Pessimistic outlook for online government

'Huge obstacles to overcome' before all services go online At The Internet Goes Public conference today in London, Steven Marsh, director of security at the Office of the e-Envoy, admitted that there were huge obstacles to overcome if the government is to meet its goal of getting all its services online by 2005. He said that above the risks of not meeting the 2005 target, there were worries that services would not be used and that there would be excessive cost in deploying them. Although 70 per cent of services are online today, he was concerned that only the easiest to implement had so far been tackled. ...more

Pirate CDs to FADE

Piracy is the bane of the software industry and new ways of combating this crime are always being developed. A new system from Codemasters aims to fool pirates into thinking they've got away with it before striking. The new FADE anti-piracy system is being used on military simulator Operation Flashpoint, which is released on 22 June, and is embedded with code that can tell the difference between a real and counterfeit copy of the game. ...more

Red Hat goes into the black

Leading Linux supplier Red Hat has finally started to make money. The company has reported a profit of $304,000 on revenues of $24.3 million in the quarter ending November, a rise of 14 per cent over the previous quarter. ...more

AOL to develop Enterprise AIM (again)

AOL is dipping another toe in the water with an Enterprise version of its popular Instant Messaging product. The company has teamed up with WebEx Inc, a collaborative applications company, to produce an enhanced version of AOL's Instant Messenger service which will provide improved security as well as the voice, video and web collaboration functions available through the WebEx MediaTone Network. AOL says that the product is 'codenamed' AIM Pro, which suggests that this may not be the final brand name. ...more

EU gives ?5mn to Welsh broadband project

A Welsh Assembly initiative to drive broadband rollout across the principality has been boosted by a ?5mn grant from the EU. The Assembly's Regional Innovative Broadband Support Programme (RIBS) has been set up to provide funding for 'innovative' projects in areas that would not otherwise have access to broadband networks. The ?5mn will go towards a ?13. ...more