TomTom finds itself some Trojans

Satellite navigation company TomTom has admitted that a number of its devices are infected with malware, following an investigation by a security expert. The viruses were shipped with the TomTom GO 910 model but do not affect the operation of the device, according to the manufacturers. But according to a posting on tech blog Daniweb, once the TomTom device is connected to a PC running Windows, anti-virus software on the computer immediately flags up two alerts identifying win32. ...more

Xbox takes thrashing in Japan

The gloves are off and Japanese pundits are pulling no punches in their assessment of Xbox's sales performance so far. Japanese analysts today completely wrote off Xbox's chances in the country, issuing some sensational quotes on the back what are essentially disastrous sales figures. 'There's no point in discussing the issue,' said Deutsche Securities analyst Takashi Oya, speaking of the machine's situation in Japan. ...more

Three new screens from Philips

Philips has just announced prices for its three new high-end monitors: the Brilliance 202P4 and 109P4 aperture-grille models and the 201B4. The models, weighing in with 22in, 19in and 21in screen sizes respectively, offer Philips' Auto Calibrate function that continually recalibrates colour temperature and luminance, which Philips claims to extend operational life by 30 per cent. The monitors are also sRGB compatible, meaning that the colours you see on the screen should exactly match those printed out on an sRGB-compatible printer, for example. ...more

Broadband growth halves across Europe

Europe's go-go days of explosive broadband growth are coming to an end, a new study reveals, a bad sign for telecommunications firms and ISPs who had hoped sustained strong demand for high-speed net access would continue to offset a declining fixed-line business and stave off pesky new rivals. According to UK market research firm ScreenDigest, the broadband growth rate in the third quarter for Europe's five largest markets - Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain - was five percent, down from 11 percent the previous year as a smaller and smaller segment of the mass market opts for the upgrade. 'No market, in either Europe or in the U. ...more

Sun to work on Mac-native port of OpenOffice.org

Sun has announced that it is devoting two engineers to work on porting OpenOffice to run natively on the Mac. Once complete it would be able to dispense with the X11 windowing layer, which stops the free, open-source suite from fitting in with Apple's distinctive user interface styling. Writing on the Sun blog GullFOSS, Philipp Lohmann outlined how 'practically from the start there was the plan to have a native version for Mac, however as a first step the community decided to produce an X11 port which - since OOo already had several X11 ports from the start - seemed to be a good way to get a version quickly as temporary solution. ...more