Web-based services threatened by patent

Not a week goes by these days without one software developer alleging that another has infringed one of its patents and this week is no exception, with Microsoft's .Net strategy now supposedly under threat. Charlie Northrup, CEO of Global Technologies, a software developer from New Jersey, US, owns a patent for diverse computer systems connecting to servers over the Internet to run software on multiple platforms. ...more

Sony BMG appeal EU merger block

Sony and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) have appealed an EU court's decision to block their merger as Sony BMG. In July The European Court of First Instance overturned the European Commission's approval of the merger, granting a motion by the Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association (Impala). This argued that the deal would concentrate power in the music business into a small cartel of industry giants and harm competition. ...more

nVIDIA works up its mobile Quadro

nVIDIA claims twice the performance over predecessor. The Quadro4 700 Go GL graphics chip is aimed at the mobile graphics professional and offers a number of hardware-accelerated features for stability and performance, according to the company. It boasts optimised support for a variety of professional 3D and 2D graphics applications, with dedicated drivers for 3ds max and AutoCAD among others, using nVIDIA's backwards and forwards compatible Unified Driver Architecture. ...more

Be a slave to your handheld

The playful passing of time could be about to stop for PDA users, with the introduction of some new time management software. Kronos has announced that its new iSeries MobileTime products will allow employees to use their Palm PDA to punch into work. The same software will also enable users to keep track of time spent on specific work projects. ...more

Broadband capping gathers apace

Tiscali, Freedom2Surf and Bulldog are the latest ISPs to announce sub-?20 capped 512K ADSL connections. They follow closely in the wake of BT, which announced its service earlier this month. Freedom2Surf has introduced two packages: Freedom2Surf Connect at ?17. ...more