25th April 2005 Archive

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Forgent sues Microsoft over JPEG patents

Back to court

Forgent Networks is suing Microsoft, accusing the software giant of pinching its intellectual property. Late last week the firm went to court alleging Microsoft has infringed the 672 patent which helps compress images into the JPEG format. This was in response to Microsoft asking the district court for Northern district of …

Software 25 Apr 2005, 08:31
Bono ditches Lara Croft

Eidos sale falls through

Elevation Partners, the venture capital group which includes Bono amongst its directors, has pulled out of the bidding for UK games publisher Eidos. Elevation was bidding for Eidos through EM Holdings. In a statement the firm said it was withdrawing its cash offer of 50p per share. It also said it noted the strong support for …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 09:41
Newspaper shows Mac OS X running on Intel box

Sort of

Top marks to the London Times for the IT scoop of the century... well, not quite. The edition of Friday, 22 April, the paper's T2 pull-out, centre spread. Here, in the 'Sounds' section, we find a two-page piece in which old fogey, 71, is taught how to love classical music downloads by precocious brat, 12. The article runs a …

Mac Channel 25 Apr 2005, 09:43
Creative income falls on iPod-minced margins

Sales up, though

Strong sales failed to boost Creative Technology's first-quarter income, the MP3 player maker announced on Friday. During the three months to 31 March, Creative recorded sales totalling $333.8m, up 65.4 per cent on the year-ago quarter's total, $201.8m. However, net income fell 72.1 per cent year on year, from $57m to $15.9m. …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 09:48
BCC wants business tax rates frozen

Election 2005 Oh, that general election...

The British Chambers of Commerce has called on politicians from all parties to pledge that business taxes will not be raised in the next parliament. It says 90 per cent of business leaders it surveyed were worried that future tax increases would have a damaging impact on their businesses. The announcement comes as Gordon Brown …

Small Biz 25 Apr 2005, 10:01
DoubleClick goes private

Sold for $1bn

A private equity firm is paying just over a billion dollars for online advertising firm DoubleClick. Hillman and Friedman will pay $1.1bn for DoubleClick. The price works out at $8.50 a share, a ten per cent premium on DoubleClick's average share price for the last month. Kevin Ryan, chief executive at DoubleClick, will step …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 10:23
MCI dumps Verizon, cuddles up to Qwest

Plenty more telcos in the sea

Verizon is plotting its next move after MCI switched allegiances over the weekend and decide that it would back a bid after all to be snapped up by Qwest. Last week US telco Qwest upped its offer to acquire MCI to $9.75bn - or $30 a share - and gave MCI until teatime Saturday afternoon to accept or reject the offer. On …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 10:28
Gemplus snaps up e-document firm

Setec Astronomy

Smart card firm Gemplus signed a deal Monday to acquire electronic passport and security printing firm Setec in a combined cash and stock deal valued at between €125m and €155m. The agreement is subject to certain standard closing conditions, including regulatory clearance. Gemplus has agreed to pay at least €30m and 19m …

ID 25 Apr 2005, 10:29
Software patent directive back in motion

Continental drift

The European Parliament re-opened the debate on the future of the EU's directive on software patents, last week. Arguments for and against the bill took the lines we have come to expect from each side: the pro-patent lobby arguing that the directive merely formalises the status quo, and the anti-patent contingent arguing that …

Software 25 Apr 2005, 12:11
HP tops out in Asia

Beats China's Lenovo to Number One

HP has ousted Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo from the top spot for sales in Asia in the first quarter of 2005. HP sales grew almost 29 per cent year-on-year and it made up 11.7 per cent of the total Asian PC market. Lenovo managed growth of 20 per cent which pushed it into second place with an 11 per cent market share. Lenovo …

PCs 25 Apr 2005, 12:13
PC-cillin killed my PC

Update Trend Micro so sorry

A duff anti-virus signature update on Friday from Trend Micro floored the PCs of many who applied it. The Japanese firm pulled the update 90 minutes after it was issued but the error caused mayhem to affected systems, particularly in Japan which because of the timing of the release was particularly badly hit. The faulty update …

Anti-Virus 25 Apr 2005, 12:27
Sun updates Java Enterprise

In brief Identity manager arrives...

Sun has announced general availabilty of Java Enterprise System Release 3 with better identity management features. JES helps enterprises buy and integrate their software. Customers pay a subscription charge for JES of $140 per employee per year. Sun claims 360 customers representing 420,000 seats worldwide. Along with better …

Applications 25 Apr 2005, 12:28
All of Scotland to get broadband

You lucky, lucky people

Every community in Scotland will be hooked up to affordable broadband by the end of 2005 following a £30m deal between the Scottish Executive and dominant UK telco BT. As part of the deal BT - which is stumping up around half of the cash - will convert 378 exchanges giving 51,000 households and 5,400 businesses access to …

Telecoms 25 Apr 2005, 12:31
Full-year profits up 58% at Wipro

Out-sourcery

Wipro, the Indian outsourcing firm, has announced revenue of $378m for the quarter ending 31 March, up 31 per cent over last year. Net income for the quarter also gained substantially, hitting $102m, up from $74.3m a year ago. The Bangalore-based company said full year revenue reached $1.87bn, a rise of 39 per cent on the year …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 12:35
Datatec updates earnings

