321 bust

321 Studios, which has been under sustained legal attack from movie studios, has raised the white flag and gone out of business. The company, which made DVD-X Copy and DVD Copy Plus had been sued by the studios on the grounds that the products assisted piracy. The studios alleged that circumventing the CSS copy protection built into DVDs was an offence under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. ...more

Sophos backs Microsoft security support

Despite Symantec and McAfee bemoaning Microsoft's closed doors to the kernel of the 64-bit version of Vista, other companies aren't finding it such a barrier. The security giants say that the kernel, the core software system, of the 64-bit version of Vista has been closed off with Microsoft's PatchGuard security feature, rendering it impossible to tweak third-party security software to work on the platform. Microsoft has described the comments as 'inaccurate and inflammatory', and has acted to calm concerns, putting into development a new API that will allow security companies the access they need in order to protect the kernel and offer host intrusion detection (HIPS). ...more

Californian Senate limits Google Gmail service

The California Senate has passed a bill limiting Google's freedom of action over what it can do with the personal information contained in emails processed by its nascent Gmail service. The Bill, which was passed 24-8, carried sufficient amendments to allow Gmail to go ahead under the original plan. There were fears that the Bill would curtail Google's proposals so much that the company would have to rethink the whole project. ...more

Broadband is letting technology down, says Gates

Bill Gates said on Wednesday that broadband Internet access was the Achilles heel of the technology revolution. Speaking at Microsoft's CEO summit, attended by top technology leaders, Gates said that broadband wasn't cheap enough to gain acceptance quickly. "There is no hardware limitation that will affect what you want to do, but there is one exception and that is the cost of broadband communication, primarily to the home," said Gates. ...more

Formac announces designer combo

Formac has unveiled the latest additions to its Designer range of drives, a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM - similar to that which has proved overwhelmingly successful in Apple's new iBook - and a high-speed CD-RW. Both drives incorporate Formac's proprietary BURN-Proof technology, which controls the flow of data into the unit to prevent the "buffer under run" errors that can lead to many a CD ending up as a coffee cup coaster. It also enables CDs to be burned in the background. ...more