Sony, Mitsubishi unaffected by EU SRAM cartel raids

Sony and Mitsubishi have announced that their offices in Europe were not raided as part of a European Commission probe into a possible cartel in the SRAM electronic chip market. Yesterday Samsung, the world's biggest maker of memory chips, said its German offices were raided in the Commission's investigation of static random-access memory chips. 'We have not been raided and we have not received any notice of an investigation,' Sony spokesman Atsuo Omagari said. ...more

Apple upgrades the MacBook Pro

Apple has upgraded its MacBook Pro line of notebook computers, adding Intel Core 2 Duo processors that increase performance by as much as 39 per cent. The new laptops - two 15in models and one 17in - have twice as much memory as standard, plus increased storage and a FireWire 800 port for connecting to high-speed peripherals. Otherwise the machines are largely unchanged. ...more

Pipex launches 8Mbit Net and phone combo for sub ?20

Pipex has launched an 8Mb broadband package for ?6.50 per month, provided you also sign up to the ISP's Anytime calls package at ?12.50. ...more

Dixons ditches film cameras

Dixons has called time on 35mm film cameras and once stocks are exhausted the UK's largest high street electronics retailer will be exclusively digital. The company said it now sells 15 times as many digital cameras as film. In fact sales of 35mm cameras have been declining since 1989, the decline accelerating as the quality of digital rose while the price fell. ...more

Hidden charges are a philfy practice

First there was phishing, then wilfing and now a new term has entered the Internet lexicon: philfing. Standing for 'purposely hiding what I'm looking for' the word describes the practice of websites that hide extra charges for delivery, credit cards, baggage and insurance. Ninety-three per cent of UK online shoppers have been 'annoyed' by hidden charges and almost two-thirds said they had decided no to buy as a result, according to a survey of more than 2,400 Net users by MoreComputers. ...more