HMV to dish free digital music advice

HMV shops are to give customers free digital music advice when it launches its own downloads store in September. The music retailer will install 200 computers in its high street outlets and hopes to 'demistify' downloading for women and older people. Currently an estimated 96 per cent of downloaders are male. ...more

Microsoft berries PocketPC

Secure wireless corporate email - Microsoft goes berry-picking. Microsoft has teamed up with a number of industry partners to offer mobile workers, using PocketPC-based PDAs and Smartphones, 128-bit encrypted secure access to desktop email, calendar and company info sitting behind a firewall. Howard Gefen, a director for the Mobile Devices Division at Microsoft said 'These solutions are a powerful example of the innovation happening on the Pocket PC and Smartphone platforms that takes full advantage of their power and flexibility. ...more

LaCie plugs FireWire for rich audio

LaCie has unveiled what it claims to be the first FireWire computer speakers to plug into the power of FireWire, the LaCie FireWire Speakers. The speakers take advantage of FireWire 400's inherent superiority as an audio connection, LaCie says. Speakers attached to a headphone jack must contend with noise distortion from the circuitry within the computer while USB speakers vie for limited bandwidth and power, having to share the bus with the keyboard, mouse and other peripherals. ...more

Intel's axe falls hard on P4 prices

In the wake of the new Prescott desktop processor, Intel has rejigged its processor pricing. Intel has reduced the pricing for its existing top-end Pentium 4 models - the 'Northwood' core-based processors - for equivalent pricing with the new Prescott 'E' versions. The cost of a 3. ...more

AMD demos dual core Athlons

In move that is considered not unconnected to the launch this week of the Pentium 64, AMD has sought to remind the world that it already has a 64-bit processor range and that it is still one step ahead of Intel. This week, the company demonstrated a dual core Athlon 64 processor at its Sunnyvale, California development facility. AMD has meanwhile confirmed that it plans to launch multi-core AMD64 client processors later this year. ...more