13th August 2003 Archive

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Saudi firm accuses Lucent of bribery

Baksheesh charges

A Saudi Arabian telecommunications group last week filed a lawsuit accusing Lucent of bribing a high-ranking government official to gain business in the Middle Eastern kingdom. In a lawsuit filed in the New York District Court on Friday, the National Group for Communications and Computers alleges that Lucent and Swiss company …

Data Networking 13 Aug 2003, 08:41
Gateway shelves own-brand PDA release

Out in 2004, maybe

Gateway has withdrawn from the PDA business - for now, at least. The PC vendor yesterday said it had delayed the release of its 100X Pocket PC indefinitely and at the very least not until 2004. The move follows an earlier pause. Originally planned to ship in July, Gateway put the machine's debut back a month to allow for …

Personal 13 Aug 2003, 08:46
Thieves snatch £1m phone, Xbox stash

'Substantial' reward offered

More than a million pounds' worth of mobile phones and games consoles were nicked from a lorry parked outside a Carphone Warehouse store near Birmingham early on Monday morning. Thieves got away with more than 7,000 Nokia mobile phones - including 6310is, 5100s and 3410s - with a trade value £781,000 ($1.25 million). Also …

Mobile 13 Aug 2003, 08:52
Iomega to re-enter removable hard drive biz

2.5in disk offers 35GB

Iomega is getting back into the removable hard drive market, years after relegating its Jaz drive to its legacy product file. The new release, as-yet unbranded and known for now as the Removable Rigid Disk (RRD) system, will offer 35GB per disk. Each 2.5in disk is housed in a cartridge "smaller than a deck of playing cards", …

Personal 13 Aug 2003, 09:21
Intel launches mainstream 800MHz FSB chipset

i848P debuts

Intel this week released its single-channel DDR, 800MHz effective bit rate frontside bus chipset, as anticipated. The i848P chipsets sits between the single-channel i845 chipset family and the dual-channel i865 series. In addition to supporting 400MHz DDR SDRAM and the higher Pentium 4 FSB speed, the new chipset supports AGP 8x …

Channel 13 Aug 2003, 09:42
BT wilts in the heat

Leased-line punters scorched

BT has admitted that some of its leased-line customers may have suffered problems recently due to the UK's record-breaking heatwave. One reader told us how his connection began wilting as temperatures in the UK touched 100°F. And when he contacted BT he was told: "It was due to the heat." A BT spokesman told us: "The air …

Telecoms 13 Aug 2003, 09:50
Nortel faces $30-40m restructuring charge

There may be trouble ahead

Nortel Networks plans to take a hit of between $30 million and $40 million in restructuring charges this year, according to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week. The news spells signals more misery ahead for workers at the struggling telecoms and network equipment firm, who have seen their …

Data Networking 13 Aug 2003, 09:54
Sun touts network identity systems

Essential for web services

When Stephen Pelletier, Sun Microsystems' VP of SunONE Network Identity, Communications and Portal products said recently that "a secure identity management infrastructure is a core foundation component to building the next generation of federated commercial Web services and is essential to managing the lifecycle of an identity …

Data Networking 13 Aug 2003, 09:58
300mm wafers set to rise 10% in Q4

Demand outstrips supply

Here's a further sign that the chip business is moving into recovery: prices are going up. Specifically, the prices of 300mm blank wafers are rising, and are expected to be around ten per cent higher during Q4 than they are now, Taiwanese wafer manufacturers have said, DigiTimes reports. The rise is all down to demand …

Channel 13 Aug 2003, 10:17
PC World to flog D-Link Wi-Fi, home LAN kit

802.11ging up the retail market

Networking firm D-Link today announced a retail partnership with the Dixons Group to sell a range of the manufacturer's broadband and wireless networking kit throughout the PC World chain. The partnership will see all 125 PC World stores in the UK selling D-Link products. From August onwards, PC World will stock D-Link's …

Channel 13 Aug 2003, 10:20
FutureMark seeks accord on driver ‘optimisations’

