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22nd April 2004 Archive

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  • HP takes Opteron to the next level

    Xeon kit bested

    HP has delivered on its promise to roll out a four processor Opteron server - and then delivered a little more by making its existing two processor Opteron box an option for pre-built cluster packages. After trailing IBM and Sun Microsystems to the Opteron party, HP has since gone all out with AMD's x86-64bit processor. HP is …

    Servers 22 Apr 2004, 00:38

  • Former Symbian, Psion boss answers all your questions

    Exclusive £1 a pop

    Colly Myers, the former managing director of Psion and founding CEO of Symbian, is taking the wraps off his start-up today. It's a fascinating challenge to the web's free search engines. For the price of a pound, Issuebits' AQA service will answer any question you want to pose it by text message, and Myers says users will get an …

    Mobile 22 Apr 2004, 05:40

  • EC threatens court action over Intel-only contracts

    Demands open tenders

    The European Commission (EC) has slammed member states for breaking the law by offering IT hardware contracts that explicitly demanded the use of Intel-made chips. The organisation warned that European Union governments will have to open tenders to include hardware based on other chip makers' products - or face it in court. …

    Servers 22 Apr 2004, 09:01

  • IT voices drowned in corporate governance rush

    Ignore techies at your peril

    Companies are ignoring IT personnel in project planning, despite the swathe of corporate governance regulations driving a huge investment in IT. Gartner estimates that European businesses will spend $2bn on IT projects supporting compliance with Basel II requirements. Ask yourself this: would you spend that kind of money …

    Hardware 22 Apr 2004, 09:21

  • China agrees to drop WAPI wireless sec spec

    First fruit of trade talks

    The Chinese government has given way under pressure from US companies and agreed to postpone indefinitely the imposition of its WAPI wireless security standard. In return, they will work to integrate the Wireless LAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure into existing international standards. The turnaround was announced …

    Wireless 22 Apr 2004, 09:28

  • Infineon shortlists two CEO candidates

    Reports sales, income gains, too

    Infineon has narrowed its CEO shortlist to just two names, the memory maker's interim chief revealed after announcing the company's Q2 results. Acting CEO Max Dietrich Kley said the board's decision as to which of the two will succeed Ulrich Schumacher who abruptly quit the company last month, could come as early as July or as …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 09:45

  • Hitachi preps Pentium M desktop PC

    In Japan, that is

    Can't wait for 'Conroe', Intel's attempt to create a desktop CPU based on Pentium M technology? Then look to Japan's Hitachi, which said this week it will offer desktop PCs based on the mobile processor. The HF-W2000 mini-tower and HF-W6500 desktop are based on the 1.6GHz Pentium M, and ship with up to 2GB of DDR SDRAM on ECC …

    Channel 22 Apr 2004, 10:14

  • Creative bath ad shocker

    Letters Readers dead angry

    Creative Labs got in a bit of hot water recently over an advert showing a woman using a laptop, while immersed in, um, a bit of hot water. Having had their wrist firmly slapped by the advertising standards chaps, the spin-meisters at Creative Labs went into damage limitation mode. Unfortunately, their explanation for the …

    Letters 22 Apr 2004, 10:30

  • Wayport wins McDonald's hotspot gig

    WLAN, burger and fries

    McDonald's has finally selected its partner for the nationwide roll-out of hotspots in the USA, picking on Wayport. The choice is logical since, of the three contenders involved in trials, it is the most experienced and well established, but it has sparked off a major realignment among the major players in the US public WLAN …

    Wireless 22 Apr 2004, 10:54

  • Intel pours VC cash into Digital Home

    Look mum, no wires

    Intel's venture investment arm, Intel Capital, has made four investments in companies developing technologies for the digital home, including two firms involved with ultra-wide band (UWB). Terms were undisclosed Ultra-wide band is like Bluetooth on steroids. The wireless technology can transmit digital data over a wide spectrum …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 11:18

  • Union moots strike over Swansea e-gov plan

    Early days yet

    IT staff and officials at Swansea Council could be heading for a showdown over plans to bring in a private company to help run the city's new e-government project. Described as the largest e-government project in Wales, Service@Swansea is set to overhaul the way the council interacts with local people. As part of the scheme, …

    Public Sector 22 Apr 2004, 11:21

  • Danes love Internet - true

    Europe in Brief 80% penetration

    It's official: the Danes love the Internet. Nearly 80 per cent of the population has Internet access, according to a new survey by the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology. Most of the users are young, but the eldery are joining now too, daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende reports. In fact, half of Danes over 60 now have …

    Music and Media 22 Apr 2004, 11:31

  • Java to dominate consumer electronics?

