5th January 2005 Archive

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OracleSoft coming out party set for Jan. 18

Horrible Apart

Oracle has planned a Jan. 18 event to convince customers, partners the press and analysts why its contentious buy of PeopleSoft made sense. The theme for this event is "Better Together" - clear proof that savvy lawyers and not marketing geniuses have played the biggest role in this $10bn merger of software giants. Oracle …

Applications 5 Jan 2005, 04:01
Transmeta may power down chip making biz

Mulling IP-only operation

Transmeta has decided to sit itself down and do some serious soul searching. The onetime darling of the chip industry may give up on much of its processor business and focus on selling its intellectual property instead, according to a company statement. Transmeta issued the statement late Tuesday, saying "it will complete a …

PCs 5 Jan 2005, 05:01
Vonage offers VoIP mobile phone

Asia, Latin America most promising

Voice over IP pioneer Vonage is to market a mobile phone handset for around $100, the company announced today. Existing subscribers may be offered the handset, the F1000, for free. The handset could be used at Wi-Fi hotspots, but given the chaotic state of the infant Wi-Fi market - with a paucity of hotspots and few roaming …

Mobile 5 Jan 2005, 05:06
62pc of netizens unaware of Pajamahadeen militants

Finkelstein's Law

New research suggests that the internet's echo chamber has much thicker walls than scientists previously thought. So thick, it seems, that an explosion the size of the Blogosphere can barely be detected in the real world. At best, only some faint, metallic clanging sounds can be heard outside - the eerie sound of the …

Music and Media 5 Jan 2005, 07:06
C&W donates $1m for tsunami relief in Maldives

'Country needs urgent support'

Cable & Wireless is donating $1m (£520,751) to the tsunami disaster relief in the Maldives. The UK telco has provided telecoms services in the Maldives since the 1970s. The money will be used to support the agencies currently working in the Maldives as well as providing food and medical help. Said C&W chief exec Francesco Caio …

Telecoms 5 Jan 2005, 10:34
Cyber-appliances are not evil

FoTW Shame on us

Our campaign against the satantic cyber appliances is not going down well in all quarters. We have to assume that the writer of the letter below is actually an evil cyber appliance under the control of the Lizard People. This shameless attempt to spread disinformation only confirms that the uprising of the machines is at hand …

Letters 5 Jan 2005, 10:40
Armed robber's prison suit escapes onto eBay

Rare hi-vis outfit on the run

An armed blagger's high-visibility boiler suit was reportedly offered for sale on eBay earlier this week after successfully escaping from Blundeston Prison in Suffolk, the Telegraph reports. The green and yellow outfit - issued to "e-list" lags deemed likely to make a bolt for it - was described as "extremely rare and …

Music and Media 5 Jan 2005, 11:43
Mobile players look beyond 3G

Say hello to 'Super 3G'

Twenty-six of the biggest players in the mobile phone industry have signed an accord that could lead to newer, faster wireless technology. The companies behind the initiative include Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, NEC, Siemens, Alcatel and about 20 others. The aim of the consortium is to develop a new standard for the transmission of …

Mobile 5 Jan 2005, 12:14
VXers creating 150 zombie programs a week

Dawn of the Dead

Malicious programs capable of turning home PCs into zombies controlled by hackers are growing at between 150 to 200 per week. McAfee's Anti-virus and Vulnerability Emergency Response Team (AVERT) reports that bots (now numbering over 7,000) and mass mailing viruses are the greatest threat to enterprises. Meanwhile exploits and …

Anti-Virus 5 Jan 2005, 12:23
BT wrestles with Carol Vorderman for 'net villain' award

Love to see that

BT, Carol Vorderman and the European Union (EU) are all in the running for the dubious honour of being named "Internet Villain" of the year. The most eagerly awaited award of the annual "ISPAs" - which celebrate the best (and worst) of the UK's internet industry - the "villain" category always causes a flurry of interest. …

Music and Media 5 Jan 2005, 12:39
Sage buys Swiss biz for £10m

Migration options

Sage today bought Simultan AG, a Swiss accountancy software developer, for £10.7m. Simultan has £700k in the bank, so the net cost is £10m. Based in Lucerne, Simultan has 3,000 SME customers, of which 1,000 have support contracts. Revenues for the year to 31 Dec, 2003 were £9.8m and operating profit was £500k. Sage says the …

Financial News 5 Jan 2005, 13:12
MS out of the bundling business?

Analysis No delay in EC anti-trust compliance

Quietly, just before Christmas, the European Court of first instance confirmed that Microsoft has no basis to delay the March 2004 decision of the European Commission, that it committed abuses under European anti-trust law, and ordered its compliance with the EC order. Microsoft still has one layer left for potential appeal, to …

Operating Systems 5 Jan 2005, 13:16
Microsoft says Scottish NHS must curb IT spend

Unusual advice from a vendor

Scotland's Health Service is wasting money by buying its IT infrastructure in small pieces, rather than signing one mega-deal that would reduce its costs, according to Gordon McKenzie, Microsoft's ex-sales director for Scotland. He slammed Scottish authorities, saying that there was no plan for convergence of systems within the …

Software 5 Jan 2005, 13:25
Magirus PREPS capital base

New financial instrument

Magirus, the Germany-headquartered mid-range distie, last month increased its capital by €18m using "a new kind of financing instrument" arranged by the Capital Efficiency Group (CEG), of Switzerland. Called PREPS (preferred pooled shares), the instrument is a type of profit participation capital - "subordinated capital which, …

Channel Register 5 Jan 2005, 13:39
Domain slammer promises to turn over new leaf

Cross your heart?

