News Wrap: Intel, Sun, E-Loan, sex.com

Intel chairman Andy Grove said yesterday that he does not expect the downturn in the semiconductor industry to recover in the short term. "I don't expect the demand to snap back," he told analysts. "We are in this state for some period of time."

The warning is the latest indication of stagnation in the chip market. On Monday, a group of vendors reported that worldwide sales of PC chips fell by over five per cent between December and January. Grove said that he was still confident about the long-term future of the chip industry, however.

Sun forks out for search engine technology

Sun Microsystems has paid an undisclosed sum for search engine company InfraSearch, in a bid to develop its peer-to-peer (P2P) capability. InfraSearch, which has yet to launch a commercial product, is developing a directory of expert websites that can be used to field queries from web users.

Sun is working on its own P2P research incubator, Project Juxtapose, which it said would be ready for initial development release by April. The company said that the advantage of P2P searching was that users would be able to get access to the freshest data.

E-Loan gobbled up by Moneygator

Online mortgage broker E-Loan UK has been bought for an undisclosed sum by Moneygator. E-Loan, which was founded as a joint venture between E-Loan in the US and defunct incubator eVentures, was near to closing down, according to industry sources.

"I don't think they seriously went out to look for funding," said Moneygator's managing director Henning Holter. "They were either looking to sell or close down." The company said that it would develop E-Loan's car finance services, and would relaunch it in April.

Former owner of sex.com faces arrest

Stephen Cohen, former owner of the high-profile sex.com website, is facing arrest after failing to attend a court hearing last week. Cohen gained control of the lucrative domain name in 1995, after allegedly forging the signature of the real owner.

He was ordered to pay £17m damages for fraudulently using the site between 1995 and 1999, but is understood not to have paid any compensation so far. Cohen's lawyers told the court that he was unable to attend because he was apparently under house arrest in Tijuana, Mexico.