Apple announce G4 iBooks

Apple has unnveiled its first ever G4 iMacs, and condemned the six-year-old G3 processor to history. The range has been trimmed from four models to three, with only a single 12in option available. Apple noted last week that the success of the PowerBook 12in have 'cannibalised' iBook sales The three new models are as follows: ? 12in: 800MHz G4, 256K L2 cache, 256MB DDR266 memory, 30GB Ultra ATA hard drive, combo drive (DVD/CD-RW), ATI Mobility Radeon graphics with 32MB of video RAM - ?849. ...more

Hyper-Threading: best thing since sliced thread?

When Intel starts adding the initials 'HT' to its Pentium 4 stickers, you know that Hyper-Threading is going to be a mainstream buzzword in no time. Hyper-Threading has been doing the rounds for a few months already, but was previously an exclusive possession of Xeon servers and workstations. We first saw it in the 2GHz Xeon-based Armari RX860HT (see Reviews, issue 90, p113), but you can now buy it in a mainstream PC from Evesham or Dell. ...more

UK High Court frees BPI to pursue AllofMP3

The British recording industry, in the shape of the BPI, has the Russian downloads site AllofMP3.com in its legal sights. The British trade association has been granted permission by the UK High Court to serve legal proceedings in Russia against the controversial website. ...more

Ofcom puts pressure on BT over pricing for local loop unbundling - UPDATED

Telecoms watchdog Ofcom has published its own proposals for the level of pricing for local loop unbundling. Ofcom is proposing cuts in BT's pricing of up to 76 per cent from the charges at the beginning of the year. The local loop is the wiring between the exchange and a subscriber's premises. ...more

Parallels adds Linux, Solaris and more to the Windows on a Mac mix

Intel Mac users who need to run Windows applications from time-to-time, but do not want to have to bother Boot Camping, can now launch the Microsoft OS, or even Linux, alongside OS X. Microsoft and Connectix before it have long provided this option for Power PC Mac users in the Virtual PC application, with the inevitable impact on performance caused by running an operating system built for an entirely different hardware platform. The introduction of the first Intel Macs at the beginning of this year raised the possibility that Mac users would be able to run a native, high-performance installation of Windows. ...more