3rd October 2005 Archive
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NTL - Telewest merger is go
End game
The long-awaited merger of the UK's two cable companies which has been dragging on for years looks set to be finalised this week. The tie-up between NTL and Telewest could be announced as early as today in a deal worth up to $5.8bn, according to reports. Of course, if all this sounds familiar, you'd be right. NTL and Telewest …
Telecoms 3 Oct 2005, 08:38
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Telefonica denies KPN merger talks
Just rumours?
Telefonica SA today denied it is discussiong a merger with Dutch telco KPN. This weekend the Wall Street Journal reported that Telefonica is making a $24bn bid for the Dutch company. Initially, both KPN and Telefonica declined to comment. Now, a Telefonica spokesman tells the financial news service AFX "that we want to deny that …
Telecoms 3 Oct 2005, 09:09
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AMD licenses chip tech, lawsuit dropped
Acacia still pursuing Intel, VIA
AMD last week acquired a series of technology licences that grant it the right to use patents it was sued for allegedly infringing back in May. The financial terms underpinning the deal were not made public. The agreement was reached with the patents' owner, Computer Cache Coherency Corp., a subsidiary of technology holding …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 09:26
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Hynix speeds down NAND Flash roadmap
16Gb samples of iPod Nano-type RAM next month
Hynix last week disclosed an aggressive plan to grow its sales of NAND Flash, the type of memory used in digital music players like the iPod Nano. The South Korean memory giant said it will begin sampling a 70nm 16Gb part, along with 4Gb and 8Gb versions. The company is already shipping 1, 2, 4 and 8Gb chips, all fabbed using a …
System Builder 3 Oct 2005, 09:39
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Xena moon's Gabrielle
More on the solar system's 10th planet
Astronomers at the WM Keck Observatory have identified a moon orbiting Xena, a body they argue is the 10th planet in our solar system. They have called the moon Gabrielle, after Xena's sidekick in the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess. Regular readers may remember that Xena's (formally 2003 UB313) discovery reignited an old …
Science 3 Oct 2005, 09:55
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Gigabyte reinvents RAMdisk
4GB of SATA storage fashioned from DDR SDRAM
Gigabyte has launched i-RAM, a hard disk storage alternative based on fast DDR SDRAM chips rather than slow-but-stable Flash memory. There's a catch, of course: the company admitted the product was not suitable for systems that are turned off for long periods of line. Or for anyone who wants more than 4GB of storage capacity …
Peripherals 3 Oct 2005, 10:16
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Paramount backs Blu-ray
HD DVD supporter ponders PlayStation 3
Paramount Home Entertainment has hopped onto the fence, committing itself this weekend to releasing content on both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD) when the next-generation optical disc formats launch. Paramount was one of three major studios that last January publicly backed HD DVD as their high-definition home entertainment …
Peripherals 3 Oct 2005, 10:38
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Political hackers deface Novell SUSE sites
Nuked
Three Novell OpenSUSE community web site were defaced on Sunday by politically motivated hackers. Defacement archive Zone-H reports that a group called IHS Iran Hackers Sabotage broke into OpenSUSE.org, wiki.novell.com and forge.novell.com to post a message stating that it was Iran's right to develop nuclear power. All three …
Enterprise Security 3 Oct 2005, 10:41
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Toshiba to show slim HD DVD drive for laptops
All today's formats supported - and tomorrow's?
Toshiba will this week demo a slimline optical drive for notebook computers that will provide an HD DVD playback capability. The TS-L802A measures 12.8 x 12.6 x 1.3cm and weighs 160g, Toshiba said. It has an 8MB buffer and connects across an ATAPI interface. In addition to HD DVD playback, the drive supports 8x DVD-ROM, 24x CD …
System Builder 3 Oct 2005, 10:44
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iRiver T30 1GB digital music player
Review Flash player perfection?
