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21st July 2004 Archive

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  • Broadband ISPs must wise up to small.biz needs

    Listen and learn

    Broadband service providers need to work a little harder and be more inventive if they want to sign-up small businesses to high-speed Net access. Experts reckon the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) market is largely untapped at the moment, giving broadband service providers a whopping opportunity to attract new …

    Small Biz 21 Jul 2004, 08:21

  • MS makes monster payout

    $32bn special dividend to shareholders

    Microsoft is paying a special dividend - giving investors a one-off payment of $3 per share, a total of $32bn. The company delayed getting rid of its cash pile because it was worried about potential costs connected to its anti-trust actions which have now been mainly settled. Microsoft will also spend $30bn on buying back its …

    Financial News 21 Jul 2004, 08:23

  • Freescale posts Q2 profit on rising sales

    But growth slowing

    Motorola's soon-to-be-independent semiconductor operation, Freescale, saw sale rise five per cent sequentially and 31 per cent year-on-year, allowing the company to post a profit for its second quarter. Sales for the three-month period totalled $1.46bn, up from Q1's $1.4bn and Q2 2003's $1.12bn. The rising sales yielded a …

    Financial News 21 Jul 2004, 08:39

  • Chip biz IPO pushes Motorola into the red

    But big handset sales yield big income growth

    Motorola yesterday reported that it had experienced a big jump in sales during its second quarter. However, the upcoming IPO of its chip division, Freescale, knocked its earnings for six. Sales the for the quarter totalled $8.7bn, up 41 per cent from Q2 2003's $6.2bn and up 1.2 per cent from Q1 2004's $8.6bn. That yielded pre- …

    Financial News 21 Jul 2004, 09:06

  • French atomic agency sues Samsung

    Alleges LCD patent pinching

    The French government has accused Samsung of infringing patents it holds covering LCD technology and has summoned the South Korean giant to the portentous-sounding Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance to explain itself. The patents are actually held by France's Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), which has been building up a …

    Channel 21 Jul 2004, 09:27

  • The ATM keypad as security portcullis

    Protecting your cash from solenoid fingers

    Behold the modern automated teller machine, a tiny mechanical fortress in a world of soft targets. But even with all those video cameras, audit trails, and steel reinforced cash vaults, wily thieves armed with social engineering techniques and street technology are still making bank. Now the financial industry is working to …

    Enterprise Security 21 Jul 2004, 09:38

  • Shuttle unwraps 'fastest' SFF PC yet

    Athlon 64 at the helm

    Small form-factor barebones PC maker Shuttle today introduced its first Socket 939 Athlon 64 model, claiming the new machine will out-perform the company's Intel-oriented offerings. The XPC SN95G5 follows the earlier introduction of the Socket 754-based SK83G and SN85G4. Like the latter, the new model is based on an Nvidia …

    Channel 21 Jul 2004, 09:52

  • France Telecom must return state aid

    €1bn pay-back

    The European Commission has ruled that France Telecom did receive "illicit aid" from the French government and ordered the telco to pay the money back. The investigation centred on the tax that the telco paid between 1994 and 2002. The EC believes the French government gave France Telecom an illegal tax break of between €800m …

    Telecoms 21 Jul 2004, 10:02

  • Virgin Mobile floats!

    Bobbing along

    Virgin Mobile made a successful debut on the London Stock Exchange this morning. Shares are trading at 207p, above the revised offer price of 200p but substantially lower than the original price range of 235p and 285p. Branson decided yesterday to cut the price and reduce the amount of shares on offer. Virgin founder Richard …

    Financial News 21 Jul 2004, 10:45

  • Judge deems PS2 mod chips illegal in UK

    Unlawful to use, sell, advertise, own etc

    The UK High Court has judged that the sale, advertisement, possession for commercial purposes and use of PlayStation 2 modification chips is illegal in this country. Under the UK's implementation of the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD), Europe's answer to the controversial US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it is …

    Music and Media 21 Jul 2004, 10:46

  • Oracle judge hears closing arguments

    Takes no prisoners

    Judge Vaughan Walker heard closing arguments from the US government and from Oracle yesterday - and gave both sides some tough questions. The US government presented its case first but the judge questioned their market definition. Walker asked: "How can this be anything but a global market?" He also asked whether the …

    Applications 21 Jul 2004, 10:47

  • Parents clueless about kids online

    Need to get 'Web wise'

    Parents haven't a clue what their kids get up to online. That's just one of the findings of a report out today by the London School of Economics which reveals a gulf between what children do online - and what parents think their children get up to. Of course, any parent knows they will never really know what their children get …

    Music and Media 21 Jul 2004, 10:52

  • mmo2 numbers are up

    Quarterly update

    mmo2 says subscriber numbers are up and it expects to outperform expectations for the quarter ended 30 June 2004. The mobile operator added 603,000 new customers giving it a total of 21.3m. Of these 261,000 were in the UK and of them 149,000 were contract customers. ARPU (average revenue per user) was also up to £279 in the UK …

