out more than 130,000 telephone lines in Manchester following a fire in an underground cable tunnel. Engineers were the given the all-clear by firefighters to enter the tunnel at 9.00pm last night. Working conditions in the tunnel, which is 30m under the centre of …

    Data Networking 30 Mar 2004, 10:25

  • Intel denies LGA775 P4 delay

    'Will ship on time'

    Intel has denied that it has knocked back the 775-pin version of its 90nm Pentium 4 processor a month to June. The claim, made yesterday in a DigiTimes report citing Taiwanese PC manufacturer sources, centred on Intel's plan to promote 90nm CPUs and get the chips' production output up. The delay was also thought to have had …

    Channel 30 Mar 2004, 10:25

  • AMD sneaks out Athlon 64 2800+

    As anticipated

    AMD yesterday quietly added an Athlon 64 2800+ processor to its product list. The 1.8GHz part contains 512KB of on-die L2 cache, and costs $178 in batches of 1000 chips. It's a Socket 754 part. The 2800+ emerged on roadmaps that leaked onto the web earlier this month. The roadmaps also accurately forecast the arrival of the …

    Channel 30 Mar 2004, 10:56

  • OpenOffice spring cleans with 1.1.1

    Bug fix

    OpenOffice.org has released version 1.1.1, the latest version of its open source office software suite. The software, which is the foundation of Sun’s StarOffice product set, is an open source alternative to commercial software packages and runs on Linux, Windows and Mac. Louis Suarez-Potts, community manager of the OpenOffice. …

    IT Director 30 Mar 2004, 10:57

  • Level 3 launches residential VoIP

    Broadband killer app gets closer

    Level 3 is launching a white-label residential VoIP service for partners to sell to residential customers. Services will begin in the US during the second quarter of this year. They are branded VoIP Enhanced Local service and HomeTone. VoIP has long been feted as the killer app for broadband. It is also a major challenge for …

    Data Networking 30 Mar 2004, 11:19

  • US space tourist set for blast-off

    Third private individual to visit ISS

    US millionaire Gregory Olsen has booked himself a quick trip to the International Space Station in April 2005. Olsen, 58, is paying $20m for the eight-day jaunt, which is organised by extra-terrestrial package holiday specialist Space Adventures. The intrepid native of Brooklyn will not, however, simply spend his time writing …

    Science 30 Mar 2004, 11:23

  • BT denies cable fire was in A-bomb exchange

    Ssshhh! You ain't seen nuffin, alright?

    While BT was tackling its underground cable fire yesterday, the burning issue for many Web watchers was whether the blaze was in an old telephone exchange buried deep below Manchester and designed to withstand a twenty-kiloton atom bomb. The Register was flooded with emails yesterday from people convinced that the fire had …

    Data Networking 30 Mar 2004, 11:43

  • US silver surfers hit the Web

    Old timers going at it like pros

    The percentage of US seniors going online is growing rapidly, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. This rise in silver surfers mirrors a similar increase in the UK. Twenty-two per cent of Americans aged 65 and over go online, Older Americans and the Internet reveals. This represents a 47 per cent increase on …

    Financial News 30 Mar 2004, 11:48

  • Kazaa and co ‘not cause of music biz woes’, say Profs

    Statistical analysis supports file-sharers

    File sharing has no effect on CD sales, a pair of US academics have claimed. The finding will not make pleasant reading for the music industry, which claims file-sharing is the cause of the huge decline seen in North American, German and Italian CD sales. Harvard Business School Associate Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and …

    Music and Media 30 Mar 2004, 12:06

  • Music biz takes P2P jihad to Europe and Canada

    Legal letters to 250 named people

    The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is starting legal action against named Europeans and Canadians it accuses of sharing music files. The 247 people are in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada have used file-sharing networks including Kazaa, WinMX, eMule and iMesh. Similar moves in the US attracted …

    Music and Media 30 Mar 2004, 12:20

  • US IT spending on the up

    and so is CIO confidence...

