New machine detects tiredness

Feeling a little run down? Thinking of knocking off early? Well a new device developed by Japanese scientists can tell if you are genuinely tired or just trying to pull a fast one. The new gizmo has been designed for the aerospace industry to detect if pilots or air traffic controllers are tired, according to a piece in the New Scientist. The fatigue detector uses changes in voice patterns to detect whether or not the subject is overly tired. ...more

Computer virus update - at large in May

The most unwanted computer viruses of the month. Most prevalent: Homepage Last month's most frequently reported offender was the Homepage virus, aka VBS/VBSWG-X. This visual basic script takes its victims to pornographic Web sites while mailing itself to addresses stored in Outlook's address book. ...more

EU accuses Microsoft of playing media games

A senior EU official has accused Microsoft of using two-days of talks on antitrust compliance purely for publicity. 'The reason for this hearing is purely a media exercise for Microsoft,' said Cecilio Madero, senior Commission official leading the case at the two-day closed hearing. Microsoft wanted the hearing to be open to the public, instead it is being held today behind closed doors. ...more

South Korea considers copyright content control

South Korea is debating proposals to compel ISPs to monitor Internet traffic and block file sharing transfers of copyrighted material. The bill was proposed by the Uri Party's Woo Sang-ho whose website was shut down by Net users who jammed its bulletin board to post messages opposing it. The Korea Internet Corporations Association also opposes the bill, arguing that no-one will benefit. ...more

Sega and Sony link up

After the demise of the Dreamcast, Sega jumped into bed with every console hardware manufacturer that came along in an attempt to make friends and to shift its core business back to games rather than hardware. The first of such strategic relationships was with Sony and now the two former rivals have announced that they are to join forces again. This time the collaboration comes via the companies' two consoles - the Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2. ...more