Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Here's wishing everyone a lovely Christmas, and a happy, healthy and successful 2007! As always, thanks to all those who have helped with the site - whether posting comments or giving us feedback - but special thanks to all our forum moderators! In particular we should mention gullyg and timark, for their endeavours beyond the call of duty. ...more

Report urges BBC Online to stand aside for commercial competition

A report on the BBC Online services says that the corporation's web sites should be reined in. The Graf Report, published today, says that the websites should outsource up to 25 per cent of its content by the end of the 2006/7 financial year. The report also says that the Corporation should err on the side of caution when considering whether to launch an online service against a commercial competitor. ...more

UK games chart: MotoGP '06 races in

This week's ELSPA games chart sees the top two swap position, with Lara still holding on in third place. With a certain sporting contest having kicked off somewhere in Western Europe, EA Sports' FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 (PC, PS2, Xbox and Xb360) returns to number one. Eidos's action-shooter game, Hitman: Blood Money (PC, PS2, X360, Xb), drops back to two. ...more

IWF launches a Wipe It Out campaign

Seventy-four per cent of UK companies would not report to the police an employee who downloaded indecent images of children, according to a survey by the Internet Watch Foundation. Of those, 38 per cent would not even go as far as to discipline or dismiss the employee. The IWF revealed the findings at the launch of its Wipe It Out campaign to stamp out the downloading and distribution of indecent pictures of children in the workplace. ...more

Comment: The bandwidth bandwagon

Super-fast broadband speeds have never been so boring. Contrary to the digital divide that threatened to keep much of Britain in the slow lane five years ago, 99 per cent of the nation can now access the high-speed Internet from home. The only question being, can people in your area download quickly or very quickly? Whereas having broadband access automatically meant 512Kb/sec a few years back, now it's a question of anything up to 8Mb/sec for large areas of the population, with the likes of BT and Wanadoo offering such services at very attractive prices. ...more