    Financial News 21 Jul 2004, 10:55

  • Mars rock found in Antarctica

    1.3bn years old, and from the Red Planet

    Meteorite hunters, scouring the Antarctic continent for fragments of other worlds, have found a new piece of Mars in amongst the ice, snow and penguins. As is traditional in such cases, it has been given a name that reflects its alien origins and the vast distance it travelled through space: MIL 03346. The 715.2-gram rock was …

    Science 21 Jul 2004, 11:03

  • God violates Intel trademark

    Jesus inside

    Those readers who already have the fastest, leanest, boy-racer chip in their PC but still feel the need to "upgrade to the highest power" might consider looking beyond the purely physical. One UK church has rather cheekily swiped Intel's ubiquitous "intel inside" concept and turned it to the service of the Lord, as its poster …

    Bootnotes 21 Jul 2004, 11:10

  • One.Tel in broadband - telco bundle

    That's it

    Four in ten punters say they would be more likely to switch telephone provider if offered a bundled package of fixed line, broadband and mobile, according to research commission by One.Tel. Which is a spookily amazing coincidence because - can you believe this - One.Tel has announced it is to bundle these products to its …

    Telecoms 21 Jul 2004, 11:45

  • HP extends PDA lead

    PalmOne Treo purchase pays off in EMEA

    HP continued to outstrip PalmOne in markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during Q2, expanding the gap between the two companies' shipments after it took the lead in Q1, according to the latest figures from market watcher Canalys. And the market for mobile devices as a whole saw impressive year-on-year growth, with …

    Mobile 21 Jul 2004, 11:47

  • IBM's £400m Defra IT deal gets the green light

    But will it save us money?

    IBM has been confirmed as the IT partner for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), in a contract worth at least £400m over the next ten years. Three hundred and thirty Defra IT staff will transfer to IBM, but there is disagreement within the department as to whether or not this will save money. According to Marilyn …

    Public Sector 21 Jul 2004, 11:48

  • BTG sues Apple and MS over software downloads

    Patent dispute

    A British intellectual property firm is taking Microsoft and Apple to court alleging they have infringed its software patents. British Technology Group (BTG), representing Richard Reisman and Teleshuttle Technologies, claims Apple and Microsoft have infringed patents covering "web-enabled software update technologies". BTG …

    Developer 21 Jul 2004, 11:51

  • Garmin preps mid-range integrated GPS PDA

    Kit Watch As Dell readies own Bluetooth GPS solution

    Garmin's anticipated revised Palm OS-based integrated GPS handheld looks set to ship in two weeks' time. And Dell is to push further into the PocketPC GPS arena with its first own-brand wireless GPS antenna. We've known for some time that Garmin has been preparing a successor to its iQue 3600. However, Amazon.com recently …

    Mobile 21 Jul 2004, 12:24

  • Aurora rattles tin for space exploration

    Scientists say government must chip in

    Scientists will today argue the case for UK involvement in Aurora, the European Space Agency's mission to explore space beyond Earth's orbit, aiming first for the moon, and then Mars. The UK has already contributed to the planning phases of the programme - identifying likely missions and so on - through the Particle Physics and …

    Science 21 Jul 2004, 14:14

  • US Net users want VoIP

    Gimme, gimme

    One in five Net users in the US wants the opportunity to make cheap calls over the Internet. Even though demand for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) mainly focuses on cheap calls, punters also want other bolt-on features such as caller ID, voicemail, battery back-up, and call waiting, according to a survey of 1,200 US Net …

    Data Networking 21 Jul 2004, 14:18

  • Spam King dodges $20m big stick

    NY settles for $50k from Scott Richter

    Notorious spammer Scott Richter has been slapped on the wrist for the bulk mailing activities of his OptInRealBig business. But the $40,000 fine (plus $10,000 in "investigative costs") Richter will be obliged to pay in settling a lawsuit brought against him by the State of New York is more of a victory for the self-styled "Spam …

    Spam 21 Jul 2004, 14:25

  • Online ad spend on the up-and-up

    Will surpass radio within three years

    Between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2003 Internet advertising in Britain was worth £353.6m, 2.5 per cent of total ad spend. The second half of the year accounted for £202.1m of this total. Year-on-year growth is more than 80 per cent, total online spending in 2002 was £196.7m. Online advertising is now two thirds of the size …

    Financial News 21 Jul 2004, 14:26

  • ISPA seeks analysis of BT's 'Cleanfeed' stats

    Web filtering figures 'could be misleading'

