BT Openworld launches new business ADSL offers

BT Openworld is offering free activation and a free router for new business ADSL customers. The offer applies to its Business Plus 500, 1000 and 2000 and Broadband Share 500 product, giving savings of up to ?199 per service. The wireless-enabled router includes a built-in firewall. ...more

Office of Fair Trading issues guidelines for online trading

The Office of Fair Trading has issued a set of draft regulations which cover 'distance selling' in the run up to the Christmas period. Distance selling includes, such things as mail order, phone, fax or the Internet. Most of the guidelines are fairly straightforward and boil down to making the customer aware of what they are buying, the price and what the terms and conditions are. ...more

All aboard the Big Drive

Maxtor has announced that it is working in conjunction with Compaq, Microsoft, VIA Technologies and a number of other companies to support the new ATA interface that will break through the 137Gb barrier imposed by the current ATA standard. The "Big Drive" standard will allow ATA hard drive to store 100,000 times more data than the current 137Gb ATA standard. The new interface allows for up to 48 bits of address space on a single drive and so expands the total storage space to a phenomenal 144 petabytes (Pb) - that's two to the power of 50. ...more

Hunting elk on the Net

Do you like hunting but just don't like the mess and aggravation of actually killing animals? Does the taste of fresh elk get your mouth watering, yet the thought of hours stalking the beast on the frozen wastes leave you cold? Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet has set up a Web cam in the heart of the forest so that participants can take part in a virtual elk hunt. The idea is that if viewers of the page spot an elk they should email the newspaper with the time and date that the animal was spotted. The lucky winner gets to feast on a fresh elk steak! The Swedes love elk hunting and manage to wipe out 100,000 elks every year. ...more

Tim Berners-Lee is Greatest Briton 2004

The inventor of the World Wide Web has already been been honoured with a knighthood, and last year banked a cheque for a cool €1mn by winning the Millennium Technology Prize. Sir Tim's financial gain was more prosaic this time around, with the trophy for Greatest Briton backed up by ?25,000 at a ceremony in the Royal Courts of Justice. Berners-Lee scooped the prize not just in the Science category but also topped the podium overall, against the likes of Kelly Holmes, fashion designer, Sir Paul Smith, author Philip Pullman, architect Lord Norman Foster, Jane Tomlinson fundraiser and campaigner and journalist Lord Bill Deedes, still UK ambassador for Unicef at the age of 91. ...more