BT announces half of Wireless Cities 'squad'

BT has announced agreements with the six major UK cities that will comprise the first half of its 12 Wireless Cities project Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool and London's Westminster will each be covered by a BT Openzone wireless network designed to integrate with existing Wi-Fi installations in the home as well as mobile networks. The Wireless City project began in Cardiff, where hotspots have been installed in many locations in the city centre. In Westminster, a dedicated high-bandwidth wireless network is already in place and is now being extended. ...more

IEEE sets standard for USB drive authentication

The IEEE has approved a new standard for the authentication of USB flash drives and other personal storage devices. The standard, IEEE 1667 'Standard Protocol for Authentication in Host Attachments of Transient Storage Devices', was developed to address information security concerns. Specifically, defining uniform authentication methods to validate devices when they are connected to a computer. ...more

PlayStation 2 is hacked

The console Sony said was unhackable has fallen to those electronics wizards of the soldering iron. The PlayStation 2 model SCPH-15000 was said to be hack resistant, but like most things, it was just a matter of time before the next-generation console fell to the hackers. A mod-chip has surfaced in Asia that foils the PS2 mod lock out. ...more

Thomson extends SpeedTouch wireless range

Thomson has unveiled the latest additions to its SpeedTouch range of ADSL routers and wireless access hardware. The SpeedTouch 580 is combined Ethernet and 54Mbps wireless router. It has four 10/100MBit Ethernet ports, while the 802. ...more

California's senate set to ban gathering information from emails

The California State Senate is expected to pass a bill banning companies from scouring emails for use in marketing, according to the LA Times. However, an amendment to the bill will allow companies to search messages without getting the writer's permission. The amendment is vital to the success of the proposed Google Gmail service which would otherwise have been scuppered. ...more