Sexy Geek winner announced

So there I was gambling all my month's pay on raunchy Angie Nash clinching the Sexiest Geek Alive title only to have my hopes ripped up in front of my face. The final pageant was held at the San Jose Convention Centre on Wednesday night, where a host of people saw Ellen Spertus, a 32 year old computer science professor from California, become the second ever Sexiest Geek. I guess Ellen deserved it, after all she's got an electric car, a corset in the shape of a circuit board and developed some software that can identify obscene e-mails. ...more

Universal Music downloads $52mn from online sales

Universal Music has revealed that it made $52mn from downloads sales in the first quarter of 2005. The world's biggest record label, with 25 per cent of the global market, saw downloads contribute four per cent of its total revenue. Jean-Bernard L?vy, the new CEO of Universal's owner, Vivendi, anticipates this rising to 20 per cent 'in a few years'. ...more

Prices of 19-inch LCD monitor panels to drop more than $20

Prices of 19-inch LCD monitor panels are expected to drop by more than $20 next month, according to Taiwan-based LCD monitor maker Amtran Technology. Currently, 19-inch LCD monitor panels range in price from $340 to $370. Global LCD monitor demand has been slow since May, causing Samsung Electronics to dump its products in Europe and North America, Amtran said. ...more

Netscape goes Digg

Netscape, one of the most venerable names on the Internet, is about to be reborn as a user-driven news site along the lines of the popular Digg. Parent AOL hopes that the new service with its brand recognition will help establish the company in the flavour-of-the-month social networking sector. As with Digg, visitors are able to comment and vote on particular stories that will rise up the page according to the level of interest. ...more

Microsoft settlement closer

It seems increasingly likely that Microsoft and the US Department of Justice are close to reaching a settlement to the three-year long anti-trust case. The states, however, are not on board. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had ruled that both parties had until today to reach a settlement before one would be imposed by the court. ...more