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1st July 2004 Archive

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  • Consumer groups rally against Hatch's Induce Act

    Faxed your Senator yet?

    Have you faxed your Senator yet? The opposition to Senator Hatch's 'Induce' Act may have got off to a spluttering start, but is now hitting its stride. Hatch wants to introduce a new crime of "inducement" to infringe a copyrighted work in order to close down the P2P networks. The RIAA says it isn't designed to target …

    Music and Media 1 Jul 2004, 07:34

  • Heads roll but Blueprint stays - Sun

    A few good men

    Sun says the much-valued BluePrint documentation project will continue, despite the redundancies of several key staff. "BluePrint is alive, well and healthy and has a very strong ongoing plan," a Sun staffer told us. A posting made by a Sun staffer on his weblog posting listing some of the names has been truncated to just one …

    Servers 1 Jul 2004, 07:38

  • Novell releases Mono

    .NET goes gold

    Novell has released the first version of Mono, which brings Microsoft's .NET framework to non-Microsoft platforms. It's available pre-compiled for SuSE and Red Hat distributions of Linux, and for Mac OS X. It's almost exactly three years since it was announced by Miguel de Icaza. Novell acquired Ximian last year. Mono is a run- …

    Applications 1 Jul 2004, 07:40

  • Dell debuts iPods-for-cash trade-in

    Get $100 back - eventually...

    Dell will swap your iPod for $100 if you buy one of one of its own 15GB Digital Jukebox MP3 players. The PC giant will also chuck in 25 song downloads provided by Musicmatch, its digital music partner. It's not an entirely straightforward swap. Punters keen to take Dell up on its offer must first spend $199 on a 15GB Digital …

    Mobile 1 Jul 2004, 09:05

  • Last call for spam poetry

    Gigacycle huckleberry whoop contour

    So popular has our appeal for spam poetry proved, that we are setting a cut-off date for submissions to end the madness before someone gets hurt. To recap, we're on the lookout for firewall-dodging compositions which, as we put it, transcend the junk mail paradigm. Here are a few examples from the bulging postbag: Any bluish …

    Bootnotes 1 Jul 2004, 09:30

  • Sony unveils HDD Walkman

    Reg Kit Watch Watch out, iPod

    Sony today announced yet another attempt to displace the iPod from the top of the digital music hardware charts. But unlike the clunky-looking players launched in the Japanese market, the European model appears a serious challenger for Apple's market leadership. The NW-HD1 is a "credit card-sized" 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.4cm unit fitted …

    Mobile 1 Jul 2004, 09:50

  • MS baits .Net with CE 5

    Fishing for mobile apps developers

    It isn't really a big secret that there's a horrible discontinuity between the number of developers Microsoft boasts about - millions! - and the number of those who have gone for the global XML-based solution of .Net Framework, and the developer product, Visual Studio .Net. Maybe, the new strategy of opening up embedded Windows …

    Mobile 1 Jul 2004, 10:00

  • Adaptec grabs RAID technology from IBM

    In brief Closer fit

    Adaptec has bought a RAID storage technology business unit from IBM. Adaptec will be IBM's sole supplier of RAID components for at least three years, and that's worth up to $150m in extra sales over the lifetime of the contract. Financial terms were undisclosed. Adaptec will license and acquire certain RAID data-protection …

    Storage 1 Jul 2004, 10:07

  • Canadian ISPs not liable for content royalties

    Common carriers

    ISPs do not need to cough up royalties to copyright holders whose work is sent across the service providers' networks, the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled. The verdict, backed unanimously, maintains that ISPs are "common carriers", which means that responsibility for the transmission of content lies solely with whoever sends …

    Music and Media 1 Jul 2004, 10:59

  • Ellison takes the stand

    The Peoplesoft v. Larry

    Larry Ellison took the stand yesterday to defend his company's proposed takeover of Peoplesoft. The Oracle CEO told the federal court in San Francisco that competitive pressures from SAP and fear of Microsoft had prompted him to bid for Peoplesoft. "We wanted to be a survivor and a consolidator, and we felt the only way to …

    Applications 1 Jul 2004, 11:18

  • No nudes on .nu: official

    Niue reps gets litigious over porn hosting claim

    The operators of the .nu TLD have taken mighty exception to a recent report by Secure Computing which claimed that the tiny sun-kissed island of Niue was the repository for three million pages of Web depravity. .NU Domain Ltd - the US-based .nu custodian - is to take legal action against Secure for "making false claims that .NU …

    Music and Media 1 Jul 2004, 11:23

  • All quiet on the malware front

    Zafi tops viral charts in placid June

    The nasty Zafi-B worm displaced Sasser and NetSky variants as the single most annoying virus last month. The worm, which spreads by email and over P2P file sharing networks, accounted for almost a third of all viruses spotted by anti-virus firm Sophos in June. The variety of social engineering tricks used by Zafi-B accounts for …

    Malware 1 Jul 2004, 11:29

  • Intel to debut low-end Grantsdales soon

    VIA, SiS, ULi, ATI Socket-T chipsets scheduled too

    Intel is expected to introduce two more i91x chipset series members in Q3, including a low-end model designed to support both Socket-478 and Socket-T processors. The i915GV will follow June 2004's launch of the i915G and i915P chipsets. The new part is a i915G minus the ability to operate with an external PCI Express x16 …

    Channel 1 Jul 2004, 11:50

  • 1,000 exchanges get go-ahead for broadband

    Green light gets the thumbs-up

    BT has published a timetable detailing when more than a thousand exchanges will be upgraded to DSL broadband. From the Autumn until summer next year, around 100 exchanges a month will be converted to handle broadband helping to bring the UK "significantly closer to universal availability". Once the work is completed, almost …

