Website harvests business card information

Visitors to China should be careful about whom they hand their business cards to, after a website posted information from two million cards without the owners' consent, garnering five million visits a month as a result. Mingpian.com provides phone numbers and email addresses for free, according to the Xinhua news agency [via Reuters]. ...more

Microsoft shows off Vista's multimedia features

Microsoft has been giving a sneak peek of the much trumpeted multimedia features of the new Windows Vista operating system. The company is saying that it has built the multimedia capabilities of the Vista operating system 'from the ground up'. Many of the improvements in Windows Vista have been promised for a long time but now Microsoft is actually beginning to demonstrate some of the features. ...more

First look: HP's new shake-free business printers

HP has given PC Pro a hands-on demonstration of its new business inkjet range, including an innovation that promises to eliminate annoying printer vibration. The Officejet Pro K5400 colour printer forms the heart of the new line, coming in three flavours to suit home and small businesses. It prints at an impressive 36ppm mono and 35ppm colour in draft mode - hence HP's claims that it is faster than lasers - although for true laser quality output that drops to 12ppm and 10ppm respectively. ...more

Amazon goes gourmet

In a further bid to extend its reach to all areas of online shopping, Amazon has launched an online Deli. Currently available only in the US, the site claims to offer 'tens of thousands' of products from fruit and vegetables to meat and game to seafood and caviar. Amazon says it also includes 700 cheeses from around the world. ...more

NTL gives customers Freeserve option

NTL and Freeserve have signed a non-binding wholesale deal for Freeserve to offer its 512Kbits/sec broadband service across NTL's cable network. To take up broadband with Freeserve using NTL cable, customers also have to sign up to fixed line telephone with NTL, in order to get onto the network, and can also take up digital services too. This is the first time that a broadband cable operator and UK ISP have worked together in this way and the agreement, being non-binding, means that further ISPs are invited to the party. ...more