BT gets go-ahead for PlusNet acquisition

BT has announced that it has been given the go-ahead by the Office of Fair Trading for the acquisition of PlusNet. Final approval is now in the hands of PlusNet shareholders. The UK's largest telecoms company has told PlusNet, one of the country's largest Internet service providers, that it plans to retain the PlusNet brand: subscribers will not, at least in name, become BT customers. ...more

Fatso messenger worm badmouths Bropia

Variously dubbed Fatso.A or Sumom.a, there is a new worm spreading via instant messaging and peer-to-peer systems. ...more

Commons Committee warns of risks to E-government

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has warned the Government that its plans to provide all its services online by 31 December 2005 is at risk. The danger is that the public will not use the services unless they 'see real benefits in doing so'. The Committee says in its latest report that the government has committed some ?10 billion on 100 major IT projects for providing services as diverse as applying for a fishing licence to filling in tax returns. ...more

W3C releases Amaya version 4.3

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) updates its testing tool, Amaya. It's a browser and authoring tool that helps check conformance with Web Standards. The Open Source project is also designed to help demonstrate new areas of Web protocols. ...more

New Vaio gets Transmeta

Sony has some new editions to the Vaio stable, one of which has at its heart the new low-power, low-heat Tranmeta chip. Unveiled yesterday, the Vaio QR (PCG-QR1/BP) boasts a similar spec to its predecessors, retailing at ?1,850, but has come in for a complete makeover and now sports a blue-black translucent plastic case that is so dark it appears opaque. More exciting is the Vaio GT (PCG-GT1), which, at first glance, could be mistaken for a camcorder. ...more