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15th March 2005 Archive

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  • Site aims to quash auction fraud

    'eBay don't like us, we don't care'

    Small business fraud buster Early Warning is targeting auction scams with the launch of a new website. ReportAuctionFraud.com - which goes live 15 March - offers fraud screening for auction site users, allowing registered users to search a live database of fraud data. Each fraud search costs 50p. Registered users can also add …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2005, 09:55

  • Computacenter ups profit despite sluggish turnover

    Europe and HP bring 'em down...

    Computacenter managed a small increase in profits for the year ended 31 December 2004 despite not increasing turnover. The firm blamed France, Germany and the re-negotiation of terms with HP, its main trading partner, for the sluggish sales. The group made revenues of £2.46bn for the year, down slightly on £2.48bn in 2003. But …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2005, 10:02

  • ATI announces phone video chip

    What a CuTE-y

    ATI today introduced its latest mobile phone graphics chips with a view to seeing the products appear in handsets "from leading manufacturers" later this year. The company also announced the acquisition of Hyderabad, India-based digital media technology developer CuTE Solutions. Indeed, CuTE's technology delivers some of the …

    Mobile 15 Mar 2005, 10:08

  • Banks 'wasting millions' on two-factor authentication

    New threats need new response

    Banks are spending millions on two-factor authentication for their customers but the approach no longer provides adequate protection against fraud or identity theft, according to Bruce Schneier, the encryption guru. "Two-factor authentication was invented a couple of decades ago against the threats of the time. Now, the threats …

    Security 15 Mar 2005, 10:38

  • Apple eyes broader iTunes services

    New staff, possible acquisition may point to future offerings

    Apple's online music ambitions are broadening - if the latest round of rumours are anything to go by. The Mac maker is said to be in talks to acquire digital music start-up HipSolve Media, and to have made a hire that could indicate it is laying the groundwork for the launch of a music subscription service. According to a Think …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2005, 11:17

  • Intel 'plans' Pentium M price cuts

    Faster, 2.26GHz version, too

    Intel is planning to cut Pentium M processor prices by up to 33.6 per cent in response to the launch of AMD's Turion 64 mobile CPU, sources in Taiwan's notebook manufacturer community have claimed. So reports DigiTimes, which says that the cuts will be applied across the mid- and high-ends of the PM line-up - the basis of Intel …

    PCs 15 Mar 2005, 11:26

  • Intel's Cedar Mill chip 'to draw 65W'

    A lot less hot air than Prescott

    Intel's 65nm desktop-destined single-core processor, 'Cedar Mill', will consume 43.5 per cent less power than today's Pentium 4 chips. So claim Taiwanese motherboard maker sources who have seen the chip giant's roadmap, cited by DigiTimes. Cedar Mill is due to ship during the first quarter of next year. Current 'Prescott' …

    Servers 15 Mar 2005, 11:31

  • Eircom to double broadband speeds

    Too little too late, says IrelandOffline

    Irish incumbent telco eircom is to double the entry-level speed for broadband in a move it claims will help boost demand for high speed net access. The upgrade should be completed by 8 April increasing the entry-level speed from 512k to 1 Meg for wholesale and retail punters. Speed hungry residential and business punters should …

    Broadband 15 Mar 2005, 11:43

  • IBM faces protests

    Workers take their beef to the street

    Unhappy IBM workers whose jobs are disappearing later this year have taken their protests to the CEBIT computer show in Hannover. Visitors to the show over the weekend were greeted by noisy protests from German IBM staff. Customer support workers at two IBM sites have been told their jobs will disappear from September this year …

    Business 15 Mar 2005, 11:55

  • Africa calls for tech tax to fill digital divide

    Follow Geneva's example

    African leaders have backed plans for a new tax on public sector technology investment in wealthy nations to fund technological infrastructure investment in poorer countries. The money raised would go to the United Nations-backed Digital Solidarity Fund, which aims to drive economic development by supplying technology, such as …

    Policy 15 Mar 2005, 11:58

  • Dual-core AMD Athlon 64 benchmarks emerge

    Fast x 2

    The first dual-core Athlon 64 benchmarks have appeared on the web, courtesy of an Italian-language hardware site and an unnamed Taiwanese OEM. The site, Hardware Upgrade, tested a 2.4GHz dual-core sample chip using the same CineBench 2003 test Intel used at its Developer Forum earlier this month to show off the speed benefits …

    Servers 15 Mar 2005, 12:01

  • Sony PSP Euro debut delayed?

