15th September 2004 Archive

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Good, old database carries Oracle higher in Q1

Apps biz sinks

Oracle enjoyed a solid rise in first quarter earnings on the back of its flagship database. Larry Ellison's shop posted $2.2bn in revenue - a 7 percent year-over-year rise. Net income rose 16 percent to $509m, while earnings per share jumped 18 percent to $0.10. "Since we introduced our database for grid computing, Oracle 10g …

Applications 15 Sep 2004, 00:32
Microsoft warns of poisoned picture peril

JPEG of Death

The old bromide that promises you can't get a computer virus by looking at an image file crumbled a bit further Tuesday when Microsoft announced a critical vulnerability in its software's handling of the ubiquitous JPEG graphics format. The security hole is a buffer overflow that potentially allows an attacker to craft a …

Enterprise Security 15 Sep 2004, 07:39
Chaintech ships first i915 mobo

Part pitched at 'digital home' PCs

Chaintech has begun shipping its first 'Grantsdale'-based ATX motherboard, the V915P, the mobo maker announced this week. In addition to supporting 775-pin, Socket T Pentium 4 CPUs, the board provides slots for up to 4GB of 400MHz or 533MHz DDR SDRAM in dual-channel configuration. As per other based on Intel's i915P chipset, …

System Builder 15 Sep 2004, 08:23
US loses 400,000 IT jobs

Most of them after the recession ended

America saw 403, 300 hi-tech jobs disappear between April 2001 and April 2004. More than half the jobs lost were lost after the recession was pronounced officially over, by the National Bureau of Economic Research, in November 2001. San Francisco and San Jose were the worst-hit places, according to the survey from the University …

IT Director 15 Sep 2004, 08:34
TDC buys Song

Pan-Scandy telco a step nearer

Consolidation among Scandinavian telcos continues with TDC, previously Tele Danmark, buying Song, the Swedish IP specialist and business telecoms firm, for $552m. Song provides business with IP and data services. It operates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Henning Dyremose, president and CEO of TDC, said: "An …

Financial News 15 Sep 2004, 08:45
Group Sense readies Palm OS 5.4 smart phone

Nokia-size screen, slide-out keyboard

Far Eastern Palm OS-based smart phone maker Group Sense PDA (GSPDA) hasn't formally announced its latest model, the Xplore M28, but it appears to have given the Hong Kong Palm Users Group a sneak preview. The Group's web site has posted a spec. list and a piccy of the device, which is GSPDA's first Palm OS 5-derived unit. The …

Mobile 15 Sep 2004, 08:55
Online poker ace scores £4,500 - per week

Maths graduate on a nice little earner

A Belfast maths graduate who rejected the offer of a £40,000-a-year banking job in favour of professional online gambling is on course to hit a £234,000 jackpot by December, the Sun reports. Lee-Anne Smyth, 25, currently walks away with a cool £4,500 a week from Ladbrokespoker.com, and told the UK tabloid: "Who needs a proper …

Financial News 15 Sep 2004, 09:27
PwC: software patents threat to Europe

Few prepared for consequences

Services and accountancy firm Price Waterhouse Coopers has formally identified software patenting as a threat to the growth and success of ICT in Europe. In a report prepared this summer for the Dutch EU presidency, PwC lists ten ICT breakthroughs it says are needed to resume the pace of growth Europe experienced during the IT …

Developer 15 Sep 2004, 10:32
Contractors need red tape knowledge

It's not like the 90s now, you know...

Contractors returning to consultancy work should make sure they've got their paperwork in order. Despite changes to IR35 legislation most would still be better off with Limited Company status rather than paying tax through an agency. The warning comes from JSA - accountants who specialise in working with IT contractors. They …

Small Biz 15 Sep 2004, 10:36
Norfolk man in French car bomb terror ordeal

Sobbing dad held suspect device for four hours

The good burghers of far-flung UK eastern county Norfolk have for years been on the receiving end of unkind jibes suggesting that they are a little challenged in the grey matter department. Sadly, one local has done little to dispel the myths that Norfolkians are thicker than a Chernobyl safety inspector's lead underpants after …

Bootnotes 15 Sep 2004, 10:43
Amazon feels pointy end of software patenting

BTG sues others, too

The British Technology Group (BTG), the IP holding and technology commercialisation outfit, is suing a group of US online retailers, including Amazon.com, for allegedly infringing patents it holds that cover tracking the path a user has taken through the web. BarnesandNoble.com, Netflix and Overstock.com are also named in the …

Developer 15 Sep 2004, 10:47
ISPA 'snubs' million UK net users

More grief over industry awards

ISPA has been accused of "snubbing" a million internet users in the UK by failing to recognise the existence of their high-speed services. Tiscali UK says it is "astounded" that UK internet trade group, ISPA, has failed to include a category for "midband" services in its annual awards, even though these are among the most …

