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22nd July 2005 Archive

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  • Microsoft cautious despite record quarter

    Ker-ching!

    Despite posting a $10bn quarter, Microsoft offered a more cautious outlook for the next three months. The company took a profit of $2.99bn from its Q4 2005 period, down slightly from the corresponding period last year, after accounting for $756m in antitrust related legal charges. Total revenue was $10.16bn All segments grew, …

    Software 22 Jul 2005, 03:22

  • Bill Joy knocked as 'conspiracy theorist' by tech zealot

    Goo boy reprimanded

    Uberthinker Bill Joy got a pants dusting on Thursday for saying technology has increased our threat levels and anything other than the free market can save us. Joy, speaking at Stanford University said powerful technologies have increased the potential for a single individual to wreak widespread terror by developing and …

    Science 22 Jul 2005, 09:02

  • Google's profits soar as share price slips

    No pleasing some people

    Google posted bumper Q2 results on Thursday with net income of $343m, compared to profits of $79m in the same period last year. For the quarter ending 30 June, the search engine behemoth posted record revenues of $1.38bn up 98 per cent on its revenues in Q2 2004 and 10 per cent up on the $1.26bn it clocked up in Q1 2005. More …

    Financial News 22 Jul 2005, 10:07

  • UK Gov disaster recovery kit: belt, braces... brolly

    Clarke fends off Commons umbrella attack

    Home Secretary Charles Clarke has recently been claiming the new-look super-efficient Passport Service as a Government IT success, but it was not always thus, as Liberal Home Affairs spokesman Mark Oaten reminded him this week. Once upon a time, umbrellas were an essential component of the Passport Service's disaster recovery …

    Bootnotes 22 Jul 2005, 10:10

  • Elpida falls into red on weak DRAM prices

    Despite growing sales

    Elpida lost ¥3.30bn ($29.9m) on sales of ¥48.04bn ($434.8m) during Q1 FY2005, the memory maker said yesterday. It blamed its fall into the red on rapidly declining memory prices, which more than countered rising sales. The quarter's revenues were up 5.5 per cent on the year-ago period's ¥45.54bn ($412.2m). During June, Elpida …

    Financial News 22 Jul 2005, 10:15

  • ATI 'enables' CrossFire on Intel 955X chipset

    Mobo boost?

    ATI's CrossFire multi-GPU technology may work with motherboards based on Intel's 955X chipset when compatible graphics cards ship next month. According to sources from within Taiwan's mobo-maker community cited by DigiTimes, ATI has already provided motherboard makers with drivers that enable CrossFire on 955X-based boards. …

    Peripherals 22 Jul 2005, 10:23

  • Golden Palace to sponsor Robert Mugabe?

    Competition results And that's just for starters...

    Thanks very much to all of those many readers who sent in suggestions as to how online gambling outfit GoldenPalace.com might increase its brand frontage in the wake of its greatest stunt to date: tattooing its name onto a woman's face. Tricky, you might think, to top such a media-friendly piece of disfigurement, but rest …

    Bootnotes 22 Jul 2005, 10:48

  • Mozilla postpones next Firefox release

    Nothing to see 'till September, folks

    The next major release of Firefox has been delayed with the Mozilla Foundation opting to can the 1.1 release altogether, and switch to a release of version 1.5 in September instead. The Foundation said that the delay was down to the development of new features taking longer than expected. Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla …

    Applications 22 Jul 2005, 11:08

  • BOFH: Chuck it and leg it

    Episode 21 Bastard disposal policy

    "What the hell's he saying?!" I ask the PFY as he tries to interpret what my counterpart is saying. "I'm not sure - East European languages aren't my speciality - but I think he's saying what you just did is illegal in his country," the PFY replies, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Ah! In that case tell him not to worry - it's …

    BOFH 22 Jul 2005, 11:25

  • AMD's battle with Intel to go west?

    AMD vs Intel Californian plaintiffs want trial moved from Delaware

    AMD's legal action against Intel in the US District Court of Delaware could up stumps and move to the US District of Northern California, if plaintiffs already engaged in proceedings against Intel have their way, court documents seen by The Register reveal. The Delaware Court was this week notified that two Northern California …

    Financial News 22 Jul 2005, 11:43

  • HSDPA in Germany next year

    Faster than DSL

    T-Mobile will bring HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) wireless technology to the German market as early as March 2006. It may already be available nationwide during CeBIT 2006. HSDPA speeds up downloads from 384 kilobits per second up to 1.8Mbps, using the existing UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) …

    Mobile 22 Jul 2005, 11:48

  • Dixons confirms Logica deal off

    Denies redundancies claim

    Dixons has confirmed that it has cancelled plans to outsource its IT support to LogicaCMG, after the two companies were unable to agree on the terms of the deal. It now says it is "reviewing its options" about how to proceed. In a statement, the company said: "We can confirm that we have ceased negotiations with LogicaCMG …

