BBC under fire for adverts

Hugo Drayton, Managing Director of Hollinger Telegraph New Media has voiced his anger amongst increasing criticism of the way the BBC is marketing its digital services. He said: "Those publishers and employees who are striving hard to make their businesses succeed are rightly appalled and angered by the blatant cross-promotion, particularly in television, of the BBC's website." The BBC argues that investing in its BBC Online division is in accordance with its original remit to give licence payers access to new technology. ...more

Microsoft buys SCO Unix licence

IP-wielding SCO has found a friendly ear with Microsoft, as it upsets the Linux community. Microsoft has obligingly agreed to license SCO's Unix patents and source code that lies at the heart of SCO's $1bn suit against IBM. Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft said that 'the announcement of this license is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property (IP) and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing. ...more

Sober worm to cause weekend hangover

Antivirus companies are warning that fresh variants of the Sober worm are set to cause havoc over this weekend. Variants of the Sober worm have been particularly contagious in Europe as they have the ability to display the language of their texts in either German or English depending on the domain of the target email. Subject lines in English include 'Oh God' and 'Delivery_failure_notice', but German computer users may receive emails which claim to have come from a 21-year-old blonde GoGo dancer who says she has attached naked photographs of herself. ...more

Java Web Start vulnerability highlighted

The security company Secunia is warning of a 'highly critical' vulnerability in Java technology. Specifically, it reports a problem with Java Web Start, which is included in the Java 2 platform Standard Edition (J2SE). This can be exploited by a malicious application elevating its privileges to read and write local files that are accessible to a user running the Java Web Start app. ...more

BenQ banks on Euro 2004 memory

A sign of the times, perhaps. It used to be Jubilee mugs and Royal Wedding tea-towels, now it is Euro 2004 commemorative Flash memory products.. ...more