Poland continues fight over EU patent directive

Poland has issued a call to arms against the steady progress of the EU directive on computer-implemented inventions. Despite the European Commission turning down requests from both the European Parliament and JURI, the EU Committee on Legal Affairs Commission, Poland is still pressing for change. However, they will be leading from the back. ...more

Hackers already aiming for Vista

Hackers are already working on viruses for Microsoft's upcoming Vista platform. According to Finnish security experts F-Secure, an Austrian virus writer known as 'Second Part to Hell' - from the 'Ready Rangers Liberation Front' group - has published his efforts on writing virus code for Vista's MSH (Microsoft Shell) command line interface, including five viruses. F-Secure's Director of Anti-Virus Research Mikko H. ...more

Audigy 2 breaks out

Creative's latest addition to its Audigy 2 stable offers a breakout box with all the connection options of a pro studio. The breakout box has three analogue stereo jacks, an optical and coaxial digital I/O and a full-sized MIDI I/O, and also two FireWire ports. This reduces the number of ports on the card itself, and by keeping them remote from the PC, reduces unwanted electrical and magnetic noise when recording. ...more

Annual Imagine Cup gets underway

Entries are being invited for this year's software design and development competition, the Imagine Cup, which carries a ?50,000 prize fund. Now in its third year, the Microsoft-sponsored programming competition has now gained backing from BT, Capgemini and the venture capitalists 3i. It is a worldwide competition - with the grand final due to be held in Yokohoma, Japan in July - but first a UK entrant has to be selected. ...more

The PC Pro weekly news roundup

Two companies dominate the news this week: Microsoft and AMD. At the start of the week, Microsoft renewed its attack on open-source software. For the first time, the software giant put a precise figure on the alleged patent infringements - 235. ...more