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23rd June 2005 Archive

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  • Analysts circle HP with CEO's hammer expected to come down

    Easy on the pink or blood red?

    Wall Street has started salivating as it awaits word on new HP CEO Mark Hurd's plans for the company. Rumor has it that Hurd will hand down his proclamations any day now. The only move seen as certain? Mass layoffs. The prospect of job cuts isn't a terribly fresh notion. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Toni Sacconaghi in May …

    Hardware 23 Jun 2005, 02:23

  • Internal security attacks affecting banks

    Fastest growing problem

    Internal security breaches at the world's banks are growing faster than external attacks, as institutions invest in technology, instead of employee training. According to the 2005 Global Security Survey, published by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 35 per cent of respondents said that they had encountered attacks from inside their …

    IT Director 23 Jun 2005, 06:02

  • Pre-teen in airport safety breakthrough

    Good gadgeting, son

    A twelve-year old boy has come up with a gadget that could prevent a re-run of the Concorde crash, by detecting debris on the runway and alerting pilots before they line-up to land. According to the BBC, the British Airport Authority (BAA) is keen to develop the idea. Daryn Murray from East Kilbride says he was inspired by the …

    Science 23 Jun 2005, 06:02

  • BT escapes threat of immediate break-up

    Deal thrashed out between BT and Ofcom

    BT has cut a deal with regulator Ofcom and escaped the immediate threat of dismemberment. The settlement announced today by BT and communications regulator Ofcom ends 18 months of uncertainty for the industry after years of bickering about BT's dominance of the UK's telecoms sector Full details of a new regulatory deal won't …

    Telecoms 23 Jun 2005, 08:23

  • Opera boss swings at Firefox's Sugar Daddies

    Bored rich kids?

    You make the world's best browser. It's smaller and faster than Internet Explorer, and a lot more secure, and every year you think up new ideas that make browsing easier. Then a rival appears that steals your ideas and yet only manages to produce a slower, clunkier and feature limited version of your browser - and the press …

    Developer 23 Jun 2005, 08:25

  • Microsoft bolsters support for PC makers in IP lawsuits

    Drops financial caps

    Microsoft is dropping financial caps in its support for PC builders and distributors to combat intellectual property lawsuits involving the company's software. And it is opening up legal defence fees to a broader range of claims over patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark issues. Microsoft notes that in IP disputes, it …

    Channel Register 23 Jun 2005, 08:49

  • UK open source email firm bags VC funding

    Logicalware secures £300,000 for development

    Scottish email management vendor Logicalware claims to be the first UK open source developer to grab a slice of venture capital funding. The Sigma Innovation Fund and former Demon Internet director and entrepreneur Bill Dobbie have pumped £300,000 into Logicalware. Logicalware’s Mail Manager product is offered as a hosted …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 08:57

  • Nvidia unveils GeForce 7800 GTX

    Pushes SLi into the mainstream, too

    Nvidia took the wraps off its GeForce 7800 GTX graphics chip yesterday, as anticipated. The company also launched the second-generation of its SLi multi-card rendering system, pushing the first version down-market in the process, the better to compete with ATI's rival technology, CrossFire. The new SLi allows two cards to co- …

    System Builder 23 Jun 2005, 09:00

  • ISIS backs Bolden James MBO

    Targeting private sector

    ISIS Equity Partners has backed a £5.5m management buyout of messaging and connectivity vendor Boldon James. The MBO was led by Bolden James managing director Martin Sugden. He said that while the company’s traditional markets, such as the military and government sectors, had long grasped the importance of augmenting basic …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 09:20

  • UMC chairman to quit over China investment case

    Sooner or later, depending on trial outcome

    UMC chairman Robert Tsao is to quit his post, the chip foundry revealed this week in a document filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Tsao is at the centre of allegations that UMC took a stake in China-based foundry Hejian without notifying the Taiwanese government, as the island's law requires. UMC's filing presents two exit …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 09:22

  • For every DRM download, 16 P2P swaps

    An underestimate, we reckon

    Cheering news for the pigopolists this week, from The Guardian newspaper. "Music industry cheered by sinking of pirates" runs the headline. And someone called Cosima Marriner, who sounds like a song from Marc Bolan's great warbling elvish period, informs us that the great internet music battle of recent years is as good as over …

    Music and Media 23 Jun 2005, 09:23

  • Fujitsu Siemens opens UK web store

    Indirect advances

    Fujitsu Siemens has opened a UK web storefront to offer an "alternative purchasing resource for some of the many thousands of visitors to the main Fujitsu Siemens Computers corporate co.uk web site each month". But it remains wedded to its dedicated channel policy and will push all sales through resellers. The site is run by …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 09:35

