Firefox 1.1 delayed until June

The next point release of the open source browser Firefox is now dated for June. However the developers insist that the delay is 'normal' and has nothing to do with the recent movement of programmers to Google. According to Firefox's lead engineer Ben Goodger - in the news recently by taking a job with Google - the anticipated March release of version 1. ...more

Big Brother - 2001 style

New technology means that criminals can be identified as soon as a CCTV camera spots them, and such a scheme was implemented at last week's Superbowl in the US. Hidden cameras at the US-football final scanned the faces of over 100,000 fans and compared their pictures to those of criminals stored in a database. So if you were a wanted criminal or terrorist, the software would soon identify you, as it cross-checked FBI databases at a rate of a million images a minute. ...more

Future cyber attacks will target the Internet itself

A survey of IT experts reveals that many believe future cyber attacks will target not only individual systems and the information held on them but also the Internet itself. The Pew Internet and American Life Project polled 1,286 experts on what they believe the future of life online will be over the next 10 years. Two-thirds agreed that as the Internet becomes the main infrastructure supporting communications and business, 'at least one devastating attack will occur in the next 10 years on the networked information infrastructure or the country's power grid. ...more

Enterprise-grade email for the Palm OS

PalmSource, the company that develops the Palm OS, and mobile access specialist Visto have joined forces to produce what they describe as 'a standard enterprise-grade wireless email client for the Palm OS platform'. Specifically, the new email client will provide secure push-email capabilities between Palm Powered mobile devices and enterprise-grade mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino, as well as access to the POP3 and IMAP mail servers of ISPs. The new email client will become the default messaging solution for the Palm OS platform. ...more

T-Mobile bails out of mobile payment venture

A consortium of mobile phone network operators has had to shelve plans for a pan-European wireless payments system after T-Mobile withdrew its support. Simpay, a joint operation between T-Mobile, Orange, Telefonica Moviles and Vodafone was hoping to establish a single payment system for m-commerce transactions that would enable mobile device users to buy goods and services from any network provider in any country. The service was primarily designed to facilitate small purchases up to between 10 and 12 Euros. ...more