ISPs slam attempts to reveal alleged file sharers

UK Internet service providers have slammed attempts by the music industry to persuade them to give up the identities of alleged file sharers. The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), an umbrella organisation for UK ISPs, described a letter by the BPI to two of its members, Tiscali and Bulldog, as 'detrimental to the spirit of co-operation' that the Internet industry wants to foster with the music business. While insisting that it does not support 'abuses of copyright and intellectual property theft', the ISPA said that its members would be acting outside the law if they co-operated with BPI demands. ...more

Photoshop 7 unveiled

Adobe has announced that Photoshop 7 will be available in the second quarter of 2002, with full support for Windows XP. Although the major feature of this release is XP compatibility (and MacOS X, too), augmented by enhanced multi-processor support, Adobe has also included a number of new tools and features to give the upgrade wider appeal. Among these is new healing brush, a sophisticated extension of Photoshop's cloning abilities, and a new painting engine allowing for custom brush presets, simulation of drawing techniques and special brush effects. ...more

Intel settles EPIC Intergraph dispute

Intel has settled the long running patent dispute with Intergraph, which involved the development of Itanium processor technology. In return for an agreed financial payment, Intel will now receive a license to use Intergraph's PIC technology. This became a component of Intel's IA-64 EPIC (explicitly parallel instruction computing) architecture, which is used by the Itanium server chip. ...more

Radeon 9500 PRO in short supply due to strong OEM orders

Due to strong demand from major PC vendors like Dell Computer and Hewlett-Packard (HP), ATI Technologies recently reported a serious shortage of its Radeon 9500 PRO graphics chips. Given the massive orders from the brand-name companies, ATI's own-brand card-manufacturing clients are experiencing difficulty acquiring the chips. The Radeon 9500 PRO has been well-accepted by the high-end market due to its appealing price/performance ratio. ...more

Visual Basic for ever

Microsoft announces its official support policy for Visual Basic (in its traditional, pre .NET incarnation) - and promises a long-term relationship. According to Ari Bixhorn - Product Manger of Visual Studio. ...more