8th June 2004 Archive

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EMC retools archiving software

Last a little longer

EMC on Monday announced updates to its Centera data archiving product that give customers access to new software packages and better management tools. The main Centera upgrade comes courtesy of EMC's Legato software division. Legato's EmailXtender software has been tuned to work with the Centera API, making it possible to …

Storage 8 Jun 2004, 08:49
US gov questions EC MS ruling

History may judge it 'foolish'

The US government has again questioned the way the EC chose to punish Microsoft for anti-competitive practices. Hew Pate, US assistant attorney-general for anti-trust, said: "it is extremely difficult to tell the difference between good, hard competition and anti-competitive conduct." Pate said this difficulty is one reason why …

Software 8 Jun 2004, 09:03
ATI Radeon X800 Pro morphs into X800 XT

Just the lucky ones?

Ask ATI about it, and you'll be told there's no way to turn a Radeon X800 Pro into its higher-powered sibling, the Radeon X800 XT. Ask a team of Russian hackers, however, and they'll say that, yes, it is possible to make the modification. Their investigation of the GPUs appears to have revealed a single resistor on the XT …

Channel 8 Jun 2004, 09:32
BOFH: Wearing the graphite polymer wobbly shoe

Episode 18 The morning after the night before

BOFH 2004 "Where the HELL have you been?" the Boss blurts unhappily as I enter Mission Control very queasily after a night on some paint thinner disguised as fruit punch. "Recovering from a product launch party last night," I respond slowly. "Well there's a bit of a flap on!" he responds, talking rapidly in an effort to make …

BOFH 8 Jun 2004, 09:36
Oracle trial gets boost from Microsoft

MS mulled SAP takeover

Larry Ellison is in court to challenge the Department of Justice which wants to stop him taking over PeopleSoft. His defence in part relies on claims that Microsoft and IBM are likely future competitors in the enterprise software market. This claim got a big boost from Microsoft which yesterday said it had been in serious talks …

Music and Media 8 Jun 2004, 09:45
Telcos forge convergence alliance

BT shakes hands with international partners

Leading telecoms companies are joining forces to exploit emerging markets for phones which will work on both mobile networks and fixed-line networks. BT, French group Cegetel, DoCoMo, Eurotel, Swiss and Korea Telecom are all members of the new group, called "Fixed-to-Mobile Convergence Alliance", according to the Financial Times …

Telecoms 8 Jun 2004, 09:48
Ex-WorldCom CFO coughs in Mississippi court case

Securities fraud rap

The ex-CFO of WorldCom pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud in front of a Mississippi court yesterday. Scott Sullivan's appearance before Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter relates to the multi-billion dollar accounting scandal that led to the high-profile collapse of the telecoms giant. Although the …

Telecoms 8 Jun 2004, 09:50
Vodafone in German tax row

Write down wrangle

Vodafone is in dispute with tax authorities in Germany over an attempt to reduce the value of the business by €50bn. This loss could then be offset against future tax demands. The write-down relates to the purchase of German telco Mannesmann four years ago. Vodafone says falling telco stocks mean the company should be allowed …

Telecoms 8 Jun 2004, 09:54
Software patents and rebel MEPs

Letters Voting record doesn't follow party line

With the European elections looming this week, we thought a look at the positions of the main political parties regarding the software patents debate would be in order. Of course, this being politics, what those politicians say, and what they do, do not always tally... The article "Democracy and the software patenting debate" …

Letters 8 Jun 2004, 09:59
Asus shows second MS smartphone

P505 pops up at Computex

Asus displayed its latest Microsoft Mobile-based smartphone at Computex last week, although the Sony-Ericsson P900-like model wasn't exactly obvious. We took a snap of the P505, but our rather basic and LCD-free digicam failed to reveal the handset in all its glory. But here's one we found today on the Computex website. As you …

