Vista and Office launch dates announced - by Amazon

Microsoft Office 2007 is slated for release on 30 January next year and is set at a price of $499 in the US. On the same day, Microsoft is also planning to launch the long delayed and much anticipated Vista operating system as the replacement for Windows XP. The US price for the 'Ultimate' version of Vista will be $399. ...more

Camino man moves to Firefox to boost Mac progress

The Mozilla Foundation has appointed a developer to work on improving the Mac version of Firefox, with spin-offs for the OS X-only Camino browser. Currently Firefox on a Mac comees a poor second against the likes of Safari, suffering from a poor interface and is much slower than either the Windows version or Safari. Josh Aas will focus on code that the two browsers share and on Firefox-specific OS X code. ...more

War to boost online spending

Forrester Research predicts consumer fears will mean shopping from the safety of a computer. The effect of war for the Internet is the subject of the latest research from Forrester. It predicts consumers will spend more time and money online as they clamour for immediate coverage of the war's progress while fear of terrorist retaliation will see them desert shopping centres for the safety of shopping online. ...more

PS2 delayed indefinitely in Hong Kong

Gamers may be complaining that there are shortages of the PlayStation 2 in the UK, but be grateful that the console has been released over here at all. Fans of the super console aren't so lucky in Hong Kong and south Asia, as Sony has postponed the release indefinitely, causing buyers to get their PS2 fix from the black market. The machine was already delayed, being brought back from a July release date to the end of the year but now that promise has been broken. ...more

FBI denies Al-Qaida threat to US computer systems

The FBI's leading cybercrime expert believes that Al-Qaida does not have the capacity to launch attacks on computer systems in the US. FBI assistant director Louis M Reigel said that though investigators have noticed increased sophistication in the way that terror groups use the Internet, there is no evidence that this amounts to a threat to government, banking or utility systems. 'I don't think that capability exists today,' he said in a briefing for journalists. ...more