Microsoft edges ahead in deal with AOL

A deal between one of the big search engines and AOL looks like materialising in the coming weeks according to the Wall Street Journal. According to anonymous sources, the Time Warner board is leaning towards a deal with Microsoft although this might be misinformation leaked in order to get a better deal from Google. The deal seems to be somewhat short of the proposed merger or acquisition that was on the cards a few weeks ago. ...more

Intel sees flat market

Chip giant Intel saw its net income more than double in the Q2 2003 compared to the equivalent quarter in 2002 when the IT market was approaching rock bottom. The company has announced profits of $896 million compared to $446 million in 2002. Much of the increased profit compared to the 2002 figures were due to last year's write downs of areas like online services totalling $218 million. ...more

64bit Nvidia drivers power 64bit Windows multimedia

Nvidia has announced the beta availability of 64-bit software drivers for its nForce3 MCPs (media and communications processors). Optimised for the AMD Athlon 64 and Opteron processors, the drivers will support the beta version of Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition for Extended Systems. 'AMD is leading the way to pervasive 64-bit computing and NVIDIA is helping make it possible for developers to take advantage of this technology with the release of these 64-bit drivers,' said Marty Seyer, general manager of AMD's Microprocessor Business Unit. ...more

Feds bust biggest ever piracy operation

Three men from California have been charged with involvement in the biggest CD counterfeiting operation ever discovered in the US. The men - Ye Teng Wen, Hao He and Yaobin Zhai - have been indicted by a grand jury with conspiring to pirate some 325,000 CDs of music, films and software. The indictments follows the arrests of five people and searches of thirteen locations in California and Texas on 6 October 2005 as part of 'Operation Remaster', which aimed to break up a huge piracy ring. ...more

Commentator predicts failure for the iPhone

'There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive.' That's the view of industry commentator John C Dvorak, talking about Apple's entry into the mobile phone market. Dvorak, who is well known for his strong views on Apple, its activities and its products, was writing on investment site MarketWatch, and outlined a market undergoing strong consolidation that would see just two companies - Motorola and Nokia - dominate all others. ...more