Ask scrubs up for consumer appeal

The butler Jeeves has already been given his P45, but now the whole Ask website has had an overhaul, as the rival to Google, Yahoo! and MSN battles for search market share. The first thing you notice about Ask.com is the cleaner interface, which is an attempt to become less cluttered and 'more consumer focused', the Ask VP of European Product Management, Tony Macklin, told us. ...more

Report: Beyond the Backlash - Part 2

Yesterday saw a meeting of representatives from industry, NGOs and government bodies to discuss the state of technology, the Internet and society, and how to innovate it in what is something of a hiatus following dot-com collapse and all those broken promises of the Internet's potential. In a series of plenary sessions and workshops, a range of issues came up for hot debate, from the perennial thorn of broadband, to how should the Web be governed and crime dealt with, and how best we can assimilate this new space into our culture. What became clear throughout all the sessions is that technology and the Internet is all things to all people. ...more

Latest MS flaw to sire Son of Blaster worm

Antivirus experts have called on IT managers to patch systems against the latest Windows vulnerability, if they are to avoid another Blaster-style worm ravaging across the Web. 'There is simply no excuse for IT managers at companies running Microsoft Windows not to already know about this serious security issue,' said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus. Microsoft today announced the discovery of a new vulnerability in the RPC service used in Windows NT through to XP. ...more

Dell updates Latitude notebook range with Centrino

Dell has updated its Latitude notebook range. The redesigned portables now incorporate Intel Centrino technology. The full Centrino brand comprises the Pentium M, Intel 855 chipsets and the Intel Pro/Wireless 802. ...more

Survey exposes US digital divide problem

New figures from the US Census Bureau show that the digital divide is still alive and well across the Atlantic. While the figures are the most up to date released so far by the organisation, they are for the period 2003. But they throw up some interesting statistics nonetheless. ...more