Despite it's higher model number, the T30 actually sits between iRiver's T10 and T20 players (reviewed here and here). Like the T20, it's intended to be a compact fashion statement, but with space for a AAA battery, it's designed to offer a very long play duration, as per the T10. Features-wise, the T30 is more akin to the T20 …
Reviews 3 Oct 2005, 11:02
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ESA turns satellites to watch for droughts
Water monitor
The European Space Agency (ESA) is putting near real-time information about water levels of lakes and rivers in Africa up on the web, thanks to a collaboration with DeMonfort University (DMU). The researchers at DMU say the news system could change the way nations respond to droughts, and could even affect conflict over water …
Science 3 Oct 2005, 11:22
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Cisco finds Nemo
In brief Persistence of memory
Cisco Systems has signed a deal to acquire network memory start-up Nemo Systems for $12.5m in cash. The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and expected to close by the end of October. Nemo's technology will be used to turbocharge the performance of Cisco's core …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 11:23
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Job risk sours NTL/Telewest tie-up
'Rationalisation is likely'
NTL and Telewest have confirmed that they are to merge. But while the companies are "bigging up" the deal as creating a "new competitive force in the UK's communications and entertainment sectors", there are fears that thousands of jobs will be lost as part of the tie-up. Bloomberg quotes financial outfit UBS as saying that as …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 11:45
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US bill heralds end of walled gardens
Analysis Market will kill them anyway
The draft telecomns reform bill released by the House Commerce Committee last week would ban fixed or wireless carriers from limiting access to content and applications, which would make it difficult for wireless carriers to keep their walled gardens. The House draft, an important first step in the telecoms reform process, …
Mobile 3 Oct 2005, 11:46
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How to dress like Darth Vader for less than $800
Force couture
We've always had a sneaking admiration for the Empire. Yes, it may be a dictatorship, but its abolition of slavery is a plus and, frankly, it has the all best kit. And who better to exemplify that than the man voted Mister Personification of Evil for the last 28 years running, the original Man in Black, Darth 'Annie' Vader …
Bootnotes 3 Oct 2005, 11:48
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NeuStar agreement makes mobile roaming easier
.gprs creepers
The GSM Association last week silently created a whole new mobile internet, on the back of an agreement with American company NeuStar. It will offer Root Domain Name System (DNS) services to more than 680 global GSM mobile operators. NeuStar, which in the past managed local number portability throughout North America, can now …
Mobile 3 Oct 2005, 13:45
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BT calls for closure of BTIrelandsucks.com
'Bog off' says site owner
Lawyers representing BT Ireland have called on the owner of BTIrelandsucks.com to pull the plug on the site claiming it has been registered in "bad faith". In a letter to site owner Adam Beecher, BT Ireland said: "You have no right, title or interest in respect of the name BT Ireland and we require that you remove the website …
Music and Media 3 Oct 2005, 13:47
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Star Wars tops movie music poll
No honour for Showgirls, sadly
It's all go in the wonderful world of movie polls, and hot on the butt-naked heels of last week's revelation that the pool romp scene between Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle MacLachlan was the worst screen rumpy-pumpy ever, we have the news that Star Wars has claimed the best film music crown. That's according to the American Film …
Bootnotes 3 Oct 2005, 13:58
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Backdoor Trojan targets Microsoft Access
Zero day vuln gives hackers open access
Virus writers have created a Trojan which uses an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Office to take over Windows PCs. The Hesive Trojan can be disguised as a Microsoft Access file. Once opened in Access, infected .mdb files take advantage of a five-month old buffer overflow flaw in Microsoft's Jet Database Engine software to …
Enterprise Security 3 Oct 2005, 14:03
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EU inks airline data deal with Canada
Passenger lists, please
The EU has signed a deal with Canada that will allow European airlines to provide Canadian authorities with details of who is scheduled to fly on planes headed for the country. After 11 September, the Canadian government authorised its border control agency to collect this information, but the EU said Canada had to change the …
Music and Media 3 Oct 2005, 14:06
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BenQ-Siemens phone firm readies dual brand
BenQ Mobile launched
BenQ Mobile, the company formed from the Taiwanese consumer electronics firm's phone division and the handset business it bought from Siemens, began operations this weekend. The new company was formally incorporated on 1 October, but it will be Spring 2006 before it combines its two handset line-ups under a single brand. Based …
