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21st March 2005 Archive

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  • AFP sues Google

    Stop sending people to our website!

    Agence France Presse is suing Google for linking to its news stories. AFP is demanding Google remove all its headlines, intros and pictures from Google News and pay $17.5m in damages. While many companies spend good money trying to improve how often, and how high up, the Google rankings they appear the French news agency is …

    Financial News 21 Mar 2005, 09:03

  • ID scheme will be a costly, dangerous failure, says LSE report

    Misses targets, multiple cost overshoots likely

    A report published today by the London School of Economics' Department of Information Systems concludes that the proposals set out in UK Government's ID Cards Bill are "too complex, technically unsafe, overly prescriptive and lack a foundation of public trust and confidence." The report accepts that a secure ID system could …

    Media 21 Mar 2005, 09:43

  • Yahoo buys Flickr

    Portal snaps up photo site

    Yahoo! has bought Ludicorp Research and Development - the company behind popular photo sharing site Flickr.com. According to this company blog Flickr is going to continue with business as usual - except it won't have to draw straws to decide who gets paid. No financial terms were disclosed Flickr lets you set up an online …

    Financial News 21 Mar 2005, 09:55

  • Intel ships 64-bit, 2MB L2 Pentium 4s

    Faster Extreme Edition too

    Intel yesterday formally began selling its Pentium 4 6xx series, rolling out four versions of the 90nm, 2MB L2 cache chip. The chip giant also added its latest P4 Extreme Edition to its official price list. The P4 630, 640, 650 and 660 are clocked at 3, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6GHz, respectively. All four chips support an 800MHz …

    PCs 21 Mar 2005, 10:22

  • Mobiles and petrol stations do mix

    Explosion risk something of a dead granny

    It is well known to regular Register readers that mobile phones very dangerous pieces of equipment. If they aren't mashing your mojo, they'll be causing brain tumours or enticing you to plunge ten floors to your death in search of a better signal. Just. Plain. Evil. Or so we thought. But it turns out that they are not quite so …

    Media 21 Mar 2005, 10:37

  • Ask Jeeves if it's been bought

    Big numbers for just another search engine

    Barry Diller's InterActive Corp (IAC) is buying Ask Jeeves for almost $2bn. IAC owns assorted web properties including CitySearch, Expedia, TicketMaster, dating site Match.com and the Home Shopping Network. The buy shows that search sites are still attracting investors. Microsoft recently followed Google and Yahoo into paid-for …

    Financial News 21 Mar 2005, 11:12

  • Mayor Ken boasts of pre-FOIA 'juicy bit' shredfest

    New gaffe fails to mention nazis or Rothermere

    London Mayor Ken Livingstone had admitted to a "shredding week" of sensitive documents prior to the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act at the beginning of this year. Or more properly, if our reading of the Sunday Times report is correct, he's been boasting about it. During his term of office Livingstone hasn't …

    Policy 21 Mar 2005, 11:18

  • Ireland one of most expensive countries for broadband

    That's gotta hurt

    Internet users in Ireland are paying through the nose for high speed net access with broadband charges in the country amongst the highest in the world. When it comes to the high price of broadband among the 30 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries only three others - Luxembourg, Denmark and …

    Broadband 21 Mar 2005, 11:19

  • Ingram confident on Q1

    Seasonally normal despite soft pockets

    Ingram Micro has reaffirmed its guidance for its first quarter which finishes April 2. The distribution giant expects sales to come in between $7bn and $7.2bn, generating net income of $47m to $50m. This range reflected historical norms, Ingram said, even excluding its recent Tech Pacific buy and despite “pockets of increased …

    The Channel 21 Mar 2005, 11:27

  • 'Irresponsible' Wanadoo TV ad banned

    One for the scrapheap

    An 'irresponsible' TV ad promoting Wanadoo UK's internet service has been banned because it might encourage youngsters to play in scrapyards. The ad showed teenagers frolicking, flirting and snogging among wrecked and mangled cars. Sixty two people complained that the "French kiss" [how apt for a company owned by France …

    Broadband 21 Mar 2005, 11:54

  • Writing paper ousted by laptops

    Inflation index goes high tech

    Laptops, mobile phones and frozen chicken nuggets have all made their way on to the UK's inflation index as part of the Office of National Statistics'(ONS) annual review. The Consumer Price Index and Retail Price Index baskets are supposed to contain "goods and services bought by a typical household in the course of a year". …

    Bootnotes 21 Mar 2005, 12:51

  • Euro notebook PC sales boom

    Will outship desktops any month now

    European notebook sales jumped almost 16 per cent year on year in January, UK-based market watcher Context has reported, pushing sales to within a gnat's todger of outselling desktop PCs. Only one of Europe's eight biggest economies saw notebook shipments fall in January - sales dipped a single percentage point in Germany. Most …

    PCs 21 Mar 2005, 13:03

  • Dell welcomes back Muslim workers

    All friends now...

