8th December 2003 Archive

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IBM draws first blood in SCO Linux battle

Proof is in the pudding. So show us the pudding

SCO has lost the first round in its legal battle to assert intellectual rights over Linux. A federal court ruled Friday (December 5) that SCO must respond within 30 days to IBM's demands that SCO hand over "all source code and other material in Linux ... to which plaintiff has rights". SCO claims ownership over "millions of …

Software 8 Dec 2003, 10:46
Wicked Sun forces final death of Win98, Office 2000, etc

But will DARPA keep polluted Java spores for 'research'?

Microsoft will pull the plugs on MSDN downloads of a range of products, including Windows 98, Office 2000, SQL Server 7 and NT Workstation, next Monday. These contain the polluted Java which, according to the settlement with Sun, Microsoft has to stop supporting. So it's all Sun's fault, really. Up to a point. The deal with Sun …

Software 8 Dec 2003, 10:50
Cambodian data entry outfit provokes ‘sweatshop’ slur

Global philanthropy or exploitation?

If you set up an office in Phnom Penh and fill it with Cambodians doing data-entry chores for US organisations, is this a philanthropic application of globalisation or nothing more than the cynical exploitation of cheap sweatshop labour? That's the question raised by the BBC which reports on the success of Digital Data Divide ( …

Business 8 Dec 2003, 11:08
Cyberkiosk assaults Spanish teenager

Rise of the Machines Part II

It only merited a brief report on Yahoo! yesterday, but the story of the teenager-eating Madrid telephone kiosk further confirms our suspicions that the eventual rise of the machines and the subjugation of humanity is only a matter of time. The unfortunate victim was trapped by the finger when attempting to get a €1.50 refund …

Rise of the Machines 8 Dec 2003, 11:10
Man arrested in Cambs Police iPod email phone jam scam

Thousands of callers

A 21-year-old man from St Neots has been arrested after the main switchboard at Cambridgeshire police HQ was jammed by thousands of calls on Friday. Concerned callers rang the Huntingdon-based HQ after receiving an email informing them that £399.99 would be taken out of their account to pay for an iPod music player they'd …

Music and Media 8 Dec 2003, 11:17
A smaller CeBIT?

More firms cancel

It won't be as dramatic as with Comdex in Las Vegas, where attendance this year was below even lowered expectations, but Europe's biggest ICT trade show CeBIT in Hanover is scaling down noticeably too. According to German press reports, because of the economic downturn in Europe, many companies including Borland, HP, Oki and …

Channel 8 Dec 2003, 11:47
‘Dial 9’ scam snares Wilts Police

It's a hoax

BT and premium rate phone watchdog ICSTIS have once again reassured punters that an alleged phone scam that could cost them £20 a minute is a hoax. The intervention of BT and ICSTIS follows a statement by Wiltshire Constabulary published on its Web site on Friday warning people to be on their guard against the alleged scam. …

Music and Media 8 Dec 2003, 11:47
Micron ships 1Gb DDR 2 chips

DIMM designs too

Micron has begun shipping 1Gb DDR 2 chips, and has designed DIMMs to take the parts, along with its 256Mb and 512Mb DDR 2 chips, the company will say today. The announcement represents little more than willy-waving on Micron's... er... part. Demand for DDR 2 isn't expected to kick in until next quarter when Intel ships its …

Channel 8 Dec 2003, 11:48
Kazaa shuts down Kazaa Lite

Legal threats

This weekend users of Kazaa Lite K++ learned that almost every download site of the popular peer-to-peer file-sharing application had disappeared, including the links on its own home page. Sharman Networks, the company behind the original Kazaa, approached the ISP of every website that hosted the program and ordered its removal …

Music and Media 8 Dec 2003, 12:03
C&W flogs US ops by way of Chapter 11

Gores is buyer

Troubled UK telecoms firm Cable & Wireless has announced its imminent exit from the US market with the sale of its assets to Gores Technology Group. The move out of the US market was first announced in June, but it is only now that the company has managed to find a buyer for its assets. The US business lost $255 million last …

Data Networking 8 Dec 2003, 12:12
Internet showdown side-stepped in Geneva

Probably for the best

The international showdown over who should run the Internet has been side-stepped at the very last minute following 12 hours of intensive talks in Geneva. More than 200 negotiators met at an extraordinary meeting on the weekend before the World Summit on the Information Society in order to thrash things about and hopefully …

Music and Media 8 Dec 2003, 12:12
UK NHS trials Sun Linux, threatens 800k user defection from MS

European open source worries get serious for Microsoft?

