Disabled mother takes on RIAA

A disabled single mother from Oregon has filed a countersuit against the US record industry after it accused her of file sharing and demanded compensation. Forty-two year old Tanya Anderson claims that she has absolutely no interest whatsoever in the gangster rap she was alleged to have downloaded. Her countersuit accuses the Recording Industry Association of America of several crimes including fraud, deceptive business practices and racketeering. ...more

Jobs takes jabs at Longhorn

Steve Jobs took another pop at Microsoft and Longhorn, its long-awaited successor to Windows XP, at Apple's AGM yesterday. 'They are shamelessly copying us,' he said, before adding that, 'They can't even copy fast.' Longhorn is scheduled for release in 2006. ...more

P2P activity doubles in two years

Despite the best efforts of the music industry, peer-to-peer activity has more than doubled over the past two years according to the latest figures from a p2p tracking service. Big Champagne reports that in September the average number of people logged onto p2p networks worldwide was 9,284,558. In September 2003 the figure was 4,319,182. ...more

Handspring sales falling

Handspring has warned US analysts that weak demand for handhelds means that sales are going to fall around 50 percent from the previous quarter. As part of the profits warning, expected revenues for the current three-month period (ending 30 June) were revised to between $60m and $65m, down from $51m in the comparable period last year. According to the CEO Donna Dubinsky, as quoted in the LA Times, the reduced expectations "reflect short-term competitive inventory pressures, significant price reductions throughout the market and softened consumer demand over the past two months". ...more

Google Earth plots out Darfur destruction

Search engine Google and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum have launched an online mapping initiative to provide what the museum said was evidence of atrocities committed in Sudan's western Darfur region. ...more