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9th September 2004 Archive

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  • Mitnick movie comes to the US

    'Doing things that are not real'

    Nearly six years after it was filmed, Hollywood's trouble-plagued movie version of the hunt for hacker Kevin Mitnick is headed for video stores in the US Originally titled Takedown, then Cybertraque, the film is set for a September 28th U.S. release on DVD with the new title, Track Down. The movie is from Miramax's horror and …

    Enterprise Security 9 Sep 2004, 09:02

  • AMD grabs Intel market share in desktop arena

    US retail sales turn away from chip giant

    AMD is increasingly out-selling Intel in the US desktop PC retail arena, and the pattern of sales throughout 2004 suggests it's going to be doing so rather more frequently than it has in the past. That's the clear conclusion of the latest research numbers from market watcher Current Analysis (CA), which this week released the …

    System Builder 9 Sep 2004, 09:05

  • Intel partners 'lab on a chip' firm

    Deal masks interest in controversial digital distribution patents?

    Intel is to explore the market for chips designed to probe DNA and other biochemicals, courtesy of a deal with specialist 'lab on a chip' maker CombiMatrix's parent company, Acacia Research (AR). Or is it? While Intel could well be interested in such an arena, coincidentally CombiMatrix is sibling to a company that owns a …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 2004, 09:36

  • Brits design fly-eating autobot

    Uses human excrement to attract lunch

    Scientists at the University of the West of England have designed a potentially autonomous robot which feeds on flies attracted by human excrement and uses them to generate electricity, the New Scientist reports. EcoBot II is reckoned to be a real step towards "release and forget" autonomous robots - albeit it a small one. At …

    Science 9 Sep 2004, 10:11

  • Kazaa colleague sues RIAA

    Anti-piracy teams use our tech without permission, claims Altnet

    P2P company Altnet has instigated legal action against the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA), claiming the music trade body and other anti-piracy operatives have infringed its intellectual property. Altnet is a joint venture of Brilliant Digital Entertainment and Joltid, the P2P software company founded by Kazaa's …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 2004, 10:18

  • Easynet trims losses

    Rapid return on DSL unbundling

    Easynet is experiencing a "rapid return" on its investment in local loop unbundling (LLU), the pan-European ISP reported today. It now has 214 "live" unbundled UK exchanges providing broadband services direct to end users. A further 31 exchanges are currently being kitted out for LLU, and the company expects to have installed …

    Telecoms 9 Sep 2004, 10:29

  • Oracle rebuilds Warehouse

    New OWB merits serious consideration

    Unsurprisingly, Oracle has announced a whole bunch of new products at Oracle OpenWorld this week. Some of these, like the new version of 11i, will get lots of media attention. One that will not is the new release of Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB), code-named Paris. However, in its own right it is pretty significant and it merits …

    Developer 9 Sep 2004, 10:31

  • Burger King cooks up music deal with AOL

    Chart toppers with Whoppers

    Burger King has followed its arch-rival, McDonalds, with a plan to serve up a free music download promotion. In October, the US burger chain will partner with AOL Music to offer a free song download with every Whopper sold. The move comes a month after McDonalds partnered with Sony's Connect online music service to offer a …

    Financial News 9 Sep 2004, 10:49

  • German jailed for email bomb hoax

    Thai-flavoured extortion

    A 44-year-old German man has been jailed for three-and-a-half years for trying to extort money by running a bomb hoax scam. The man - who used the aliases Jonathan Drake and Vincent Baxter - sent out 39 emails to companies in Germany and Austria, threatening to blow up buildings or kill people unless he was paid. The doctor's …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 2004, 10:50

  • Telenor takes down 'massive' botnet

    Clients are still zombies

    A network of more than 10,000 zombie PCs has been dismantled after security staff at Norwegian telco Telenor located and shutdown its controlling server. Worms such as MyDoom and Bagle (and Trojans such as Phatbot) surrender the control of infected PCs to hackers. These expanding networks (dubbed 'botnets' by the computer …

