Photoshop Elements emerges from the darkroom

Adobe has announced Photoshop Elements, an image-editing package designed specifically for amateur photographers, hobbyists and business users. Photoshop Element's main aim is to make it easy to take either digital or traditional photos and prepare them for print, email or the Web. It will not be replacing PhotoDeluxe, the template-based image editor that comes bundled with many scanners and digital cameras. ...more

Microsoft gets double-click patent

Microsoft has been granted a patent for one of computer user's most basic tools, the double-click. Patent number 6,727,830 - Time based hardware button for application launch - covers various mouse click sequences that Microsoft claims to have invented. The patent is being challenged by the Public Patent Foundation and will not have gone unnoticed at Apple, whose first Macintosh pioneered the use of a mouse. ...more

Universal sued for Webcasting its own music

Universal Music is being sued by its own publishers and songwriters for broadcasting their songs over the Internet, even though the material is part of Universal's catalogue. Having successfully seen off MP3.com in a recent copyright infringement suit, Seagram-owned Universal Music set up its own Internet record label: Jimmy and Doug's Farmclub. ...more

Travel Inn unveils hotspot plan

The UK's largest hotel chain is to offer WiFi access in every property within nine months. Susan Thomas, systems director of Travel Inn, said: 'The majority of our guests are business travellers and the demand for new technology is ever increasing. This will undoubtedly give us an edge over our competitors. ...more

46 days of life for $22M Web site

Less than two months after an expensively glitzy launch party, Kibu.com has officially called it a day - $22m dollars later - and taken down its Web site to return leftover capital to investors. "The management and investors considered the options in light of the lack of interest in companies with advertising-based business models," said Judy MacDonald, Kibu's CEO. ...more