Pentium 4 in the slow lane?

The performance of Intel's forthcoming Pentium 4 processor might not justify its hefty price tag, according to analysts at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF). While the chip manufacturer claims that the Pentium 4 is "the world's highest performance desktop microprocessor," it may be outmatched by its junior sibling, the Pentium III. Some analysts believe that the Pentium 4 could run up to 20 per cent slower than the Pentium III at an equivalent clock speed, and that while Intel insists that clock frequency isn't an accurate indicator of overall performance, the company will be relying on the higher frequencies of the Pentium 4 to lift its benchmark results above those of its predecessor. ...more

Selling books by the page

The book digitisation gold rush took another turn last week when uber-store Amazon announced a new scheme to sell books by the page. The online store, which started out selling books before branching out into various other forms of merchandise, says it has come up with two new propositions for customers. The first scheme is called 'Amazon Pages' in which a potential customer can buy just a chapter or even a page of a book that can be read online. ...more

Wanadoo wants to become Orange

A little over a year since it changed the name of its UK ISP from Freeserve to Wanadoo, France Telecom is to spend another 200mn Euros rebranding it as Orange. The change will bring together the company's Internet offerings and its Orange mobile phone services under a single name. Ultimately consumers will be able to get all their telecoms and Internet services from a single supplier as the various arms of France Telecom converge. ...more

EU pressures music industry to simplify online licensing

The European Union is increasing the pressure on record companies to simplify the licensing of music to online stores. As things stand, store operators such as Apple and Napster have to secure separate licensing deals for each country in which they wish to sell downloads. Naturally this has slowed the introduction of services, with only Apple established beyond the core markets in the UK, France and Germany and some services including Yahoo!'s yet to break out of the US. ...more

MSN Search slips back in market share

MSN Search achieved only a nine per cent share of the US search market in March according to new figures released by Nielsen Netratings. The numbers put MSN Search in a poor third place in a search market dominated by the big two. Between March 2005 and 2006 MSN Search's share dropped from 14 percent to 11 percent year on year. ...more