    IT Director 22 Jul 2005, 12:59

  • Scan 3XS Hoojum CUBIT 5 media centre system

    Review All roads lead to chrome

    Last month I took a look at a complete Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 system from small form-factor king Shuttle and was generally impressed. Now system integrator Scan has created its own Media Center system, the CUBIT 5, using the guts of Shuttle's SFF MCE system but employing a housing from Hoojum, writes Benny …

    Reviews 22 Jul 2005, 13:49

  • Banks warned over m-commerce security peril

    Dial H for Hacker

    Banks risk exposing customer data to hacking attacks in deploying mobile-phone ATM applications, warns independent security consultancy SecureTest. Up to 20 high street banks in the UK are gearing up to roll-out balance request and mobile phone top-ups using the service, dubbed MobileATM, by the end of the year. The service …

    ID 22 Jul 2005, 14:09

  • Microsoft passes da Vista baby

    Longhorns sawn off

    Microsoft finally dropped the Longhorn moniker today and “revealed” that its next generation client operating system will be known as Vista when it ships next year. Like all marketing strategies, this means… anything you want it to mean. Perhaps calling the product Windows Vista means it will give users a commanding overview …

    Operating Systems 22 Jul 2005, 14:49

  • Microsoft offers a sneak peek at Xbox 360

    Backward compatibile up to a point

    Gamers can look forward to better, more lifelike graphics and some exclusive titles when Microsoft launches its new Xbox 360 later this year, the company has promised. At a media briefing in Dublin on Thursday Microsoft confirmed more than 25 titles to launch with its next-generation console, with a further 160 in development. …

    Consoles 22 Jul 2005, 15:11

  • Frozen Mars bars possibility of life

    Or does it?

    A chemical analysis of Martian meteorites has revealed that the red planet was probably freezing cold for the vast majority of its existence, casting doubt on theories that life could have had time to evolve on the planet. Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (CIT) and the Berkeley Geochronology Center (BGC) …

    Science 22 Jul 2005, 15:16

  • Hydra of Texas hold 'em humbled

    Man beats machine in poker face-off

    Supercomputers may be able to outdo grand masters in strategy games like chess but when it comes to the low cunning and judgment required in games like poker mankind still has the upper hand. Human Phil Laak this week beat PokerProbot, the Hydra of Texas hold 'em, in a face-off at Binion's Gambling Hall, Las Vegas. Laak, 33, …

    Bootnotes 22 Jul 2005, 15:24

  • Readers take opposing views on everything

    Letters By turns, kicking and kissing our ar*es

    Techscape's Bill Robinson reckons he can see a bit of a punch up on the horizon for HP and Sony, as both firms turn their attention to digital entertainment. A few of your thoughts: "H-P has a strong reputation for technological excellence." Make that "had". I've been a supporter of HP since the 70's, but they are no longer …

    Letters 22 Jul 2005, 15:55

  • Linksys consumates union with Kiss

    Pucker up for home networking product blitz

    Cisco's Linksys consumer networking division has agreed to buy Danish networking entertainment devices firm Kiss Technology in a cash and stock deal valued at $61m. Kiss's portfolio includes home video products such as networked DVD players and networked DVD recorders. Cisco said the acquisition will help Linksys to develop a …

    Financial News 22 Jul 2005, 16:06

  • Global music download stats spill beans on subscriptions

    Analysis Better business in a la carte sales - if you're Apple

    More than 180m songs were downloaded legally during the first half of 2005 throughout the world, IFPI, the international federation of recording companies revealed this week. Over the last few weeks, separate figures for the US and the UK have been published, and the IFPI numbers allow us to put them in a global context. For …

    Personal 22 Jul 2005, 16:23

  • HP Labs also decimated

    Invent: a reason why you should keep your job

    On Tuesday Hewlett Packard CEO Mark Hurd HP promised that the layoffs wouldn't affect HP's R&D. The changes would be "minimal", he said. But HP has confirmed it is closing DEC's old Cambridge Research Laboratory, and axing three projects in Palo Alto. A spokesman told The Register that around 70 of the 700 Labs positions would …

    Hardware 22 Jul 2005, 21:23

  • MS Anti-Spyware built on MS Abandonware

    The Ghost of VB6

    Heck, if a movie that's in Aramaic can top the box-office charts, there must be hope for dead languages everywhere. And for one in particular, which still has millions of adherents. Released in 1996, Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 cemented the product as the first choice of buggy front-ends to databases everywhere. In fact, if you …

    Applications 22 Jul 2005, 23:12