Bully pushes aside calls for ban

Attempts to block the controversial computer game Bully have failed in a US court. A campaigner against violent video games had sought to ban the release in Florida, deeming it a 'public nuisance', but a US judge has given it the go ahead. Judge Ronald Friedman ruled that the violence in the game - based on surviving school life - did not constitue a nuisance, reports the BBC The campaigner - lawyer Jack Thompson - believes the game should not be sold to young teenagers, and reportedly called it a 'Columbine simulator'. ...more

Vodafone fone services go live

Under the umbrella title of 'Vodafone Live!', Vodafone today launches its portal of mobile services. Dubbed 'a world of pictures, colour, sound', the features include picture messaging (36p both to send and receive), a games arcade (where the download of a game carries a first-time payment ranging from ?1 to ?5, though some are free) and a ringtone centre (1,300 polyphonic ringtones are available, costing ?2.50). ...more

Tape deck puts cassettes in PC

Cassette tapes may be the forgotten media, but a Korean company hopes to change that with its PlusDEck tape drive for PCs. Fitting in a standard drive bay, PlusDeck allows you to play cassettes through your PC and to digitise the content as .av or . ...more

Kiiro camera - small in size and ambition?

Billed as the world's smallest, portable, easy-to-use, non-professional digital still camera, it's certainly all of these, as are most other Webcams. Spec-wise the CJ-100 is of Webcam proportions: it produces stills at a resolution of 350,000 pixels (that's a big chunk off even one megapixel, let alone the 2.1 muscle of today's non-professional consumer digital cameras) and records VGA video at 640 x 480 at 15 frames per sec, with no option to record sound. ...more

Bill says don't open this email

A new Windows worm which appears to come from Bill@Microsoft.com is loose. The virus W32/Sobig-C is a mass mailing worm. ...more