Might make some apparently

South African networking provider Datatec told investors today that it expects to make a profit for recently finished financial year. The firm is still sorting through figures for the year ended 28 February 2005 which should be ready 18 May. Datatec hopes to make a "headline" profit of between three and four US cents a share …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 13:35
Hushmail hit by DNS attack

Defacers pharm secure mail service

Surfers trying to visit the web site of popular secure email service Hushmail were redirected to a false site early Sunday following a hacking attack. Hush Communications said hackers changed Hushmail's DNS records after "compromising the security" of its domain registrar (Network Solutions). These changes were undone after a …

IT Director 25 Apr 2005, 13:55
Yahoo! hands over dead man's email

Soldier's parents inherit his inbox

Email provider Yahoo has complied with a court order to give a dead soldier's email account to his parents. Lance Corporal Justin Ellsworth, a US Marine, was killed while working for the US army in Iraq. His parents asked Yahoo for access to his email account but the company turned them down, according to AP. But on Wednesday …

Music and Media 25 Apr 2005, 14:28
MS to demo Flash-HDD hybrid drive

Notebook Power Preservation Society

Microsoft's plan to soup up notebook-oriented hard drives with Flash memory buffers appears to be moving beyond the theoretical. According to Samsung, the software giant will demo such a unit at its annual WinHEC conference this week. The prototype drive incorporates 128MB of Flash storage - courtesy of a 1Gb Samsung OneNAND …

Peripherals 25 Apr 2005, 14:52
Google offers banner ads

Extending reach...

Google is to offer banner adverts on partner sites for the first time. The search giant previously stuck to text-only adverts. The animated banners will be on partner sites, not on Google itself. The firm is also moving from charging per click, where advertisers pay when a user clicks to their site through an advert, to …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 14:56
PlusNet ditches fair usage policy

Uh huh...

PlusNet has abandoned plans to implement a "Fair Usage Policy (FUP) that would have kept a lid on "broadband hogs" accused of hoovering up too much capacity and affecting the service quality experienced by other users. Instead, it will use a "contention based" approach to manage problem users. The problem of these broadband …

Telecoms 25 Apr 2005, 15:24
ATI top-end GPUs to win back 'channel leadership'

R520, RV530, RV515 to take on Nvidia

ATI's next-generation desktop graphics processor, R520, has already been claimed to have been scheduled for a June launch, but a leaked channel roadmap suggests we can expect to see the RV530 following not long after and the RV515 in the Autumn. If the presentation slide - which is marked with the slogan "Regaining channel …

Peripherals 25 Apr 2005, 15:30
64 bit Windows ready to go

Worth the wait?

Microsoft finally began shipping 64 bit versions of its key operating systems today, opening up the prospect of a truly mass market for 64 bit applications. Windows XP Professionalx64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition will cost the same as their 32-bit predecessors, the Associated Press reports. According to CNET the …

Software 25 Apr 2005, 16:01
World Cup 2006 organisers clash with eBay.de

eBayers, for you the ticket bidding war is over

Some lucky winners of the first round of World Cup 2006 ticket lotto last week are already trying to send their seed money in to hyper-inflation by auctioning their tickets on eBay Germany. However would-be bidders had a shot across their bows when a top brass German footie official announced, over the weekend, that he would do …

Financial News 25 Apr 2005, 16:13
Sony DSC-T7 digital camera

Review Nice gadget, shame about the pics?

Sony's latest digital compact is even smaller than the last one. Following in the footsteps of the T3 and T5, the DSC-T7 promises great photographs from an ultra-thin body, but can it really achieve what it promises? asks Stuart Miles. The camera is, without a doubt, compact. It measures just 9.2 x 6.0 x 1.5cm. Even loaded with …

Reviews 25 Apr 2005, 16:13
Amazon puts back UK Sony PSP debut - again

Exclusive Autumn availability?

Amazon.co.uk has put back the UK release of Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld games console to 30 September, according to the online retailer's website. The schedule update is at least the fourth time Amazon.co.uk has changed the date on which it expects to be able to ship the console. So far this year, the e-tailer has …

Consoles 25 Apr 2005, 16:15
Astronomers spy hot spots on neutron stars

No, not that kind of hot spot...

European astronomers have seen, for the first time, rotating hotspots on the surfaces of three (relatively) nearby neutron stars. The discovery sheds new light on the thermal geography of these stars - the incredibly hot and dense remnants of supernova explosions. The pictures, taken with the XMM-Newton space telescope, reveal …

Science 25 Apr 2005, 16:23
Open source makes school appointment

Report to pave way for greater OSS use in UK schools

Becta, the Government's lead agency for ICT in education, is set to release a new report which will say that schools could save significant sums by switching to open source software, eGov monitor can report. The landmark report will show that OSS can be implemented successfully in schools and present documented examples of cost …

Public Sector 25 Apr 2005, 16:26
Veritas CEO stays silent on Symantec dreams

Veritas Vision User show is 'the wrong audience'

Veritas CEO Gary Bloom was in duck and cover mode today as the company's main user conference kicked off here in San Francisco. The executive dodged questions about Veritas' ongoing merger process with Symantec and declined to provide details on upcoming software products. As it turns out, the new code, including a revised …

Storage 25 Apr 2005, 18:41