  • Apple Euro iTunes stores sell 50m songs year one

    Far behind US sales, though

    Apple's European iTunes Music Stores have together sold more than 50m songs in their first 12 months in business, the company said today. Originally launched in the UK, Germany and France, on 15 June 2004, ITMS has since opened branches in most other European states, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 09:42

  • StreamCast updates Morpheus P2P with BitTorrent

    Hollywood not expected to be impressed

    StreamCast has begun shipping a pre-release BitTorrent-enabled test version of its upcoming Morpheus 5.0 P2P software, the company said yesterday. The announcement comes while the P2P world awaits an answer from the US Supreme Court on the vexed question of whether companies like StreamCast are as guilty of copyright …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 10:00

  • The Sun exposes UK ID theft racket at Indian call centre

    Update My bank details went to Bangalore

    An undercover reporter was able to buy the details thousands of UK banking accounts, password particulars and credit cards numbers from crooked call centre workers in India, The Sun reports. The paper says one of its journalists bought details of 1,000 UK banking customers from an IT worker in Delhi for £4.25 each. The IT …

    ID 23 Jun 2005, 10:13

  • Asustek cans dual GeForce 6800 graphics card

    Planning a 7800 GTX version instead?

    Asustek has pulled the plug on its planned two-chip graphics card. However, the product may yet see commercial light of day with Nvidia's latest GPU on board. Asustek has demonstrated the card on a number of occasions this year, in each case powered by a pair of Nvidia GeForce 6800-series chips. However, at yesterday's launch …

    System Builder 23 Jun 2005, 10:16

  • BT bows to Ofcom pressure

    Operational separation prevents full break-up

    BT - the UK's former telecoms monopoly that rivals accused for so long of uncompetitive behaviour - has given its backing to proposals to open up its network to competing operators. If successful, the measures should given competing telcos the chance to offer consumers real alternatives to a dominant player that has been forced …

    Telecoms 23 Jun 2005, 10:31

  • MARSIS is ready to go digging on Mars

    Hunting for H2O

    The Mars Express MARSIS experiment is at last fully deployed, seven weeks after the European Space Agency gave the go ahead for the radar booms to be unfurled. ESA announced yesterday that the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding experiment has undergone its first checkout, and is ready to start scanning …

    Science 23 Jun 2005, 10:37

  • AMD extends Turion mobile chip line

    Top and bottom

    AMD has added a pair of Turion 64 mobile processors to its CPU line-up. Most attention appears to be focused on the top-end ML-40 chip, but there's a new MT-28 at the bottom to the range, pitching Turion into lower-priced notebooks. The ML-40 is a 35W part, while the MT-28 consumes up to 25W. The two chips are clocked at 2.2GHz …

    System Builder 23 Jun 2005, 10:38

  • Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX

    Review More evolution the revolution?

    A year goes by pretty quickly for me these days. I can vividly remember the last few days before Nvidia's NV40 launch 14 months ago, and the last few days have brought some serious déja vu. I've run much the same tests and much the same analysis. Pretty much the same pixels are being painted. The last part of that statement is …

    Reviews 23 Jun 2005, 11:30

  • BitTorrent inventor lambasts Avalanche 'vaporware'

    Not a product you can use or test

    Bram Cohen, inventor of the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, has launched a stinging attack on Microsoft's "Avalanche" peer-to-peer system unveiled (sort of) last week by its Cambridge (UK) researchers. In a posting on his blog, Cohen - whose protocol is (over?)estimated to be responsible for one-third of the world's internet …

    Music and Media 23 Jun 2005, 11:37

  • Sage buys Spanish biz for £55m

    Muy bien

    Sage is buying Logic Control, a Spanish accounting software vendor, for £55m in cash. Logic Control has 20,000 customers and takes Sage's Spanish operations into bigger businesses. Logic Control also develops software for accountants. The company had revenues of £28.2m and an operating profit of £20.6m for the year to 31 …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 11:54

  • BT still needs to be policed, says industry

    Something about old dogs and new tricks

    The UK's telecoms industry has begun to give its first reaction to Ofcom's new deal with BT and appears to welcome the regulator's moves to create a virtual split within the monster telco. However, while they applaud Ofcom they maintain it must remain vigilant to ensure that BT abides by the new regulatory regime. Operators …

    Telecoms 23 Jun 2005, 12:54

  • Lobby groups go all out as EU patent deadline looms

    Patents are good / bad. You choose

    As the timer counts down to the next big vote on the European software patents directive, two groups representing small businesses in the region have launched last ditch efforts to persuade MEPs of the dangers or merits of the current form of the bill. The Campaign for Creativity, a pro-patent lobby group, has called for MEPs …

    Developer 23 Jun 2005, 14:44

  • World is safe from mobile viruses for a few more years

    Stash tin-foil hats, Gartner advises

    A fast-spreading virus or worm wwill no affect mobile devices before the end of 2007 at the earliest, Gartner forecasts. The analyst firm reckons the conditions for the spread of mobile malware - high penetration of mobile devices and people routinely exchanging executable files by mobile phone - simply aren't there yet. The …

