ISPs feel p2p pressure

Companies that attempt to reduce their own bandwidth costs by using p2p technology could force Internet service providers to introduce pay-as-you-go broadband charging as a matter of course. ADSL Guide notes that firms, including the BBC and BSkyB, have raised the prospect of shifting the burden of content delivery from their own servers to users' computers. Currently most users have unmetered broadband access, so they are unlikely to be concerned about the additional burden that this will place on their bandwidth, but ISPs will face in an increase in traffic and higher costs. ...more

BT kicks off sub-Skype rates for Net calls

BT is stepping up to the Skype challenge when it comes to VoIP-based International calls. The UK telco-giant has now begun a special offer for calls via its Communicator application, which will run until 31 December. International calls to a selected group of countries are now charged at the rate of 0. ...more

Contax launches RTUNE cameras for Christmas

Contax is aiming at the luxury goods market with its Christmas range of digital cameras with stylish curves and 'hand-tanned' leather finishing. Its U4R and i4R products boast Carl Zeiss lenses, 3x optical zoom, and 4megapixel CCDs coupled to Contax' RTUNE processor, which makes processing image data faster and more efficient. So much so, says Contax, that the resulting jpegs are smaller in size while offering better quality images. ...more

Microsoft to overhaul FrontPage with XML

Microsoft has announced the Beta 2 release of Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, which is part of its Office system. Microsoft emphasises the role of XML, in what it says is an overhaul of the product. In particular, it emphasises the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) editor and its role to create interactive systems based on live data. ...more

Vodafone launches 3G into Europe

Today sees the official commercial launch of Vodafone's 3G services in Europe. The service beginning the 3G rollout will be the Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS datacard, which Vodafone claims to be the first high speed lap top datacard of its type. The card itself, however, will not be fully available across Europe for another month 'The announcement of the launch of our 3G services is a major milestone in Vodafone's 3G journey,' said Peter Bamford, Chief Marketing Officer. ...more