Parliament to look again at computer crime

UK legislation that governs the criminal use of computers will undergo fresh scrutiny in a public inquiry as to whether it is up to the job. The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG) will hold a public enquiry at the end of next month to decide whether the Computer Misuse Act remains relevant to today's computer-related criminal activities and whether there are any loop holes that need to be closed. The Earl of Northesk, a member of APIG said: 'The Computer Misuse Act dates from 1990. ...more

US gets first taste of Apple TV

Apple made its first major assault on the living room on Wednesday with the first shipments of the Apple TV device, a gadget that lets people take music, photos and video stored on a computer and play them on a television screen. The small silver box with a white Apple logo costs $299 and can store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination thereof. It is available this week at Apple's online store, retail stores, and also from resellers. ...more

Apple sets the stage for DRM-free downloads in iTunes

Apple has released an update to iTunes that adds support for iTunes Plus, the area of the online music store that provides DRM-free, high-bitrate downloads from EMI and other participating record labels. That is not to say that iTunes Plus downloads are now available - they're not. This update simply prepares the iTunes software in advance and revises the iTunes Help files to include an explanation of the forthcoming new service. ...more

BenQ and Sony make a play for multimedia notebook market

A bit of a laptop roundup this Monday morning, with new models from both BenQ and Sony. The three new widescreen Centrino models from BenQ include its flagship Joybook 8100 (pictured, top). Coming with a wireless remote control, it includes the Q-Media AV entertainment suite for serving as a digital hub. ...more

Sun to open-source Java

Newly minted as CEO, Sun's Jonathan Schwartz took to the floor for his first appearance at his company's JavaOne Developer Conference in San Francisco to detail a new strategy to open-source Java and point it at SOA (Service Oriented Architectures). To date, Java has been popular for applications on mobile phones and websites, and is just a part of the systems giant's mammoth portfolio. But by open-sourcing Java, Schwartz seems to be painting it as the glue to unite its wide-ranging offerings as business adopts open-source technologies and moves to an SOA environment. ...more