    Economic and profit growth will boost US spending on IT kit this year. The fourth quarter on 2003 saw good growth, especially in networking gear, according to Forrester Research. The analyst firm forecasts spending may be a little lower than expected in the first quarter due to price cutting, but growth will continue. Computer …

    Hardware 30 Mar 2004, 12:24

  • Outsourced US outfit rattles eBay begging bowl

    Bid now for bargain graphics, animation, and rendering services

    If you’re a European firm looking to outsource your 3D graphics, animation, and rendering requirements to an impoverished nation where jobs are harder to find than an Iraqi biological weapon of mass destruction, then today’s your lucky day. For bids in excess of a modest $510, you can secure the services of “eDream Team”, …

    Bootnotes 30 Mar 2004, 13:36

  • Overture searches for WAP gold

    Voda and Orange to deploy Overture ad listings

    Overture has done a deal with Vodafone and Orange to provide travel directories on their UK WAP portals. Browsers will see Overture advertising listings, triggered by keywords, next to the searches they are performing. Advertisers pay the Yahoo! subsidiary Overture according to how many clickthroughs they receive. Overture …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2004, 14:21

  • SecureWave revamps alternative to desktop AV

    Gimme Sanctuary in that behaviour-blocking technology

    Intrusion prevention outfit SecureWave is challenging the place of traditional AV software on the desktop with a revamped version of its behaviour-blocking technology, due out next month. Instead of applying the "black list" logic (if it is registered as bad, deny), that underpins signature-based AV products, SecureWave's …

    Security 30 Mar 2004, 14:35

  • Freeserve offers punter £19.99 ADSL carrot

    Reduced monthly tariff is 'standard retention technique'

    Freeserve is offering cut-price broadband to its punters - to stop them from leaving the ISP. Following our story this morning that Freeserve/Wanadoo UK is about to introduce a capped broadband service for under £20 a month, we've been contacted by a reader who tells us he's just been offered broadband for £19.99 a month. …

    Telecoms 30 Mar 2004, 14:38

  • Andromeda galaxy home to ten black holes

    Massive neutron stars could be sun-sucking monsters

    Astronomers have discovered ten possible black holes in the Andromeda Galaxy after scanning the area for a particular X-ray emission signature peculiar to the phenomenon. Joint research teams at the Open University and the University of Leicester made the discoveries using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray …

    Science 30 Mar 2004, 15:29

  • This Googlebomb cost $44.75 (or three weblogs)

    Low-cost gaming experience

    Businesses spending thousands of dollars to get their websites prominently displayed by Google should look at a much cheaper option that archivist Daniel Brandt demonstrated last week. His Googlebomb is still exploding. Using just five domains he's managed to place a page at No.1 in Google, Yahoo!, MSN search and Alltheweb. The …

    Financial News 30 Mar 2004, 23:09

  • Email filter patent puts industry on edge

    But is it robust?

    A US patent granted to Postini, the email security company, could grant it legal ownership of a large chunk of the methodology underlying anti-spam and message filtering technology on the market. The implications for the mail filtering business are huge - if the patent can withstand a legal challenge. The patent effectively …

    Financial News 30 Mar 2004, 23:13

  • iPod: this season's must-have for muggers

    Ne'er-do-wells target white headphones

    West Midlands police have issued a stark warning to iPod users: ditch the white headphones or pay the price. Fashion-conscious music lovers are apparently being targeted by muggers. The Times tells the sorry tale of 22-year-old language student Roland Baskerville, who lost his 20GB model on the mean streets of Birmingham: "I …

    Mobile 30 Mar 2004, 23:43

  • Intel to pay $225m to settle Itanic patent clash

    Deal with Intergraph lets Dell of the hook, too

    Intel and Intergraph have settled their remaining differences in the last of their numerous clashes over who really owns the rights to each others' patents. The settlement also lets Dell off the hook. Indeed, the Texas PC maker gains a license to the Intergraph patents under dispute. Intel and Intergraph today asked the US …

    Servers 30 Mar 2004, 23:47

  • AOL raffles spammer's seized Porsche

    The wages of sin offered to US punters

    As a nice publicity adjunct to its ongoing war against spam, AOL is holding a raffle to offload a $47,000 Porsche Boxster S which it seized last year as part of a settlement against an unnamed spammer. The company says the car's original owner made over $1m by unleashing a 1bn email spam tsunami on its users and claims the …

    Spam 30 Mar 2004, 23:47