Chinese crackdown on Internet porn

China has warned that it is to crack down on Internet porn. The Chinese news agency Xinhua says that those caught pushing pornographic images either through the Internet, mobile phones or phone sex face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Popular commercial websites which have been clicked over 250,000 times face the severest penalties although the Supreme People's court warned that producers of non-profit websites which contain indecent material will also be targeted. ...more

NTL to increase prices

NTL is planning huge job cuts and price increases in an attempt to reduce its ?12 billion debt. According to the FT, NTL is aiming to lose 8200 staff and increase average revenue per subscriber from ?39 to ?46 by the end of 2002, in order to save ?275 million. The company plans, according to chief executive Barclay Knapp, to, 'move forward by standing still,' to fulfil a business plan aimed at profitability by the end of 2003. ...more

Broadcom chip boosts range for 802.11g wireless networking

Chip developer Broadcom says that it has developed a new processor that can extend the range of a wireless connection by up to 50 per cent. The company says that the new single chip for 802.11g features improved signal processing to increase the sensitivity of the connection. ...more

UK leads Europe for Internet shopping

Tech-savvy Brits shop online more than any other European country, according to new figures from Intel. Intel quizzed 6,075 PC and mobile owners across Europe and found that two-thirds (77 per cent) of Brits use the Internet for buying goods other than groceries, compared to only 60 per cent of people on the continent. People living in the UK are also more likely to do the weekly food shop from home, with more than a third of us getting groceries delivered to our door through the Internet. ...more

States argue RealPlayer/Navigator parallel

Modular Windows: it should be and it could be. A lawyer for the states arguing for more severe penalties against Microsoft yesterday produced evidence that Microsoft had actively embedded and enhanced its Media player within Windows as a direct effort to cut out RealNetworks' RealPlayer and had likened the strategy to that used against Netscape. In other testimony, Microsoft's computer expert, a professor at the MIT, back-tracked on a previous assertion that producing a modular version of Windows was probably impossible. ...more