Microsoft claims 'breakthrough' in eleventh-hour talks to soothe EU

Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith emerged from EU talks with what he decribes as a 'blueprint' for compliance as the company holds emergency talks to stave off daily multi-million Euro fines Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith emerged from two days of closed-door discussions with the EU over its alleged failure to fully meet the terms of the antitrust ruling claiming a 'breakthrough' had been reached. The world's biggest software company faces fines of up to €2mn a day for its failure to fully meet provisions that it make data available to rival companies that wish to build products that can interoperate with Microsoft programs. Last month an independent, Microsoft-approved monitoring trustee appointed by the EU described Microsoft's efforts in this respect as 'incomplete, inaccurate and unusable'. ...more

BT plugs talking SMS into landlines

Owners of standard landlines can now receive SMS messages via a new BT service. SMS messages are converted to automated speech using a mechanical-sounding female voice. Likewise speech can be converted to text. ...more

New .mobi domain gets ICANN backing

At a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) approved the use of the .mobi top-level domain for use with sites aimed at mobile phones. The new domain had the backing from a number of mobile telcos and companies involved in the mobile phone business including Ericsson, Microsoft and Vodafone. ...more

Warner Bros films coming to Blu-ray

Warner Bros has given a timely boost to Blu-ray by announcing that it will release films on the next-generation high-definition DVD discs next year. Warner had previously committed to making movies available on the rival format HD DVD and explained that the decision to hedge its bet was made after the two camps failed to reach agreement on a unified format. Warner's decision follows a similar commitment by Paramount to back Blu-ray and was welcomed by Blu-ray backers including Twentieth Century Fox and Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ...more

AMD inches up the performance chart

AMD has released its Athlon XP 1900+ processor, but is it faster or does it perform better? The name 1900+ identifies the chip as having a performance equal to or better than a P4 clocked at 1.9Ghz. The AMD chip itself is clocked at 1. ...more