European Court strikes down passenger information deal

Airlines may find themselves caught in a data sharing dispute that has blown up between the US and EU authorities. The European Court of Justice has ruled that an agreement between the EU and the US to hand over personal data of airline passengers en route to the US is illegal. The deal is part of the global war on terrorism and was demanded by the United States as part of a general tightening of security following the aircraft attacks in the US on September 11th 2001. ...more

Intel opens up its first programmable microprocessor

A bit of computing history. It was 35 years ago that Intel released its first programmable microprocessor, the Intel 4004, and helped begin the miniaturisation of computing, which lead directly to today's ubiquitous personal computer. Measuring 1/8th by 1/6th of an inch, the chip, produced in November 1971, delivered the same computing power as the ENIAC electronic computer of 1946, which filled an entire room with its 18,000 vacuum tubes. ...more

MEPs reject CMBA copyright requests

The European Parliament appears to have rejected calls to include copyright infringement among the activities that may be investigated under the forthcoming EU data retention laws. MEPs decided to dismiss a request by the Creative Media and Business Alliance (CMBA), a collection of record and movie companies and trade bodies. The organisation was asking them to modify the proposed laws so that stored data could be used to investigate any offence, not just the 32 crimes that the EU classifies as 'serious': terrorism, murder, drug trafficking and human trafficking. ...more

Microsoft and Vodafone drive a PC-to-mobile messaging service

Vodafone and MSN are to pool their customers to drive a new PC-to-mobile instant messaging service. With more than 300m customers between them, the new service will give mobile users all the presence, logging and immediacy of a PC-based counterpart. Users can also invite others that don't currently use the service to join, and the companies hope that their combined communities will 'create a penetration pull effect'. ...more

Microsoft goes public with Longhorn server beta

Microsoft has unveiled the first publicly available test version of the next edition of Windows Server, code-named Longhorn. It says Longhorn has been designed to build on Windows Server 2003 R2 by addressing the automation of daily management tasks, tightening security, improving efficiency and increasing availability. According to Microsoft internal research, approximately 70 per cent of an IT budget is devoted to daily management tasks, indicating a high demand for services such as help desk, infrastructure health monitoring, and systems and update management. ...more