Vodafone haunted by ghost customers

The advent of pre-pay phone packages may have been a boon for buyers who want a cheap way to get a mobile phone, but it is causing headaches for the mobile phone companies. Vodafone are one of the companies facing such woes. The company has admitted that around 1 million registered customers may have not used their phone in the past three months, this figure represents 12 per cent of its 12-million customer base. ...more

Novell plugs Microsoft XML format into OpenOffice

One of the first fruits borne out of the collaboration deal between Novell and Microsoft is support for the Office Open XML file format in Novell's version of OpenOffice By supporting Microsoft's proprietary format, which was introduced with Office 2007, Novell hopes to increase interoperability between Open XML and OpenDocument, the open source file format adopted by OpenOffice. The two companies will also co-operate on the creation of bi-directional open-source translators between the two formats. The word processing translator to be available by the end of January 2007; additional translators for spreadsheets and presentations will be available later in the year. ...more

AllofMP3 media frenzy sparks traffic surge

Amid mounting legal attacks, it seems the controversial Russian music downloads site AllofMP3.com is enjoying its time in the spotlight, benefiting from a boom in traffic. Both total pageviews and unique user levels have skyrocketed this month, reports Digital Music News, citing the traffic tracker Alexa. ...more

Antivirus revenues continue to climb

According to research group Gartner, antivirus revenues are continuing to climb, despite consolidation of the market and the entrance of Microsoft. Year on year, the revenues from the market have grown some 13 per cent to more than $4 billion. However, Gartner says it has changed the way it tots up the figures: whereas previously it collected data on new sales, it is now accounting for subscription renewals and managed services, which will naturally lift the figures. ...more

OpenType format in running for MPEG-4 video specification

OpenType format is being considered by the International Standards Organization (ISO) as the basis for a new open font format for handling type within the MPEG-4 video specification. MPEG approved the standardisation of OpenType at the end of July and once the ISO gives the go-ahead in September work can begin on establishing an Open Font Format standard Developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft, OpenType is a cross-platform format, which provides multilingual support and advanced typographic control. It is fully supported within both Mac OS X and Windows. ...more