    Enterprise Security 9 Sep 2004, 10:58

  • 'Independent' report used MS-sourced data to trash OSS

    'Microsoft gave us this stuff, but we haven't checked it'

    When Microsoft announced victory in its battle with open source for the hearts, minds and wallets of Newham council last month, the press naturally asked to see the report Newham's decision was allegedly based on. Er, yes, the report would be forthcoming, we were told. So we gave it a few days, and asked again. And again. And …

    Operating Systems 9 Sep 2004, 12:21

  • Four in ten US surfers have broadband

    We ♥ the internet

    Four in ten net users in the US have broadband at home, according to research from Harris Interactive. Its survey of 2,003 adults also found that the use of broadband and narrowband net access is also on the up. Harris Interactive found that 73 per cent of adults are now online, up from 69 per cent in late 2003. Of those, 44 …

    Telecoms 9 Sep 2004, 13:25

  • Delete records, or profile the whole UK, says DNA print pioneer

    Something of a curate's egg of a lash out, this...

    The scientist who pioneered DNA fingerprinting has warned of the increasing danger of false positives as the use of the technique becomes more widespread. Although the theoretical chance of a false ID remains very small, geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys suggests switching from use of ten markers per person to 15 or 16 would reduce …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 2004, 13:31

  • Corporates get a case of the wireless jitters

    Analysis Too many systems, too many operators

    Fierce competition in the corporate and public sectors means mobile operators are under constant price pressure as they bid to steal each others’ lunch. This has resulted in a trend towards lower voice tariffs which is likely to continue. Mobile data services in the form of GPRS and 3G connectivity represent an opportunity to …

    Mobile 9 Sep 2004, 13:33

  • P2P jail bill moves forward

    Rip, Mix, Clink

    HR.4077, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, has been approved by the United States' House Judiciary Committee. The bill specifies up to five years' jail for anyone making over a thousand copyrighted works available for download. That's if the infringer is profiting from the action: ordinary P2P users would face up to …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 2004, 13:36

  • T-Mobile: UK will get Windows Mobile smart phone

    Smart Digital Assistant on its way

    Mobile phone network T-Mobile will ship its version of HTC's latest Windows Mobile 2003-based smart phone next month under the Smart Digital Assistant (SDA) brand. The tri-band handset will go on sale in Germany in October, but IDG cites a T-Mobile spokesman claiming that the handset will soon appear in the UK, the Netherlands …

    Mobile 9 Sep 2004, 13:37

  • O2 unveils XDA IIs, IIi Wi-Fi Pocket PCs

    Blackberry support coming next year

    Mobile network O2 will ship an updated XDA II later this year taken from the same mould from which T-Mobile's upcoming MDA III is cast. A second model will ship early 2005. The XDA IIs features the same slide out QWERTY keyboard as the MDA III, and brings 802.11b Wi-Fi connectivity to the XDA family. The O2 device will also …

    Mobile 9 Sep 2004, 14:03

  • Third of Irish phone lines fail broadband test

    Lobby group 'stunned'

    Internet lobby group IrelandOffline has called on telecoms regulator ComReg to comment on reports that three in ten phone lines are unable to support broadband. Ireland Offline was "stunned" to learn that a third of lines fail their line tests. Include those homes and busnesses not connected to - or too far away from - a …

    Telecoms 9 Sep 2004, 14:15

  • Savvis outed as big-time spam host

    Sorry. We won't do it again

    Savvis, the big US corporate ISP, is to remove spammers from its books following pressure from anti-spam group Spamhaus. The pledge comes after a whistleblower, who had failed to persuade Savvis' management to put its house in order, was fired. Alif Terranson, an engineer in charge with keeping Savvis's network clean, …

    Spam 9 Sep 2004, 14:29

  • Real '49c a song' promo pushes downloads to 3m

    But weekly average still well below Apple's

    Real Networks claimed today that it sold 3m songs during its recent low-price download promotion, which ran for three weeks in August. What the company doesn't say is how many songs it sold in the three-week period prior to the $0.49-a-track promo kick-off, or in the period since the offer ended. Almost certainly sales went up …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 2004, 14:57

  • You lookin at mah website, pal?

