Speech-recognition giant files for bankruptcy

The troubled speech-recognition software company Lernout & Hauspie has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware yesterday. Having bought out most of its rivals, it is now struggling with a burden of debt and accusations of malpractice. Lernout & Hauspie Holdings USA - which was recently formed to purchase Dragon Systems - and its acquired Dictaphone division, have also filed for protection. ...more

Iomega boosts REV drives to 70GB

Iomega has doubled the capacity of its REV removable hard drive backup system Available in external USB 2.0 and internal ATAPI models, the new 70GB version has been designed to increase capacity for server backup applications. It is backward read- and write-compatible with 35GB discs. ...more

Sober deadline passes quietly

The security industry breathed a collective sigh of relief over the weekend as the date which was to trigger computers infected with the Sober virus to download more malicious code apparently passed without incident. Finnish security company F-Secure said that the online resources the machines were poised to tap had not been primed with any malicious code so that when the infected PCs logged on, there was nothing there to download. Furthermore, the company says that the worm was also programmed to stop spreading on 6 January and, as a result, the virus that had been by far the most prolific over the past two months has simply dropped off the radar. ...more

SuSE unveils 64bit SuSE Linux 9.0 for home users

SuSE has unveiled the 9.0 version of its Linux operating system, complete with 64bit architecture to take advantage of AMD's Athlon 64 chip. Launched on 24 October, SuSE Linux 9. ...more

Lloyds' euro rollout starts in Spain

Lloyds TSB has launched its online bank, evolvebank.com, in Spain today, ahead of its UK launch. Lloyds has watched from the sidelines the troubles that have hit other online banking ventures and so has proceeded with a cautious rollout - the service has been available to a controlled sample of 100 Spaniards in the last couple of months. ...more