Microsoft Office rival is updated

A beta version of Sun's StarOffice is available for download from the Sun Web site. The software is a "full-featured, low-cost" office productivity suite and although it is from Sun Microsystems it does run on Windows systems (including XP) as well as Linux and Solaris. The main thrust of this version is its use of XML as the default file format for editing and saving files, which enables non platform-specific document handling. ...more

PC World scraps the floppy disk

Floppy disks, the once iconic devices, will no longer be stocked by major retailer PC World once current supplies run out. 'The sound of a computer's floppy disk drive will be as closely associated with 20th century computing as the sound of a computer dialling in to the Internet,' said Bryan Magrath, commercial director of PC World. Introduced in 1971 by IBM, the first floppy - an eight-inch plastic disk - was invented by Alan Shugart and held just 100KB of data. ...more

Google buys AOL stake

Google and AOL have finally shaken hands on the deal which means that the search engine will buy a 5 per cent stake in the company for $1 billion in cash. An update to the original agreement reads 'On March 24, 2006, the parties signed definitive agreements governing this $1 billion investment in AOL and Google expects that the investment will close in the second quarter of 2006'. Under the deal struck between Google and Time Warner last December, the search engine would buy the 5 per cent stake in what is still the world's biggest ISP, as well as giving AOL the right to sell its own keywords through the lucrative Google AdWords system. ...more

Security threat from open software

Open source software used in Unix and Linux systems is now the main source of security vulnerabilities, according to a new report. Microsoft products are no longer subject to the greatest number of security advisories published by CERT, the Computer Emergency Response Team. In the first 10 months of 2002 16 of the 29 vulnerabilities reported by CERT were related to Unix-based software. ...more

Ntl hits targets and reveals broadband future

Ntl is on track to meet its financial targets, has confirmed it hopes to roll out broadband to 100,000 users and is looking into a 1Mb/sec residential service. The telephony company said today that it expects to meet its goal of ?385m in earnings for 2001. Revenues for October to December were ?65m with a year total of ?229m. ...more