8th April 2004 Archive

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Yahoo! shows paid search pays

Record profits in Q1

Paid search and advertising revenue drove Yahoo! to a record first quarter, the company reported Wednesday. Yahoo! pulled! in! a! stunning! $758m! in! revenue! for! the! period! This marks a 168 per cent jump over the $283m reported in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs (TAC) hit $550m …

Financial News 8 Apr 2004, 01:04
Judge stays Red Hat vs SCO

Pending other business

A Delaware district Judge has rejected The SCO Group's request to throw out Red Hat's lawsuit against it, but stayed the case pending the result of SCO vs. IBM vs. SCO. Judge Robinson said it would be "a waste of judicial resources" for the case to continue while litigation between IBM and SCO continues in Utah. That case isn't …

Software 8 Apr 2004, 02:50
Intel offices raided in Japan on bad biz concerns

AMD blockade

Intel's Japan offices have been raided by the country's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) as part of an investigation into whether or not Intel engaged in unfair business practices, El Reg has confirmed. Barbara Grimes, an Intel spokeswoman confirmed that an investigation is underway. Multiple Intel offices in Japan were raided this …

Business 8 Apr 2004, 03:27
Nokia blip prompts class action suit

Follow that ambulance

A jittery market shaved 17 per cent off Nokia's share price on Tuesday after the company announced lower than previously anticipated sales figures. Nokia this week said that handset sales would rise 19 per cent, but that's less it had forecast in January. Instead of a first quarter sales increasing by between three to seven per …

Financial News 8 Apr 2004, 09:20
Dell Q1 sales on the up-and-up

Solid demand in Europe and Asia

Dell has announced that sales in the first quarter will beat earlier estimates, thanks mainly to higher demand in Asia and Europe. The company said its quarter sales will be $11.4bn - some $200m higher than the company predicted on 12 February. The new sales guidance also marks a 20 per cent rise over what Dell posted in the …

Channel 8 Apr 2004, 10:03
Broadband kicks TV into touch

From couch potatoes to e-potatoes

Nights in front of the TV could become a thing of the past as more and more people get hooked up to broadband. More than half of those quizzed in a recent survey said they spent less time in front of the goggle box since getting broadband. Instead, they're staring at a monitor all night and doing stuff online. Strategy …

Broadband 8 Apr 2004, 10:07
Happy birthday, Mainframe

Life begins at 40

The mainframe is celebrating its 40th birthday, writes Bloor Research president Robin Bloor. It must be said it has stood the test of time like very few other things in the IT world. History will tell you that Tom Watson Jr. made a $5bn bet on the mainframe (then referred to as the System 360 or simply s/360) which IBM claims to …

Servers 8 Apr 2004, 10:23
UK students' MS codeathon triumph

Imagine Cup qualifiers en route to Brazil

Three university students are today dusting of their Lycra beach volleyball briefs and Portuguese dictionaries after winning the UK round of Microsoft's Imagine Cup. Ali Gardezi, Andrew Grieve and Mat Steeples - of the Universities of Sheffield, Aberdeen and Hull, respectively - will travel to Brazil in July to compete in the …

Developer 8 Apr 2004, 11:29
Union blasts NTL job cuts

'Unsettling' for loyal workers

Broadcast union BECTU has slammed plans by NTL to axe 1,500 call centre jobs, claiming that it is unsettling for workers who have stood by the cableco through thick and thin. BECTU is not recognised by NTL for call-centre staff (it does represent NTL's field engineering staff), but it represents many on an individual basis. …

Broadband 8 Apr 2004, 11:34
Germans garotte Google Gmail over privacy

Email scans are verboten

Google may have to rethink its new free email service Gmail, announced a week ago. The company is offering a whopping 1Gb of free storage, but scans the content of incoming email and seeds it with targeted ads. This is forbidden, under German privacy laws, Andreas Hermann of the German Federal Data Protection Commission told a …

Financial News 8 Apr 2004, 11:36
SurfControl boasts record quarter

'Cautiously optimistic'

The war against spam has helped boost revenues for Surfcontrol, the British web and email filtering firm. In a trading update today, the company said it had invoiced $25.8m (£14m) during a record third quarter, ended 31 March. SurfControl said Q3 trading was positive and that the content security market is robust with demand " …

Financial News 8 Apr 2004, 12:26
NCSP drafts secure code guidelines

Improving software development security

US security researchers, academics, software vendors and government officials have put their heads together to come up with a list of guidelines for improving software security. The National Cyber Security Partnership (NCSP) Task Force says its preliminary recommendations are the fruits of the first in-depth look at improving …

Security 8 Apr 2004, 12:41
Tracking the Blackout bug

Buried in four million lines of C code

A number of factors and failings came together to make the August 14th northeastern blackout the worst outage in North American history. One of them was buried in a massive piece of software compiled from four million lines of C code and running on an energy management computer in Ohio. To nobody's surprise, the final report on …

Security 8 Apr 2004, 13:57
Is spim worse than spam?

No.. but shonky IM throws up new set of issues

Spim - Instant Message spam - is more than just a nuisance: It's a security risk. The recent "Osama Found" adware campaign and Bizex worm attack show how easily IM technology can be manipulated to fool users into opening malicious code. Osama Found was particularly sneaky. It took advantage of IM buddy lists to propagate its …

Security 8 Apr 2004, 15:16
FAA greenlights private spaceship

Burt Rutan chases $10m X-prize

US outfit Scaled Composites is one step closer to its dream of private space travel, after the Federal Aviation Authority greenlighted its "SpaceShipOne" for sub-orbital flights. The vehicle is chasing the X-prize - a $10m bounty intended to "jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between the most talented …

Science 8 Apr 2004, 15:26
Union ballots SBC workers on strike action

What do we want? Job security and healthcare

Some 100,000 workers at the giant US telco SBC Communications are to vote on strike action. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) told SBC that it has been given 30-days notice that union members may go on strike. The union claims SBC has failed to address workers' concerns about employment security amid concerns that …

Management 8 Apr 2004, 15:31
RSA fends off France Telecom patent claims

Plaintiff gets a proper spanking

A patent licensing dispute between RSA Security and France Telecom dating back 12 years has been resolved in favour of the security firm. In a suit, France Telecom alleged that RSA Security breached the terms of a patent license granted by France Telecom to RSA Security in 1992. An arbitrator in the case disagreed and denied …

Security 8 Apr 2004, 15:33
Boffins seek human chimps

Learn to communicate, simian-style

Apparently it's not enough that we humans got up on two legs, walked out of the Rift Valley, developed the ability to speak, went on to put our thoughts down in writing and ultimately invented email. Nope. According to scientists at the Zoological Society of London, if we want to improve our communications skills, we'd do well …

Bootnotes 8 Apr 2004, 16:09
EU revises patent licensing rules

Less bureaucracy, the Brussels way

The European Commission today adopted new rules for the licensing of patents, know-how and software copyright. Brussels said the new rules - part of a "fundamental reform" of European antitrust regulations due to come into force on 1 May - will reduce bureaucracy. More licensing agreements will henceforth benefit from a …

Media 8 Apr 2004, 16:22