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5th October 2004 Archive

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  • Feds hold E-Rate funds hostage

    Schools in limbo

    The Feds have clamped down on distributing funds intended to equip schools and libraries with Internet connections, as they scramble to correct a long corrupt program. Word dropped this week that the US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has applied tighter accounting policies to the E-Rate program. More than $1bn in funds …

    Public Sector 5 Oct 2004, 02:08

  • Yahoo! can! get! stuffed!

    Opinion Man on the edge of IM insanity

    I now have a Danger Hiptop, or Sidekick II, which does Yahoo! instant messaging. I also have a Palm Treo 600, which has Verichat - which does Yahoo! instant messaging. I think the time has come to kick Yahoo! messenger into the bin. The last straw, for me, is not the insistence on launching a browser every time I start the PC, …

    Financial News 5 Oct 2004, 09:24

  • AMD issues revenue warning

    Newsflash!

    Weak demand for flash memory will drag down AMD sales for Q3. But net income will be up a little on Q2's $32m, reflecting the higher margins from sales of microprocessors, the chipmaker warned yesterday. Previously, it expected sales to increase moderately from Q2's sales of $1.1262bn. Now for a quote for Robert Rivet, AMD's …

    Channel Register 5 Oct 2004, 09:28

  • UK call centre jobs on the up

    Sector 'very much alive'

    The number of people employed in UK call centres continues to rise, despite fears that many UK jobs are being exported overseas. Six in ten companies reported an increase in call centre employment over the past year, with a majority expecting their workforce to grow in 2005. Telecoms, financial services, utilities and the …

    IT Director 5 Oct 2004, 09:36

  • Biometric IBM ThinkPad T42

    Review Fingerprint-scanning prototype

    Last week I attended an IBM briefing, held at The Clink Museum near London Bridge. The Clink was an old Prison and the museum is full of gruesome memorabilia relating to the bad old days of sadistic incarceration. The reason that IBM chose this particular venue is because the theme of the evening was security, and what better …

    Reviews 5 Oct 2004, 09:40

  • Judge defangs Patriot Act

    No ISP snooping for chastised Feds

    A New York judge did the right thing last week when he threw out a USA-PATRIOT Act provision that forced ISPs to secretly co-operate with the FBI, and gave them no obvious avenue for appeal. It is "under the pressing exigencies of crisis that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees …

    Business 5 Oct 2004, 10:13

  • Reg writer receives right royal rogering

    FoTW 'What unadulterated bollocks'

    We at El Reg have a general rule regarding flames that they should be completely incoherent outbursts of rage acccompanied by steam venting from ears. In this case, however, the correspondent seems to have gone to some trouble to present a sarky critique of the piece in question - Sex toy creates Oz airport pandemonium. …

    Letters 5 Oct 2004, 10:40

  • Sita flogs WEEE ops to Oz recycling giant

    Sims gains European foothold

    Waste management firm Sita has sold its computer recycling business, MIREC, to Sims Group. Terms were undisclosed. Through the purchase, Sims Group, a publicly quoted Australian materials recycler, extends its reach from the UK to mainland Europe, where Eindhoven-based Mirec has operations or partnerships in 11 countries. The …

    Channel Register 5 Oct 2004, 11:18

  • Kodak blames digital cameras for jobs cull

    900 axed in UK and France

    Kodak is axing 600 jobs in the UK and 270 in France because people prefer digital cameras. Some 250 jobs will be lost in Harrow, which will remain a major centre for the production of colour photographic paper and become the company's new UK HQ. Around 350 jobs will go at the company's Annesley photographic film plant in …

    IT Director 5 Oct 2004, 11:48

  • Game upbeat amid downbeat interims

    Lack of new titles

    A lack of major new titles and no hardware launches has hit the performance of UK computer games retailer Game. Turnover for the six months ended July 31 slipped to £213m from £231m last year while pre-tax loss mushroomed from £800,000 to £5.9m. However, today's interims came as no surprise since the company had already warned …

    Financial News 5 Oct 2004, 11:50

  • Put on your Red Hat and dance

    Site Offer Save 30% on comprehensive Fedora guides

    Red Hat Fedora 2 Unleashed is the most trusted and comprehensive guide to the latest version of Red Hat's open-community Fedora Linux distribution... Fedora Core 2. Incorporating an advanced approach, the information presented aims to provide you with the best and latest information about installation, configuration, system …

    Site News 5 Oct 2004, 11:51

  • Romanian villagers flee disco-dancing aliens

    Mars attacks!

