iGoogle for personalised homepage

Google has taken a leaf out of Apple's marketing handbook and renamed its Personalised Homepage service as iGoogle. The new moniker had been the company's internal handle for the service, which lets you create a custom Web page comprising search, a calendar, email, news, weather and more. The name 'connotes interactivity, the Internet, and personalisation all at once', according to Sophia Brueckner, an iGoogle software engineer. ...more

Pipex buys Freedom2Surf

Pipex has acquired fellow ISP Freedom2Surf in a deal worth ?10mn. The combination of both companies' user bases will make Pipex the fifth largest provider in the UK. It has recently begun unbundling 60 exchanges, with 40 more to come, and the acquisition of F2S should help ensure that is has enough customers to make the LLU investment worthwhile. ...more

Latest Netsky points to new author using source code

Netsky-L could be the first evidence we have that the author has posted the code for the worm on the Web. Contained within NetSky-K was text indicating that this was to be the author's last and that the source code would be made available to all. It read: 'We want to destroy malware writers business, including MyDoom and Bagle. ...more

Intel promotes multicore Pentiums for the home

While the Xbox has been getting all the gamers' attention at the start of the US holiday season, Intel would like to remind us of Microsoft's other gaming platform. Over the coming weeks it will be promoting dual-core Pentium-based PCs as the ultimate machine for serious gamers, along with a range of new titles optimised for multicore. Dual core is particularly suited for modern gaming applications. ...more

Ofcom sets Christmas launch date

Ofcom, the joint regulation body - which replaces the Independent Television Commission (ITC), the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC), Oftel, the Radiocommunications Agency and the Radio Authority - says it will be open for business by the end of the year. With the Communications Bill expected to pass into law this summer, and everyone who is joining Ofcom to be in situ at Ofcom's Riverside House headquarters by mid December, the new body will be flexing its regulatory muscle by then. CEO Stephen Carter described Ofcom as a 'new, leaner, effective and important organisation,' and we are told that there may be redundancies in achieving this. ...more