The UK National Health Service is to run a trial of Sun's Java Desktop System, with the prospect of rolling it out across 800,000 desktops. The trial was pointedly announced in a statement by Richard Granger, NHS director general of IT, who said that successful implementation of the system would save "many millions of pounds." …

Software 8 Dec 2003, 12:13
Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux?

Just at the little fish, we reckon

While attention has been focused on The SCO Group's IP suit against free software, Microsoft itself has prepared the ground for a full scale patent licensing program in which smaller vendors will be the most vulnerable. In June, Microsoft hired Marshall Phelps from IBM, the executive who began IBM's patent-based revenue program …

Software 8 Dec 2003, 12:31
Inland Revenue poised to ditch EDS

The price of failure

EDS stands to lose a 10-year deal worth £4bn-£5bn to manage the Inland Revenue’s computer systems in punishment for the fiasco surrounding the introduction of tax credits last year. Hundreds of thousands of people went without payments, resulting in short-term hardship for many families on low incomes. So far so bad. Then the …

Hardware 8 Dec 2003, 14:17
NatWest warns of dodgy email

Fraud alert

NatWest has warned people to ignore an email calling for punters to disclose private information about their bank accounts. The email - the latest in a series supposedly from UK banks seeking to con people into disclosing personal information - has apparently been sent randomly to both customers and non customers of NatWest. …

Security 8 Dec 2003, 14:18
UK ‘not ready’ for e-voting

There's a surprise

Proponents of e-voting were dealt a blow today after the Electoral Commission concluded that the UK is just "not ready" to vote electronically. The Commission was responding to a Government announcement in September which called for further trials of postal and e-voting to take place at next year's European Parliament elections …

Music and Media 8 Dec 2003, 14:21
Could Segways replace soldiers as hired killers?

If DARPA says so

Aided by backing from the U.S. Department of Defense, the Segway Human Transporter may well be the first scooter of mass destruction. The enchanted minds at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) - an arm of the DoD - have funded the Segway Robotic Mobility Platform (SRMP), which is a modified version of the fabled …

Bootnotes 8 Dec 2003, 14:28
Acer TravelMate 661LMi laptop

Reg Review Great price, great features, shame about the keyboard

It's dangerous when reviewing hardware to describe any particular attribute as 'too much', 'too big' or 'too high'. Inevitably, at least one reader will not unreasonably describe said excess as nonetheless perfect for the applications they like to run, or the their own preferred mode of operation. So we're loath to say the …

Reviews 8 Dec 2003, 14:50
Microsoft CRM goes global

Well, 47 countries

Microsoft Business Solutions today released to manufacturing final code for its latest customer relationship management (CRM) software. Version 1.2 of Microsoft CRM offers sales, marketing and customer service modules and is commercially available in 47 geographies from January 2004. The previous release, Microsoft CRM 1.0, was …

Small Biz 8 Dec 2003, 16:30
HP would be better off without Compaq drain – Analyst

Did the musician know more than Carly?

One of the premier hardware watchers around has challenged the rationale behind a merged HP/Compaq, saying the old HP may have provided better shareholder value than the new behemoth. While HP has done a fair job of cutting costs and largely putting the distractions of the Compaq acquisition behind it, raw financial data …

Servers 8 Dec 2003, 19:07
Coke floats music download service

Want some DRM with your cavity?

Sugared water seller Coca-Cola has decided to toss its brand into the online music selling ring, crowding what is already a bazaar-like marketplace. In January of next year, the myCoke Music site will go live in the U.K. Coke has promised a selection of over 250,000 songs from 8,500 artists at a cost of 99p each. The new …

Music and Media 8 Dec 2003, 20:40
Intel toasts Itanium's success by giving servers away

Display of confidence

Intel has declared 2003 "The Year of Itanium" and then backed up this bold statement with a server give-away program. It's rare that a vendor kicks off a free trial program for one of its most successful, rapidly selling products, but that's exactly what Intel has done. Aptly dubbed "The Intel Itanium 2 Solution Challenge," the …

Servers 8 Dec 2003, 22:53