DRM lobbyists cry foul over BPI p2p win

UK digital rights campaigners have reacted with disappointment to the news that two file sharers failed in their attempts to defeat music industry lawsuits. Earlier today Judge Justice Lawrence Collins rejected the two men's defences and awarded damages and costs to the BPI without a trial. 'It's very disappointing that Judge Lawrence Collins saw fit to throw both cases out of court, handing summary judgments to the BPI without giving either defendant the opportunity of a trial,' said Suw Charman, executive director, Open Rights Group. ...more

SanDisk demos 2GB Memory Stick PRO Storage Card

Flash memory supplier, SanDisk Corporation has announced a 2Gb SanDisk Memory Stick PRO, which is the world's highest highest capacity available in this format. Sandisk, which developed the memory stick alongside Sony, claims that Memory Stick PRO-enabled devices can capture and play back DVD-quality video in real time as well as store multiple hours of CD-quality music. The new cards are also said to have security features which prevent data from being lost or erased by accidentally removing the card while it is in use. ...more

Amstrad updates the e-m@iler into a videophone

Consumer electronics company Amstrad is having another crack at making basic email a mass market with the introduction of the E3 version of the e-m@iler. The new version is claimed to be Britain's first videophone with a built in webcam and the ability to swap pictures with camera phones. Whilst the e-m@iler has failed to take the country by storm in the way that its home computers did in the 1980s, Amstrad thinks it is now ahead of the game by incorporating video and tapping into the booming market in camera phones. ...more

Oftel reviews control on BT prices

Oftel is to review the competitiveness of the fixed telephony market to establish whether controls on BT's retail prices should be continued. The current pricing controls are due to run out in July 2002, and if Oftel rules that competition is effective in the landline market, the controls will not be renewed. As part of its review, Oftel is officially seeking outside views on future BT price controls. ...more

Sober variant causes new security hangover

The latest virus epidemic continues apace, with F-Secure raising its threat-level to one, and Sophos reporting that more than 5 per cent of email traffic is infected by the latest variant of the Sober worm. Sophos' numbers have actually risen on the count it gave for the worm in the first few hours when it was seeded - already a figure of more than one per cent. The worm arrives in a variety of guises, purporting to have attached pictures of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, or claiming to have been sent by the FBI, CIA or German authorities, with evidence of its monitoring the recipient's Internet activities in the attachment. ...more