Eyes on... Handspring Treo 180 Communicator

We've been lucky enough to have one of these highly-anticipated little beauties pop through our letterbox last week. So we put the all-singing, -talking and -surfing gadget through its paces. Out of the box it's a reasonably discreet affair. ...more

Hyper-Threading: best thing since sliced thread?

When Intel starts adding the initials 'HT' to its Pentium 4 stickers, you know that Hyper-Threading is going to be a mainstream buzzword in no time. Hyper-Threading has been doing the rounds for a few months already, but was previously an exclusive possession of Xeon servers and workstations. We first saw it in the 2GHz Xeon-based Armari RX860HT (see Reviews, issue 90, p113), but you can now buy it in a mainstream PC from Evesham or Dell. ...more

Security firm renews campaign for .bank domain

F-Secure has renewed its campaign for the introduction of a .bank Web domain that it believes could help to reduce instances of phishing data and identity theft. The security company is seeking a sponsoring organisation that is willing to promote the domain as part of ICANN's recently announced public consultation on possible new top-level domains (TLDs). ...more

Microsoft takes on Adobe

Microsoft has finally unveiled its long awaited strategy for taking on the market leaders in web development, Macromedia and Adobe (not quite yet the same company). At the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference 2005 the company has launched a set of tools known as Microsoft Expression aimed at designers both for the Web and for the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. Amongst the tools announced are the Acrylic Graphic Designer, a painting, illustration and effects tool for creating graphic designs, the Sparkle Interactive Designer, a user-interface design tool for application development using the Windows Presentation Foundation; and Quartz Web Designer, a layout and design tool for creating Web sites. ...more

NTL to increase prices

NTL is planning huge job cuts and price increases in an attempt to reduce its ?12 billion debt. According to the FT, NTL is aiming to lose 8200 staff and increase average revenue per subscriber from ?39 to ?46 by the end of 2002, in order to save ?275 million. The company plans, according to chief executive Barclay Knapp, to, 'move forward by standing still,' to fulfil a business plan aimed at profitability by the end of 2003. ...more