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20th January 2006 Archive

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  • UK.gov loves computer contractors (true)

    Taking up private sector slack

    The government has surpassed the private sector to become the country’s largest employer of freelance IT specialists. Over one in four IT contractors in the UK now work in the public sector, according a report by contractor services firm Giant Group. Since 2003, the government has expanded its lead in freelance IT hires over …

    IT Director 20 Jan 2006, 07:03

  • ONS struggles to define ecommerce revenues

    Could do better, UK statisticians admit

    The growing popularity of online shopping has transformed from just another showroom for selling goods into a driver of economic growth, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) claims. In an article examining trends in online spending, published yesterday, the country’s official statistician acknowledges that its coverage of …

    Small Biz 20 Jan 2006, 07:03

  • Swindon goes large on outsourcing

    Gig worth up to £500m

    Swindon Borough Council is planning to outsource its back office services in a deal that could be worth up £500m. The Wiltshire authority is inviting tenders for a contract of between 10 and 15 years, with a proposed option to extend for a further five to 10 years. The annual value of the tender is expected to be worth £20m a …

    Public Sector 20 Jan 2006, 08:58

  • IT industry prepares for the worst over ID cards

    'Don't blame us, blame government'

    After years in which suppliers have absorbed most of the blame for government IT failures, the case for there being equal measures of ineptitude in the civil service is gaining momentum behind the concerted campaign against ID Cards. The latest evidence was submitted as a statement this week by Intellect, the UK's IT trade …

    Music and Media 20 Jan 2006, 09:49

  • AOL UK to spend £120m on local loop unbundling

    Can now compete 'on a level playing field' with BT

    AOL is planning to spend £120m to provide broadband and phone services direct to punters in a move that will further erode BT's dominance of the UK's telecoms sector. The ISP joins a growing number of companies - including Wanadoo, Sky, Bulldog and the Carphone Warehouse - that are committed to local loop unbundling (LLU). An …

    Networks 20 Jan 2006, 10:23

  • AMD looks to quintuple CPU cache capacity

    Capacitorless memory could be the key

    AMD has licensed a memory chip technology that could allow it to increase its processors' cache sizes fivefold without changing the size of each chip's die. The technology is called Z-RAM and was developed by US-Swiss start-up Innovative Silicon, EETimes reports. IS' technique strips out the capacitor components commonly …

    PCs 20 Jan 2006, 10:36

  • Rambus Q4 income drops 35 per cent

    Despite record revenues

    Rambus posted mixed Q4 FY2005 results yesterday, with a large year-on-year income gain accompanying a big sequential slide. Net income for the three months to 31 December 2005 came to $9.4m, down 35 per cent on the previous quarter but up 45 per cent year on year. Fully diluted earnings for the fourth quarter were nine cents, …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2006, 10:47

  • New Horizons off to Pluto

    Successful launch for NASA mission

    NASA's New Horizons' mission to Pluto blasted off yesterday from Cape Canaveral - the first step in a 10-year, one-way trip. According to the NASA press release, the Atlas V rocket carrying the vehicle lifted off at 14:00 EST. It separated from the solid fuel "kick motor" a tad under 45 minutes later. Five minutes after that, …

    Science 20 Jan 2006, 11:04

  • Tesco VoIP service flawed, say rivals

    Not comparing apples and oranges

    Tesco says the launch of its internet phone service will see the cost of calls "slashed to rock-bottom prices", but according to rivals, the service has too many restrictions and will not necessarily be any cheaper. The upshot for consumers is yet more confusion as they try to figure out whether it's worth buying into VoIP. …

    VoIP 20 Jan 2006, 11:24

  • ATI R580 GPU benchmarked

    Sample graphics board leaks out

    ATI's R580 graphics chip will appear in three Radeon X1900 configurations: the XT, the XTX and a CrossFire Edition. So claims Anandtech, citing an "internal ATI presentation". According to the website, the XT and XTX are clocked at 625MHz and 650MHz, respectively, with their DDR memory buffers set to run at 1.45GHz and 1.55GHz …

    PCs 20 Jan 2006, 11:45

  • Mobile phones don't cause brain tumours

    Handset usage doesn't increase cancer risk

    Using a mobile phone will not increase your chances of contracting cerebral cancer, a four-year study conducted in the UK has concluded. The results of the study, published today in the British Medical Journal, indicate that no matter how long you have used a phone for, or how frequently you make and take calls, your risk of …

    Mobile 20 Jan 2006, 11:56

  • US man kills himself 'live' on gamers' forum

    Controversy surrounds suicide

    A 20-year-old US man is reported to have killed himself live on a webcam on Bulgarian gamers' forum www.metalgearsolid.org, according to AFP and other agencies. Mitchell "Mitch" Lee Stuekerjuergen, aka "Kuja105", reportedly swallowed antifreeze and pills "after complaining about family problems and a lack of money", forum …

    Music and Media 20 Jan 2006, 11:59

  • BOFH: 'Did you know..?'