    Yes, if it's lean and mean

    Java and Linux could dominate consumer electronics, but to do so, Java needs to be less fragmented and highly resource efficient, making it suitable at last for the mass market. As the phone, PC and media center converge around the same architectures, companies from all three sectors are adapting their technologies to span …

    Mobile 22 Apr 2004, 11:38

  • Online ads draw record complaints

    ASA has its hands full

    The number of complaints concerning online advertisements has rocketed over the last 12 months as more and more companies use the Net, email and SMS to flog their products and services. What's more, the UK's advertising watchdog sees no sign of a change to this trend as new technologies come online, according to the Advertising …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 12:13

  • Killer cyberloo kidnaps kiddie

    Plymouth lad shaken by terror ordeal

    Agent of the lizard people and manufacturer by appointment to the robotic uprising JC DeCaux says it has no idea why one of its public "superloos" decided to kidnap a ten-year-old boy in Plymouth's Central Park on Saturday. The shaken lad had to be freed by the fire brigade after a passer by heard his desperate cries for help …

    Rise of the Machines 22 Apr 2004, 12:14

  • Boffins make data go zoom

    6.25Gbps over 11,000km

    A team of boffins from CERN and Caltech has set a Internet2 Land Speed Record by transferring data across 11,000km at an average rate of 6.25Gbps. Puny broadband, by comparison, manages only around 1Mbps - or 2Mbps if you are very lucky - making it approximately 10,000 times slower. The Internet2 Land Speed Record is an ongoing …

    Data Networking 22 Apr 2004, 12:28

  • Digital certificate regime wins UK gov plaudits

    tScheme better than we could have done

    An industry-led scheme to certify best practices for digital certificate services in the UK won the stamp of approval from E-minister Stephen Timms yesterday. tScheme was set up four years ago to establish a voluntary approvals regime for cryptographic services to protect the security of the identity of online consumers. The …

    ID 22 Apr 2004, 12:39

  • Tower Records settles charges over hack attacks

    Must improve security

    Music retailer Tower Records on Wednesday settled charges with federal investigators arising from a security gaffe on the company's ecommerce site, which for a time made the buying habits of online customers accessible to outsiders. The settlement requires Tower to establish and maintain a comprehensive information security …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 13:06

  • Evesham integrated GPS PocketPC

    Reg Review Mitac Mio + CoPilot Live 4

    Mitac launched the first PocketPC with an integrated GPS receiver - the Mio 168 - in Taiwan last November. At the time, the company had no plans to offer the device outside the island and mainlaind China. An odd decision, that, given the growing popularity of cheap GPS systems in Europe. Germany's Medion has come from nowhere to …

    Reviews 22 Apr 2004, 13:54

  • Blue Shield teams up with RelayHealth

    Online patient care

    The Blue Shield of California pilot program with RelayHealth is on track to sign up more than 1,000 California physicians in 2004 for reimbursed online communication with patients. As the number of medical groups involved in such services expands, the market for reimbursed online patient-physician communication will similarly …

    Hardware 22 Apr 2004, 13:55

  • Mobile giants deny cartel slur

    Putting pressure on vendors? Us?

    Six of the world's largest mobile operators have denied speculation that they are in the process of forming a cartel to put pressure on handset and software vendors to meet their requirements. But such a body would clearly have an immense impact on the future direction of the industry. Even if they are not planning to increase …

    Mobile 22 Apr 2004, 13:57

  • Sun's Java Desktop gets tooled up

    Faces retail challenge

    Sun Microsystems is to bundle application development tools with its Java Desktop System (JDS), to encourage the construction of Java software for desktops. It is also looking to capitalise on Wal-Mart's online business customer base to sell PCs pre-loaded with JDS, although other retailers might offer a better match. Sun's …

    Developer 22 Apr 2004, 14:04

  • EU ministers in broadband powwow

    Jolly well done

    European ministers are meeting in Ireland today to discuss how much progress has been made in stimulating demand for broadband. In the last 18 months the average broadband take-up rate in Europe has shot up 150 per cent. By January 2004, 6.1 per cent of people in the EU had used a broadband connection. Ministers accept that, …

    Telecoms 22 Apr 2004, 14:45

  • eBay profits soar

    Busy, busy

    eBay's Q1 revenues leapt 60 per cent year-on-year to $756m (Q1, 2003: $476m) on the back of acquisitions and strong organic growth. And profits are doing very nicely too, almost doubling to $200m, or $0.30 a share (Q1, '03: $104m, or $0.17 a share). CEO Meg Whitman said Q1 was an "outstanding quarter" for the company. And it is …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 14:48

  • Anti-spam tsunami hits SMEs

    World + dog on the vend

    World + dog is trying to carve extra revenues from the crowded anti-spam marketplace by targeting small business. This week UK-based Sophos launched its Small Business Suite, a set of integrated software packages with desktop server and e-mail gateways components, designed to shield smaller companies from spam and viruses. …

    Small Biz 22 Apr 2004, 14:51

  • UK public wants ID cards, and thinks we'll screw up the IT

    Non-contiguous brain compartments R US

    The great British public is overwhelmingly in favour of the introduction of ID cards, cares not a whit for civil liberties arguments, and is even more gung ho than David Blunkett about biometrics and having to carry ID with you all the time, according to a Mori survey carried out on behalf of IT consultancy Detica. But they don' …

    ID 22 Apr 2004, 14:54

  • Boffins discover upper limit of HD write speed

    Magnetic pulse ceiling

    Boffins at Stanford had interesting news for storage companies this week, as they announced the discovery of the upper speed limit at which data can be written to a hard drive. The short term impact should be negligible, however. Companies are unlikely to reach the limit any time soon as it is at around 1000 times the current …

    Storage 22 Apr 2004, 15:12

  • The smart road that spies on you - but it doesn't really...

