French iTunes compromise approved

The French parliament has voted to approve new copyright laws without a controversial clause that would have forced Apple to change the way its iTunes Music Store operates. A compromise between the parliament's two houses means that digital music store operators will not be forced to licence their copy protection (DRM) technologies to other companies. Apple will not have to share its FairPlay copy protection software and can maintain the closed link between iTMS downloads and its own iPod portable music players, provided they obtain permission from the labels, artists and songwriters whose music they sell. ...more

HP CEO Carly Fiorina ousted

Hewlett Packard's controversial CEO Carly Fiorina has stepped down from her position as chairman and chief executive officer with immediate effect. In a statement she said, 'While I regret the board and I have differences about how to execute HP's strategy, I respect their decision. HP is a great company and I wish all the people of HP much success in the future'. ...more

The processor behind Scooby Doo gets updated

The deluge of new processors shows no sign of abating as AMD updates its workstation and server offering, the Athlon MP. The Athlon MP (Multi Processor) is AMD's dual-processor offering for heavyweight computing. Indeed, one of the uses of the Athlon MP - by the company Rhythm & Hues - was to drive the rendering of the movie Scooby Doo. ...more

Apple set for bumper Flash harvest with new Samsung deal

Apple is poised to sign a long-term deal with Samsung to secure several millions of dollars' worth of Flashmemory chips, according to Korea's edaily. The deal will secure Apple a lion's share of the supply of the NAND chips that it uses in the iPod nano. Flash memory is reported to be in short supply, not least because Apple is believed to have secured around 40 per cent of Samsung's total output for the second half of 2005. ...more

Mainstream notebook market refuses to take the Tablet PCs

Tablet PCs are failing to make a dent in the mainstream notebook market in Europe according to latest research by market analysts Canalys with traditional notebooks outselling tablets by 100 to 1. Whilst 3.5 million notebooks were shipped in the EMEA region in the 2nd quarter of this year, only 35,000 tablet PCs were shipped. ...more