23rd December 2004 Archive

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How Microsoft played the patent card, and failed

Analysis Judge Bo not impressed

In rejecting Microsoft's appeal this week a European court has dealt a significant setback to Redmond's attempts to mount an attack on competitors based on intellectual property litigation. The decision by Judge Bo Vesterdorf at the European Court of the First Instance reveals for the first time many of the legal arguments that …

Music and Media 23 Dec 2004, 08:58
2004: the year of British broadband ...

2004 in review ...and tough-talking regulators

It's been a good year for broadband in the UK. Take-up has almost doubled; charges have continued to fall, breaking the all important £20 a month price point; and more of us can hook up to it - if that's what we want. As a snapshot of the last 12 months - for end users at least - that's not bad going. At the start of the year …

Telecoms 23 Dec 2004, 09:22
Groups fight internet wiretap push

'Internet spying is just fine'

Companies and advocacy groups opposed to the FBI's plan to make the internet more accommodating to covert law enforcement surveillance are sharpening a new argument against the controversial proposal: that law enforcement's Internet spying capabilities are just fine as it is. In comments filed with the FCC Tuesday, advocates …

Security 23 Dec 2004, 09:53
WTO backs Hynix over US DRAM duties

But low-priced imports did hurt US memory makers

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has said that the US should not have imposed import duties on South Korean memory maker Hynix. However, early indications suggest the US may be preparing to appeal against the judgement. The WTO's decision follows the US inability to prove that the South Korean government had provided Hynix …

Channel Register 23 Dec 2004, 10:00
Hutchison buys out Italian 3G partner for €470m

Tidying up ownership

Hutchison Whampoa is buying out Cirtel, its Italian 3G partner, for €470m. The Hong Kong-owned conglomerate is shelling out €373.2m to repay a loan made by Cirtel to the venture and €40m to mop up the junior partner's 1.6 per cent stake. Hutchison has spent a large fortune - €22bn - on building its 3G networks. It aims to tap …

Mobile 23 Dec 2004, 10:14
PLCs hit back at complaints on web accessibility

Clearer guidelines needed

Some FTSE 100 companies receive three or four complaints every week saying that their web sites are not accessible, according to a corporate forum which this month attacked the lack of guidance to accompany the UK's disability rights legislation. The Disability Discrimination Act expects companies to take reasonable steps to …

Financial News 23 Dec 2004, 10:43
Scott McNealy's Xmas dream

Exclusive 'Twas the night before Christmas...

I had the weirdest dream last night. There I am, standing in line to see Santa, with hundreds of other kids. The line is one of those switch-back ones, the kind that make you dizzy from changing directions so many times. Half of the kids look eager and excited, the other half scared and anxious. A couple of kids can't stand …

Bootnotes 23 Dec 2004, 10:46
An interview with Santa's CIO

We corner the big guy's IT supremo

With hands on management and a little bit of star dust, Santa's IT operation goes without a hitch year after year. William Knight talks to the big guy's very secretive CIO and finds out it's not always eternal joyfulness at Christmas HQ. As interviews go this was not hard to arrange. Some weeks ago I'd said it would be …

Bootnotes 23 Dec 2004, 10:47
Infineon accuses Rambus of 'litigation misconduct'

Wants patent infringement case chucked out

Infineon has asked the US court to dismiss patent infringement allegations made against it by Rambus, alleging its opponent engaged in a "chronic and wilful pattern of litigation misconduct". Infineon request for dismissal was filed last week with the US District Court for Virginia, Judge Robert E Payne presiding. The memory …

Channel Register 23 Dec 2004, 10:53
Intel to launch low-end 915 chipsets Jan 05

Cheap offerings to drive Socket T adoption

Intel is said to be preparing to launch two further low-end 'Grantsdale' chipsets next month. The new parts, the 915PL and the 915GL, are essentially versions of the existing 915P and 915G chipsets, but with DDR 2 SDRAM support turned off. The new chipsets will offer PCI Express and 800MHz frontside bus support. It's the FSB …