    Humble solar catseye triggers speedcam panic

    If it had been possible at the time, Pavlov could surely have achieved excellent results using British journalists and the words "speed camera," instead of dogs. The moment they hear them, off they go and any transport-related story you might have been intending to sell instead stands in some peril of perversion into a Big …

    Science 22 Apr 2004, 16:17

  • Supercomputer accelerates car design at GM

    IBM p655 horsepower

    General Motors (GM) is upgrading the supercomputer brains at the heart of its product development process. The car giant has signed a deal with IBM for a system powered by 145 p655 servers and capable of nine teraflops (or trillions of calculations per second). This awesome computing horsepower - the fastest in the auto …

    Servers 22 Apr 2004, 17:02

  • Morrissey detained in LAX terror swoop

    Heaven knows he's miserable now

    Leading miserabilist and former Smiths front-man Morrissey has fallen foul of the Homeland Security dragnet, according to BBC radio reports. It is not yet clear whether or the US officials involved had listened to Meat is Murder, or whether they thought they had a match on notorious Manchester terror mastermind Anwar al- …

    Bootnotes 22 Apr 2004, 17:04

  • Veritas posts solid Q1 results

    Investors back-up shares

    Veritas shrugged off recent accounting problems to post solid first quarter results, profiting from an upswing in storage spending. Veritas reported $487m in revenue for the quarter ended 31 March. This marks a 24 per cent rise over the $394m posted one year ago. Net income for the first quarter hit $103m, which compares to $ …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 18:43

  • Witchfinder General targets NSA in Warez sweep?

    Keystone Piracy Cops

    Taking a break from clearing the US airwaves of profanity, the DoJ's Witchfinder General John Ashcroft today boasted of a piracy sweep that has netted 200 computers in ten countries worldwide in the past twenty four hours. With help from the MPAA and RIAA, Operation Fastlink is a joint venture between the FBI's Cyber Division …

    Music and Media 22 Apr 2004, 20:33

  • Lindows preps $57m IPO

    Hurdles to growth

    Linux distributor Lindows has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $57.5m from an initial public offering, despite being in existence for less than three years. Its short lifespan makes it harder for investors to judge its position, but some hurdles to future growth are already apparent. Lindows has not …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 21:27

  • 'New' Internet vuln long ignored

    Opinion It ain't broke unless we fix it

    A researcher named Paul Watson recently revealed that sessions between devices on the Internet can be reset with relative ease. The potential impact would be a distributed denial of service attack causing routers to reset repeatedly, thereby slowing the Net slightly overall and causing periodic local service outages here and …

    Enterprise Security 22 Apr 2004, 21:29

  • Opera syncs its releases with 7.50 beta for Mac, Linux, Windows, etc

    Hold hands and jump...

    Opera today gets all its desktop browser versions in sync, with the release of beta 1 of version 7.50 for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. The software is available for download as an option to the version for the particular platform currently deemed stable, but as it's available to all, Opera must be pretty confident …

    Software 22 Apr 2004, 21:34

  • Three Brits arrested in global warez raids

    Dragnet

    Three people were arrested in the UK yesterday as part of an international crackdown on software piracy. The global operation resulted in 120 searches in 10 foreign countries. Searches were conducted in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Sweden, as well as in the UK. The …

    Music and Media 22 Apr 2004, 22:22

  • Search drives US online ad sales

    First growth since 2000

    Sponsored-keyword search revenues in the US increased to 35 per cent of overall online advertising revenues in 2003, up from 15 per cent in 2002, according to a report sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Total Internet advertising revenues rose nearly 21 per cent last …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 22:36

  • State senator drafts Google opt-out Bill

    No Oogling, please

    Privacy crusader Liz Figueroa, a California State Senator, has introduced legislation to protect users from snooping email providers. It doesn't mention Google by name, but was clearly prompted by the advertising broker's new email service, Gmail. The move is in the form of an amendment to SB.1822. Few will find much to object …

    Music and Media 22 Apr 2004, 22:41

  • AMD looks to India for new chip skills

    Bangalore bits

    Like most major IT players, AMD has decided to step up its presence in India, today announcing a new processor design center to be built in Bangalore. AMD plans to open a 38,000 square-feet building in the heart of Bangalore's central business district. Close to 40 employees will start work at the site, which will open its …

    Channel 22 Apr 2004, 22:56

  • Bigmouth McBride turned us off SCO, says investor

    BayStar boss speaks

    The CEO of Marin County investment firm BayStar Capital has given the first public reasons for wanting to withdraw his investment from The SCO Group. "The public statements from Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive, were too frequent and too grand for BayStar's liking," we learn indirectly from the New York Times. BayStar …

    Financial News 22 Apr 2004, 23:27