14-06-2001 Essential news of the week

Brought neatly together and presented on a plate, here is a roundup of some of the week's main news stories from the world of IT. Oracle9i database launched USB 2.0 drivers for Win 98SE users Microsoft announces DRM milestones Sony PS2 to get RealPlayer European DVD prices investigated New e-minister appointed VideoCore platform to ease MPEG4 to mobile devices Intel speeds up chips to 20GHz with tiny transistors FireWire doubles up The Timelord returns, online Don't forget, we welcome your comments. ...more

The inventor of the Web picks up his €1mn prize

The inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee last night picked up the first Millennium Technology Prize and also a cheque for a cool €1mn. They were presented to him, in Helsinki, by Tarja Halonen, President of Finland. The new award is to be granted biannually for 'outstanding innovation' in the fields of 'Energy and the Environment', 'Information and Communication', 'New Materials and Processes' or 'Health Care and Life Sciences'. ...more

AOL buys its way into music downloads

AOL demonstrated another shift in its changing priorities when it announced the acquisition of the online music downloads service Music Now. In a burst of originality the new service will be called AOL Music Now. Currently available in the US only, Music Now allows visitors to either buy music at 99 cents a track or through a subscription basis from any Internet-connected PC for $9. ...more

Small companies face spam explosion

The amount of spam that is clogging up email servers is exploding, finds a survey. The study of 400 SMEs found that in January 2006 only 64 per cent of emails sent to companies were identified as spam. This figure shot up to 85 per cent last December, with the trend set to continue upwards. ...more

Extra disk space for PowerBooks

PowerBook users can add up to 30Gb of disk space with the redesigned Xcar?t Pro 99 expansion bay hard drives from MCE PowerBook Products. Available in 10, 20 and 30Gb configurations, these drives are designed for the current generation of FireWire PowerBooks but are also available for earlier models. They feature a shock-mounted internal mechanism and an LED to monitor drive power and disk activity. ...more