Brother revamps multifunction range

Brother has announced that it is revamping its range of inkjet multifunction devices, with nine new models to be introduced over the next few months. The models are designed to appeal to the SOHO market and all feature PhotoCapture Centre software that allows users to print borderless images from photos stored on memory cards. They will also be the first Brother devices to include free translation software that automatically translates scanned documents in to any of 11 languages The first six machines to be released are as follows. ...more

Internet hits copper cropper

Some recent Internet outages in Canada have been blamed on unscrupulous thieves nicking the copper cabling. The Montreal Gazette reports that Internet users in the Toronto, Ottowa and Ontario areas lost their connection when a fibre-optic cable was cut, and the police suspect that thieves committed this act of vandalism hoping to pull the copper cable out of the ground and sell it for scrap. Usually these opportunists steal copper piping and cabling from construction sites, but now they are targeting the Internet. ...more

Alta Vista abandons free Net access

The UK venture never got off the ground, it was eventually revealed, and now Alta Vista has terminated its free US Internet access service. The ending of the service follows the downfall of 1stUp.com - another ISP that collaborated with Alta Vista to provide it with custom (1stUp. ...more

BT polls shareholders for mm02 demerger

BT has published proposals for the demerger of its mobile business and begun mailing details to shareholders for approval. As part of the demerger of the wireless business, two new holding companies will be officially created: mm02 itself (which will be made up of BT Cellnet, Digifone, Telfort Mobiel, Viag Interkom, Manx Telecom and Genie) and BT Group (which will be made up of the separately managed BT Retail, BT Wholesale, BTopenworld and BT Ignite, along with its Concert joint venture). The demerger forms part of BT's restructuring strategy which was first announced back in May. ...more

2Gb limit for new CD format

TDK showed off its MultiLevel (ML) CD recording format at the Consumer Entertainment Show in Las Vegas. The new ML CD format can store up to 2Gb of data on standard CD-R and CD-RW discs, with the drives having a CD-R write speed of 36X. TDK is hoping that a new 3in format ML disc, which can hold 650Mb of data, will grow in popularity and be used in portable devices such as MP3 players and digital cameras, doing away with expensive memory cards. ...more