BBC takes glory for World Cup online

Italy's Cannavaro may well have hoisted the golden World Cup aloft, but it was the BBC's Sport website that won the world cup online, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. We are talking UK figures here, not globally, but it seems one in four of all those online (six million) visited a sport or gambling website during the World Cup. According to the BBC, 3. ...more

CeBIT 2007: Europe opts out of RFID regulation

According to the EU Commissioner, Viviane Reding, the European Commission has opted not to regulate RFID or 'smart radio' tags. Commissioner Reding, the head of the EU's Information Society and Media directorate, said that the technology must be 'allowed to grow'. She added that there are around one billion RFID tags in use worldwide today, but the Commission expects over 500 times as many tags by 2016. ...more

New Handspring Visor leaked

With Palm ready to announce details of its M500 range, it comes as no surprise that rival Handspring has a new PDA up its sleeve. Specifications of the Visor Edge have been appearing on the organiser fan site PDABuzz.com. ...more

Ex Apple bosses get the VC bug

Three former Apple executives are on the look out for technology companies to buy, after their startup company, Acquicor Technology, raised $150m on the American Stock Exchange. Steve 'Woz' Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple with current CEO Steve Jobs, and former CEO Gil Amelio have been joined by Ellen Hancock to formed what they describe as a 'blank cheque' company. 'Our efforts in identifying prospective target businesses will not be limited to a particular industry, although we intend to focus on the technology, multimedia and networking sectors,' it said. ...more

IT firms lead the surge in new UK patents

IT companies led the way in a surge of new patents in Britain in 2003 according to the UK patent office. Last year, the UK Patent Office granted 9,761 patents compared to 8,693 in 2002, a rise of 12 per cent. Leading the field with a total of 209 granted patents was NEC, followed by Hewlett Packard at 196. ...more