Financial News 23 Dec 2004, 11:16
Optus hit with $13m smut bill

Web pornmonger demands unpaid commission

Australian telecoms monolith Optus has been hit with a AU$17m ($13m) bill for unpaid commissions to its former partner in the international net smut trade, the Australian reports. Optus was recently outed as the middleman between porn consumers in the US and Europe and Gibraltar-based pornmonger Gilsan. To access web smut - …

Financial News 23 Dec 2004, 12:09
Red Hat Q3's 'validate' Linux subscriptions

Big year-on-year gains

Red Hat yesterday said its sale rose 55 per cent during its third quarter of fiscal 2005, reaching $50.9m from the year-ago total, $32.8m. Q3's sales were ten per cent higher than Q2's. The bulk of Red Hat's sales came through its Linux OS subscription services, which yielded $39.2m in the three months to 30 November 2004 - up …

Financial News 23 Dec 2004, 12:15
Gio Internet sends in the debt collectors

Confusion reigns at troubled ISP

Gio Internet, the low-cost Internet access provider that pledged to "take the UK by storm", may have blown itself out. Several readers have contacted us to say that Gio is asking them to sign up immediately with Customnet because their Gio broadband connections were due for disconnection yesterday. The Customnet website landing …

Financial News 23 Dec 2004, 12:38
Toshiba launches HD DVD consortium

To promote the format where the DVD Forum fears to tread?

Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC and Memory Tech yesterday formally opened the doors for the HD DVD Promotion Group, positioning the consortium head to head with the Blu-ray Disc Association in the battle for the hearts and minds of content providers, hardware suppliers and consumers. As the developers of the format, the presence of Toshiba …

Financial News 23 Dec 2004, 13:04
Germany: still nein to Nazi sites

Still a touchy subject

An administrative court in Germany has upheld a ban on access to Nazi content targeted at German ISPs based in the state of North Rhine Westphalia. The court ruled that the cross-border character of the web "cannot undermine powers vested to the Federal states". According to ComputerWeekly, an unidentified ISP had sought to …

Music and Media 23 Dec 2004, 13:20
Boffins decode Chromosome 16

Fulfil USA's Human Genome commitment

Scientists at the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI) have finished analysing and sequencing Chromosome 16. This completes the US share of the Human Genome Project, JGI said yesterday. The research, published in today's issue of the science journal Nature, analysed the 880 genes, together consisting of 78m …

Science 23 Dec 2004, 14:10
Dutch govt ends exclusive MS upgrade talks

Protests from MPs, open sourcers pay off

The Dutch government has abandoned its negotiations with Microsoft over an ambitious plan to upgrade more than 260,000 workstations and servers. Despite a unanimous vote by the Dutch parliament in 2002 to adopt open standards and open source software, Microsoft recently opened exclusive negotiations with the Dutch government …

Operating Systems 23 Dec 2004, 14:32
Apple Canada cuts iPod prices

No longer paying 'copyright tax'

Canadian retailers Best Buy and Future Shop have said they will reduce the price of iPods following Apple Canada's decision to lower the player's prices. The reductions come on the heels of a Federal Court of Appeal ruling, made last week, that Canada's Board of Copyright is not permitted by the country's Copyright Law to tax …

Mac Channel 23 Dec 2004, 14:47
EU biometric RFID scheme unworkable, says EU tech report

Orwellian system breaks self. How appropriate...

European plans for biometric passports and visas have been derailed by, er, European plans for biometric passports and visas. A technical committee set up to report to the Council of Ministers on the implementation of a uniform visa format has concluded that collisions between contactless chips in a passport would make the …

Music and Media 23 Dec 2004, 17:28
RLX quits blade server biz, whacks most of staff

Software only now

RLX stunned the server world today, announcing that it will stop making blade server hardware and focus instead on software only. This shift by the company that pioneered blade server technology will result in RLX laying off close to 80 percent of its staff, leaving it with a skeleton software crew, The Register can reveal. RLX …

Servers 23 Dec 2004, 18:09