21st October 2003 Archive

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NEC and ARM prep mobile SMPs

Multicore on the go

NEC and ARM have formed a pact to bring multicore processors to the cellphone. The two companies are looking to codevelop and market multicore processors based on the ARM 11 CPU core. Using a multicore design will ideally allow the companies to increase the performance of their chips while keeping power consumption down. They …

Mobile 21 Oct 2003, 01:23
Sony Ericsson talks P900, wireless upgrades

DIY patching

Sony Ericsson has officially announced the follow-up to the P800 smartphone. The device will ship in some EU countries before the end of the year, and appear in the US and China (as the P908) early next year. The design of the P900 may be more business-like than its predecessor, but the company is stressing consumer functions …

Mobile 21 Oct 2003, 08:27
ATI denies 'Catalyst 3.8 damaged my monitor' claims

Not the gun that kills, but the man behind

ATI has vigorously denied claims that its latest Catalyst drivers have caused monitors and graphics cards to overheat and malfunction. "Our drivers are not causing these alleged problems," the company said in a statement issued last night. The latest Catalyst driver suite, version 3.8, were released on 8 October. ATI describes …

Channel 21 Oct 2003, 08:47
Spam fighters defeat nuisance junk mail lawsuit

But landed with big legal bill

Anti-spam activists have won an important legal battle against Florida-based junk mailers. But even though Florida Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks dismissed the case brought by eMarketersAmerica.org with prejudice (i.e. ruling that the lawsuit was without any foundation), anti-spam groups still have to pick up their legal fees. …

Security 21 Oct 2003, 09:19
E-Data goes after Microsoft music service

Patent claim

For the past 8 years E-Data has been terrorizing just about who ever it can with a single broad patent claim that it owns the rights to virtually any technology that allows a product to be downloaded to a kiosk and copied. After various false starts from 1995 onwards it won an appeal case against Compuserve in the US in 1999. …

Music and Media 21 Oct 2003, 09:24
Broadband wireless growing

With or without WiMAX

Not such a big surprise but home networks research outfit Parks Associates thinks that broadband wireless is set to take off. In the light of IEEE 802.16 technologies (WiMAX) and IEEE 802.20 Mobile-Fi and all the developments in smart antennae, that's not too surprising, but Parks says it's been on the cards for some time. It …

Wireless 21 Oct 2003, 09:36
Symantec snaffles Safeweb

SSL VPN play

Symantec yesterday bought SSL VPN appliance vendor SafeWeb for $26 million in cash. The acquisition is yet another sign of consolidation in the hotly-tipped SSL VPN remote access market, following NetScreen Technologies' agreement this month to acquire SSL VPN company Neoteris for $265 million and F5 Networks's purchase of …

Security 21 Oct 2003, 10:08
DRS quits .uk sales, in Nominet legal battle

No more cold calls

Domain Registrar Services Ltd (DRS) - which flogged domains by falsely claiming it was linked to Nominet UK - is to quit the business following legal action by the UK domain Registry. Last year Nominet won a temporary injunction against DRS, and its sister company UK Names, after the companies made unsolicited attempts to flog …

Music and Media 21 Oct 2003, 10:21
Senators propose Patriot Act limitations

Growing concern

A bipartisan group of senators this week announced the latest in a steady trickle of legislative proposals to trim back some of the enhanced search and surveillance powers granted to law enforcement under the USA-PATRIOT Act. Under the proposed ?Security and Freedom Ensured Act (SAFE), the FBI would no longer be able to obtain …

Security 21 Oct 2003, 10:29
Brightview to move call centre to India

30 jobs at risk

Around 30 jobs are expected to be lost at Brightview - the ISP behind such Net brands as Madasafish and Totalise - following its decision to move its call centre to India. The Putney-based call centre is due to be shut by the middle of next month. Staff at the centre are currently going through the usual "consultation" process …

Business 21 Oct 2003, 10:31
Smart card consortium offers Wi-Fi access spec.

