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8th February 2005 Archive

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  • Multi-OS Cell CPU tops 4GHz

    Coming to a Digital TV near you

    Technical details of the Cell processor, a joint venture between Sony, IBM and Toshiba, were disclosed in San Francisco today. But the example chip shown to journalists today is likely to be superseded by faster versions when it appears on the market later this year. The Cell has 234m transistors, measures 221mm2 and, as …

    Consoles 8 Feb 2005, 03:07

  • Napster's Super Bowl ad voted the biggest loser

    Cat puts fans to sleep

    Napster has been awarded the title of Super Bore by viewers ranking the advertisements from last night's football championship. Napster's ad - which claimed it costs $10,000 to fill Apple's iPod with music and just $14.95 a month to rent as much music as possible via Napster's new To Go service - placed last in a survey taken …

    Bootnotes 8 Feb 2005, 03:33

  • Brightview targets broadband for growth

    10k punters and growing

    UK ISP Brightview has almost 10,000 broadband punters, up from 3,600 in August. The company has a stable of service providers including Madasafish, Freenetname, and Waitrose.com and has 300,000 net access users in toto. It was bought in August for £25m by communications services outfit Invox Plc Publishing its iresults for six …

    Broadband 8 Feb 2005, 10:02

  • C&W touts wholesale line rental

    Single billing

    UK telco Cable & Wireless (C&W) has begun offering its 100,000 business customers the chance to get all their fixed line telco services on one bill. With wholesale line rental (WLR), businesses can pay for their calls and line rental in one single bill as opposed to having to pay for calls (to C&W) and line rental (to BT) …

    Small Biz 8 Feb 2005, 10:08

  • Internet Safety Day: promoting safer surfing

    Think of the children

    European Commission-backed online safety organisation Insafe has named today Safer Internet Day. The aim is to raise awareness of the threats that exist in the online world, particularly those faced by younger people. More than 60 organisations in 30 countries are taking part, with Commissioner Viviane Reding leading the events …

    Media 8 Feb 2005, 10:15

  • UK distie sues MS for libel over $7m grey claims

    Response to MS civil suit

    A UK distributor, ITAC Ltd, is suing Microsoft for libel saying the software giant unfairly labelled it a "rogue trader". ITAC (UK) was served with a $7m civil case in January. Microsoft accused ITAC of "parallel importing" - bringing products into the UK which were originally destined for other markets. It was accused of …

    The Channel 8 Feb 2005, 10:28

  • Fujitsu UK faces national pay claim

    Union wants six per cent increase

    Services giant Fujitsu is facing a national pay claim from union Amicus. The union is calling for a six per cent increase in the pay budget and for individual rises of at least 3.5 per cent. Amicus also wants a cut in working hours for staff working 40 hours a week, overnight allowances for staff working away from home and an …

    Management 8 Feb 2005, 10:30

  • T-Mobile to axe 800 UK jobs

    'Enormous blow'

    T-Mobile is to axe 800 jobs in the UK - one in eight staff. The mobile operator will wield the axe slowly, over two years. But it has not ruled out compulsory redundancies, the Communications Workers Union (CWU) says. The job cuts will hit major sites at Hatfield, Sunbury, Merthyr Tydfyl, Doxford (in the North East), Greenock …

    Management 8 Feb 2005, 10:40

  • EDS back in the black

    But sales slip in Q4

    EDS made a profit for the last quarter of 2004 ended 31 December but saw sales fall slightly. After a loss of $337m in the fourth quarter of last year EDS made a profit of $53m on sales of $5.25bn, down five per cent on the year before. Organic revenue, excluding the impact of currency changes, was down eight per cent. New …

    Financial News 8 Feb 2005, 11:09

  • Things to do online, when you are dead

    Letters Get tagged, then get sued

    Life is not fair. Companies happily take advantage of the global market to keep their costs down and their profits up, transferring manufacturing and technical support centres to countries with a surfeit of cheap labour, and so on. But as soon as we start to do the same, they come over all regional, slapping DRM protection on …

