Microsoft to pay $180 million in Iowa settlement

An Iowa court has granted preliminary approval to the terms of the settlement of the Comes v Microsoft antitrust lawsuit. Judge Scott Rosenberg has approved the February settlement, in which Microsoft agreed to pay up to $179.95 million to individuals and businesses that purchased it operating systems and applications between May 1994 and June 2006. ...more

BTopenworld launches even faster ADSL service

ADSL speeds will increase this month, as BT announces an upgraded business service running at 2Mbps. The business 2000PLUS service has a download speed four times greater than the already available 512kbps version, and costs ?60 more, at ?159 ex VAT. A 1Mbps (1,024kbps) option, known as business 1000PLUS, will cost ?129. ...more

Google joins badware battle

Google is joining the battle against sites that host spyware or adware. It will warn users, via a popup, when they are about to follow a search result to a site that will download such malware. The search giant is working as part of a 'badware' initiative, along with Sun and Lenovo, to flag websites that have previously been reported to StopBadware. ...more

Google opens up Calendar for developers

Google has made an API available for developers to build applications that use Calendar data or update the calendars themselves. Google's Calendar service was only revealed last week and was quickly snowed under by traffic. The new API allows developers to benefit from this popularity by building applications using that data. ...more

Palm's lifeline splits in two

Palm has announced a restructuring of its business operations into two parts. At the end of last week, the company announced it will turn the Platform Solutions Group - which is responsible for the development of the Palm OS and its licensing - into a wholly owned subsidiary by the end of 2001. The Platform Solutions Group will take some infrastructure and staff services from the Solutions Group, which will continue to make handheld devices and license the Palm OS from the subsidiary. ...more