Steve Case looking to buy back AOL?

AOL founder Steve Case is reported to be trying to buy back the company. CBS MarketWatch reports that Case is trying to find $10bn to reacquire it from Time Warner, having been rebuffed once last year. However, Time Warner is believed to want more money than that, amid signs that the online advertising market may enjoy a good year. ...more

DRM differences could cost billions of dollars

Entertainment companies risk losing hundreds of billions of dollars of potential income and the future of dozens of promising digital markets are at risk unless they can resolve differences over DRM, according to research firm iSuppli. The firm says that the success or otherwise of DRM technologies - both copy protection and conditional access systems - will determine the development and growth of digital content for both home entertainment and mobile platforms. But, it says, disagreements between the companies and industries over how DRM should be implemented are currently hampering growth. ...more

Yahoo! says the Yamanner worm is contained

A worm that targeted Yahoo! Mail users has now been 'contained' according to the company. Almost 200 million mailboxes were put at risk yesterday with the emergence of a worm dubbed JS.Yamanner@m. ...more

Big brother's high-tech home

Philips has opened its HomeLab - a home of the future - where occupants can enjoy the latest prototype technology while their movement and behaviour are analysed by Philips' researchers. The motive behind the HomeLab is to create an environment where researchers can monitor consumers' responses to new products for sustained periods of time, rather than give them the product to play with for a few hours. This is particularly useful for technologies that are essentially hid behind the scenes, with their use of wireless connections rendering them relatively unobtrusive. ...more

Microsoft settles with Alacritech

Microsoft has settled with networking company Alacritech over an alleged patent violation centred around Redmond's 'Chimney' technology. Alacritech sued Microsoft in August 2004, alleging that Chimney violated its SLIC (session-layer interface control) patents related to TCP Offloading. The technology offloads a lot of the work of TCP management from the main CPU and onto a network device. ...more