4th June 2004 Archive

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Intel aims high with Q2 forecast

Flash on the rise

Intel on Thursday narrowed its second quarter revenue forecast, pushing its earnings range toward the high-end of previous predictions. The company now expects Q2 revenue to come in between $8.0bn and $8.2bn. The chip-maker previously provided a second quarter revenue forecast of $7.6bn to $8.2bn. "Demand for Intel Architecture …

Channel 4 Jun 2004, 08:28
N. Korea bans mobile phones

No 3G for you lot, then

The North Korean government has banned the use of mobile phones by local residents, just weeks after allowing foreign visitors to use their mobile handsets in the country. Mobile phones were only recently introduced in the country, with the first services going live in 2002. A report from Yonhap News, a South Korean news agency …

Mobile 4 Jun 2004, 08:29
Personal video devices to challenge music players

Computex Watch out, iPod - PDA makers, too

Apple may be sceptical of the demand for an iPod that can play video as well as music, but many of Taiwan's hardware developers appear to disagree. While Computex wasn't awash with portable video players this year, there were plenty on display from manufacturers keenly seeking deals with vendors to sell them under their own name …

Mobile 4 Jun 2004, 09:22
'Potter-mania' fuels spread of NetSky-P

Worm - like Voldemort - just won't die

The frenzy surrounding the latest Harry Potter cinematic offering is helping to keep the prevalent NetSky-P worm alive. Almost three months on from the first sighting of NetSky-P back in late March the worm still poses a significant threat. El Reg inboxes are bombarded with hundreds of copies of the worm each day and we're far …

Malware 4 Jun 2004, 09:37
Ducks have regional accents: official

A no-IT-angle Friday special

Further proof that not all scientific endeavour is wasted on the pointless pursuit of the world's first programmable computer or private space flight or the true shape of the universe comes in the form of Middlesex University research which has proved that the UK's duck population have regional accents. According to the …

Bootnotes 4 Jun 2004, 09:40
ESA to probe Earth's magnetic field

Satellites to launch in 2009

The European Space Agency has announced a satellite mission to study the Earth's magnetic field. Dubbed Swarm, the mission comprises three satellites which will blast off in a single launcher in 2009. The Swarm constellation will be arranged with two of the satellites flying in a side-by-side pair at an initial altitude of …

Science 4 Jun 2004, 09:44
Stelios to flog cybercafe sites

Easydownsizing.com

Stelios Haji-Ioannou - the founder of no frill airline Easyjet - is to restructure his Internet café business in favour of smaller concession operations in burger bars and supermarkets. The colourful entrepreneur is to close his main easyInternetcafe site in Oxford Street, according to commercial property mag, Property Week. …

Music and Media 4 Jun 2004, 09:46
Scottish police target Net paedos

Houses raided, suspects held

Scottish police are questioning scores of suspects over alleged child pornography offences following raids across the country yesterday. Several people have been arrested and around 100 are being questioned following a swoop by eight Scottish police forces and the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency on suspected paedophiles. …

Music and Media 4 Jun 2004, 09:53
Tiananmen protesters fight on the Web

It was five years ago today... 4 June 1999

It's just over fifteen years since pro-democracy Chinese students occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square - and paid the price. On the tenth anniversary, the struggle continued: Tiananmen protesters fight on the Web By Tim Richardson Published Friday 4th June 1999 10:45 GMT The Chinese authorities may have been able to close off …

Music and Media 4 Jun 2004, 10:28
Cockney duck catches viral confusion

Letters Oh, and we got flamed...

Regular readers will know that our security man, John 'Bin' Leyden, is usually pretty much on top of the virus gossip mill: which virus is where and doing what to who, and which celebrity it was seen out with at the Met Bar and so on. So he was most upset this week when two of the leading virus publicity agencies, sorry, anti- …

Letters 4 Jun 2004, 11:04
BT gets huffy about mis-selling

Wham bam no thankyou slam

BT - which is losing between 50,000 and 100,000 residential customers a month to rival phone providers - has called for tougher rules to regulate the selling of landline telephone services. It claims it is receiving around 10,000 complaints a month from customers about "apparent" mis-selling. Known as "slamming", some punters …

Telecoms 4 Jun 2004, 11:11
Transmeta shows working 1.6GHz 90nm Efficeon

Computex Unveils compact 130nm chip, too

Transmeta this week demonstrated its first 90nm Efficeon silicon operating at 1.6GHz and utilising the second generation of the company's LongRun power conservation technology. The company also unveiled a more compact package for the 130nm version of the chip. And chipset partner ULi - formerly ALi - announced a new Efficeon- …

Channel 4 Jun 2004, 11:22
Are you equipped to descale a turbot?