    Amazon changes ship date - again

    Sony has apparently pushed back the UK release of the PlayStation Portable to late June, if Amazon.co.uk's PSP product page is to be believed. If the site's new date is credible, the delay marks a serious slippage from the late March timeframe Sony originally had in mind for the handheld console's UK debut. Amazon.co.uk first …

    Consoles 15 Mar 2005, 12:18

  • Bomb scare targets Indian software firms

    Nervous times

    The Indian offices of software outfits Infosys and Wipro were evacuated last night following a bomb scare. Police used sniffer dogs to search the Bangalore offices of Infosys and Wipro for more than an hour after receiving the bomb threat. No explosives were found during the search. This is the second time Wipro has been at …

    Business 15 Mar 2005, 12:35

  • 911 Trojan author jailed for six months

    WebTV stupidity lands VXer in chokey

    A Louisiana man has been jailed for six months after he was convicted of infecting WebTV users with a Trojan horse that made 911 nuisance calls. David Jeansonne, 44, of Metairie, Louisiana, pleaded guilty last month to causing a threat to public safety and causing damage to computers. At a hearing Monday 14 March, Judge Ronald …

    Security 15 Mar 2005, 12:42

  • DRM comes to mobiles

    It's a flash card, but not as you know it...

    SanDisk is working with a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to make storage cards which include digital rights management. The flash card maker will offer cards for use in mobile phones from the last quarter of this year. SanDisk cards will use NDS's mVideoGuard Mobile DRM technology. This allows operators to …

    Mobile 15 Mar 2005, 12:51

  • Netgear MP101 wireless music player

    Review Cheap and cheerful?

    Netgear has always focused on the SOHO market and has consistently delivered a range of keenly price networking products. The MP101 represents a new direction for the company as this box is a digital media player that will play MP3 and WMA music files over wired and wireless networks. And, in keeping with Netgear's philosophy …

    Reviews 15 Mar 2005, 12:54

  • Apple wins iTunes.co.uk case

    Update Decision puts Nominet in difficult position

    Apple has been awarded control of the domain iTunes.co.uk, even though it was registered before the Mac maker announced its online music service. The decision by Nominet-appointed expert Claire Milne, a telecoms consultant, puts the UK registry in a difficult position where it is deciding cases for businesses despite prior …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2005, 14:42

  • The unsavoury world of PC licences and Firefox exploits

    Letters It's nasty out there, kids

    A quick rummage through the letters bag for the choicest morsels [sounds like a dog food advert - Ed] turned up one of your favourite topics: the television licence, and its future. Those from outside the UK are often utterly baffled by the television licence: a piece of paper conferring upon the grateful subject the right to …

    Letters 15 Mar 2005, 14:52

  • Mystery shoppers hit London churches

    Worship will be rated by website...

    Ship-of-Fools, the online Christian magazine, is sending the religious equivalent of Mystery Shoppers to check on the quality of church services in London. The Mystery Worshippers will visit churches across London Sunday 24 April and take note of sermon quality and length, pew comfort and the quality of after-service coffee. …

    Media 15 Mar 2005, 15:07

  • BT to block rogue diallers - again

    If at first you don't succeed...

