AMD buys ATI for $5.4bn

AMD is to buy ATI in a deal valued at $5.4bn. The Californian chip maker is acquiring the Canadian graphics technologist and chipset builder with the intent of creating a 'processing powerhouse'. ...more

FBI, Microsoft and US banks promise new drive against phishing

Law enforcement agencies and a number of IT companies are pooling resources to tackle the growing threat of 'phishing' - sending spoof emails to people to try and gain personal information which can be used for fraud. The initiative, to be known as 'Digital Phishnet' is aimed at providing ISPs, banks, law enforcement agencies and others concerned with online fraud with a central pool of information so they can react instantly to any emerging threat. Among the companies who have joined Digital Phishnet are Microsoft, AOL, Lycos and Digital River along with nine of the top ten US banks. ...more

EMI exec hints at Euro launch date for major music stores

EMI's head of music publishing has given the biggest indication yet of when the major online music stores can be expected to launch in Europe. William Booth said at a conference in Cannes, France, that he expects a single royalty deal covering most of Europe's music publishers to be agreed within three to four months. This news followed comments by Chris Gorog, CEO of Napster-owner Roxio, who said that music studios are 'rolling out the red carpet', and publishers remain the 'primary obstacle. ...more

Comment: Pass the parcel

The developer companies may sell software, but the packaging that clogs our shelves is nothing more than hot air, argues Stewart Mitchell. Good things come in small packages - or so the expression goes - which would mean most of the software sold today is absolute pants. What could come in a simple hinged CD case is, instead, included in a plastic tray, a cardboard sleeve, a cardboard box and then a cellophane wrapper. ...more

VIRUS: p2p worm has eye for the studious

Sophos has alerted its customers to the presence of a new worm that spreads through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Blaxe-A is already in the wild and spreads by creating a folder in the system which is available to the KaZaA, Grokster and iMesh peer to peer networks, but is hidden on the infected machine. It copies itself into this folder using a variety of filenames to dupe other users into downloading it. ...more