Telecoms 15 Sep 2004, 10:49
Raising the Linux Standard

Base mettle

The Free Standards Group and the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) hope that improved standards for Linux will help accelerate its adoption by enterprise and large business customers. FSG made Linux Standard Base (LSB) 2.0 available earlier this week. The standard aims to make it easier for software developers to ensure their …

Servers 15 Sep 2004, 10:50
World's largest ID theft felon faces 14 years' jail

Help desk technician pleads guilty to $50m scam

A former New York computer help desk technician yesterday pleaded guilty to playing a key part in what prosecutors reckon is the largest identity theft case to date. Philip Cummings, 35, pleaded guilty to conspiracy over his central role in a scam believed to have hit upwards of 30,000 victims and cost millions through …

ID 15 Sep 2004, 11:08
Small.biz in the dark over IT skill levels

Skill bill

The vast majority of small firms demand that their IT staff should be properly qualified, but few know how skilled their technical employees are. A survey commissioned by Microsoft found that 85 per cent of UK businesses think that IT qualifications are a vital requirement before allowing employees to look after computer …

Small Biz 15 Sep 2004, 11:18
PCCW opens kimono (a little) on UK broadband wireless plans

Radio On

When the UK’s 15 licenses for fixed wireless broadband ended up in the hands of a single viable bidder in May last year, most European and UK operators shrugged and said so what? Pacific Century Cyber Works bought 13 of 15 licenses auctioned in the UK last year, by bidding through differently named subsidiaries and later …

Wireless 15 Sep 2004, 11:56
T-Mobile to battle iPod with music smart phone

Nice handset, shame about the storage capacity

T-Mobile is pitching its against the likes of Apple and Creative with a new smart phone specifically (nominally) designed for digital music playback. The handset will ship initially in Germany, in November, the mobile phone network said this week. The SDA Music handset is based on Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphones, and …

Mobile 15 Sep 2004, 12:15
Amstrad unveils £99 videophone

Prepares to enter broadband era with Wi-Fi adaptor

UK consumer electronics company Amstrad today launched the third generation of email terminal - now dubbed the E3 - in a bid to bring video telephony to the masses. While the device is initially geared toward dial-up connectivity, company chief Sir Alan Sugar forecast support for broadband through a plug-on Wi-Fi unit, The …

Wireless 15 Sep 2004, 12:47
Eidos plunges into red

Takeover talks still on

UK games publisher Eidos saw fiscal 2003's £17.4m profit shrink to a £2m loss during fiscal 2004, which ended on 30 June. However, the company was confident that takeover talks with unnamed third parties "are progressing well", despite the "disappointing: dip into the red. The loss comes in spite of a 3.8 percentage point rise …

Financial News 15 Sep 2004, 13:31
OFT urged to investigate 'rip-off' iTunes

Live in the UK? Then pay more

The Consumers' Association has accused iTunes - the music download service from Apple - of ripping off UK punters by charging them 20 per cent more than European counterparts. The consumer watchdog has written to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) asking it to investigate the possible "anti-competitive practice of the music …

Financial News 15 Sep 2004, 13:37
Austrians silence jibbering supermarket trolleys

In brief A victory for humanity

We are receiving heartwarming reports that an Austrian supermarket has withdrawn talking shopping trolleys because, to put it bluntly, they pissed punters right off. The Billa noshatorium in Purkersdorf apparently thought it was a bright idea to have jibbering mobile baskets which pointed out bargains to delighted shoppers. The …

Bootnotes 15 Sep 2004, 13:54
VIA offers hard disk data scrub code

Truly erase deleted confidential data

Taiwanese chip company VIA today expanded its PadLock security software suite with a tool to ensure that information deleted from a user's hard drive stays deleted. Padlock Tru-Delete uses the hardwired true random number generator built into the latest generation of VIA's x86-compatible CPUs to overwrite disk sectors …

Storage 15 Sep 2004, 13:55
JP Morgan eats IBM outsourcing contract

IBM gets insourced...

JP Morgan is canning a $5bn, seven-year outsourcing agreement with IBM. IBM won the contract ahead of EDS and CSC, taking responsibility for the investment bank's data centres, desktop support and network services. The deal was signed 30 December 2002 and was hailed by Eric Ray, vice president for financial services at IBM, as …

IT Director 15 Sep 2004, 14:00
UK school cans 'world-beating' biometric scanner

Couldn't stand the pace

A "world-beating" biometric scanner system which was intended to remove the stigma of claiming free school meals has been removed from a school in Sunderland - after failing to deliver on its cutting-edge promise. The Venerable Bede Church of England School in Ryhope deployed the CRB Solutions' kit in its canteen as a way of …

ID 15 Sep 2004, 14:04
Hitachi readies notebook Serial ATA hard drives

Handy for blade servers, too

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) this week said it will ship a line of Serial ATA hard drives designed for notebook usage in Q4. The drives will appear in time for laptop makers to incorporate them into machines based on 'Sonoma', the upcoming second generation of Intel's Centrino platform. HGST's Travelstar 5K100 …

Storage 15 Sep 2004, 14:11
Brazil 'tops cybercrime league'

Cybergeddon or cyberFUD?

