Government to clamp down on personal data trade

The UK government is proposing to tighten the rules on individuals who share personal data for profit. It has published a consultation which aims to get views from the public and industry on how any new laws should be framed. Trading in personal data is becoming big business. ...more

S3 Graphics pledges support for PCI Express

3D graphics accelerator specialist S3 has announced it will launch a new generation of GPUs based on the upcoming PCI Express in the second half of 2004. The announcement by the company, which is part owned by VIA technologies, follows hard on a similar announcement made by Nvidia. S3 says that the chips will be for both desktop and notebook computers across the whole range of segments from the low to high end of the market. ...more

MP3 format to include DRM, to catch up with AAC and WMA

The company that licenses the MP3 format is to introduce a new version of the popular music compression codec that includes digital rights management. French company Thomson in the guise of www.mp3licensing. ...more

Thousands more sign petition on UK Vista pricing

Nearly 6,000 people have put their names to an online petition to the Prime Minister urging him to put pressure on Microsoft to cut the price of its latest operating system Windows Vista. The petition was submitted by Paul Milne and people have until 20 April to add their names to the petition. He said that there was a 'huge difference in the price that people in the US and the UK are paying for Windows Vista. ...more

Fifa bows to publishing pressure

Fifa has bowed to pressure from news organisations and agreed to allow them to publish an unlimited number of 'live' pictures from this summer's football world cup. Previously the international game's governing body wanted to prevent images from a match appearing on the Internet until two hours after the final whistle and wanted to restrict the number that could be used. But following a meeting between its president, Sepp Blatter, and World Association of Newspapers chief executive Timothy Balding, Fifa agreed to lift the restrictions. ...more