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13th December 2004 Archive

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  • NCD to 'cease operations'

    Exclusive Slim pickings for thin clients

    One of the older thin client vendors appears to be closing shop, The Register has learned. Network Computing Devices (NCD) will stop all operations by year end, according to a company memo. Calls to NCD's CEO and CFO were not returned, and a spokeswoman said the company has no comment at this time. "NCD is currently in the …

    Servers 13 Dec 2004, 09:56

  • UK public sector unready for Freedom of Information Act

    Select committee is not impressed

    Public bodies are unready for the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA), according to an MPs report from the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) Select Committee. With less than a month to go before the act becomes law, compliance among the 100,000 or so public sector organisations affected by the act is patchy at best. The …

    Public Sector 13 Dec 2004, 10:09

  • IBM, AMD, Sony boost chip speeds by 24%

    Chip-making technique to fuel AMD64, PowerPC, 'Cell' production

    IBM and AMD have found a way to improve transistor performance by up to 24 per cent - without increasing the power draw - using a tweaked implementation of Big Blue's 'strained silicon' process. The process is not only going to be applied to upcoming AMD64 and PowerPC chips, but is likely to underpin the production of Sony's ' …

    Channel Register 13 Dec 2004, 10:43

  • ID checks could have stopped cockler deaths, says Blunkett

    Or more properly, could have lost them their jobs

    A claim by David Blunkett that he could have saved the lives of the 21 cockle pickers who died in Morecambe Bay last February provides further evidence of his intention to force employers to operate immigration controls for him. Speaking to Stephen Pollard, the author of his biography, Blunkett said: "Take the gangmasters. We …

    Music and Media 13 Dec 2004, 10:53

  • Siemens to sell mobile phone biz to China - report

    Chinese distributor lined up as 'potential buyer'

    Is Germany's Siemens about to do an IBM and flog off a loss-making hardware division to the Chinese? German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung think so, yesterday reporting on allegations from unnamed company sources that Siemens is pushing through the sale of its mobile phone business. It has already lined up …

    Financial News 13 Dec 2004, 11:06

  • OFT checks out online grocers over price gouging claims

    Just looking

    Online grocery shopping is under the spotlight today over allegations that customers are being overcharged by some of the UK's top supermarkets. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is understood to be sniffing around Asda, Sainbury's and Tesco amid concerns that shoppers are getting a rough deal. According to The Sunday Times, …

    Financial News 13 Dec 2004, 11:07

  • HTC revenues break record - again

    November sales soar for major Windows Mobile phone maker

    Smart phone and PDA manufacturer High Tech Computer (HTC), which lists T-Mobile, Orange, Audiovox, Vodafone, O2, i-mate and others among its customers, said November was its third consecutive month of record-breaking revenues. The company, which also believed to build devices for PalmOne, including the new Treo 650 smart phone …

    Financial News 13 Dec 2004, 11:27

  • SyChip to add Wi-Fi to Windows smart phones

    Drivers to be ready next month - but will the handsets be?

    Windows Mobile 2003 smart phones that support IO-capable SD card slots are set to get Wi-Fi add-in support early next year, WLAN device maker SyChip has revealed. The company is currently working on drivers for a new Wi-Fi card developed especially for these handsets. SyChip expects to have them done and dusted by the end of …

    Mobile 13 Dec 2004, 12:07

  • Dutch 'anti-social' net reality show cancelled

    Tokkies too feral

    An experiment with a Dutch internet Big Brother reality show, which was to unveil the unorthodox lifestyle of an Amsterdam low income family, has ended after just two weeks. Not enough advertisers were prepared to sponsor the controversial show, which was produced by Dutch portal Ilse. The Tokkies became unlikely reality TV …

    Music and Media 13 Dec 2004, 12:08

  • BT debuts sound and light interface

    Teletext for the 21st Century

    Boffins at BT's Research Labs have developed a futuristic interface that uses ambient light sequences and sound alerts to notify users of personalised news and information. The technology, described by BT as a "Teletext for the 21st Century", is touted as a way of piping news and other information into home environments rather …