Mobile 3 Oct 2005, 14:09
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US school succumbs to paperless madness
Books binned in favour of IT
An Arizona school has dispensed entirely with textbooks and has spunked its entire book budget on student laptops, the BBC reports. Empire High School used to spend around $500 per head on text books. Instead, it spent roughly $800 a pop on Apple iBooks. Mercifully, it still has some books lying around, as Vail School district …
Bootnotes 3 Oct 2005, 14:21
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Legend ISP is takeover target
Prelim talks held
Lancaster-based ISP Legend Communications has confirmed that it is holding talks to flog the company. In a statement the ISP said it was "engaged in preliminary talks, which may or may not lead to an offer being made for the company". It went on: "The talks are at a very early stage and there is no certainty that any offer …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 14:30
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Artists' managers, royalty collectors turn on iTunes
Download payments too low, they claim
Having lauded the arrival of legal music download services likes Apple's iTunes for saving it from online piracy, the music industry is now complaining that the digital domain is not sufficiently recompensing artists. According to a report in today's Times newspaper, the Music Managers Forum (MMF), a trade body of artists' …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 15:00
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Mistral axes 20 in shake-up
Offices to shut too
Brighton-based ISP Mistral Internet is closing two offices in Basingstoke and Cambridge with the loss of around 20 jobs. The job cuts and office closures follow a review of the business after the recent acquisitions of Basingstoke-based Netkonect and Cambridge-based Drakken. A handful of other jobs also look likely to be cut …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 15:09
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Symantec buys compliance firm BindView
Agent-less tech ticks all the boxes
Symantec continued its seemingly relentless acquisition spree on Monday with the purchase of security compliance firm BindView for $209m. The all-cash transaction, which is subject to regulatory and BindView shareholder approvals, is expected to close in the first calendar quarter of 2006. Post-acquisition, BindView's …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 15:21
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MessageLabs branches out into web security
HTTP blocker tech goes live
Net security firm MessageLabs is extending its services beyond email filtering with the launch of a trio of web scanning products on Monday. The UK-based firm is selling web anti-virus, anti-spyware and censorware (URL filtering) products in order to differentiate its offerings from managed service competitors such as …
Spam 3 Oct 2005, 16:00
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Digital music revenues soar
iTunes and co. takes $350m
The music industry made $440m out of digital music during the first half of 2005, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) trade group said today. The retailers made $350m, IFPI's numbers show - much of it, we'd say, going into Apple's coffers. According to the trade organisation, $790m was spent on …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 16:04
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Judge sets AMD, Intel disclosure date
AMD vs Intel Document hand-over
Judge Joseph J Farnan Jr of the Delaware District Court has told lawyers representing AMD and Intel to exchange disclosures this coming Thursday. The procedure usually allows both parties to see what the other is holding in evidence to back up their claims, what witnesses they will call to support that evidence and so on. …
Financial News 3 Oct 2005, 16:08
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MS promises PDF support in Office 12
Well, now
Microsoft says it is adding PDF support to Office 12, meaning users will be able to create pdf format documents from within Microsoft's next Office suite. Users of the forthcoming version of Office will now have an option to "save to PDF", the company says. The facility will be added to Word, Excel, Publisher and PowerPoint, …
Applications 3 Oct 2005, 16:11
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HP buys bladeless blade server pioneer RLX
Sue first, acquire later
Troubled blade server veteran RLX Technologies has been snatched up by HP for an undisclosed sum. The two companies announced the deal Monday morning, saying HP plans to use RLX's software for Linux blade server management. This deal must be a huge relief for RLX's current management, which has struggled to find a successful …
Servers 3 Oct 2005, 16:39
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Dell's Anti-Solaris site no longer on Solaris
Round Rock fires Sun, hires self for ad campaign
Dell's direct model has paid big dividends once again as the company decided to host an anti-Sun Microsystems campaign directly on its own servers instead of Sun systems. It's either crow or dog food, but something unwholesome is being eaten this week in Round Rock. Last week, we reported on Dell's quite well-done web …
Servers 3 Oct 2005, 21:01
