Microsoft wins injunction against Google

A Judge in the US has issued a temporary restraining order preventing former Microsoft employee Kai-Fu Lee from taking up his new position with Google. He had been appointed as head of its new research and development facility in China. Granting Microsoft's application, Judge Steven Gonzalez sitting in Washington State Superior Court, agreed that Lee's move to Google could mean that his insider knowledge both of the company's intellectual property and its business plans could damage its commercial interests. ...more

LimeWire fights back over RIAA legal action

The owner of LimeWire has responded to the RIAA's attempt to sue it out of existence by countersuing the US record industry body. The p2p software distributor has filed a lawsuit alleging that the RIAA has a simple objective: 'to destroy any online music distribution service they did not own or control, or force such services to do business with them on exclusive and/or other anticompetitive terms so as to limit and ultimately control the distribution and pricing of digital music, all to the detriment of consumers.' Last month the RIAA sued LimeWire, its parent company Lime Group and Lime Group's CEO Mark Gorton and COO Greg Bildson. ...more

Privacy International puts the boot in with Big Brother awards of shame

The Government has won a raft of awards at the glittering 6th Annual Big Brother Awards ceremony, run by Privacy International. Simon Davies, Director of Privacy International, beamed: 'The winning nominations reflect a broad and intensified assault on the right to privacy in the UK. There is a clear hostility within government to privacy and a general antagonism to it from within business. ...more

PhysX chip lets games get physical

Ageia Technologies is claiming the birth of a new age in gaming with the launch of its PhysX physics processing unit. The processor handles computing tasks for working out how physical forces interact within a game. Described as boasting a 'massively parallel' physics engine, games built to take advantage of the extra power will be able to handle as many as 30,000 objects at the same time. ...more

Man arrested for selling Microsoft source code

A Connecticut man has been arrested and charged with attempting to sell the source code for Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000. The man was arrested following a sting operation mounted by the FBI. William P. ...more