    Peripherals 13 Dec 2004, 12:09

  • SavaJe wins LG mobile OS gig

    While Palmsource points to Linux

    SavaJe, the start-up mobile OS maker heavily backed by the cellcos, has won its first major handset supporter, LG, an alliance that fits well with the Korean manufacturer's strategy of keeping close to the large operators to win western markets. This would have been more serious for Nokia two years ago than it is now - the …

    Mobile 13 Dec 2004, 12:12

  • German police to take 16,000 warez buyers to court

    Fines or jail for copyright violators

    German police have exposed the names of thousands of users of an illegal Internet piracy site, in a crackdown on swapping illegal copies of movies, games, music and computer software. Three months ago German police arrested a 46 year-old lawyer who, along with two brothers from Thuringia, offered bootleg software, games and …

    Music and Media 13 Dec 2004, 12:25

  • PeopleSoft says 'Yes' to $10bn Oracle offer

    Lawsuits put on hold

    PeopleSoft has at last accepted Oracle's offer to buy the company in a deal that values it at about $10.3bn. At $26.50 per share, the offer was noticeably higher that the "best and final offer" of $24 per share that Peoplesoft rejected in November. Oracle says the sale has been approved by both companies' boards of directors. …

    Applications 13 Dec 2004, 12:38

  • Wi-Fi extensions should breathe new life into 802.11a

    Extension ratified for Japanese and US public safety band

    One reason for the relatively slow uptake of 5GHz 802.11a Wi-Fi, compared to its 2.4GHz cousin 802.11g, has been the complexity of licensing regulations affecting the 5GHz band - also an issue for WiMAX in the unlicensed spectrum. Two extensions to the 802.11 standard are easing the situation and should boost the adoption of the …

    Wireless 13 Dec 2004, 12:53

  • Galileo launches will go ahead

    EU thumbs-up for satellites

    The European Council has at last given the green light to the Galileo satellite constellation. Ministers on Friday finalised the technical specifications of the system, and approved the construction and launch of the satellites. The decision means the first satellites should go up in 2006. Galileo will provide an EU-controlled …

    Science 13 Dec 2004, 13:04

  • Mobile operators put the squeeze on retailers - report

    Come to our stores

    Life could be about to get tougher for independent mobile phone resellers following reports that the big operators are cutting back the commissions they offer for sales. According to the Mail on Sunday, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone want to flog more of their phones and airtime packages through their own network of retail …

    Mobile 13 Dec 2004, 13:04

  • Yahoo! halves! domain! prices!

    Loss leader

    Yahoo! has halved its domain name charges from $9.95 to $4.98 a year up until the end of the 2004. The offer is limited to one domain per customer. Netcraft reports that Yahoo's price offer undercuts previous budget leader 1&1 Internet by nearly a dollar. 1&1 Internet operates its own ICANN-accredited registry, but Yahoo! is …

    Small Biz 13 Dec 2004, 14:08

  • iPass aggregates BT Openzone hotspots

    But how many access points will it add?

    Corporate remote access provider iPass is to add the "1500" Wi-Fi hotspots owned and maintained by UK WISP BT Openzone to the list of access points open to its customers worldwide. BT Openzone's UK and Ireland sites take in a number of key business locations, including British Airways airport lounges, UK airport concourses, …

    Data Networking 13 Dec 2004, 14:27

  • Vodafone to offer in-flight Wi-Fi

    Reach for the Skype

    Vodafone has agreed to allow its mobile data customers to use Boeing's Connexion in-flight Wi-Fi service, the mobile phone network said last week. The deal is essentially a classic roaming arrangement, with Connexion's airborne access points operating like any terrestrial hotspot to connect a Wi-Fi enabled notebook to the …

    Mobile 13 Dec 2004, 14:30

  • iTunes now accepts PayPal

    Take your Virtual Wallet music shopping

    Apple and PayPal announced on Friday that the iTunes Music Store in the US now accepts payment via PayPal's Virtual Wallet. "We are thrilled that PayPal users can now buy their music on the world's number one online music store," said Todd Pearson, general manager of PayPal's Merchant Services. PayPal allows customers to pay …

    Financial News 13 Dec 2004, 14:34

  • ATI Radeon Xpress 200G reference board

    Review Quite a tempting package?