    Episode 3 Yes, we did - we're Systems and Networks

    "Did you know..?" the Boss asks, strolling into Mission Control and attempting to read at the same time (which probably accounts for those thudding noises we heard earlier). "Yes we did," the PFY says, getting in early before the Boss can really get started. "How can you possibly know, I haven't told you what I'm talking …

    BOFH 20 Jan 2006, 12:07

  • Phones4U raves about '3G Christmas'

    Corners third of 3G sales

    Three in 10 of all 3G phone contracts sold in the UK are flogged by Phones4U shops, the retailer announced yesterday. "This has definitely been a 3G Christmas for Phones4U," said boss John Caudwell, echoing comments made by Dixons that this year had been a "digital Christmas". "I believe Phones4U is attracting younger and more …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2006, 12:10

  • Acer to integrate 3G into notebooks

    HSDPA too, for even faster downloads

    Acer is to embed 3G mobile-phone technology into its future notebook PC products, kicking off with a pair of Centrino Duo-based machines, the company said this week. The TravelMate 4260 and Aspire 5650 will both incorporate UMTS 3G and tri-band GSM/GPRS 2.5G radios to allow their users to connect to the internet across cellular …

    PCs 20 Jan 2006, 12:20

  • 802.11n Wi-Fi spec nailed down, at last

    Broadcom already sampling compatible chips

    Broadcom has begun sampling the first wireless chipsets that support the 802.11n draft specification that was finally approved yesterday for submission to the IEEE for ratification as a standard. The chip maker claimed its Intensi-Fi WLAN chipset family supports the specification agreed by the IEEE Task Group, but is software- …

    Data Networking 20 Jan 2006, 13:03

  • Banks make it easy for scammers

    Too fat to act?

    Financial scammers are making easy pickings of small businesses because banks are too lazy to check their transactions, say fraud campaigners Early Warning UK. It appears that standing orders are so easily forged that anyone can do it. The hardest part is getting a victim's bank account and sort code. Many companies put these …

    ID 20 Jan 2006, 14:51

  • Million $ pixel site faces legal threat

    Winner of eBay auction not happy

    The student entrepreneur behind the milliondollarhomepage.com is facing the threat of legal action from the firm that paid more than $38,000 for the last 1,000 pixels. Milliondollarweightloss.com secured the last slot on Alex Tew's website after he auctioned it on eBay. But the FT reports that lawyers representing the weight- …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2006, 14:55

  • Asus Extreme AX1800XT TOP

    Review Too late, too pricey?

    The ATI Radeon X1800 XT will go down in history as one of the shortest-lived flagship 3D graphics products in history. Launched three scant months ago, in October 2005, the lengthy delay in its introduction - said to be due to production problems with the R520 graphics processor that powers it - means that it's set to be …

    Reviews 20 Jan 2006, 15:01

  • Sex.com owner sells up to chase $65m damages

    Epic domain fight continues without domain

    He may just have sold it for $14m, but the owner of the world's most valuable domain name, Gary Kremen, now intends to spend his time recovering the $65m he is still owed by the con-man who stole the domain 10 years ago. Kremen sold Sex.com to Escom for $14m on Wednesday but retains the technology he has built behind it since …

    Music and Media 20 Jan 2006, 15:13

  • Pipex hosting service floored by electrical fault

    One in seven punters hit

    Pipex' data centre in London was floored by a power failure yesterday, leaving tens of thousands of customers in the dark. The electrical fault happened at about 10.00am yesterday morning at Pipex's Harbour Exchange data centre in the Docklands area of London. The broadband ISP is unable to say exactly how many web-hosting …

    Telecoms 20 Jan 2006, 15:17

  • Vive la France!