Cash'n'Carrion Exactly. Get tooled up here

It's unlikely that you'll ever be called upon to degut and scale a turbot in the server room, but it's always better to be prepared. And what if you were called upon to signal for an emergency airlift from your PC? Do you have a signal mirror and international distress signal guide? Exactly. To prepare yourself for these and …

Site News 4 Jun 2004, 11:38
Intel preps P4 core update

To step from D-0 to E-0 next October

Intel's 775-pin Pentium 4 will indeed support the company's AMD64-like EM64 technology, a recently released company product-change announcement has revealed. And the chips will launch at 3.6GHz, the document confirms. The document details the 90nm P4's core change from version D-0 to E-0, an update that applies not only to the …

Channel 4 Jun 2004, 12:07
Zombie PCs spew out 80% of spam

Migmaf, SoBig et al power junk mail tsunami

Four-fifths of spam now emanates from computers contaminated with Trojan horse infections, according to a study by network management firm Sandvine out this week. Trojans and worms with backdoor components such as Migmaf and SoBig have turned infected Windows PCs into drones in vast networks of compromised zombie PCs. Sandvine …

Spam 4 Jun 2004, 13:08
Toxic dust found lurking in tech kit

A 1970s legacy of death

A study conducted by environmental groups in the US has found yet another way our computers are trying to kill us. The research found that dust on computer processors and monitors contains several chemicals that have been linked to neurological and reproductive disorders. The source? Brominated fire retardants, such as …

Science 4 Jun 2004, 13:32
FoTW: Turbots don't have scales, you idiots!

FoTW Honourary award

It seems, from recent correspondence, that we may be guilty of misleading headlines [Now there's a shocker - Ed] In this case, we suggested you might want to purchase a shiny gadget, capable, we said, of removing scales from a fish - an essential skill in today's competitve corporate world. After all, once your job has been …

Letters 4 Jun 2004, 14:04
AOL settles class action lawsuits

Wants to avoid 'cost of further litigation'

AOL has agreed to settle two class action lawsuits in the US by punters who alleged the giant Internet company continued to bill them even after they cancelled their subscriptions. Although the ISP "vigorously denies any liability in relation to these allegations" it has agreed to settle the claims to avoid the "undue burden …

Telecoms 4 Jun 2004, 14:06
Wobbly shopping carts blight UK e-commerce

Trolley rage

Faulty shopping cart software is leaving consumers stranded at the checkout of many UK websites. The majority of shopping carts provide consumers with an unpredictable and unsatisfactory experience - making Web shopping a lottery, according to a survey by web testing specialist SciVisum out this week. SciVisum found that 80 per …

Financial News 4 Jun 2004, 14:14
The nanotube light bulb: bright idea

First major change since Edison

Chinese scientists working in collaboration with Louisiana State University have demonstrated a light bulb in with a carbon nanotube filament. As well as being the only real change in design in the last 125 years, the nano-filament bulb has several advantages over traditional tungsten. Firstly, the researchers, lead by Tsinghua …

Science 4 Jun 2004, 14:56
Network Associates warms to behaviour blocking

Anti-virus intrusion prevention

Network Associates yesterday announced plans to offer intrusion prevention alongside conventional anti-virus software. The move is something of a watershed for the AV industry with a top-tier vendor acknowledging that conventional AV scanning software alone fails to defend against fast-spreading Internet worms like Sasser and …

Malware 4 Jun 2004, 15:10
RIAA wants your fingerprints

Biometric iPod ready for market

Not content with asking for an arm and a leg from consumers and artists, the music industry now wants your fingerprints, too. The RIAA is hoping that a new breed of music player which requires biometric authentication will put an end to file sharing. Established biometric vendor Veritouch has teamed up with Swedish design …

Music and Media 4 Jun 2004, 21:36
These Tablets could take years to work, warns Acer

Cheaper hardware needed

One of Microsoft's leading OEMs for the Tablet PCs has reaffirmed its faith in the concept, but warned that it may take "years" for it to catch on. Although Tablet OEMs have picked up some wins in education and vertical niches, it's failed to dent the notebook market. Acer says that it had hoped Tablets would make up 20 per cent …

Channel 4 Jun 2004, 22:55