    The web as your auld grannie might have wished it

    The Scottish Parliament has had what you might call an 'attack of the Jimmehs' by including Scots in the minority languages it supports on its Web site. But although pages pages like this will have a regrettable tendency to engender the response, "Youse takin the piss, Jimmeh?", we at The Register should stress before the flames …

    Bootnotes 9 Sep 2004, 15:01

  • Systems failure hits BT broadband upgrades

    'Thousands' moving to 1Mb service left unplugged

    "Thousands" of UK ADSL users upgrading to a 1Mb service have had their broadband connection cut off because of a systems failure at BT. At this stage it's not known exactly how many people upgrading from 512k to 1Mb have been hit by the snafu but some readers tell us that when they contacted BT tech support they were told that …

    Telecoms 9 Sep 2004, 15:34

  • Potential buyers sniff Ebookers

    Net travel outfit confirms talks

    Internet travel outfit - Ebookers - has confirmed that it is in talks with "several interested parties" to sell the company. Industry whispers reckon that Lastminute.com and the outfits behind Expedia and Travelocity could be sniffing round to snap up Ebookers. In a statement issued to the stock exchange this afternoon the …

    Financial News 9 Sep 2004, 15:59

  • Nokia sees sunnier earnings in Q3

    Thermometer rising

    Nokia has revised its earnings guidance upwards, and now says it expects to report both higher income and higher volumes shipped than it previously stated when it delivers its Q3 2004 figures next month. Nokia says sales will be in the range €6.8-6.9bn, up from €6.6-6.8bn; and earnings per share €0.11-0.13, up from €0.08-0.10. …

    Mobile 9 Sep 2004, 16:02

  • McAfee app raids Mac users' inboxes

    Virex 7.5 pulled following email deletion

    Apple has stopped offering the latest version of McAfee's anti-virus package to Mac users following reports of widespread problems with the software. McAfee Virex 7.5 was pulled from Apple's .Mac online service last week - only days after its introduction - following a series of complaints. "Due to customer feedback and …

    Malware 9 Sep 2004, 16:49

  • Qualcomm discovers sense of Iridigm

    Snaps up next-gen display company

    Qualcomm is clearly thinking beyond the phone. The CDMA pioneer made a significant acquisition today, snapping up a San Francisco-based designer of light-modulated displays. Iridigm will cost Qualcomm $170 million. The former's iMoD, or Interferometric Modulator next-generation displays draw on from ambient light, and so …

    Mobile 9 Sep 2004, 18:51

  • Tech bubble banker goes to jail

    Quattrone gets 18 months

    At the height of the dot.com IPO mania he helped create, investment banker Frank Quattrone's worries included the public flotations of companies like Cisco, Amazon.com and Netscape. Now his main worry will be dropping the soap in the showers. After a probe and successful prosecution by the Department of Justice, Quattrone …

    Financial News 9 Sep 2004, 18:52

  • IBM strikes out at Intel with new Opteron box

    IDF Fall '04 Still behind HP and Sun

    With the Intel Developer Forum rolling along in full force, IBM made the obvious decision to announce its next-generation server based on AMD's Opteron processor. The eServer 326 will start shipping in limited volume next week as the follow on to IBM's current e325 system. Like its predecessor, the e326 is a two-processor, rack …

    Servers 9 Sep 2004, 19:22

  • Retro thinking will save the net

    IDF Fall '04 Vint Cerf reminisces

    The internet needs an upgrade if it is to keep pace with a growing population, provide the bandwidth for increasingly demanding applications and protect mission critical systems, Intel said today. Intel CTO Pat Gelsinger argued that the net has become a complex heterogeneous environment, and that to move forward, engineers need …

    Music and Media 9 Sep 2004, 19:54