Concept futures

More sickly sweet than Spielberg, NTT DoCoMo's vision of the future, chocabloc with prototype products comes courtesy of a 13-minute film on its Web site. Having launched its 3G FOMA service, the company must be hoping to 'educate people' to put down the voice call and pick up the data service - it starts with FOMA videophones and leads on to holographic images and happy families.. ...more

Apple clocks new milestone for music downloads

Apple claims it has clocked up 300 million downloads via its iTunes music store. Unveiled nearly two years ago, Apple's iTunes store set the standard, creating a much needed success story at a time when online services using a subscription model were struggling for users. Instead Apple chose a per track model, created an incredibly easy to use application, and coupled it to a killer device: the iPod. ...more

W3C moves on plug-in patent dispute

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which looks after Web standards is looking into the implications of the court ruling involving Microsoft and Eolas - Microsoft loses $500 million plus patent battle. The Web standards body has held an Ad Hoc Meeting on the patent dispute and has opened a general discussion email forum. You can find the W3C mailing list here. ...more

Security researchers demo RFID chips cloning

Security researchers at German firm DN-Systems chose the final day of the Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas to demonstrated how RFID chips can be cloned. Founder Lukas Grunwald showed attendees how a relatively simple process can clone chips produced to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standard. According to Wired. ...more

Sun wins NHS desktop deal

A deal for 5,000 Java Desktop System from Sun Microsystems is expected to be announced by the NHS later this week. The NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) has already signed a deal with Sun for infrastructure hardware, software, services and support last month. Charles Andrews, director of Public Sector sales for Sun Microsystems, said: 'Our arrangement will directly support and enable the NHS objectives of achieving business transformation and enhanced patient care through the delivery of patient centric computing which makes the best use of all the medical information in the health care sector, whilst at the same time providing demonstrable best value for the taxpayer. ...more