Spammer gets nine-year jail term

In the first conviction of its kind, a notorious spammer has been sentenced by a Virginia Court to nine years in prison. Jeremy Jaynes, 30, was convicted by a jury last November with a recommendation that he be sentenced to nine years in jail. Judge Thomas Horne has agreed. ...more

Intel 4GHz Pentium chips no longer scheduled for 2004

Intel has admitted that it will miss its year-end target for Pentium 4 processors to hit the 4GHz mark. It now appears that early 2005 is the date for this desktop clocking milestone. The announcement is further bad news for the chip giant in what has been a rather rocky (although still profitable) year. ...more

Digital signatures as binding as your own scribble

All 15 member EU states, including the UK, have implemented the EU Digital Signature Directive, which became law yesterday. Digital signatures are now as legally binding as handwritten ones. The directive specifies minimum requirements for digital certificates, certificate providers, and certificate creation and verification devices. ...more

Philips preps ghost-free TV

Philips is preparing to unveil a new LCD TV which, it claims, will be free of the ghosting that normally afflicts the technology. Despite its success in the computer display market, LCD technology has been less popular in TVs because of the problem of ghosting, where images appear smeared. Particularly acute when viewing fast moving images, the problem occurs because the transistors that create the on-screen image cannot be switched on and off quickly enough. ...more

Research shows digital divide etched into US Net use

The latest research findings from Pew Internet highlight how teens use technology. The survey, carried out in the States, suggests that the 87 per cent of teenagers (those between 12 and 17) use the Internet, which is up by a quarter since a similar survey four years ago. And of those online, 51 per cent enjoy a broadband connection. ...more