    Letters 8 Feb 2005, 11:18

  • Sullivan fingers Ebbers in WorldCom fraud whodunnit

    Trial continues

    Scott Sullivan fingered Bernie Ebbers in a New York courtroom yesterday linking the former boss of WorldCom to the $11bn (£5.8bn) fraud that brough the giant telco to its knees. The prosecution's star witness and former WorldCom CFO - who has already pleaded guilty for his part in the WorldCom fraud - testified that Ebbers was …

    Management 8 Feb 2005, 12:00

  • phpBB forum offline after defacement

    Monkey business

    The popular phpBB forum has been taken offline after hackers cracked into its server and defaced its website yesterday. The open source project's website was attacked using a vulnerability in a package called AWStats announced 17 January. The same exploit has also been used to attack several popular weblogs in recent days, …

    Security 8 Feb 2005, 12:03

  • HTC 'Magician' PocketPC phone

    Review Box of tricks?

    It's not hard to see why Taiwanese manufacturer HTC calls its latest PocketPC-based phone 'Magician'. Its new handset does indeed work magic: it looks and feels like a traditional PDA yet it's no bigger than some of the smallest smart phones around. HTC's own high-end wireless Windows Mobile 2003 device, codenamed 'Blue Angel …

    Reviews 8 Feb 2005, 12:53

  • Marconi sales up, losses narrow

    But poor performance from broadband unit

    Marconi cut losses and upped sales for the three months ended 31 December, its third quarter. Sales were up to £330m, a five per cent improvement on a year ago. Group operating loss was £21m, down from £66m last year. Broadband routing and switches sales fell to £30m from £43m in the same quarter of last year because US …

    Financial News 8 Feb 2005, 12:55

  • UK unfurls ratings system for adult content on mobiles

    Nothing unexpected

    The long-awaited classification framework for adult content on mobile phones was launched yesterday by the Independent Mobile Classification Body (IMCB), a subsidiary of ICSTIS. The classification has been designed to be "consistent, as far as is possible" with standards already used in film and game classification, the IMCB …

    Mobile 8 Feb 2005, 12:58

  • Intel confirms 'desktrino' consumer platform plan

    If it worked for notebooks, it'll work for desktops... apparently

    An Intel executive has confirmed that the chip maker plans to launch a Centrino-style platform for consumer desktop PCs and that it is due to be launched in Q3. Intel marketing director Jeff Tripaldi didn't provide much more information: the name has yet to be chosen, he said, and it will centre, as anticipated, on the company' …

    PCs 8 Feb 2005, 13:07

  • Intel preps Q2 dual-core P4 Extreme Edition launch

    Smithfield Plus

    Intel's dual-core desktop processor plans will indeed stretch to the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition line, the chip maker has revealed. It also confirmed that 'Smithfield', the dual-core P4 for mainstream applications, will launch in Q2 this year, though volume shipments are not expected to take place until Q3. The announcement …

    System Builder 8 Feb 2005, 13:25

  • Teachers cleared in school porn probe

    PC post mortem market profits from growth in spyware

    Forensic computing techniques proved decisive in proving staff at a Buckinghamshire primary school had not been surfing for porn at work. The head of the school called in Disklabs, a computer forensics and data firm, last year, when he discovered web folders with pornographic content on a PC used by pupils. The history of these …

    Security 8 Feb 2005, 13:58

  • VoIP security group goes on the defensive

    Circle the wagons

    More than 20 networking and security organisations have formed the voice-over-IP telephony (VoIP) Security Alliance. The group will monitor security risks to VoIP services, work to reduce existing threats, and identify new dangers. Members include 3Com, the SANS Institute, Symantec and Siemens. The group warns that attacks on …

    Security 8 Feb 2005, 15:14

  • Microsoft bolsters email security with Sybari acquisition

    Liked the software so much it bought the company

    Microsoft is strengthening its security expertise with the purchase of Sybari Software for an undisclosed amount. Sybari sells software which protects messaging servers from malware and spam attacks. It claims more than 10,000 business customers, representing more than 10m end users. Financial terms were not revealed. Mike …

    Financial News 8 Feb 2005, 15:18

  • World Cup 2006 'abused for mega-surveillance project'

    Just the ticket

    Germany's football authorities have been accused of Big Brother tactics over their decision to incorporate RFID chips into tickets for World Cup 2006. Around 3.7 million tickets are to be sold in four online sale rounds, the last on 15 April, 2006. In the first sales round,Around 160,000 fans applied for one million tickets …

    Media 8 Feb 2005, 15:19

  • BT gutted at Ofcom's 'prolonged misbehaviour' allegations

    What? Us? C'mon now...you're kidding, right?