Mobile 8 Jun 2004, 10:13
SBC serves up McDonald's Wi-Fi deal

Fast Net, fast food

SBC Communications Inc is to make its FreedomLink wireless broadband service available in 6,000 McDonald's restaurants in the US by the end of next Summer. The addition of thousands of burger bars to its existing network of Wi-Fi hotspots is on top of those already dotted around the place in airports, hotels and other …

Wireless 8 Jun 2004, 10:37
Cisco picks Trend to fight network worms

Defence in depth

Cisco and Trend Micro yesterday extended an existing security alliance with a deal to combine their respective technologies in the fight against network worms and computer viruses. Trend is among three AV companies who signed up to Cisco's Network Admission Control (NAC) program last year, a scheme designed to curtail the spread …

Enterprise Security 8 Jun 2004, 10:52
Apple posts second Mac OS X vuln patch

Update Nabbed

Apple has posted a second software update intended to fix a vulnerability that exploits the way Mac OS X handles URI links. We installed the update, Security Update 2004-06-07, on a Mac OS X 10.3.4 machine. After restarting the machine, we went straight to Unsanity's web site, the location of a pair of web pages that test the …

Enterprise Security 8 Jun 2004, 11:45
Pilkington perfects self-cleaning window

Cue sobbing bloke up ladder with chamois leather

Pilkington Glass has invented a window which can clean itself, and the special glass is up for a £50,000 innovation prize. Pilkington Aciv uses two processes to clean itself. It absorbs ultra-violet light which causes a "photocatalytic" reaction which breaks down dirt on the glass. The coating is also "hydrophilic" so water …

Science 8 Jun 2004, 11:52
419ers open Chinese takeaway

$30m stuck in Shenzhen bank? Crikey

It's been a bit quiet recently on the 419 front. Well, not quiet exactly, because our inboxes are as plump as ever with mournful pleadings for assistance from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, etc, etc, etc. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. We haven't, however, yet seen proof that the Lads from Lagos have opened a …

Bootnotes 8 Jun 2004, 11:52
Global mobile phone sales soar

600m handsets in 2004?

Demand for mobile phones is soaring as handset sales chalked up yet another record. Strong demand in all major regions of the world meant that total sales grew 34 per cent in the first three months of the year, compared to the same period last year. In all, some 153m handsets were sold in Q1 2004 - a record apparently - …

Mobile 8 Jun 2004, 11:58
Mach 0.3 milk float goes for land speed glory

Brit world record attempt

As the sun rises tomorrow morning over the Chott-el-Jerid salt flats in Tunisia, a British racing team will do battle with the record books, in a bid to claim the land speed record for an electric vehicle. The car, ABB e=motion, will accelerate across the desert for nearly six miles before reaching the record attempt zone. This …

Science 8 Jun 2004, 12:02
Orange squashes SPV smartphone

C500 is 'World's smallest', network claims

Mobile phone network Orange has launched its latest Windows Mobile smartphone - which it claims is the smallest handset of its kind in the world. The SPV C500 measures 10.8 x 4.6 x 1.6cm and weighs just 100g. The device sports a 16-bit colour display and includes Bluetooth support. It contains 64MB of memory, but there's a Mini …

Mobile 8 Jun 2004, 12:06
Rockall Times fights anti-smoking jihad

Cash'n'Carrion Campaigning shirts defend democracy

Those cheeky chappies down at UK satire website The Rockall Times have decided to reprint their campaigning smoking t-shirts following Tony Blair's announcement that he intends to ban smoking in all London's public areas, pubs and clubs. A spokesman for the website - which has just released an official policy permitting smoking …

Site News 8 Jun 2004, 12:43
Rawhide gets taste of the Wi-Fi cowboy

Herding cattle, 802.11b style

While the corporate world struggles to find a business model that will make Wi-Fi hotspots pay, those agricultural types out in the countryside have been having other ideas. Not for the farmer the delights of high speed Internet access in a soulless coffee joint. No. In the country, they'll use Wi-Fi to herd cattle. The …