    BT is trying yet again to crack down on rogue diallers by introducing new software that will stop computers from dialling premium rate numbers. It's commissioned a small UK-based independent software company to develop a system to prevent PCs from dialling expensive numbers. Although BT won't reveal the name of the company, the …

    Broadband 15 Mar 2005, 15:12

  • Hollywood threatens to sue UK BitTorrent man for millions

    Exclusive Morning coffee and a lawsuit

    Alexander Hanff had no idea Hollywood was keeping such a close eye on him. Then, last Saturday morning, a movie studio functionary arrived at his door. Hanff, still in his dressing gown and not yet full of coffee, opened the door, only to be served with a lawsuit by Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and …

    Media 15 Mar 2005, 16:26

  • ESA flirts with NASA over Jupiter mission

    After Titan, Europa

    The European Space Agency is beginning preparations for another collaboration with NASA, this time for a mission to Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter. Officials on both sides of the Atlantic are keen to renew the partnership that made the Cassini-Huygens mission such a success, BBC Online reports. A joint working team has been …

    Science 15 Mar 2005, 16:30

  • Database developers get tooled up

    General release for FoxPro and SQL's need for speed

    Microsoft has announced the general availability of Visual FoxPro 9.0 for developers making applications for databases. The set of tools allows developers to create apps for desktop, client-server or web environments. The new version has improved SQL language capabilities More info from Microsoft here. In more database …

    Applications 15 Mar 2005, 16:41

  • EC ends Microsoft DRM probe

    Investigation over now ContentGuard has three owners

    The European Commission has ended its investigation into the ownership of DRM technology developer ContentGuard. The probe was put on hold in December 2004 pending the sale of a 33 per cent stake in ContentGuard to French firm Thomson by joint owners Microsoft and Time Warner. The EC decided to take a closer look into …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2005, 16:50

  • Rise of the botnets

    Honeynet Project lifts the lid on zombie networks

    Botnets - networks of compromised PCs - launched 226 distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on 99 different targets in a three-month period from November 2004 to January 2005, according to a study from The Honeynet Project. The report, Know your Enemy: Tracking Botnets, estimates a population of approximately one million …

    Security 15 Mar 2005, 16:55

  • Apple's iPod stokes MP3 player market 'boom'

    Flash to dominate unit shipments, HDD to lead revenues

    Apple's decision to release a Flash-based digital music player, the iPod Shuffle, was tacitly vindicated today by market watcher iSuppli. Its statistics suggest that solid-state players will continue to outsell hard drive-based units through to 2009. Between now and then, overall MP3 player shipments will almost quadruple, from …

    Mac Channel 15 Mar 2005, 17:19

  • Broadband boost helps NTL trim losses

    Cableco reports

    NTL's decision to restructure its business, focus on broadband and elbow "delinquent" punters into touch appears to paying off. Operating losses fell 80 per cent from £192.4m to £39m for the year to the end of December as revenues rose 8.7 per cent to £1.5bn. Much of this is down to a 40 per cent growth in broadband subscribers …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2005, 17:55

  • Ebbers guilty of WorldCom fraud

    Appeal expected

    Bernie Ebbers did mastermind the $11bn (£5.8bn) book fiddling that torpedoed US telco WorldCom, a New York jury decided today. After more than a week of mulling, the jury ruled that Ebbers was behind the scandal that led to the collapse of WorldCom in 2002. In the end it was Ebbers' word against that of former CFO Scott …

    Financial News 15 Mar 2005, 19:44

  • Benchmarks haunt AMD's Turion

    Apples vs. Bananas

    Chip and server makers have an awful habit of unintentionally highlighting their weaknesses by making a big deal of dubious benchmarks. Intel has done it. IBM has done it. HP has done it. Sun Microsystems has done it. And, most recently, AMD has done it when it launched the mobile Turion 64 processors last week. The Turion …

    PCs 15 Mar 2005, 21:49

  • Apple de-socializes iTunes

    The hills are alive with the sound of computers being 'authorized'

    While Apple has been in the news again this week for its war against the people who promote its products, another of its wars has received much less attention. It may as well be a covert war. Bit by bit, Apple is tightening the DRM noose, reducing the amount of freedom its own customers enjoy. Last year, the company cut the …

    Media 15 Mar 2005, 22:14

  • Ebbers guilty on all counts

    Facing 85 year sentence

    WorldCon founder Bernard Ebbers has been found guilty on all charges related to the massive accounting fraud that brought the telecomms giant to its knees, the Associated Press reports. Following eight days of deliberation, a Manhattan federal jury returned guilty verdicts on charges of conspiracy, securities fraud, and seven …

    Management 15 Mar 2005, 23:37