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

Xircom gets into GPRS with network card

Network specialist Xircom has announced a notebook network card using GPRS at the 3GSM World conference in Cannes. The type II PC card, called the CreditCard GPRS, provides wireless Internet and LAN connectivity to notebook users at speeds comparable to, and often faster than, dial-up modems. The card has dual-band 900/1800 and 900/1900 support, which means it can be used internationally. ...more

Lastminute makes more money, but still makes a loss

Lastminute.com is gaining custom, but still making a loss. The gift and travel site increased sales sevenfold in the fourth quarter of 2000 compared to 1999, but made a loss of ?15. ...more

BBC to sell its technology subsidiary

The BBC is to sell off its commercial subsidiary BBC Technology Ltd. The unit was created in 2001 to deliver technical services including desktop support and was expected to deliver 'significant savings'. Now the Corporation says that it expects to save some ?20-?30 million a year by outsourcing these services. ...more

Music downloading stalls in face of legal threats

New research suggests that legal threats by the US music industry have successfully dampened enthusiasm for downloading music. Reuters reports on the latest survey carried out by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which indicates a 15 per cent drop in the number of people downloading tracks. Having interviewed 1,350 American Internet users, those who admitted to downloading tracks fell from 29 per cent to 14 per cent. ...more