Preliminary doubts over BT's link patent

BT about as likely to win hyperlink case as a mammoth getting a US pilot's licence. Judge Colleen McMahon, presiding over a preliminary hearing in New York yesterday warned BT that its 1976 hyperlink patent may be difficult to prove, likening the differences between a computer in 1976 and today to those between a mastodon and a jet. The FT reports the Judge's awkward analogy as BT goes to court to prove that its hyperlink patent means it has a case to demand royalties from US ISPs. ...more

LaCie unveils first external Blu-ray drive for Macs and PCs

LaCie has announced that it will be the first company to ship an external Blu-ray drive for Macs and Windows PCs. The new drive is one of several new storage devices the company unveiled today. The BD drive has a dual USB/FireWire interface and is housed in an aluminium d2 casing. ...more

Channel4 launches music service

Channel4 has joined the ever lengthening list of music download services, selling around 350,000 songs plus exclusive live sets from its T4 programmes. The Web-based service sells 192Kbps rights-managed WMA files at industry-average prices - generally 79p for a single track, ?7.99 for an album, though there is some variation. ...more

Microsoft makes push email push

Software giant Microsoft is launching its long awaited assault on the push email market with a series of announcements. Along with the long awaited release of its push email software, the company has signed a number of deals with some of the major players in mobile technology including Vodafone and T-Mobile. A number of mobile telcos including Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone will be offering free upgrades to the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) for all their Windows Mobile 5. ...more

Toshiba launches cost-conscious Pocket PC

Toshiba's 300Mhz Pocket PC e330 comes in at ?349 including VAT For a 64Mb PDA running Intel's new PXA250 chip clocked at 300Mhz and Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002, that's a lot of bangs for your bucks. 64Mb iPaqs typically retail for nearer the ?400 mark. Connectivity comes in the form of an SD slot, infra-red and USB. ...more