Europol wants your data

We ain't seen everything yet. You may be forgiven for thinking the EU's Directive on Telecommunications Privacy gave member state governments enough powers to force communications companies to keep data they may want to look at later, but now Europol has drafted a document that would force companies to do this, whether governments agreed or not. The document came to light thanks to civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Centre and Statewatch. ...more

Microsoft declares dividends all round

Microsoft is breaking with its traditions and paying out not one but two dividends. The cash-rich software giant has announced plans for a quarterly dividend, a four-year stock buyback plan and a special one-off dividend for shareholders. 'As we looked at our cash-management choices, our priorities were to increase our regular payments to shareholders, increase our stock-buyback efforts given our confidence in the company's growth prospects, and distribute additional resources in the form of a special one-time dividend,' said CEO Ballmer. ...more

Adobe, HP and Kodak endorse new image format

Adobe, Hewlett-Packard and Kodak have announced their endorsement for the new Exif file format for digital images. Currently digital cameras capture images as compressed JPEG files. Exif (Exchangeable Image File Format) adds a series of tags to the standard JPEG header that encodes information such as exposure time, contrast, white balance and colour saturation. ...more

LetsBuyIt.com bows out

It looks like it's all over for co-shopping site LetsBuyIt.com, which has finally filed for bankruptcy. The company's troubles began just before Christmas when it asked a Dutch court to protect it from its creditors while it sought extra funding. ...more

US considers banning DRM rootkits

US government officials are considering introducing legislation if companies continue to distribute copy-protection measures that compromise computer security. The Department of Homeland Security's Border and Transportation Security Directorate warning followed the discovery last year that Sony BMG employed two different types of digital rights management (DRM) on music CDS sold in the US and both installed rootkit software on PCs that made them vulnerable. 'We need to think about how that situation could have been avoided in the first place,' said Jonathan Frenkel at the RSA computer security conference. ...more