Italy gets heavy over mob auctions

The Italian government has raided the offices of the companies to which it auctioned 3G licences, looking for evidence of collusion. If Italy thought it was in for a similar windfall experienced by the UK during its of 3G licence auction, it had another thing coming. Expecting to raise at least ?15bn for the government, the auctions ended after only two days when Blu pulled out after disagreements over funding with its consortium member BT. ...more

Bringing Web 3D into the mainstream

Macromedia Director 8.5 will include 3D authoring and playback capabilities - targeted squarely at general, real-world applications - which have been jointly developed by Macromedia and Intel. The fruits of this combo with Intel's Internet 3D Graphics software will be seen in the Macromedia Director 8. ...more

Apple and Napster withdraw p2p adverts

Apple and Napster have withdrawn adverts running on p2p file sharing websites following criticism from the UK record industry. Steve Redmond, director of communications for the BPI, described the adverts as a 'sick joke'. 'We deplore the unauthorised distribution of music on internet sites which prosper by selling advertising on the back of copyright theft,' he told The Guardian. ...more

Dell floats its lightest notebook

Dell has unveiled its smallest, lightest notebook. The 12.1in Latitude X1 weighs a mere 1. ...more

GoogleTalk IM service launches

As widely rumoured this week, Google has launched a beta version of its first 'communications' product GoogleTalk, a combined instant messaging and VoIP service. GoogleTalk is a free service for Windows based machines. It does not currently carry any advertising although this might change in the future. ...more