Email spying open to attack

Firms with a policy of monitoring their employees' email and Internet activities are still liable to be sued under the Human Rights Act (HRA). This is despite the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act, designed to legally allow the Government and businesses to survey email and Internet traffic on corporate-owned networks, which will come into effect later this month. Although businesses have been advised to check and if necessary amend staff handbooks and contracts stating their monitoring policy, the two Acts are in conflict in a situation where an employee is using the employer's network but not its server. ...more

MSN goes down the pan

MSN is hoping its Internet-enabled portable toilet will attract plenty of visitors at this year's summer festivals. Hazarding a visit to a cubicle in one of the stinking rows of portaloos at Glastonbury is usually a desperate eleventh-hour affair. But MSN is hoping punters will be queueing up to log on to its iLoo, which will feature a waterproof wireless keyboard and adjustable plasma screen, giving them broadband access to the odourless world of the Internet. ...more

UK moves up the broadband charts

The much increased acceleration in the rate of broadband take-up in the UK over the past year has lifted the country to 14th place in the OECD's league table. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development broadband statistics for 2004 show that in December the UK had 6,256,300 connections, around 10.5 per cent of the population, putting it 10th among European countries and 14th overall. ...more

VIA releases HyperTransport Analyzer 1.0 for AMD64

VIA Technologies has released version 1.0 of its HyperTransport Analyzer tool for AMD64 systems. It is available for free download. ...more

RealNetworks hits million subscribers but posts a loss

RealNetworks has posted its results for the first quarter, to the tuned of a $2.8m loss. Revenues of $46. ...more