    Any reader who has enjoyed sci-fi flick War of the Worlds will doubtless sympathise with the inhabitants of the Romanian village who legged it en masse when confronted with multicoloured lights in the night sky. Every man, woman and child from the eastern hamlet of Cristinesti took to the hills after convincing themselves that …

    Bootnotes 5 Oct 2004, 11:53

  • Empress of eBay dethrones Queen Carly

    Meg Whitman most powerful US businesswoman

    Carly Fiorina of HP has been toppled from the top of Fortune magazine's "most powerful woman in corporate America" list for the first time since it began in 1998. Fiorina's throne is now occupied by eBay supremo Meg Whitman whose company has rapidly grown into a plump cash cow expected to post operating profits of $1bn this year …

    IT Director 5 Oct 2004, 12:14

  • Peoplesoft, Siebel predict rosy Q3

    Corporate licences make for happy software vendors

    Peoplesoft and Siebel Systems have both raised their third quarter revenue guidance, based on an increase in sales of corporate licences. Siebel now reckons on beating its original revenue forecast of $306m for the quarter by just over 3.5 per cent, while Peoplesoft upped its guidance by 6.2 per cent, forecasting income of …

    Applications 5 Oct 2004, 12:40

  • eBay 'second chance' fraud reaches UK

    Buyer beware

    Scammers are impersonating eBay sellers in an attempt to hoodwink users of the online auction site into handing over payment for non-existent goods. If the person who wins an auction on the site doesn't pay up, the second highest bidder of an auction may be offered the option to purchase goods at his offer price. These "second …

    Music and Media 5 Oct 2004, 12:44

  • InterActive Corp walks away from ebookers

    Shares down

    InterActive Corp today said it did not intend to buy ebookers, resulting in a fall in the UK travel business's share price. In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, IAC said: "In light of recent speculation, IAC/ InterActiveCorp announces that it has decided not to participate in discussions relating to a possible offer for …

    Financial News 5 Oct 2004, 13:07

  • Intel, Symbian to define 3G smart phone 'standard'

    From Wintel to Symtel, horizontal integration coming to handsets

    Intel's attempt to conquer the mobile phone chip market took a mighty step forward today when the chip maker announced a partnership with leading smart phone OS maker Symbian and leading smart phone manufacturer Nokia to co-operate on the development of 3G handsets. The deal will see the trio create 3G reference platforms …

    Mobile 5 Oct 2004, 14:05

  • BT blocks 1,000 rogue dialler numbers

    Block first, ask questions later

    BT is once again writing to its 1.8m dial-up internet users warning them to be on their guard against rogue diallers. In the last three months the UK's dominant fixed line telco has blocked 1,000 numbers which it reckons are being used to run premium-rate dialler scams. In July, BT said it would take action against rogue …

    Music and Media 5 Oct 2004, 14:11

  • ARM to add media booster to next-gen chips

    Neon SIMD extensions coming mid-2005

    ARM this week added a SIMD engine to its ARMv7 ISA in a bid to improve the platform's ability to process multimedia and network datastreams. The new technology, dubbed 'Neon', equips future ARMv7 chips with extra registers to store 64- or 128-bit chunks of information in fixed or floating point form. Like Intel's Streaming …

    Mobile 5 Oct 2004, 14:41

  • 'Black box' software probes app crashes

    Faster diagnosis, quicker fix

    Application troubleshooting outfit Identify Software claims that deployment of its "black box" recorder software can reduce the time needed to resolve software problems by as much as 80 per cent. Most support desks currently run an inefficient manual process to tackle software headaches; this means that customers end up with …

    Developer 5 Oct 2004, 14:55

  • Valiant Reg readers save internet

    Letters Reports of demise premature

    Much scepticism this week, following news of the imminent demise of the internet as predicted by BT's futurologist, Graham Whitehead. You thought he might not be quite, altogether, 100 per cent on the money on this one. It is possible he was specifically referring to El Reg's own connection, which, of late, has been as flaky as …

    Letters 5 Oct 2004, 15:01

  • VIA announces 64-bit x86 processor

    'Isaiah' to battle Athlon 64, EM64T-based P4 etc.

