Gucci dresses the iPod

The iPod is definitely a mainstream object of desire when the likes of Gucci begin modelling leather cases for the aristocrat of MP3 players. Part of Gucci's spring/summer collection, the beige and ebony leather case, with strap, is priced at $195. The item is already selling well in the US, reports the New York Times. ...more

Blinkx to power Microsoft's Live.com and MSN portal

The video search engine Blinkx is slated to announce it has signed up Microsoft to become the engine powering video services on the software giant's Live.com and MSN portal. With YouTube having made online video the current darling of the Internet, nimble Net video startups are under close scrutiny from more lumbering tech giants. ...more

Google sets Da Vinci code puzzle

The puzzles have been developed to tie in with the forthcoming film of the preposterous book due this summer and starring Tom Hanks. The puzzles have been developed by Wei-Hwa Huang, a Google software engineer and apparently four-time world puzzle champion who clearly has too much time on his hands. He and a bunch of other Googlers have come up with a total of 12,358 original puzzles. ...more

Legal music downloads triple in popularity

Legal music downloads tripled in the first half of 2005, while the level of unauthorised file sharing remains flat, despite extensive efforts to suppress it. The latest figures from the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) show that 180 million downloads were sold in the first six months of this year, more than three times the 57 million figure for the first half of 2004. The total number of downloads, so far, for 2005 is already in excess of the total for the whole of last year, 157 million. ...more

Linux to push on into mission-critical computing

Having acquitted itself well at the network perimeter, enterprises are now ready to let Linux in on its crown jewels: mission-critical computing, claims report. Almost half of the world's large businesses will favour Linux for their mission-critical applications by the end of 2011, according to research. But most companies won't realise their appetite for open source until at least next year, with just 18 per cent of businesses relying on Linux for such workloads by the end of 2007. ...more