Brazil is the world capital of cybercrime, at least according to the Brazilian Federal Police. Eight in ten computer hackers are Brazilian while two in three paedophile pages are hosted in the South American country, the BBC reports. Local police say that losses from online financial fraud exceed that lost through bank robberies …

Enterprise Security 15 Sep 2004, 14:26
Cell chip development 'almost done' - Toshiba

Massively parallel processor to 'change the world'

'Cell', the massively parallel processing chip being developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba, is nearly done, Toshiba president Tadashi Okamura has revealed. The chip will "change the world", he enthusiastically forecast in an interview with Japan's Nikkei Journal. Work on the processor, which will form the basis for PlayStation 3 …

Consoles 15 Sep 2004, 14:51
Siemens launches iPod-styled camera phone

More about photography than phonography

Siemens today unveiled what's arguably the most iPod-like mobile phone yet, the shiny white plastic-cased SF65. The phone maker called the handset's design "contemporary and paired-down", but while its "polar white" colour scheme is decidedly reminiscent of Apple's iPod, the handset is geared more toward photography than …

Mobile 15 Sep 2004, 15:21
Brit workers are 'apathetic and unskilled'

Details here if you can be bothered

UK workers are apathetic and lacking in skills according to a bunch of highly-skilled and very driven management bods. The survey of board-level executives, paid for by HP, reveals "deep seated concern about the competency and motivation of the modern UK workforce". And we thought it was just journalists... The researchers …

IT Director 15 Sep 2004, 15:39
Blair reveals some games 'unsuitable' for kids

That's why the law already bans their sale to minors, Tony...

Prime Minister Tony Blair today voiced his support for the UK's game certification system, which offers parents an indication of which titles are suitable for given age groups and provides a legal framework to fine or imprison retailers who sell adult-oriented games to kids. Actually, he didn't say that at all. Blair today told …

Music and Media 15 Sep 2004, 16:09
Insecurity downtime on the up

Something else to worry about

Firms with a blasé attitude to security could see system downtime caused as a result of software vulnerabilities treble by 2008. Gartner, the analyst firm, estimates downtime arising from software security issues could rise from five per cent of overall downtime in 2004 to 15 per cent by 2008. "Increasing Internet activity, …

Enterprise Security 15 Sep 2004, 16:20
Italians build biggest space window

Room with a view

The view from the International Space Station is about to get a lot better, as the largest window ever built for use in space has been completed. The construction of the window was originally funded by NASA and Boeing. However, when NASA's budgets were tightened in 1998, the project ran out of money. The European Space Agency ( …

Science 15 Sep 2004, 16:39
Immigration, police share data in trawl of 'crime hot-spots'

Pretext + databases + mobile terminals. Yum.

As the UK Home Office has stressed on numerous occasions, police will not be given powers to demand ID papers from you as and when a national identity card is introduced. The Home Office has not however shouted quite so loudly about the fact that the Immigration and Nationalities Directorate (IND) has these powers already, and …

Music and Media 15 Sep 2004, 18:39
Picture messaging - it's worse than you thought

But might get better

Two years after the introduction of picture messaging in Europe, MMS is still a flop. Network operators still gain 99 per cent of their data revenue from plain old text messaging. It's not as if the original issues haven't been addressed: cost, interoperability and availability of handsets. Next year almost half of new handsets …

Mobile 15 Sep 2004, 19:33
Nation hangs up on mobile phones

Lebanon protests excessive fees

A nationwide cellphone strike has been pronounced a success by its organizer, a consumer group in Lebanon. The third such action took place this week in protest against high mobile phone tariffs. The president of Consumers' Lebanon Association, CLA, who organized the strike, wants users to be billed by the second rather than by …

Mobile 15 Sep 2004, 19:35
Infineon pleads guilty to memory price-fixing

Nailed for $160m

Infineon has agreed to pay a $160m fine to the US government for fixing the price of computer memory from 1999 to 2002, one of the biggest ever penalties imposed by the DoJ's Antitrust division. The German firm today announced that it has pled guilty to one count of price-fixing - a violation of US antitrust laws. It plans to …

Business 15 Sep 2004, 19:53
Wikipedia's Emergent People fail to impress readers

Letters No sympathy for the fiddlers

If you could cram your favorite hobby horses into the Encyclopedia of the Future, wouldn't you be tempted? Well, refreshingly, many readers wouldn't - so let's commend their integrity. Wikipedia's reputation gets another mauling in response to this story, so if you're a member of what one reader calls the Emergent People - …

Letters 15 Sep 2004, 20:27
Mozilla updates browsers after bug hunt

Patch cycle

Mozilla released a series of security updates for its Firefox and Mozilla 1.7 browsers yesterday that resolve the first security vulnerabilities to come from the Mozilla Foundation's Security Bug Bounty Program. Its Thunderbird email client also needs patching for similar reasons. The total of 10 vulns discovered are described …

Enterprise Security 15 Sep 2004, 20:37