Broadband reaches 80 per cent of homes

BT Wholesale announced yesterday 80 per cent of UK homes are now connected to an ADSL broadband enabled exchange. Not all of these will be able to get broadband as they will be too far from the exchange. However the confirmation that the extended reach programme will go live on 24 September - increasing the maximum distance over which ADSL can be provided from 5. ...more

Europe acts on music copyright

The European Commission today adopted a recommendation on the management of online rights in musical works. The recommendation puts forward measures for improving the EU-wide licensing of copyright for online services. The changes are necessary with the advent of legal music downloads services such as iTunes. ...more

US Justice Department backs Microsoft against Google

When Google filed a confidential complaint against Microsoft, a leading antitrust official at the US Justice Department intervened, urging state prosecutors to reject it, according to a newspaper report. The intervention took place last month, but has just been revealed by the New York Times. Google accused Microsoft of designing its Vista operating system to discourage use of Google's desktop search program, lawyers involved in the case told the Times. ...more

Media to go at CES

Microsoft unveiled the first fruit of its Portable Media Center project at CES, with devices from the likes of Creative debuting the system. Creative, along with iRiver, Sanyo, Samsung and ViewSonic all had devices for the announcement, which at 40GB can hold up to 100,000 images or 175 hours of video. Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group, said: 'Portable Media Centers, particularly when they are coupled with PC-based Media Centers, download services, personal video recorders and digital still/movie cameras, will change the way people acquire, use and share their multimedia experiences. ...more

US indie cinemas go digital

Microsoft and Landmark Cinemas, a nationwide chain of cinemas in the US, are rolling out the largest digital cinema chain in the country. Dedicated to independent cinema, 177 screens in all 53 of Landmark's cinemas will be taking the digital plunge with systems geared to the Microsoft flavour of digital media: Windows Media Series 9. While digital cinemas are extremely expensive to install, they also represent a huge reduction in the costs of distributing films as this can be done with lightweight and inexpensive DVDs or across a network. ...more