    BT reckons it's been miscast as the villain of the UK's telcoms sector even though it reckons it has a good track record of regulatory compliance. In a strong defence of its actions, BT criticises Ofcom for failing to project a balanced view of the former monopoly's role in the sector. Writing in its response to the telecoms …

    Broadband 8 Feb 2005, 15:36

  • BT hit by property rule change

    Leaseback deal bites back

    Telco behemoth BT might see its bottom line hit by changes to accounting rules relating to leasing or renting property. The change is important because in 2001 BT sold £2.4bn of property to Land Securities Trillium to help it cut its massive debt mountain. BT leases back the 6,700 properties which include call centres, local …

    Financial News 8 Feb 2005, 15:51

  • IBM supercharges two-way Unix kit

    Plain and clustered

    IBM this month will sweeten the low-end of its Unix server line with a new two-processor box and a new cluster system. The p5 510 goes up against the basic Unix boxes from the likes of Sun Microsystems and HP. It's a 2U, two-processor system that can handle anything from web serving to serious database loads. The box, which …

    Servers 8 Feb 2005, 16:01

  • GPs have no faith in £6bn NHS IT programme

    Not at all keen

    A new poll of doctors has found falling levels of support among GPs and consultants for the NHS's £6.2bn National Programme for IT. Last year, a similar poll found that 56 per cent of GPs, and 75 per cent of consultants in England supported the NPfIT. In January, this dropped to 21 per cent and 51 per cent respectively. Both …

    Policy 8 Feb 2005, 16:46

  • 'Human billboard' craze gets another taker

    Londoner to get permanent tattoo on back

    Online casino GoldenPalace.com has snapped up yet another "human billboard" too carry its logo. This time, though, Londoner Nick Long is to have the GoldenPalace.com logo tattooed permanently on his back following an auction on eBay. "I was inspired by 'The Human Pincushion' Brent Moffatt, who auctioned off his forehead on eBay …

    Media 8 Feb 2005, 16:47

  • Boffins to decide future of .net domains

    Verisign links

    ICANN has named the people that will decide who gets to run all .net Internet domains from July. Two weeks after the deadline ended for applications to run all 5.1 million .net addresses, revealing five contendors, telco Telcordia has been revealed as the evaluator. A team of ten from Telcordia, headed by Internet veteran Dr …

    Financial News 8 Feb 2005, 16:48

  • Florida man sues bank over $90K wire fraud

    Why didn't you warn me about Trojans!

    A Miami businessman is suing his bank after $90,000 was lifted from his firm's online banking account following a computer virus attack. Joe Lopez, 42, filed suit against the Bank of America in Miami Circuit Court last week alleging that the bank was negligent in failing to protect his account from compromise through known risks …

    Small Biz 8 Feb 2005, 17:24

  • Sun could quell database hunger with Unify buy

    Low-end, open source charge

    Sun Microsystems last week tossed the word "database" in front of numerous financial analysts and triggered a flood of speculation. During Sun's analyst conference, the company hinted that it might be looking to acquire and then possibly open source a database. This move would round out its enterprise software portfolio, …

    Servers 8 Feb 2005, 17:58

  • Charges dropped against 'DDoS Mafia'

    Prosecutors regroup

    US prosecutors have dropped criminal complaints against four of five men accused of offering a denial of service attack for hire. Paul Ashley, the network administrator of CIT/FooNet, a web and IRC hosting company, and three alleged accomplices, Jonathan David Hall, Joshua James Schichtel, and Richard Roby were accused of …

    Security 8 Feb 2005, 19:18

  • Scientist looks to clone Little Bo Human

    Embryo license OK'd

    First he brought you Dolly the sheep, now he wants to clone human beings - or at least their gooey embryos. Professor Ian Wilmut has been awarded a license to create stem cells from cloned embryos. The license, granted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), will allow Wilmut and researchers at the Roslin …

    Science 8 Feb 2005, 21:31