Oracles slashes price of its 10g DBMS

Oracle has cut the price of its 10g database system down to $4,995. The move is an attempt to become more competitive with Microsoft at the smaller business end of the database market. The database giant has cut the headline pricing by $1,000, a reduction of 17 per cent which now makes it directly comparable with Microsoft's SQL Server 2000. ...more

MP3 creator begins testing surround-sound version

Germany's Fraunhofer IIS, where the MP3 format was invented, has begun testing a surround-sound version of the audio compression format. MP3 Surround is a multi-channel format that enables 5.1 surround sound for broadcasting, Web-based music distribution, digital audio editing applications and consumer electronics. ...more

Sendmail unveils enterprise anti-spam protection

Enterprise email specialists Sendmail has begun shipping its Sendmail Advanced Anti-Spam Filter software for Linux- and Solaris-based Internet gateways. The Advanced Anti-Spam Filter has been 'trained' with 'tens of thousands' of messages to identify spam accurately, and analyses the entire message, including headers, subject line, body text and 200 attachment types. System administrators can then apply their own specific email policy configurations to the Filter, which can be customised for each individual email user within the enterprise by creating custom rules based on its linguistic full text analysis engine. ...more

Afghanistan rebuilds on the Internet

It may not be the primary concern of Afghans living amid the rubble of Kabul, but the Afghanistan government has formally inaugurated the .af country code domain. According to the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, head of the Ministry of Communications for the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan is officially responsible for the domain. ...more

Acer's unveils new Ferrari and own-brand notebooks

Based on surging demand, Acer has launched the second version of its Ferrari-branded notebooks, alongside other mobile products. David White, Acer's notebook manager said demand had outstripped supply three to one in some periods for the company's first laptop featuring the prancing horse badge. And it's amazing how many people are prepared to pay that bit extra to demonstrate their devotion or at least stand out from crowd of silver and black sandwiches. ...more