Adobe shuts down - for a week

Adobe is forcing 2000 of its employees to take the first week in July off, as it intends to shut down to reduce costs, with sales affected by the slow down in the US economy. Only North American employees will be affected, with the time off coming from their annual 24-day allowance. Adobe claims that many had booked holiday for the week anyway. ...more

The Liberty Alliance Project - a name not a number

Sun Microsystems rallies industry support for an alternative electronic identity scheme. The Liberty Alliance Project is - in Sun's words - an attempt to "develop and deploy an open, federated identity solution". Think of it as the main rival to emerged, so far, to Microsoft's plan to enrol the world in its Passport-based unique-identity scheme. ...more

Google Earth aids archeology

An Italian computer programmer turned amateur archaeologist when he discovered the remains of a roman villa while scanning satellite pictures on Google Earth. Luca Mori was looking at images of the area around his home town of Sorbolo when he noticed 'unusual rectangular shadows' which on further examination he decided were the outlines of a villa's inner courtyard. He contacted archaeologists in nearby Parma, who initially thought it might be bronze age remains until Roman ceramics were discovered at the site. ...more

Apple makes Windows Rendezvous

Apple has released a technology preview of the Windows version of its Rendezvous networking technology. Rendezvous enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks. Also known as zero-configuration networking, using industry-standard IP protocols to allow devices to automatically find each other without the need to enter IP addresses or configure DNS servers. ...more

DRM stops Bafta judges viewing films

DRM continues to backfire on its proponents. Steven Spielberg's latest picture, Munich, may fail to make the Bafta nominations after judges were unable to play the DVD sent to them. The disc has regional encoding, rendering it unplayable in UK DVD players. ...more