HP Garage listed on US Register of Historic Places

HP does love its Garage, the birthplace of the company and indeed of Silicon Valley itself, the company would claim. The US National Park Service now agrees, having just listed it on the country's official National Register of Historic Places. It was here, back in 1938, that the company founders David Hewlett and William Packard launched their company. ...more

RIAA fails in fileshare suit

A US court has dismissed a record industry lawsuit over p2p file sharing, a significant defeat for the industry which has had few setbacks among several thousand attempts to win 'compensation' from alleged file sharers. A federal court in Oklahoma granted the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) permission to withdraw its case against a mother whose only connection to the alleged filesharing was that she was the person who paid for the Internet access. The RIAA decided to withdraw when it was faced with the mother's motion for leave to file a summary judgment motion dismissing the case against her and awarding her attorney's fees. ...more

Magix at odds with BPI over mix-your-own ringtones

Magix is at odds with the British Phonographic Industry over its new ringtone software. At a tad under ?20, Magix ringtone maker allows you to opt out of the ?120mn industry by creating your own ringtones rather than play ?1.50 and risk being scammed by disreputable companies abusing reverse SMS charging and so on. ...more

Boeing cans in-flight wireless network

Boeing has dropped plans to use wireless networking to deliver in-flight entertainment on its new 787 Dreamliner plane because of problems with plane weight and the technology itself. A wireless network would add 200lbs (90kg) per plane, rather than 50lbs (22kg) for a wired network. Also, Boeing could not get permission to use certain wireless frequencies from some countries, spokeswoman Lori Gunter said. ...more

Walkman phone goes 3G

SonyEricsson has launched its first 3G tune-centric Walkman phone in the form of the W900. The W900 features a simple drag and drop system to grab music from a PC and load it on the phone. Its support for UMTS 3G networks also means that over-the-air downloads should be just as nippy. ...more