HP launches ?299 Athlon XP business PC

HP has launched its first Athlon XP-based business PC in Europe for piffling ?299. The price of the HP Business Desktop dx6050 may be ex VAT, delivery and monitor, but you do get a 2800+ Athlon XP, integrated GeForce 4 MX graphics, dual-monitor support, PC2700 (DDR333) memory, integrated 3Com NIC, and six USB 2.0 ports in the starting line up. ...more

Canon announces new PowerShot camera

Canon has announced a new addition to its digital camera line-up, the four megapixel PowerShot A80. The camera sports a 3x optical zoom lens with a fast f/2.8 aperture, a vari-angle LCD monitor and nine-point AiAF - Artificial intelligence Automatic Focus. ...more

Formac announces designer combo

Formac has unveiled the latest additions to its Designer range of drives, a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM - similar to that which has proved overwhelmingly successful in Apple's new iBook - and a high-speed CD-RW. Both drives incorporate Formac's proprietary BURN-Proof technology, which controls the flow of data into the unit to prevent the "buffer under run" errors that can lead to many a CD ending up as a coffee cup coaster. It also enables CDs to be burned in the background. ...more

AOL targets AIM add-on

An Open Source project to support instant messaging is the target of a legal attack from AOL. phpAIM is a php-based interface to AOL's Instant Messaging service. It's a project hosted by SourceForge. ...more

FireWire - it's official

FireWire has been accepted as an official brand identity for the IEEE 1394 standard, following an agreement between Apple and the 1394 Trade Association. FireWire, which provides high-speed connections between computers and peripheral devices such as cameras and external disk drives, was developed by Apple and then formalised as an international standard by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IEEE gave it the cumbersome 1394 tag, but largely because the technology was first employed by and most heavily promoted by Apple, the name FireWire has become the de facto identity. ...more