Will draw line in sand

FutureMark will soon say just how far graphics chip companies can go to optimise their drivers to improve their 3DMark scores. The move follows the fight between the benchmark company and Nvidia earlier this year. Having tweaked its drivers to improve 3DMark scores - widely believed to be at the expense of image quality - …

Channel 13 Aug 2003, 10:54
Broadband take-up to spike

Our survey says punters are fed up with dial-up

Increased dissatisfaction with sluggish dial-up Net access is likely to increase demand for broadband services. So says US-based research outfit - Parks Associates - which claims that the uptake up broadband is likely to spike over the coming months (following a dip in Q2) as more and more people satisfy their need for speed. …

Telecoms 13 Aug 2003, 10:57
Webloggers deal Harvard blog-bores a black eye

"Who is Dave Winer?" Pay $500 and find out...

"Who is Dave Winer?" asks weblogger Atrios, echoing the concerns of dozens of mystified progressive and pro-Democrat bloggers this week. Atrios shouldn't worry. Winer is real. Winer is a software developer, but one very few software developers people have heard of: he developed "outlining" software for the Macintosh in the …

Music and Media 13 Aug 2003, 11:10
Bhutan plans first unattended phone booths

Better late than never

Bhutan has belatedly joined the 20th Century telecoms revolution with plans to install the remote Himalayan kingdom's first unattended public phone booths. Existing phone booths in Bhutan (population: two million) require operator supervision. But now the country is going hi-tech, with plans to introduce phone boxes that allow …

Business 13 Aug 2003, 14:14
Intel preps 2.8GHz, 3GHz Prescotts for
Q1 2004

For Springdale compatibility?

Intel's plans to drive its 90nm 'Prescott' processor - the successor to the Pentium 4 - quickly down-market into the PC mainstream as well as establish it at the top-end of its desktop CPU line-up. To that end, it will follow the chip's launch at 3.2GHz and 3.4GHz during Q4 with 2.8GHz and 3GHz version the quarter after that. …

Channel 13 Aug 2003, 15:06
FBI snoops around MCI

Psst - got any info?

The FBI has called on anyone with the right information to come forward to help it with its ongoing investigation into alleged shenanigans at telecoms giant MCI. In what is being described as an unusual step, the FBI's computer crime unit issued a statement yesterday asking for further information concerning allegations that …

Business 13 Aug 2003, 15:09
Today is Left-handers' Day

Site of the Day Nothing too sinister...

Things have taken a 'sinister' turn today as left-handers mark the 11th annual Left-Handers' Day celebrations by declaring their homes and offices "Lefty Zones" where right-hand dominance, for once, will be banned. This year, Left-Handers' Day celebrations will be focused on Internet-based activities in order to reach more …

Music and Media 13 Aug 2003, 15:18
Intel unveils ‘Wi-Fi Chair’

Puts its money where... er... its bottom is

A Wi-Fi chair, since you ask, is not a Professorship in mobile IT. It is a chair made out of the cables which people are throwing away because wireless LANs are making them obsolete. It symbolises the British wireless resurgence. Apparently... Truly, a Wi-Fi Chair is a Symbol of the Future. You can see one this week, in London …

Wireless 13 Aug 2003, 15:21
Hynix Q2 loss narrowed on growing DRAM demand

Sales up 20 per cent

Hynix today said its losing streak continued into the second quarter of its current fiscal year, with the company seeing a net loss of KRW530 billion ($448.96 million) - rather better than the previous quarter's KRW1.047 trillion ($886.91 million). However, its operating loss widening from Q1's KRW241 billion ($204.15 million) …

Channel 13 Aug 2003, 15:45
Nvidia drivers reveal GeForce FX SE parts

Coming soon?

Nvidia's Detonator 45.23 drivers reveal something the company might not have wanted us to know yet: the names of three new graphics chips it has yet to launch. Listed among all the supported products are the GeForce FX 5200 SE, 5600 SE and 5900 SE, Xbit Labs reports. The 5600 SE has emerged before, but the presence of the …

Channel 13 Aug 2003, 16:23