Labels flock to indie music service

DRM-free digital music service eMusic has added more than 20 new labels to its roster of 4,000 independent operators from around the world. Chief among the new labels is V2 Music, which brings White Stripes, the Raconteurs and Moby to the service. eMusic has avoided the copy protection stipulations of the major labels by only licensing music from independents. ...more

Microsoft to ship 'N' versions of Windows next week

Microsoft has finally announced a shipping date for versions of its Windows operating system into Europe. The newly created Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N, which do not include versions of Windows Media Player, are being released to manufacturing across Europe by 15 June. The two versions have been released as part of Microsoft's compliance with the March 2004, ruling by the European Commission that the company abused its monopoly in operating systems to gain competitive advantage in the emerging battle for multimedia players. ...more

Cisco to debut new router family

Internet hardware giant Cisco Systems is said to be preparing to launch a new family of routers that can manage both voice and data applications. Consisting of seven new devices and two software applications, the Integrated Services Router will target a broad range of businesses from Cisco's traditional markets down to smaller and medium sized businesses. Cisco says that it will be launching three families of the ISR; the 3080 series for enterprises the 2800 series for medium sized companies and the 1800 series for small businesses. ...more

LaCie announces dual-interface back-up drive

LaCie has announced a 70Gb tape back-up drive with support for both FireWire and USB connections. The drive can write up to 70Gb of compressed data on an AIT1 8mm tape at a rate of 8Mb per second, or 28.8Gb per hour. ...more

UK Internet adopts ADSL2+ for faster broadband

The UK's Internet standards body has approved a new standard for broadband speeds as high as 20Mbps. The adoption of ADSL2+ by the Network Interoperability Consultative Committee (NICC) has been held up by a conflict with the existing VDSL technology, which enables broadband services to reach properties that are beyond the reach of standard ADSL connections. While countries including France and Sweden simply scrapped VDSL to solve the problem, UK ISPs were unhappy with such a drastic solution; fortunately one of them, Bulldog, has found a way of running the transmissions over the same wires without interference. ...more