Microsoft tackles W3C on a Royalty Free-only patents policy

Microsoft has clashed with the Internet standards body W3C over the acceptance of a royalty-free policy on the development of patents. The W3C Patent Policy working group (PPWG) is proposing the adoption of a Royalty Free (RF)-only policy, for the work in generating future Internet standards. The W3C, of course, oversees the development of such Internet standards and specifications as HTML, MathML and SVG. ...more

Actor takes on role of hacker

It just goes to show that in Tinseltown, actors will do almost anything to make the big time. One aspiring actor has ended up at the wrong end of the long arm of the law after trying to hack into an agency's computer system. Twenty-one-year-old Chad Horton, is accused of hacking into the computer system of Breakdown Services in California and attempting to steal a lucrative list of acting jobs. ...more

Peugeot turns to Internet car sales

The French car maker Peugeot - part of PSA Peugeot Citroen - plans to experiment with selling second-hand cars over the Internet, while at the same time trying not to upset its dealer network. Peugeot said yesterday that it would put about 100 of its small 1007 models with sliding doors, in three special configurations, for sale on the www.vente-privee. ...more

Yahoo! upgrades Photos

Yahoo has revamped its Photos site and made it available to a select number of beta testers. Although Yahoo's Flickr photo tagging and sharing site that the company bought last year is more widely used, it tends to be the domain of the more serious photographer and user. The Yahoo! photos site is aimed at more casual users who want to store and share their snaps The new site has a revamped welcome page with the user's stored albums from themselves and their contacts on the left. ...more

Linux bosses see no gain in meeting needs of SME businesses

Will SMEs ever get the Open Source platform they deserve? The Great Linux debate. At a panel discussion at Linuxworld Coference and Expo in London yesterday, executives from IBM, HP, Novell, Red Hat and Samba argued over whether Linux was meeting business needs. While most agreed that the Open Source operating system was doing a reasonable job, many saw the future as a mixed landscape between closed and open source programs running on a Linux platform. ...more