MPF RoundupCode morphing start-up Transitive has been touting the x86 potential of their Dynamite dynamic binary translation. We goofed in an earlier draft of this article: Transitive doesn't make or license any chip hardware,it's all done in software. Sorry, folks.

An anonymous coder named 'Beale Screamer' claims to have broken the Version-2 Microsoft digital rights management (DRM) scheme, and has produced the source code and a DOS utility to un-protect .WMA audio files.

Transmeta's chairman and CEO, Murray Goldman, last night declared himself "pleased" with the direction his company is pursuing. The comment rings hollow following as it does the effective dismissal of former CEO Mark Allen, the admission that Transmeta is having problems getting its TM5800 chip out of the door and an unimpressive set of Q3 results.

Microsoft's has announced a 42 per cent fall in net income this quarter, thanks entirely to a hefty $1.24 billion write-off over its cable and telco investments.

Sun Microsystems made a Q1 loss, as expected, of $180 million. The biggest quarterly loss in its history. The company had made a profit of $456 million a year earlier.

Steve Riley - the Blackburn man locked in a shed and rescued only after his SOS was picked up on the Net - has spoken to The Register about his ordeal.

Much-troubled memory maker Hynix had more bad news for its creditors and investors this morning: its Q3 loss totalled 1.6 trillion won ($1.3 billion) - larger than the company had forecast and well below the 66 million won profit it made this time last year.

Fibernet is on the verge of offering unbundled telecoms services, the high-speed data communications outfit confirmed yesterday.

Nokia has seen across-the-board drops in its third quarter results but beaten expectations and been awarded with a five per cent share price increase this morning.

Ebay is in chipper mood today after reporting improved revenues at the online auction house.

STMicroelectronics saw its sales slide 11.8 per cent last last quarter from the previous three-month period and 31 per cent down on the same period last year, the company reported yesterday.

There's plenty of room in the market for our motherboards, VIA representatives told us yesterday. But that belief hasn't stopped the Hong Kong branch of broker ABM Amro from downgrading the Tainwanese venture's stock to Reduce.

Intel is ridding itself of its cheap plastic toy operation, better known as the Connected Products Division.

Nortel Networks has reported Q3 net loss of $3.47 billion on declining sales as demand for its kit from telecoms carriers continues to remain modest and difficult to predict.

TSMC is clearly doing very nicely, thank you out of its relationship with Nvidia. The foundry's insitutional investors claim that 80 per cent of its 0.15 micron and 0.18 micron production lines are punching out parts to the graphics chip designer's specifications, according to a report in the Commercial Times.

The National Audit Office has today released its report into the auction for next-generation 3G mobiles licences, and concluded that the whole thing was well run and will not have a damaging affect on the mobile industry. Or has it?

Gateway announced its Q3 loss yesterday, a tidy $520 million. Sales dropped to $1.4 billion for the quarter, compared to the $2.5 billion it posted in the same period last year, which made it $132 million in profit.

Broadband is on the cusp of becoming a mass-market product in the US, according to research from Jupiter Media Metrix.

El Reg doesn't often dish out praise. But when we do, you can be sure it's well earned. So let's hear it for Freeserve and its cheeky ad campaign featuring naturists flogging its unmetered dial-up service.

The world's biggest luddite, Senator Richard Alston - who unfortunately is also the minister for Communications, Information Technology and The Arts for the Australian government - has struck again.

Today, New Acer revealed its 'MegaMicro e-Business'. The name, and the move, is a confusing one.

Storage gizmos for mobile devices continue to increase in popularity, with Kingston Technology this week releasing a new version of its DataPak device, which is essentially a 5GB hard drive on a PC card. The previous device from the company was only able to store 2GB of data.

The veil of secrecy has been thrown over the trial of a former encryption expert at Barclays charged with blackmailing Barclaycard, the credit card issuer.

The serious shortage of Intel P4s has led system builders to chase extra Athlon XPs to keep assembly lines running.

Security research site Hack.co.za is up for sale after its long term admin decided it was time to hang up his boots and make some money.