Christmas shoppers stay indoors and online

Shopping is cheaper and warmer from PC In our recent poll on this site, 86 per cent of users said they would be doing their shopping online. Avoiding the traffic, winter weather, parking difficulties and other Christmas shoppers were all pointed out by our readers as reasons to avoud the high street. Better prices and the warmth and convenience of shopping from your home PC are all reasons most of us will be plugging in to the Internet to shop this Christmas. ...more

Leeds Council scoops IT Excellence Award

Leeds City Council has been named the winner of the Local Government IT Excellence Awards for introducing Digital Pen and Paper Technology to its home care services. An IT project undertaken by the city council, titled Digital Pen and Paper Technology Within The Home Care Environment, used new technology to radicalise the way in which its Social Services Home Care service activity is recorded, stored and reported. Home care assistants are now being trained to use the tool to send information directly to corporate systems from patients' homes through a secure mobile link. ...more

Cinema pirates to face jail under new US law

People who use video cameras to record films in the cinema and then distribute them illegally could face prison under new legislation in the US. In-cinema copying and the leaking of pre-release copies by industry insiders are said to account for 95 per cent of all films available online illegally. Anyone caught recording films could face up to 10 years in gaol. ...more

Napster sees subscriber figures rise 50 per cent

Paid subscribers to Napster rose by 50 per cent in the last quarter of 2004, the online music service announced today. The Windows-only offering now has 270,000 subscribers entitled to stream as much music as they wish. However users must pay extra if they wish to download tracks in order to burn them to CD or copy to a compatible portable device. ...more

Blaster worm set to attack Microsoft's update service

The world is watching this weekend to gauge the full effect of the Blaster worm. Already widespread, the worm is timed to attack Microsoft's Windows update service after midnight tonight. The Blaster worm first appeared Tuesday 12 August 2003 - New worm infects with an eye on Windows Update site. ...more