Apple to hold 16 October 'special event'

iTunes for Windows could be unveiled at 'special event' Apple is staging next Thursday, 16 October. MacCentral reports that the invitation to the event reads, 'The year's biggest music story is about to get even bigger,' accompanied by an image in the syle of the new iPod ads. The event seems certain to be the occasion for the unveiling of the Windows version of iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, which Apple has said would be up and running before the end of the year. ...more

Halifax Online fails again

Halifax has been forced to postpone its online banking service for a third time after its Intelligent Finance (IF) banking arm suffered another troubled start. The postponement was made after doubts arose over the stability of the computer systems. The telephone banking side finally got underway without any problems. ...more

Let me just say, if I may, please don't interrupt...

Political skulduggery has already started out in cyberspace with a number of URLs not serving up the party line you may expect. Braving a descent into the cyber world of electioneering (it is Friday afternoon, after all), we can report that the political parties have not covered all-corners, as far as domain names go. "New Labour", for example, surely that bit of cyber real-estate has been taken by the boys in Millbank Tower? Apparently not. ...more

Deepnet Explorer browser alerts for phishing scams

A new UK browser, which has gone into public beta, detects phishing scams and alerts users should they stumble across one. Version 1.3 of the Deepnet Explorer browser checks blacklists and analyses whether URLs and sites are up to date with security features such as certificates and so on. ...more

Vista on Intel Macs not on the horizon

The retiring head of Microsoft's Windows team has confirmed, to no great surprise, that there will not be a version of Vista built to run on Apple's Intel Macs. 'We have no plans to move Vista to the Macintosh hardware,' Jim Allchin told the Seattle Times. At least not while Microsoft's Mac Business Unit continues to sell Virtual PC software that enables Macs to run the Windows OS alongside their own. ...more