Chemist takes Amazon route to research

A UK scientist has applied technology developed by the likes of Amazon to the analysis of chemistry research papers. Henry Rzepa, a reader in organic chemistry at London's Imperial College, has developed the SemanticEye application that searches papers's content to create links between common topics. The software works in a similar way to the tools that Amazon and Apple's iTunes use to generate purchase recommendations based on what you have previously bought. ...more

The job cuts continue

More hi-tech job losses have been announced, this time from the technology giants Ericsson and Nokia. Ericsson is shedding over 2,000 jobs in Sweden, the BBC has reported, and up to 1,200 jobs could go in the UK as the company closes two handset plants. The areas affected are Scunthorpe and Carlton, in Nottinghamshire, and the plants will be closed by September. ...more

UK company bucks Tablet trend

A leading supplier of ICT equipment to UK schools has succeeded where most of the big-name tablet vendors have failed, shipping more than double the industry average of Tablet PCs. RM says that tablets account for over 15 per cent of its notebook sales, compared to an industry average of between five and 10 per cent. The company anticipates that while its notebook sales will grow as they are increasingly preferred to desktop machines by schools, the tablet share of this will increase, because they are ideally suited to the education environment. ...more

Criminals target auto-replies

Office workers are being advised to be careful of what they include in email auto-reply messages, as 'criminals' are using them to find out who's away on holiday. According to the findings of a report by The Corporate IT Forum, Web-wise criminals are buying up email address lists that are easily available on the Internet and then sending bulk emails in the hope of getting 'out of office' replies. They are then cross-matching the information received with phone directories and other such lists to track down the addresses of people whose replies reveal when they are on holiday. ...more

Skype quick to fix buffer overflow flaw in VoIP application

Skype has moved quickly to fix a 'highky critical flaw' in its eponymous and phenomenally popular Internet telephony (VoIP) and instant messaging software. The 'callto:' URI handler buffer overflow vulnerability in versions 1.0. ...more