China rejects WAPI rejection

China is to continue to promote its WAPI wireless security protocol as a standard despite its overwhelming rejection by the ISO in favour of 802.11i. Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that sources within the China BWIPS (China Broadband Wireless IP standard Group) say it plans to appeal the decision by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to go with the alternative, better established standard from the US IEEE group. ...more

Optical disc production becomes a profitless business

Global prices of polycarbonate (PC) are at a high of US$3.5 per kilogram and are making production of optical discs almost profitless in spite of a significant increase in orders, Taiwanese makers in the industry pointed out. The Taiwanese makers originally expected the price level of PC to drop this quarter. ...more

Users back Windows SP 2 despite 'massive failings'

Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP 2) appears to have been a largely painless update for XP users, according to the first conclusive survey of the UK IT community. Two months and 106 million installations after its release, 5,000 PC Pro readers have given the update a cautious thumbs up, with 75 per cent of respondents experiencing 'no problems' when installing the software. But Microsoft said it was surprised at the results, and will officially comment in the next issue of PC Pro. ...more

Spam king sees the light

A spam king has settled a court case with Microsoft and the State of Texas and has agreed never to distribute spam emails again. In fact, he has started up his own anti-spam business. Ryan Pitylak, who admitted sending 25 million emails every day during his operations in 2004, has agreed to a fine of around $1 million and has apparently been forced to put up his house and luxury BMW up for sale to pay his legal costs. ...more

In-Stat projects IC market to jump in 2004

Revenues for the worldwide IC market will jump 29 per cent to $214.7 billion in 2004, nearing the record-high of 2000, but changes in market fundamentals suggest that the market has not returned to the good old days, said research firm In-Stat/MDR. 'The strength of the current recovery should not be interpreted as a return to the good old days,' says Mark Kirstein, company general manager. ...more