    Dell Computer has reached agreement with 31 workers at its Nashville factory who left the firm after a disagreement over evening prayers. The group of workers, mostly from Somalia, left the firm after disagreements about sunset prayers. Muslims are required to pray five times a day. Timing of prayer can be flexible, except for …

    Management 21 Mar 2005, 13:15

  • Dutch AG upholds decision in Scientology case

    Free speech over copyright

    The Dutch Attorney-General has endorsed a verdict seen as backing free speech over copyright in the controversial case between the Church of Scientology and writer Karin Spaink, Dutch ISP Xs4all reports. The Dutch Supreme Court, which will rule on this case on 8 July, had asked the Attorney-General for advice. The Church of …

    Media 21 Mar 2005, 14:03

  • Nortel files Q3 04

    Restatement marathon

    Troubled networking giant Nortel Networks Corp has finally filed its figures for the third quarter of 2004, after a series of delays. For the quarter ending September 30, Toronto-based Nortel reported revenues down 7 per cent year-on-year to $2.1bn, while net losses were $259m, compared to a $131m profit the previous year. For …

    Data Networking 21 Mar 2005, 14:42

  • Computers bad for kids

    Makes 'em stoopid

    Using a computer at home might actually reduce a child's performance in maths, science and English rather than improve it, a study has found. Researchers who looked at 100,000 children in 32 countries originally found that children from homes with computers performed better. In fact houses with computers were likely to be from …

    PCs 21 Mar 2005, 15:20

  • BT wants service obligations 'relaxed'

    Oh go on, please

    BT wants to see the rules that force it to provide certain basic telecoms services relaxed, reports the FT. Regulator Ofcom is reviewing the Universal Service Obligation (USO) designed to ensure than basic fixed line telecoms services are available to all UK consumers at an affordable price. These include ensuring that there …

    Broadband 21 Mar 2005, 15:35

  • ESA backs Indian moon mission

    Extra-terrestrial call-centres sure to follow

    The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed an agreement, pledging its support of India's first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1. India's space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), launched its first satellite in 1975. It has made many subsequent forays into orbit, developing satellites for Earth observation, …

    Science 21 Mar 2005, 15:38

  • Hollywood brow-beats second BitTorrent Brit

    Lawsuit threats continue

    A second British movie-oriented website owner has been threatened with legal action by US movie studios for allegedly offering their films as BitTorrent downloads without their permission. Kevin Reid, who runs bds-palace.co.uk, was last week given notice that Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. intend to …

    Media 21 Mar 2005, 16:14

  • Infineon and Rambus kiss and make up

    Let's be friends

    Infineon and Rambus have decided to stop all ongoing legal action and sort out a licensing agreement. The two have been in court alleging patent infringments and worse since the late twentieth century. Earlier this month Rambus had its claim for patent infringements against Infineon thrown out of court. Rambus was accused of …

    Financial News 21 Mar 2005, 16:24

  • Novell's tech boss jumps ship

    Just before the user conference...can't blame him really...

    Novell's chief technology officer is jumping ship to another IT firm just before the company's annual customer bean feast Brainshare. Alan Nugent, Novell's CTO, is leaving to take over the management of another technology firm he declines to name. Nugent started at Novell in 2002. He told Infoworld the job offer was a great …

    Data Networking 21 Mar 2005, 16:26

  • Britain tops zombie PC charts

    Fear of a bot planet

    Britain has the largest zombie PC population of any country on the planet, according to the latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report. The UK has more than a quarter (25.2 per cent) of all bots – virus-infected, zombie PCs under the control of crackers and used for malicious purposes like identity theft and online fraud …

    Security 21 Mar 2005, 16:31

  • Digital camera sales slow

    Jessops shares plummet after warning

    Shares in high street camera shop Jessops plummeted by almost a third today after it warned that demand for digital cameras had tailed off. Although Jessops insisted that it has maintained its market share overall it admitted that sales have been "considerably below management's expectations". The "difficult trading conditions …

    Financial News 21 Mar 2005, 16:35

  • Fossil Wrist PDA FX2008

    Review From palm to wrist

    Fossil's Wrist PDA has been a long time coming. Announced in November 2002, it was supposed to ship the following June. I heard it had been put back to January 2004, though Fossil denied the product had been delayed. But come early 2004, it still hadn't appeared, and Fossil was forced to confess it was returning to the drawing …

    Reviews 21 Mar 2005, 16:47

  • Brazilian cops net 'phishing kingpin'

    Trojan scam netted up to $37m

    Brazilian police last week arrested the suspected kingpin of a gang which looted an estimated $37m from online banking accounts. Valdir Paulo de Almeida allegedly masterminded a scam to raid accounts using a Trojan horse sent by email to thousands of victims, mostly Brazilian. This commonly used ploy enables crooks to capture …

    Security 21 Mar 2005, 17:42

  • How computers make kids dumb

    Comment Is our children rebooting?

    A study of 100,000 pupils in 31 countries around the world has concluded that using computers makes kids dumb. Avoiding PCs in the classroom and at home improved the literacy and numeracy of the children studied. The UK's Royal Economic Society finds no ground for the correlation that politicans make between IT use and education …

    PCs 21 Mar 2005, 20:45

  • DMCA helps Right to Repair campaign score big win

    You can't copyright ideas

    An automobile trade association which tried to copyright its specifications, then sued a member for implementing them, has lost a significant legal battle. It's a victory for the Right to Repair campaign being waged by independent car mechanics. Car control systems are increasingly computerized, and the small repair shops find …

    Media 21 Mar 2005, 22:16