A Swansea-based businessman has agreed not to use dodgy sales tactics to try and flog domain names to businesses. Adam Ripley - who was behind a number of domain name registration businesses including Solus Online Ltd, ISIS Online Ltd, Select Registrations and European Domain Bureau - gave the assurance after court action by …

Small Biz 5 Jan 2005, 13:51
NASA celebrates martian Spirit of adventure

Rover's first anniversary

Highly-satisfied NASA boffins donned their party hats on Monday to celebrate the first anniversary of their Spirit rover's martian adventure. Spririt touched down on the Red Planet on 3 January 2004, closely folowed by Opportunity on 24 January. Although both completed their three-month primary missions back in April 2004, they …

Science 5 Jan 2005, 13:59
MoD imposes 'failure clause' on EDS

Strings attached to £4bn bid

The Ministry of Defence has forced IT services giant EDS to sign a "failure clause" before it will let the company to continue its bid for the £4bn Defence Information Infrastructure contract. EDS has signed an undertaking saying that it will hand over control of the systems to the MoD if it causes a computer failure, The …

Hardware 5 Jan 2005, 14:21
The eXtreme Programming revolution

Site Offer 30% off all programming guides.

Five years ago eXtreme Programming Explained introduced then-radical ideas for improving small-team development, such as having developers write automated tests for their own code and having the whole team plan weekly. Now, in a completely revised introduction to eXtreme Programming, Kent Beck describes what has changed in the …

Site News 5 Jan 2005, 14:50
'Spamford' Wallace agrees to stop spyware assault

Respite

Sanford 'Spamford' Wallace has agreed to stop his use of spyware programs while he fights a lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission. Wallace and his companies, SmartBot.net and Seismic Entertainment Productions, are restricted by the deal to serving up pop-up ads to surfers who visit their websites. The FTC alleges that …

Enterprise Security 5 Jan 2005, 15:03
UK army radio 'not ready for war time' says infantry chief

'Politics' triggers not-work centric warfare

The British Army's new communications system, Bowman, isn't ready for front line infantry operations but has nevertheless been put into service "for political reasons," a senior officer told a recent School of Infantry briefing. Quoted in the Daily Telegraph, Director of Infantry Jamie Balfour pulled few punches. "all the …

Science 5 Jan 2005, 15:35
'Use my 364-day calendar'

US boffin with time on his hands

An American physicist has drawn up a new calendar in which every date would fall on the same day of the week, year after year. He says he came up with the new chart because he disliked having to re-draft the homework schedule for students to take account of the dates progressing through the week. Dick Henry, a physicist at …

Science 5 Jan 2005, 18:16
Reverse auction saves probation service £250k

Not pocket-change

The National Probation Directorate has saved nearly a quarter of a million pounds by buying new IT kit in an online reverse-auction. The savings, £233,000 in total, represent a nine per cent reduction in price, according to the Office of Government Commerce. The eAuction scheme makes it possible for bidding suppliers to better …

Public Sector 5 Jan 2005, 18:17
BT sneaks in 'stealth price rise'

Early callers clobbered

BT has been accused of slipping in a "stealth price rise" of up to 110 per cent for its telephone customers. At the moment, BT's more expensive daytime tariff runs between 8am and 6pm. Its cheaper evening rate runs from 6pm to 8am. From February, it is extending its daytime tariff with calls made between 6am and 8am charged at …

Telecoms 5 Jan 2005, 18:19
Oracle waits on PeopleSoft stragglers

Deadline extended

Oracle is still hunting for a few more PeopleSoft shares before it can officially close its acquisition of the company. Oracle today extended its tender offer for PeopleSoft shares once again. The database giant made a similar move last week when it held 75 per cent of PeopleSoft's outstanding stock. It now has 89.4 per cent of …

Applications 5 Jan 2005, 18:21
Four charged over $1.5m Wal-Mart price switch scam

Bogus bar codes used to plunder stores

Two US couples have been arrested on suspicion of masterminding a price switching scam involving counterfeit bar codes estimated to have cost Wal-Mart stores across 19 US states a total of $1.5m over the last decade. Sisters Julie Marie Simmons (AKA Julie Poore), 35, and Laura Simmons Howerton, 39, and their husbands Michael …

Security 5 Jan 2005, 18:22
Microsoft kills Itanic XP

Three people in shock

Microsoft has cancelled a version of Windows XP for Intel's Itanium processor that no one really used and even fewer people cared about. Gone is the 64-bit iteration of Windows XP meant to run on Itanium workstations and one day, in Intel's wildest dreams, on Itanium-powered home PCs. Microsoft will now concentrate its 64-bit …

Operating Systems 5 Jan 2005, 19:59