Amazon goes into the groceries business

Online retailer Amazon, which has already cornered the market in online books and a wide range of other goods ranging from consumer electronics to kitchen appliances and garden furniture, is going into the dried goods business in the US. The company has started to offer a range of 10,000 non-perishable groceries such as pasta, tinned food, breakfast food and sauces. It is also stocking a range of bathroom goods such as razor blades, shampoos and over the counter medicines. ...more

Yahoo! to search audio and video content

Yahoo is to boost its search index including billions of entries from databases usually off the radar of its rivals. The content aggregation program (CAP) will mean Yahoo will be searchable for audio and video file as well as HTML pages, images and so on. Information in the public databases of the US Library of Congress, the National Public Radio, the New York Public Library and Supreme Court audio files will form the initial flood of new data to the Yahoo index. ...more

Branson down under

Not only is he determined to save our lottery, Richard Branson flew into Sydney yesterday dangling from a helicopter to promote his new branch of Virgin Mobile. Not only is he determined to save our lottery, Richard Branson flew into Sydney yesterday dangling from a helicopter to promote his new branch of Virgin Mobile. The bearded tycoon has already sent the Australian aviation industry into a tailspin by recently launching his cut-price airline Virgin Blue. ...more

AMD squeezes Intel on cheaper chips

While the chip giants know they should avoid a price war in a slow PC market, AMD has followed Intel's price cutting move within days. Intel's drive is to push out the PIII and encourage the take up of the P4. Top deals go to 1Ghz and 800Mhz PIIIs and 800Mhz Celerons, dropping ten, 11 and 19 per cent to $241, $163 and $112 respectively (prices are based on purchases of a thousand). ...more

DRM stops Bafta judges viewing films

DRM continues to backfire on its proponents. Steven Spielberg's latest picture, Munich, may fail to make the Bafta nominations after judges were unable to play the DVD sent to them. The disc has regional encoding, rendering it unplayable in UK DVD players. ...more