The Terapin comes to TV

The problem with recording your favourite TV programmes to VHS is very often the picture quality isn't up to much and in time the picture degrades. There are currently a handful of digital recorders that use a hard disk drive to record TV programmes, but wouldn't it be good if you could store programmes on a CD-R. Well, thanks to the Terapin from TeraOptix, you can do just that. ...more

Microsoft beat off Linux in battle for key council contract

After toying with the affections of the Open Source movement, the London Borough of Newham has announced that it has signed a deal with Microsoft to upgrade the council's IT systems. Last year, the borough was part of a Government project comparing Open Source and proprietary software. As such, its IT infrastructure was independently assessed by CapGemini which looked at costs, business benefits and risks. ...more

MyDoom authors seek antivirus employment

New versions of MyDoom have been spotted over the weekend, with a desperate plea from the authors for work in the antivirus industry. MyDoom Versions U and V were discovered on Friday, while W appeared a few days later. Like other versions of MyDoom, which first appeared at the beginning of this year, they arrive as an attachment to an email that if executed installs itself to the computer and attempts to download further components from the Internet by opening a 'back door'. ...more

Egg ditches current account plans

Internet bank Egg said yesterday that it would suspend plans for a current account until the market is more favourable. The company, founded and majority-owned by the Prudential, is famous for its Internet credit card, but is running shy of introducing a current account after reporting losses of ?155m in 2000. According to reports in The Guardian, Egg believes the market is too conservative for an Internet-based current account. ...more

LLU broadband take-up skews heavily towards London

LLU broadband take-up in the UK is skewed heavily towards London, with some areas having no access to the cheaper services and faster speeds that the technology has enabled. Forty-five per cent of LLU lines are in the capital, with the South East and North West, especially Manchester, also showing relatively high levels of penetration. That contrasts markedly with Northern Ireland, for example, where not one exchange has been unbundled. ...more