Mobile 8 Jun 2004, 13:26
Court ruling vapes Intel's Pentium patents

It was five years ago today... 8 June 1999

Some stories have what we hacks call "legs", in that they will run and run. An excellent example is the epic saga of Intergraph and its "Clipper" technology. Just three weeks ago, Intergraph settled with Gateway over the latter's alleged infrigement of Intergraph's memory management technology patent. Back in 1999, it was Intel …

Channel 8 Jun 2004, 13:27
EU attacks anti-spam industry

Junk mail tsunami continues unabated

A senior European Union official has berated the anti-spam industry for failure to agree a common strategy. Philippe Gerard, an official with the EC's Information Society directorate, said that lack of co-operation is handicapping the fight to hold back the junk mail tsunami. "We see different initiatives going in all different …

Spam 8 Jun 2004, 13:33
London startup dismisses Wi-Fi broadband

Licensed spectrum the future

A trial wireless broadband service will start in London this summer, with tests continuing for a year, in an attempt to roll out a broadband service offering 33 megabits per second to corporate users. It will use 28GHz band for Greater London and be called Libera. The network will be rolled out on purpose-built masts by a …

Telecoms 8 Jun 2004, 13:57
Tory used knicker salesman is ex-IT bod

Exclusive Fondly remembered by colleagues

The Tory candidate exposed yesterday for registering a url through which his swinging wife sold shop-soiled ladies' underwear is an ex-employee of Evesham Technology, we can exclusively reveal. A secret squirrel at Evesham admitted tbat the pant-punting politico, Jonathan Cunningham, used to work in technical support and was …

Music and Media 8 Jun 2004, 14:30
Espotting-FindWhat.com merger is go

Set for 1 July

Shareholders of European outfit Espotting Media ad US-based FindWhat.com have finally agreed to a merger that will see the creation of an enlarged paid-for listings operation. The merger of the pay-per-click advertisers is set to be completed 1 July. Those behind the deal reckon it will "create the largest independent player in …

Music and Media 8 Jun 2004, 14:42
BT Retail extends SDSL availability

150 metropolitan exchanges

BT Retail has increased the availability of its SDSL broadband service to 150 exchanges following trials in London and Coventry. SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is aimed at punters such as publishers, architects and designers, who need to send (as well as receive) large amounts of data. SDSL differs from ADSL ( …

Telecoms 8 Jun 2004, 15:25
Seagate thins product line in black ink bid

Layoffs today, new kit tomorrow

Seagate is thinking small in its bid to generate more revenue with the planned release later this year of a one-inch 5GB disk drive. The new mini-drive will make up part of a massive product roll-out, including 12 new hard disk drives, according to various reports out of Asia. The products said to be made at a Singapore plant …

Storage 8 Jun 2004, 15:33
Nokia sings the mid market blues

Confirms market share collapse

Gartner confirmed today that Air Nokia's sales have hit not just some minor turbulance, but a very deep air pocket. The company grabbed 38 per cent of the handset market last year, but this year has seen its share fall from 34.6 per cent in last year's first quarter to 28.4 per cent this Q1, according to Gartner. Although units …

Mobile 8 Jun 2004, 20:32
Apple fixes Mac OS X bug

At last

Apple has at last fixed a critical vulnerability with its Mac OS X operating system. The flaw opened a mechanism for hackers to execute harmful code on vulnerable systems by tricking users into visiting maliciously-constructed websites. Apple initially said that a fix for a "Help" URI handler vulnerability released last month …

Mac Channel 8 Jun 2004, 20:38
HP's Fiorina not amused by lack of investor interest

'Stop laughing at me!'

An almost humble Carly Fiorina urged investors to take a closer look at HP and consider what the company has accomplished, during a meeting today with financial analysts. We say almost humble because Fiorina never really comes off as being "less" than anyone and never lets HP come off as "less" than any other company. HP is …

Financial News 8 Jun 2004, 22:36