One card opens many WLANs

Using your mobile phone account to pay for your use of public Wi-Fi hotspots should become rather easier thanks to the publication of a 'universal' smart card specification that can be used by WLAN providers to authorise WLAN access. Developed by the WLAN Smart Card Consortium, the WLAN-SIM 1.0 specification also details how …

Wireless 21 Oct 2003, 10:39
E-Plus to bring Danger Hiptop to Europe

Blackberry on steroids

Germany's E-Plus has become the first wireless operator to offer Danger's Hiptop mobile Internet access device to European consumers. Hiptop will be offered to German punters next month for €249 ($290) plus €19.95 ($23) for network access. Hiptop is essentially a wireless PDA with an integrated mobile phone. Think of a funkier …

Mobile 21 Oct 2003, 11:09
Bank manager blows customer millions on online betting

Five-year losing streak

An Australian bank manager who stole AUD19 million ($13 million) to fund his online gambling addiction faces sentencing on Friday after pleading guilty to crimes spanning five years. Incredibly the misappropriation of funds from the Commonwealth Bank by Kim David Faithfull, 36, of Karratha in Western Australia, only came to …

Music and Media 21 Oct 2003, 15:52
Tele2 unveils UK phone service

Kompy tish unn

Sweded-based Tele2, a pan-European telco that did have links with one-time wireless broadband outfit Tele2 UK Ltd, is to offer fixed-line residential services in the UK. Tele2 has more than 20 million customers in 23 countries across Europe with revenues in excess of $4 billion. Now it's turning its attention to the UK market …

Business 21 Oct 2003, 16:11
HP knocked Palm off top Euro PDA sales slot during Q3

And Nokia massively outshipped them both

HP outshipped Palm in Western Europe for the first time during Q3 as a 32 per cent increase in mobile device shipments saw the Pocket PC vendor's PDA shipments leap 94 per cent year on year, market watcher IDC said today. HP shipped almost 179,000 mobile devices between July and September, 14 per cent of the market, which …

Mobile 21 Oct 2003, 16:14
Logitech upgrades credit-card cam

Reg Kit Watch Plus Verbatim's film reel-style recordable DVDs

Digicam Logitech has updated its credit card-sized digital camera, the Pocket Digital, by upping the camera's native picture resolution from 640 x 480 to 1280x1024 and dropping the original's Autobrite light enhancement software in favour of a built-in strobe flash. The result is a new model, the Pocket Digital 130 that retains …

Personal 21 Oct 2003, 16:35
Victoria's Secret to pay up for poor panty privacy

Spitzer gets down and dirty

New York Attorney General Eliot Sptizer has sorted through Victoria Secret's dirty undies and is set to doll out a $50,000 fine to the company for online privacy violations. Spitzer has spent several months looking into charges that Victoria's Secret Web site allowed shoppers to take a peek at other customers' orders. An …

Music and Media 21 Oct 2003, 16:36
PC rage turns the air blue in UK households

!!**###**!!?! computers

Computers are damaging our health, thanks to rising stress levels induced by so-called 'PC pests' like spam, pop up ads and viruses. More than four in five (86 per cent) of British computer users get irritated and stressed by PC problems, according to a survey commissioned by security firm Symantec. Only 14 per cent of those …

Personal 21 Oct 2003, 16:44
IBM sends speedy Shark system into open waters

ESS gets a boost

IBM's Shark storage systems is swimming a little faster these days after the vendor made a couple of tweaks to the hardware. One big boost for the Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) - aka Shark - is the addition of Fibre Channel support for IBM's Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy (PPRC) software. The software is primarily used for disaster …

Storage 21 Oct 2003, 20:03
Sendo's Symbian phone imminent

Flashes its specs

British phone vendor Sendo has announced its Symbian smartphone, based on Nokia's Series 60 software, and says it will ship before the end of the year. The company was, for a while, Microsoft's flagship phone OEM, until an acrimonious falling out drove Sendo into the Nokia camp. Sendo is suing Microsoft, alleging fraud, …

Mobile 21 Oct 2003, 20:11