    ISPA - the trade group for the UK's ISPs - wants to carry out an analysis of BT's "Cleanfeed" Web filtering system because of concerns that the data might be giving a misleading picture of the scale of Internet child abuse. Yesterday, BT said that in the last three weeks it had blocked 230,000 attempts to access child abuse …

    Telecoms 21 Jul 2004, 14:51

  • iPass touts network access policy devolution

    Remote access on the edge

    iPass is to take a more active role in supporting customers' network security programmes, a move that will see the company's business ultimately become more akin to facilities management than that of a corporate remote access provider. iPass Policy Orchestration enables customers to devise more flexible security policies rather …

    Enterprise Security 21 Jul 2004, 15:11

  • Cybercops seize Russian extortion masterminds

    Three online blackmail suspects cuffed

    Three men suspected of masterminding a cyber-extortion racket targeting online bookies were arrested yesterday in a joint operation between the UK’s National Hi-Tech Crime Unit and its counterparts in the Russian Federation. The trio, who investigators reckon netted hundreds of thousands of pounds from the cyber shakedowns, were …

    Enterprise Security 21 Jul 2004, 15:32

  • P2P net iMesh falls in line with RIAA

    Users will pay to share

    Israeli P2P network iMesh has agreed to block unauthorised song-swapping and cough up $4.1m to the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA). The RIAA began legal action against iMesh in September 2003. The P2P network claims it has over 10m users around the world. The RIAA alleged many of them were engaged in ripping off its …

    Music and Media 21 Jul 2004, 15:35

  • Bluesocket punts wireless security kit

    Intruder detection system - at a price

    Bluesocket, the IT security vendor, is to sell wireless monitoring technology alongside its current line of wireless gateway products. The BlueSecure intrusion detection system includes a server and dedicated sensors, which can monitor traffic on 802.11a, b and g networks. According to Carlos Gomez Gallego, product manager at …

    Enterprise Security 21 Jul 2004, 15:52

  • God to smite Reg hacks

    FoTW Pillars of salt? Oh yes

    Not one, but two flames this week. Both addressed to Mr. Haines, which makes us wonder what it is about the man that inspires your wrath... Anyway, first we have thoughts from, we think, Simon Cowell's lesser known younger brother: Adam DiTomasso. He took exception to a description of Hendrix as 60s "Alt" rock in the survey on …

    Letters 21 Jul 2004, 16:27

  • Seagate sees red in Q4

    Betting on tiny drives

    Troubled hard drive maker Seagate yesterday reported disappointing results for its fourth quarter and full year. Seagate posted $1.34bn in revenue for the fourth quarter and a net loss of $33m. This is quite a flip from the $1.55bn in revenue and net income of $160m reported in the same period last year. For the full year, …

    Storage 21 Jul 2004, 16:28

  • Apple signs key indies to iTunes

    Updated 'Tens of thousands' of extra tracks being uploaded

    Apple today confirmed that it has reached an accord with European independent record labels Beggars Group, Sanctuary Records Group and V2, bringing the likes of Basement Jaxx, The Crystal Method, Interpol, The Libertines, Morrissey, Prodigy, Stereophonics, the Datsuns, Paul Weller and The White Stripes to the iTunes Music Store …

    Financial News 21 Jul 2004, 16:55

  • NASA and Bush battle for budget

    Funding is up, down, up, down, up...

    President Bush's plans to get to Mars may have run into trouble, courtesy of a move in the US House of Representatives to cut NASA's 2005 budget by $1.1bn. However, according to a Senate subcommittee could yet come charging to the rescue, with a bill that would result in a $866m budget increase for NASA. The vote on the NASA …

    Science 21 Jul 2004, 17:04

  • Symbian founder on mobile past, present and future

    Exclusive Why Skype's a chimera and why the iPod is great

    Colly Myers has had a pretty low profile since leaving Symbian two years ago. For the former Managing Director of Psion, the Symbian OS is very much his baby. Before Psion, he was a mainframe programmer, and always wanted to see a mainframe-class operating system on a handheld. So he instigated the project, ten years ago this …

    Mobile 21 Jul 2004, 17:28

  • What went wrong at Wright State when Napster arrived

    Opinion A lose, lose proposition

    When the Napster music service arrives at Wright State University this fall, it will bring with it higher IT costs for everyone while delivering almost no gains to half of the student population. Wright State is one of the six universities that agreed this week to test out the Napster service as a way of curbing illegal music …

    Music and Media 21 Jul 2004, 19:05

  • Judge junks most of SCO's complaint against DaimlerChrysler

    Johnny Utah missed the tube

    It looks as if SCO will have to find another automaker to pick on after a judge granted the majority of DaimlerChrysler's motion to dismiss SCO's suit against it. SCO fingered DaimlerChrysler back in March, claiming DC had failed to prove that it was in compliance with a Unix licensing agreement dating back to 1990. …

    Software 21 Jul 2004, 21:51