    The Rotting Dog Blog No cheese, no monkeys, no surrender

    Vive la France! January 19, 2006 - 09:13 am Here are three words I never thought I'd say: Vive la France! (Long Live France! - in French! - thanks Babelflush!). Seems like just last year there was cheese, the monkeys were eating it and there was a whole heap of surrendering going on. Well, not any more since their top guy …

    Bootnotes 20 Jan 2006, 15:51

  • German court orders shutdown of Wikipedia

    Dispute over naming of dead hacker

    The German Wikipedia site was taken down by court order this week because it mentioned the full name of a deceased Chaos Computer Club hacker, known as Tron. A Berlin court ordered the closure of the site on Tuesday after it sided with the parents of the German hacker, who wanted to prevent the online encyclopedia from …

    Music and Media 20 Jan 2006, 16:00

  • Apple to open stores in Germany, reseller claims

    A '99.9 per cent probability'

    Apple is planning to open a series of Apple Stores in Germany, with the first shop coming on stream before the end of the year. So claimed Archibald Horlitz, head of German reseller Gravis, in an interview with local business newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week. The move is "99.9 per cent" certain, he said …

    Reg Hardware 20 Jan 2006, 16:23

  • UK splashes out £5bn on bumper e-Xmas

    Online spending continues to soar

    Consumer demand for online shopping broke more records this Christmas with UK sales up almost 50 per cent compared to last year, according to research from Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG). The company estimates shoppers spent almost £5bn in the 10 weeks to Christmas compared to £3.33bn during the same period last year …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2006, 16:24

  • South Korea warns Japan over Hynix DRAM tax

    Will go to WTO if import levy imposed

    The South Korean Government will formally complain to the World Trade Organisation if Japan proceeds with a plan to impose a punitive import duty on Hynix DRAM products, it said this week. The Japanese Government announced the 27.2 per cent levy in October 2005, though the duty is not expected to be formally imposed until next …

    Channel Register 20 Jan 2006, 16:26

  • IT security a problem, says FBI

    It's done a survey

    People are frustrated with the "non-stop barrage" of intimidation they get from computer security troublemakers, says the FBI. It's annual survey of computer crime contains some other stunning revelations, like the fact that most of the companies it surveyed had encountered problems with viruses, spyware and so on. Most of the …

    Security 20 Jan 2006, 16:28

  • USwitch calls in advisors to prep sale

    Or maybe an IPO

    USwitch.com - the UK-based utilities comparison web site - has confirmed that the business could be up for sale after appointing financial advisors to carry out a strategic review of the business. Reports before Christmas said that the firm - which helps punters save money on utility, and telecoms bills - had a price tag of …

    Financial News 20 Jan 2006, 16:29

  • Motorola makes up for lost time with Kreatel buy

    Set-top maker buy puts Morotola in frame for full IPTV

    Motorola came out of the IPTV closet this week, spending an unspecified amount of cash to buy IPTV specialist set-top maker, Kreatel of Sweden. Kreatel is credited with being among the first-ever set-top companies to focus entirely on IPTV and has had good success in the Nordics - with customers such as TeliaSonera - and …

    Peripherals 20 Jan 2006, 16:45

  • Eurovision Search contest: a search engine for Europe

    The winner is: Boom bang-a-bang

    Writing a decent search engine isn’t all that difficult. Turning it into a multi-billon dollar brand is something else entirely. One needs clever inventors, risk-taking entrepreneurs and clever inventors. So we must take the news of a French and German Government-sponsored move to create Quaero, the European search engine, with …

    Applications 20 Jan 2006, 16:57

  • Intel answers Itanium mystery with riddle

    One full Swope

    The strain of defending the Itanium processor appears to have crushed the spirit of one Intel executive. Will Swope, a VP in Intel's enterprise group, has turned to riddles in order to explain why the company has dropped hardware that could execute x86 instructions from the delayed upcoming dual-core Montecito processor. CNET …

    Servers 20 Jan 2006, 20:02

  • Mistakes found in 98% of US patents

    Indian proofreaders to the rescue!

    Almost every US patent contains at least one mistake, according to new research. The vast majority are trivial errors, most of them the fault of the USPTO; but two per cent of the patents examined were found to contain serious mistakes that weakened the core claims. The findings come from Intellevate, a firm that offers support …

    Developer 20 Jan 2006, 22:56

  • There's no such thing as an open source business

    Unless it uses Apache

    A gathering of open source pundits have confirmed that the phrase "open source" is what you make of it. We can all breath a little easier now. The pundits - Tim O'Reilly, Sun Microsystems' Simon Phipps and IBM's Rod Smith - came to this conclusion yesterday at an SD Forum event here. Despite a couple of pleas from the SD Forum …

    Hardware 20 Jan 2006, 23:23