Mistral and the Broadband predicament

At Internet World 2001, broadband was as ever a hot topic. Business ISP Mistral revealed the resuts of its recently commissioned MORI survey on business attitudes towards broadband, showing a staggering 80 per cent fail to see any benefit of the technology. The survey polled 200 Managing and Financial Directors (as opposed to heads of IT departments) of SMEs with annual turnovers of between ?1m and ?100m. ...more

Intel's future is 3D

Higher processor performance, with greater power efficiency, is promised by Intel's research in transistor design. As opposed to traditional 'flat' transistors, Intel suggests a future for a 3D design. Transistors, of course, are the mini On-Off switches that are combined to build microprocessors. ...more

Pine launches new MP3 CD player

Throw away your Sony Discman and get ready to convert your favourite CDs into MP3 format, with the launch of a new CD player from Pine. The SM-300T will be available from February and can play both normal audio CDs and discs encoded with MP3 files. The unit is silver in colour and spherical in design and features a remote control unit attached to the headphone lead. ...more

Online music swapper to be revealed, rules judge

An American Judge has sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) over a test case of online music swapping. The US telco Verizon Communications has been ordered to reveal the identity of one of its subscribers who is suspected of making available online hundreds of copies of music tracks. The RIAA has argued that it has the right to make ISPs reveal information about their subscribers, without the copyright holder being required to file a suit. ...more

Sun's McNealy wants HP-UX Solaris merger

Sun Microsystems' CEO Scott McNealy has published an open letter to HP, proposing a merger of their respective Unix platforms. In the past, Sun's top execs have been highly critical of HP-UX's future. Suns' President Jonathan Schwartz has repeatedly referred to the 'demise' and its troubled commitment to Intel's Itanium chip. ...more