New report finds fresh hurdles for 3G

A new report from The Work Foundation has revealed that 3G providers may face an uphill task persuading customers to shell out for expensive data services. The Work Foundation's iSociety Project, set up to offer independent insights into the way information and communications technologies affect everyday life in the UK, has published a report on mobile usage that suggests the UK populace is far from ready to splash out on expensive handsets and multimedia services. The MobileUK: Mobile Phones and Everyday Life report argues that 'the fast take-up of second-generation mobile telephones creates what is likely to be an unrepeatable precedent for future mobile services. ...more

Dreamcast doubles sales in US

Sega witnessed a surprising upturn in sales after slashing $50 from the price of its ailing Dreamcast console. Market researcher PC Data said that the sales of the Dreamcast had risen 156 per cent between 27 August and 30 September, with an average of 30,294 units being sold each week, after the company had cut the price of the console from $199 to $149 on 30 August. This jump in sales comes on the eve of the launch of Sony's new PlayStation 2, which arrives in the US on 26 October. ...more

IBM strains silicon on PowerPC's behalf

IBM has developed a new manufacturing process that will enable its latest PowerPC processors to perform at higher speeds and with lower power consumption than before. The company said that the 'industry-first' combination of silicon-on-insulator (SOI), strained silicon and copper wiring technologies should lead to even greater gains in processor efficiency once it has ramped up production of PowerPC 970FX chips using the process. The integration of strained silicon and SOI accelerates the flow of electrons through transistors to increase performance and provide an insulating layer in the silicon that isolates transistors to decrease power consumption. ...more

Sun spotlights Project Orion

Sun Microsystems has completed its annual Worldwide Analyst Conference in San Francisco. The major announcement from the two-day event involves 'Project Orion'. Dubbed 'a radical new approach to software design, development, and delivery', Project Orion is the codename for a change in Sun's release of software. ...more

Blueyonder afflicted by service outage

Most of Telewest's Blueyonder Internet services were unavailable for some time yesterday and continue to be affected after a 'network fault' blocked access to the company's servers. Blueyonder services including Selfcare, webmail and email were affected, though the company said that since then access has 'greatly improved' but could still be 'slow and intermittent'. Telewest added that the fault causing this would also be affecting other ISPs. ...more