LLU reaches half a million

The UK now has more than half a million unbundled phone and Internet connections, according to BT Openreach. After a faltering start local loop unbundling is now proceeding at a rate of 20,00 lines a week, with customers attracted by cheaper and faster broadband connections and low price telephone calls, afforded to some extent by BT's recent wholesale price cuts. 'Hitting this half million milestone confirms that the LLU market in the UK is truly coming into its own,' said Openreach's Anne Heal. ...more

Apple's lawyers move to defend Aqua

Apple lawyers have asked Stardock, a Windows software development house, to remove desktop themes, icons and screenshots that, they argue, too closely resemble the Aqua interface of Mac OS X, thus violating Apple's intellectual property (IP). Stardock's Desktop X software allows users to create and customise their desktop interfaces, and the company encourages users to submit designs to be freely shared with others. Apple objected to one such design which, it has to be said, resembles Aqua to quite a considerable extent. ...more

Pinnacle helps users with digital editing

Digital video editing can be tricky, but Pinnacle Systems is at hand to help the novice editor. Pinnacle Systems has a number of products aimed at the home consumer market when it comes to digital video editing, but now it has made the whole process of installing and using a digital editing card on your PC easy. The company are giving away a free CD-ROM to customers who have recently purchased one of their DV500 digital video editing cards. ...more

Intel abandons clock speed chase and drops 4GHz Pentium

In another embarrassing admission in a year scattered with them, Intel has announced that it is to cease development of the 4GHz Pentium processor. For now the 3.8GHz part will remain the highest clock speed. ...more

Hi-Grade DMS II 3400 update

In our review of Hi-Grade's new Media Center PC, the DMS II 3400 (see issue 126, p62), we didn't specifically mention the availability of digital TV tuner options. We realise many readers would like to buy the DMS II with digital tuners, rather than the analog versions, so here's the update you've been waiting for. Hi-Grade assures us that customers will be able to order the DMS II with a single digital tuner from the end of March 2005, with delivery by the end of April. ...more