Toshiba puts its money on notebook reliability

Toshiba is putting its latest laptops through an independent testing process in which it is so confident it is offering a repair or replacement, plus a full (ex VAT) refund on any that go wrong in the first year. The first models to undergo the new testing procedure and thus available under the offer are the Satellite Pro A120 and Tecra A8. The new notebook design is tested using a HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Testing) procedure by German company TUV, Toshiba's Product Marketing Manager Ken Chan said. ...more

Novell slaps antitrust suit on Microsoft over WordPerfect

As Novell promised when it picked up the $536 million from Microsoft last week, the company has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. Novell alleges that Microsoft used its domination of the operating system market to destroy the market share of its word processing application WordPefect and spreadsheet Quattro Pro. Novell says that Microsoft withheld key technical data about Windows which prevented its developers from building products which could compete with Word and Excel. ...more

Watchdog sets out position on Net phone industry boom

Ofcom has set out its response to the growth of voice over IP (VoIP) telephone services and specifically voice over broadband (VoB). The telecoms regulator believes that the emergence of these services will offer important benefits to consumers. Call costs should reduce significantly; where a call connects from one VoB service to another, the only cost to the consumer is typically a standard monthly fee, regardless as to whether the call is to the next town or to the other side of the world. ...more

Oftel gets tough with phone scammers

Oftel has issued draft plans to deal with those who persistently annoy the public by misuse of fax machines, automatic calling equipment and number scanning. The report is in response to the forthcoming Telecommunications Bill currently going through parliament. The idea is to cover areas of electronic communications that are not currently covered by existing legislation such as hacking, spam or misuse of personal data and to remove the authorisation to use such equipment from persistent offenders. ...more

Apple updates Xserve with dual 2.3GHz chips

Apple has upgraded its Xserve 1U rack servers with dual 64-bit 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 processors that provide over 35 gigaflops of processing power per system. The servers also get the industrys fastest front side 1U server system bus, running at up to 1. ...more