Toshiba reduces battery charging time

Toshiba has announced its latest development in Lithium-ion battery technology which reduces charging to as little as one minute. The battery can be charged to 80 per cent of capacity in 60 seconds, some 60 times faster than current charge times. In addition lifetime performance is also improved, with just one per cent loss of total capacity after 1,000 recharge/discharge cycles, and the battery can operate at a lower temperatures; at -40 degrees it is capable of discharging up to 80 per cent of its capacity. ...more

London Underground preps mobile coverage

Transport for London plans to test the commercial and technical viability of mobile coverage on the below-ground sections of the tube network. If a new trial goes as planned, being stuck on the tube will no longer be an excuse for not calling. London Underground (LU) has announced plans to trial mobile phone coverage in below-ground tube tunnels and stations. ...more

AMD subpoenas Microsoft in Intel dispute

AMD has added Microsoft to the list of companies it has subpoenaed in support of its allegations that rival Intel has acted illegally in trying to block out competition. Microsoft now joins a list of some of the biggest names in the PC business including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and a long list of others. The subpoena, which was served on Microsoft on 13 April, asks that Microsoft provide the requested documents by 15 May. ...more

HP views data warehouse platform

By launching an all-encompassing data warehousing (DW) system, Hewlett Packard has thrown its hat into an already crowded ring of business intelligence (BI) vendors Announced at a press conference in Berlin and in development for over two years, the Neoview platform is intended to help businesses mine their data, perform trend analysis and get better overall view of the state of the business. The PC-to-printer giant will offer Neoview as part of a total package of hardware, software and services as it attempts to tap into a market worth upwards of ?25 billion. Neoview data warehousing combines hardware and software, offering high availability and scalable storage support. ...more

Critical flaw found in Microsoft's DirectX

Microsoft has alerted Windows users to what it describes as a critical flaw in its DirectX graphics and audio environment. Pete Philips, a penetration tester with S3 at Integralis, told us the flaw may be particularly tempting for attackers. 'Most people don't consider multimedia files to be hostile, and would be more likely to click on them than, say, an executable file. ...more