HP saves $3bn a year early

Hewlett Packard is on target to make cost-cutting savings of $3bn, a year ahead of schedule. At a Securities Analyst meeting, yesterday, CEO Carly Fiorina said that the company had already achieved savings of $2.4bn, due to cost-cutting measures emloyed in the merger with Compaq. ...more

Apple unveils Xeon Xserve

Apple has unveiled the new Xserve, a quad Intel Xeon, 64-bit server delivering a performance that is over five times that of its predecessor. The 1U rackmount server is powered by two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 'Woodcrest' processors, each running at up to 3GHz and plugged into a high bandwidth architecture that includes PCI Express, independent 1.33GHz front side buses with 4MB of shared L2 cache, and fully-buffered DIMMs (FB-DIMMs). ...more

Patent Office seeks examples of creative works banned by copyright

The Patent Office in its new role as overseer of all UK intellectual property rights is seeking evidence of certain creative practices that are forbidden or restricted by current copyright laws. The Office has been given responsibility for implementing changes to the law recommended by last years government-sponsored Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. Among exemptions to copyright restrictions suggested by the review are where content is used for creative, transformative or derivative works' and 'caricature, parody or pastiche'. ...more

California's senate set to ban gathering information from emails

The California State Senate is expected to pass a bill banning companies from scouring emails for use in marketing, according to the LA Times. However, an amendment to the bill will allow companies to search messages without getting the writer's permission. The amendment is vital to the success of the proposed Google Gmail service which would otherwise have been scuppered. ...more

Paris eyes city-wide WiFi

Paris wireless. That's the goal of the city's Mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, who has been speaking of a plan to set up 400 free Wi-Fi hot-spots next year for city-wide coverage. City authorities hope that by allowing service providers to install antennae on public property - such as parks, squares and libraries - blanket coverage will be achieved, reports Reuters. ...more