    ATI is something of an underdog in the chipset market and some of its early products had, shall we say, low appeal. However, with the introduction of the Radeon 9100 Pro IGP, ATI gained a lot of ground in the mobile market, writes Lars-Goran Nilsson. ATI has shied away from AMD-oriented chipsets for a while, but the recent …

    Reviews 13 Dec 2004, 15:29

  • Easynet squares up to BT with wholesale broadband

    LLU doors thrown wide open

    Easynet is to go head-to-head with BT by providing wholesale broadband to telcos and ISPs at prices it claims are 30-35 per cent cheaper than its rival's. Using its own kit installed in BT exchanges, Easynet is offering operators the chance to provide unbundled services direct to end users via its new LLUStream product. …

    Telecoms 13 Dec 2004, 15:33

  • Ethical fair trade - you knew it made sense until MS embraced it

    A new take on 'confronting your weaknesses head-on'

    British consumers have double standards when it comes to ethical purchasing, claims Microsoft. According to YouGov research commissioned by the company, 89 per cent of the population believe themselves to be ethically-driven consumers, buying fair trade coffee and organic produce for example, but nevertheless 43 per cent own …

    Software 13 Dec 2004, 15:43

  • The PeopleSoft vs. Oracle clash

    A Register History  

    The tale of Oracle's attempt to buy Peoplesoft is a story of Larry Ellison's relentless pursuit of his target in the face of implacable hostility from the PeopleSoft board. The slanging matches between then-PeopleSoft-CEO Craig Conway and Oracle's Ellison were often spectacular. Conway once described Oracle as a "sociopathic …

    Financial News 13 Dec 2004, 16:34

  • Wanadoo UK begins major broadband drive

    France Telecom makes 'substantial and significant' investment

    France Telecom has begun making a "substantial and significant" investment in the UK's telecoms industry to provide broadband services direct to users of its UK ISP, Wanadoo. The move could see thousands of Wanadoo UK broadband punters whipped off BT's network and provided with services via local loop unbundling (LLU). Although …

    Telecoms 13 Dec 2004, 16:54

  • Sun shows pleb-ready thin client

    Masses can now ignore the future

    At long last, Sun Microsystems has delivered a new set of thin client technology that could well push the slim computing devices into the hands of the average consumer. Sun today released a new version - 3.0 - of its Sun Ray Server Software which will make it more practical to use thin clients from the home. The software ships …

    Servers 13 Dec 2004, 18:32

  • 3Com buys TippingPoint

    Intrusion prevention bolt-on

    3Com is to acquire TippingPoint Technologies, a publicly held supplier of intrusion prevention systems, for $430m cash. It says teh acquisition "further demonstrates its commitment to delivering secure, converged networks". TippingPoint is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and employs 125 people. Post-acquisition it will be a …

    Enterprise Security 13 Dec 2004, 22:47

  • Customers pay billions for storage software in Q3

    EMC and Veritas cash in

    The storage software market continues to thrive with customers spending $1.9bn on applications during the third quarter, according to market researcher IDC. The storage software makers enjoyed a 19 per cent year-over-year revenue surge. That kind of double-digit growth has become the norm in the storage industry with customers …

    Storage 13 Dec 2004, 23:03

  • IBM's storage software owns all of EMC kit

    All your arrays belong to us

    IBM has infiltrated deeper into EMC's storage line with a new version of its SAN (storage area network) Volume Controller software. A number of organs mangled the news around IBM's fifth release of this software, saying this is the first time IBM's code has been able to manage EMC's hardware. Not true. In April, IBM released …

    Storage 13 Dec 2004, 23:54