Universal signs up Lloyd Webber ringtones

Universal Music has acquired exclusive worldwide digital and mobile rights to the entire catalogue of Andrew Lloyd Webber songs from popular musicals including Evita, The Phantom of the Opera and Jesus Christ Superstar. From this week, songs from the new London production of Evita will be made available online with the remainder of the Lloyd Webber catalogue available to download from 22 August. Many of the songs will also be released as realtones for mobile phones over the next few months. ...more

SEC filings reveal Microsoft and Novell payments for Linux deal

Documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveal how Microsoft will buy support licences for Novell's SUSE Linux for subsequent distribution. The deal, announced last week, sees Microsoft stumping up 'an upfront payment to Novell of $240 million for SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) subscription "certificates," which Microsoft may use, resell or otherwise distribute over the term of the agreement, allowing the certificate holder to redeem single or multi-year subscriptions for SLES support from Novell', according to the SEC filing - the closest Microsoft has ever come to selling Linux. Microsoft will also commit to marketing 'Linux and Windows virtualization scenarios' to the tune of $12m and will spend a further $34m putting together a sales team to sell the combined Linux and Microsoft products. ...more

Firefox 1.5 gets a release candidate

Mozilla has announced the availability of the first beta release candidate version of Firefox 1.5. Mozilla emphasises that this is not a full beta and requests that reviewers and bloggers do not 'jump the gun' and say that it is. ...more

Dell sells AMD processors

After 20 years of being an Intel only seller of computers, a change has finally appeared in the product line of the world's biggest PC manufacturer. Hidden away on the Dell USA site are AMD processors. The Dell US site is offering a total of six Athlon 64 processors for sale ranging from the single core 2. ...more

Digital divide alive and well in UK

Home Internet access is rising slowly in the UK, but the old divides between rich and poor remain. According to a survey issued by National Statistics, 32 per cent of households can now access the Internet from home, an increase of ten per cent from December last year. Around 45 per cent of adults have had access to the Internet at some point, with 80 per cent of these having access in the last month. ...more