    Mobile 23 Jun 2005, 14:54

  • ATI posts Q3 loss

    Revenues down as demand shifts away from high-end chips

    ATI slipped into the red during the three months to 31 May 2005, a "challenging" third fiscal quarter, the graphics chip maker revealed today. Revenue for the period totalled $530m, up eight per cent on the year-ago quarter, but 12 per cent down on ATIs original forecast for the quarter. When it announced its Q2 figures, it …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 14:57

  • Airgo cuts MIMO Wi-Fi chipset prices

    Higher speeds over greater distances for less money

    Airgo, the Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) wireless technology pioneer Airgo, has launched new, low-cost Wi-Fi chipsets. The company also cut prices on its existing True MIMO chipset. But while Airgo expects that to remain a premium product, it anticipates the new True G and True AG offerings to enable wireless equipement …

    Wireless 23 Jun 2005, 14:59

  • MIT boffins make hot superfluid

    For a specified value of 'hot'

    Scientists at MIT have created a new kind of matter: a gas of atoms that exhibits superfluidity at high temperatures. Or at least, what passes for high temperatures among researchers at the MIT Harvard Center for Ultracold atoms. A superfluid gas flows without resistance, and has some very odd properties. One of these is that …

    Science 23 Jun 2005, 15:15

  • Microsoft rolls out SP1 blocker for shy Windows 2003 servers

    Download another day

    Impressed with the security benefits of Windows Server 2003 SP1 but not game enough to install the software? Well, Microsoft has the perfect tool for you. Redmond this week released an SP1 blocker that makes sure the Service Pack doesn't make its way onto a system even if you use automatic updates. SP1 is set to arrive as an …

    Hardware 23 Jun 2005, 15:16

  • HP dresses up ProLiants with dual-core Opterons

    Wants to sell 10m more boxes

    As promised, HP has fattened up its line of Opteron-based ProLiant servers with a new dual-core version of the chip. The systems receiving the dual-core dandy are the two-way DL385 and DL145 systems and the BL25p and BL35p blade servers. HP pitches both the DL385 and BL25p systems as higher-end boxes, while the DL145 and BL35p …

    Servers 23 Jun 2005, 16:29

  • E-commerce now a turn-off - official

    Online scams blight outlook

    So much for the "digital revolution". The Gartner Group is revising its e-commerce predictions downwards after 42 per cent of users said they were cutting back net use because of security concerns. As a result, Gartner is shaving one to three per cent off its growth estimates. It had previously reckoned that online business …

    Financial News 23 Jun 2005, 18:17

  • IBM does the application shuffle and catches Meiosys

    Unix and Linux get funky

    IBM today added a new level of sophistication to its Unix and Linux servers by acquiring privately held software maker Meiosys. Meiosys has three products aimed at improving the way applications can be shuffled between groups of servers - MetaCluster UC, HPC and FT. Such software belongs to a growing class of "virtualization" …

    Servers 23 Jun 2005, 19:00

  • AMD sets Q3 release for workstation-happy, dual-core Opterons

    100 Series prepares for liftoff

    It's getting warm here in Chicago, and the birds are out in full force. Thankfully, one rather knowledgeable chirper stopped by the office today with a short but concrete message about AMD's Opteron plans. In the next couple of days, AMD will deliver word that the dual-core version of Opteron meant for one-socket workstations …

    Hardware 23 Jun 2005, 20:03

  • Pentagon recruiting kids with mass data mining scheme

    Total pigeon awareness

    The US military has retained the services of a commercial privacy invasion outfit to assemble detailed dossiers on all American high school children and college students, according to a report in the Washington Post. Direct-marketing database outfit BeNow Inc will manage students' information for the US Department of Defense ( …

    Music and Media 23 Jun 2005, 20:04

  • Make music industry poverty history

    Cartels just ain't what they used to be

    Set yourself a challenge when next you're in Paraguay: see if you can buy a non-pirated CD. According to latest figures on CD piracy released by the IFPI, the record companies' global organisation, 99 per cent of CDs there come from people saying "Arr-harr!". Worldwide, 1.2bn pirated discs were sold in 2004, making 34 per cent …

    Music and Media 23 Jun 2005, 21:25

  • North Carolina residents sue Dell to keep their $270m

    Want roads, tuition and land back too

    A watchdog blasted Dell and the North Carolina today in a lawsuit aimed at rolling back huge incentives designed to lure the computer maker to the state. Robert Orr, executive director of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law (NCICL), alleged that Dell used fear tactics and unfair bargaining to win $240m in tax …

    Hardware 23 Jun 2005, 23:45