Price Check: Graphics cards

Both Nvidia and ATI have announced they will slash prices off their cards to clear the way for a new generation of graphics products. So now may just be the time to get more graphics growl for less money. For those for whom money is an object, and perhaps need to make an old PC a bit more useful than a dust collection point, for around ?25 you can get either the Mediamax ATI Radeon 7000 32MB DDR/AGP/TV-OUT (?24. ...more

Firefox 1.5 released

A new version of the open-source browser Firefox is now available for download, just over a year since the first release arrived. Based on the new Gecko 1.8 rendering engine, version 1. ...more

UK Net connectivity levels out, but broadband climbs

Uptake of broadband continues to increase as pricing falls, according to the office of National Statistics. Tracking data from ISPs on a monthly-basis, the official statistics show an increase in UK Internet connectivity of 17.3 per cent year on year (from June 2001). ...more

Apple, Dell, HP and Lenovo to talk lithium-ion battery standards

Four of the leading laptop makers are to meet to discuss the formation of manufacturing standards for lithium-ion batteries. Apple, Dell, HP and Lenovo hope to have agreed a standard by July 2007 that will prevent the kind of problems that recently led to Dell having to recall more than four million Sony-made batteries. Apple has also had to replace batteries in the past, having recalled 128,000 in 2005. ...more

UPDATED: HP unveils its first HD DVD drive

HP has entered the high-definition optical disc foray, on the side of HD DVD. The external drive, the hd100, can read HD DVD-ROM, DVDR/RW and R double-layer discs. It can also read CDR/RW and CD-ROM discs. ...more