Tiscali to fix PlayStation Network drop-outs

Tiscali has confirmed reports that PlayStation 3 users are being disconnected from the PlayStation Network, Sony's online gaming service for PS3 owners. PS3 users complained that the connection usually works without a hitch until Tiscali's peak period starts, during which the ISP employs 'traffic shaping' to allocate limited bandwidth more equally among all it users. It is not clear, however, whether this is definitely the cause of the PS3 issue, not least because other ISPs employ traffic shaping and have not been subject to the same complaint. ...more

Rash of Bagle variants launched across Internet

In the wake of the Sober virus epidemic, a rash of 12 fresh variants of the Bagle virus have been launched out onto the Internet. On Wednesday afternoon, Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs said it was aware that those running botnets of computers infected with the Bagle virus were updating their systems; namely, by issuing new variants. The botnets are controlled remotely through backdoors implanted into the infected systems and are made available for hire to spammers, extortionists and anyone else that will pay to hire them. ...more

iPod maker defends its working conditions

Foxconn, the Taiwanese iPod maker, has defended the working conditions in its Chinese factories, denying claims made by the Mail on Sunday. Foxconn said that the report was a vicious attack on the company and that there are huge discrepancies between the truth and the newspaper's allegations. The Mail on Sunday claimed that Foxconn employees were working in 'slave' conditions, with one plant near Shenzhen employing 200,000 people, who worked 15 hour days for $50 per month and lived 100 to a room in company dormitories. ...more

Palomino will be Athlon 4, say sources

Rumours are going round the Net that AMD is planning to call its new processor the Athlon 4. According to Ace's Hardware, internal documents within AMD already have the new name Athlon 4 replacing code-name Palomino. If the rumours are true, then this will be an attempt to compete directly against Intel's Pentium 4. ...more

Novell bids to push Linux into mission-critical computing

Novell announced a massive partnership campaign at its annual BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City this week in a bid to push Linux into mission-critical computing. The networking and Linux company is looking to help software houses port to Linux, by offering its global scale to help market and support applications, speed development and certification on its SUSE platform, and integrate identity management components that fit in with its own identity technologies. It announced a strengthening of its relationship with open source middleware company JBoss - builder of the popular application server - in which Novell will donate code and engineering resources and steer a number of products under the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System (JEMS). ...more