    Telecoms 1 Jul 2004, 12:20

  • EC demands more wireless R&D

    Building a competitive mobile data sector

    The European Commission says that the EU must improve its commitment to R&D as well as strengthen its patent laws to foster a competitive mobile data sector. A European Commission communication, entitled "Mobile Broadband Services," outlines the challenges the Commission has identified in this area, including the inter- …

    Mobile 1 Jul 2004, 12:21

  • UK premium rate phone complaints rocket

    'Not everything in the garden is rosy'

    The number of complaints concerning rip-off premium rate services (PRS) hit record highs last year, raising concerns that the regulator is unable to cope with the rising tide of fraud. Last year, PRS regulator ICSTIS received 27,501 complaints - a 240 per cent increase on 2002 and the highest annual level of complaints since …

    Music and Media 1 Jul 2004, 12:27

  • Talking toilets - whatever next?

    It was five years ago today... 1 July 1999

    It's amazing to think that long before electronically-enhanced toilets turned on their human masters and began their inexorable rise to total domination of the planet, such gadgets were seen as a force for good. Well, sort of: Talking toilets - whatever next? By Tim Richardson at Tomorrow's World Live, London Published …

    Bootnotes 1 Jul 2004, 12:28

  • MSN makes its move on search

    Faster, cleaner

    MSN has unveiled a big upgrade for its search engine to take on Google and Yahoo! at their own game. The Microsoft subsidiary is cleaning up its results, by eliminating paid inclusion and separating so called algorithmic results from paid results. It says the relevancy of results is improved by 45 per cent, bringing it up to …

    Financial News 1 Jul 2004, 12:28

  • Apple punts prizes as iTunes nears 100m-song target

    Plus: latest Euro stores' sales figures

    Apple today announced it will hand out a 17in PowerBook, a 40GB iPod and 10,000 free songs to whoever downloads track number 100m from the iTunes Music Store (ITMS). As well as getting punters busily buying songs, the announcement may take a little attention away, perhaps, from Sony's new 'iPod killer' hard drive-based Walkman, …

    Financial News 1 Jul 2004, 13:31

  • STMicro confirms Hynix JV talks

    And Infineon-Nanya JV starts making chips

    STMicroelectronics CEO Pasquale Pistorio this week confirmed that his company is in talks with South Korea's Hynix to form a memory-manufacturing joint venture, and that negotiations could be concluded within six weeks. Separately, Infineon's $2.2bn JV with Taiwan's Nanya, Inotera, opened its first 300mm wafer fab yesterday. …

    Channel 1 Jul 2004, 13:57

  • WestJet disputes industrial espionage charge

    Websites probed, garbage rifled, suits filed

    Canadian discount carrier WestJet Airlines has hit back at claims its executives illegally accessed Air Canada's website. In turn it accuses its larger rival of hiring private detectives to go through bins at the home of a senior WestJet executive. Air Canada sued WestJet in April over allegations that it improperly used an Air …

    Music and Media 1 Jul 2004, 14:21

  • Sony rebuffs PlayStation Portable delay claim

    'On target' for Q1 2005 US, Euro launches

    Sony has reiterated its March 2005 US and European PlayStation Portable ship date after an analyst report called that deadline into question. American Technology Research's PJ McNealy yesterday told investors that he believes the US ship date is "at risk". First, he argues, games developers aren't getting PSP SDKs in time to be …

    Consoles 1 Jul 2004, 14:32

  • Nigeria failing to tackle 419ers

    Lads cuffed, 500 : Convictions, 0

    Roughly 200 Nigerians are currently serving jail terms for advance fee or 419 fraud around the world, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, chairman of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), told a seminar in Abuja this week. But in Nigeria itself not a single person has been sentenced yet. About 500 suspected fraudsters …

    Music and Media 1 Jul 2004, 14:56

  • ICSTIS in meltdown - MPs

    Clean up premium rate industry - or else

    The UK's telecoms industry needs to weed out the fraudsters and scammers ripping off punters or face the threat of the plug being pulled on the premium rate industry. The telecoms industry also needs to invest more cash in premium rate service (PRS) regulator ICSTIS, which is swamped with complaints by customers who've been …

    Telecoms 1 Jul 2004, 15:00

  • Orange sets date for 3G data debut

    19 July. Stick it in your diaries

    Orange is to launch its 3G data card this month, company officials say. The card is slated for a 19 July release in Orange's shops, and will go on wider sale at the beginning of August. Company CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja, said that it was the switch on of "the biggest integrated 2.5/3G network in the UK". The company claims 66 per cent …

    Mobile 1 Jul 2004, 15:43

  • Junk mail host nations named and shamed

    Axis of Spam

    Five countries are hosting the overwhelming majority - a staggering 99.68 per cent - of spammer websites, according to a study out yesterday. Most spam that arrives in email boxes contains a URL to a website within an email, to allow users to buy spamvertised products online. While 49 countries around the world are hosting …

    Spam 1 Jul 2004, 16:13

  • On Sun, Java and Open Source

    Analysis Fundamentalists clash

    Sun says open sourcing Java code will fragment and devalue the platform. Sun's opponents say that under the current community process development is too slow. They're both right, but the debate, which Scott McNealy regards as synthetic - an issue manufactured by hypocritical competitors - highlights what people really want from …

    Developer 1 Jul 2004, 19:09