Videoconferencing gets instant messaging

Messing around with video conferencing software can be great fun and now CUseeMe aims to make it even more fun with its instant video messaging software. The latest offering of CUseeMe, v5.0, allows users to create a "buddy list", which notifies them whenever a friend is online. ...more

?750m revamp of HP product range

Hewlett-Packard has overhauled Its market leading range of imaging and printing products with 50 new releases, many of which will be aimed at the consumer market. HP is lining up new additions to its printer, scanner, all-in-one (fax, print and scan) and digital camera products. It is also introducing a new photographic printing technology - PhotoREt IV - that it says will enable its printers to reproduce 1. ...more

UK games chart: Black puts Shadow in the shade

Black, the first-person urban shooter from EA (for PS2 and Xbox) is the new number one, as Sony's Shadow of The Colossus falls to four. Straight in at number two is Codemasters' ToCA Race Driver 3 (for PC, PS2 and Xbox), and completing the top three is EA's venerable multi-format street racing game Need For Speed: Most Wanted. The only other new entry this week, at number sixteen, is Codemasters' fantasy MMOG game, RF Online (Rising Force Online), which is for the PC. ...more

Special Report: Pay-as-you-recycle PCs

The price of a PC has been dropping steadily over the last few years, but an EU Directive may mean you have to pay a little bit more so that your computer can be safely disposed of. What it is The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances proposal seek to re-use electronic waste - through recycling and environmentally-friendly disposal - to the tune of 4kg per household per year by the end of 2006. And they will ban four heavy metals. ...more

Skype upgrades service; Vonage launches in the UK

Skype has announced version 1.1 of its Internet telephony service, adding new cosmetic flourishes and improved instant messaging features to put it better placed compared with other messaging rivals. While Skype had always touted its voice service as its key feature, critics pointed to its rather spartan instant messaging functions compared with rivals. ...more