HP sets out roadmap for Blu-ray enabled products

Hewlett Packard has revealed that it is to include Blu-ray Disc technology across a swathe of its products from the end of next year. Amongst the ranges earmarked to include the new drives are consumer desktop and notebook PCs, personal workstations and digital entertainment centres. Blu-ray lets you record, rewrite and playback up to 50GB of data on a single dual-layer disc (as opposed to 4. ...more

Sony introduces all-format DVD notebooks

Sony has launched what it claims are the world's first all-format DVD-burning Vaio laptops. One each aimed at professionals and consumers, the Vaio PCG-GRX616SP and PCG-GRV616S both incorporate Sony's dual DVD+RW and -RW optical drive. This is incorporated into a hot-swappable bay so that owners can carry around an extra hard drive or battery, should they wish. ...more

Google Adsense to accept image ads

Google is to expand its AdSense pay per click scheme to include image ads. The search engine is currently piloting a scheme so that websites can include a variety of standard advertising formats as animated GIFs Amongst the sizes accepted under the pilot scheme are Banners at 468 x 60 pixels, Leaderboards at 728 x 90, Inline Rectangles 300 x 250 and Skyscrapers 120 x 600. At the bottom of each image ad will be the URL and a Google feedback link. ...more

Broadband Britain still waiting to be activated

A report from the Work Foundation's iSociety has highlighted that the traditional marketing ploy of speed, permanence and film trailers is not what turns the UK public on to broadband services - ISPs need to fix the problems of spam and viruses first. The report - Fat Pipes, Connected People - Rethinking Broadband Britain - shows that public enthusiasm for the Internet, be it narrow- or broad-band has been dampened by the darker side of surfing. Report co-author James Crabtree said: 'Broadband is vital for Britain's future, but the industry must put itself in its customers shoes and see how this tide of rubbish is beginning to ruin the experience of going online. ...more

Microsoft invites Mozilla over

Microsoft has invited Mozilla developers over to Redmond so that the open source team can have discussions to ensure that the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird mail client work smoothly with Vista. The invitation is to a four-day event that will be held in Redmond every week until December 2006. Microsoft provides secure office space for four people, hardware, VPN access, and 1:1 access to product team developers and support staff. ...more