    VIA today announced its upcoming 'Isaiah' core, its pitch at the emerging 64-bit x86 CPU market founded by AMD. While AMD is targeting more mainstream computing applications, VIA's 64-bit part will be pitched at digital media processing roles. Typically, VIA was vague about what will make Isaiah particularly suitable for such …

    System Builder 5 Oct 2004, 15:05

  • One in three IT workers is Bill's

    European study reveals extent of Microsoft ecosystem

    An IDC study commissioned by Microsoft for its European Executive Partner event in Lisbon reveals the impact of the software industry on European economies. In the 19 countries surveyed nine million people are employed in the IT industry, generating $200bn in tax revenue. Of these jobs, just over one third are Microsoft-related …

    Channel Register 5 Oct 2004, 15:14

  • Big guns board Intertrust DRM bandwagon

    Coral Consortium tools up

    Intertrust, Philips and Sony have added more top consumer electronics, content and technology heavyweights to their attempt to create an open interoperable Digital Rights Management environment. The system promised at the turn of the year in interview with Philips has taken a step closer to becoming a reality today with a new …

    Music and Media 5 Oct 2004, 15:36

  • Microsoft seeks 'competent' resellers

    Euro channel programme rollout rolls on

    Speaking at Microsoft's Executive Partner event in Lisbon, Microsoft's worldwide partner sales and marketing boss Allison Watson said she was happy with the European rollout of Microsoft's updated channel programme. The programme was Launched in April and is scheduled for completion by July next year. Watson said the programme …

    Channel Register 5 Oct 2004, 15:44

  • AT&T Wireless launches mobile music store

    Buy on your phone, listen on your PC

    US mobile phone network AT&T Wireless today hopped onto the digital music bandwagon, launching an online music store accessed from customers' handsets, the first of its kind in the US. What's really interesting about mMode Music Store, however, is that it's not intended as a mobile service, at least not yet. The service's 750, …

    Financial News 5 Oct 2004, 15:52

  • IBM in attack mode with 'budget' Power kit

    Express swipe at world+dog

    IBM is attacking every rival system it can think of with a new line of low-cost Unix servers aimed at mid-sized customers. The p5-520 and p5-550 fit in IBM's Express line of "budget" hardware be they servers or storage systems. These particular servers are targeted at IBM's AIX customer base. They ship with many of the high-end …

    Servers 5 Oct 2004, 16:17

  • Cray comes to market with XD1

    Mid-range slugger conquers cluster

    Cray yesterday announced the general availability of the new family of AMD Opteron-based supercomputers. Cray XD1 mini-supercomputer systems are priced from under $100,000 to about $2m (US list price), placing them in the mid-range system category. XD1s run Linux but are capable of outperforming similarly priced Linux clusters, …

    Servers 5 Oct 2004, 17:31

  • Sun hypes new UltraSPARC and Siebel love

    All in a day's work

    Sun Microsystems today took aim at two core pieces of its server strategy, announcing a new generation of UltraSPARC processors and a key software win for Solaris x86. On the processor front, Sun revealed the UltraSPARC IV+ that will replace today's plain, old UltraSPARC IV. Sun should begin trickling the IV+ chip into servers …

    Servers 5 Oct 2004, 17:45

  • Click here to become infected (Part 2)

    Double whammy spammy

    New spam emails can turn vulnerable PCs into spam-spreading 'zombies'. The spam has a link which purports to allow users to opt out of future emails. However, MessageLabs, an e-mail filtering company, warns that these links are part of a scam and, if clicked on, will turn a victim's PC into a conduit for the distribution of …

    Spam 5 Oct 2004, 20:14