Office of Fair Trading issues guidelines for online trading

The Office of Fair Trading has issued a set of draft regulations which cover 'distance selling' in the run up to the Christmas period. Distance selling includes, such things as mail order, phone, fax or the Internet. Most of the guidelines are fairly straightforward and boil down to making the customer aware of what they are buying, the price and what the terms and conditions are. ...more

Dark days for Ericsson

Ericsson revealed gloomy first quarter figures today, with a continued weak market in Europe and Japan and operators deserting TDMA for GSM networks putting orders for mobile systems down 40 per cent. There was even less to smile about with the announcement of a pre-tax loss of 5.4bn Swedish Kronor (?363m) and job cuts to the tune of 10,000. ...more

Computer Associates gives Palm virus jab

Stories of Palm-based handhelds being infected by viruses have prompted Computer Associates to develop a new anti-virus application for the platform. The InoculateIT for the Palm OS is available from the Computer Associates Web site as a free download (for a limited time anyway). It should work on any Palm device running version 3. ...more

Web site aims to prevent car crashes

Here's a seasonal one, given the tradional concern for traffic safety over the Christmas holidays. A US Web site has been set up to prevent teenagers from having road accidents. The Tell-My-Mom site encourages drivers to keep an eye on wayward teens and to report their bad habits to the Web site. ...more

New rural broadband trial

BT is to trial a new rural broadband initiative that could enable exchanges serving as few as 16 users. The trials will employ new broadband ADSL equipment to link users to BT's Internet networks, equipment which can be deployed in much smaller units than at present. The six-month trials will be carried out in conjunction with various 'sponsors - regional development agencies, local authorities and IT consultancies, who will contribute ?7000 towards the project. ...more