Terror alert sparks surge for airline websites

The terror alert, which has week caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights to and from UK airports and thrown the holiday plans of thousands into disarray, also caused a surge of Internet activity as travellers struggled to change their journey plans. Web activity monitoring company Hitwise said that British visits to the BBC News were up 50 per cent on Thursday when the news of the alleged terror plot emerged. The visits pushed the BBC site up the rankings to the 9th most visited Internet site in the world, up from 14th the previous day. ...more

Adobe announces image server

Adobe has released details of its new AlterCast image serving software, which is designed to make it much easier to generate and edit a collection of images and repurpose them for multiple platforms. AlterCast is a system that will enable multiple variations of a set of images to be automatically generated with the required colour mode, size, resolution and file type. The software uses XML-based commands to manipulate images on the server, adding layers and colour overlays, flattening, changing the opacity and replacing pixels or text, for example. ...more

Your kids' Nativity play: the movie

Forget sitting in a musty old school hall watching Mary, Joseph et al stumbling over their lines. Intel is to launch a digital video camera aimed at kids this Christmas, which will enable to create their own Yuletide film. Make that a short film though, as the Intel Play Digital Movie Creator will only create four minute episodes with audio. ...more

IBM drops some counterclaims against SCO

IBM has dropped a number of counterclaims against its opponent SCO because it believes it is not economically worthwhile to do so. In other words, SCO is too small a fish to fry for a slice of its sales. The decision to drop four of IBM's patent counterclaims surfaced in a document filed Thursday in opposition to SCO's requests for an additional 25 depositions. ...more

CES: Video calling gets real

Motorola hopes to make widespread video calling a reality with the launch of its Ojo Personal Video Phone. The idea that seeing the person you're talking to provides more a personal experience has had telecom firms excited for years, but implementation of the concepts have generally been disappointing. Yet Motorola's Ojo, which plugs into a broadband connection and supports 30fps video on its 16:9 7in LCD, has captured the imagination of many visitors to CES. ...more