Government backing for women in IT

The Government is to give financial backing to an initiative to attract more women into IT. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, has announced ?1m of backing for the new female-friendly fund. Available for high-tech companies to draw on, it is intended to help smooth the path of women returning to work after having a family. ...more

AMD tops out low-power mobile 64-bit chip range

AMD has upped the ante for its low-power Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processor range, aimed at the small and thin ultra-portable notebook market. The new 3000+ model clocks 2.0 GHz and comes with 512KB of level 2 cache. ...more

UK music industry counts cost of counterfeiting

The UK music industry has estimated that it lost ?165 million last year as a consequence of CD counterfeiting. The BPI, the industry's main umbrella group, said that about 37 million copied CDs were sold across the UK last year and that according to a survey of 2,000 people, 45 per cent would have brought the original disc had the counterfeit CD not been available. 'Already the UK has a world-beating recording industry, but it will struggle to remain that way with its piracy problems worsening year on year,' said BPI chairman Peter Jamieson. ...more

NTL and Microsoft join on broadcasts to mobile devices

NTL and Microsoft are trialling digital audio and video broadcasting in the Cambridge area. The trial provides a mix of streamed audio and video material for mobile devices. The aim is to research how well existing technologies, such as terrestrial based DVB and DAB transmitters together with Microsoft's Windows Media 9 and DRM, succeed in sending video, audio and text content to mobile devices either directly or through syncing via a PC. ...more

Get your washing online

Italian washing-machine manufacturer Merloni, makers of Indesit and Ariston products, is to launch a range of Internet-savvy appliances that could appear on the shop floors of Curry's and Comet soon. Users will pay an initial deposit to take a WRAP (Web-Ready Appliance Protocol) machine home, and then a further charge (expected to be about 60p) for each wash. The machine plugs into a phone socket and dials Merloni's nearest Digital Assistance Centre to diagnose any potential problems and servicing requirements as well as monitor energy consumption. ...more