Almost half home computer users fall victim to viruses

New figures from Microsoft reveal that 44 per cent of computer users have suffered a virus attack in the past year. In a survey of 1,500 computer users, 70 per cent considered their machines 'fairly' or 'totally' secure, while only 3 per cent acknowledged the security level of their computers was poor. Yet despite this overblown confidence, 44 per cent had fallen victim to viruses in the past year. ...more

Browser wars are back on, claims Firefox chief

The browser wars are back on in Europe where Mozilla's Firefox now claims 23 percent market share, two years after its word-of-mouth launch, new research reveals. And now the open-source Web browser is aiming for 35 per cent market share by the end of 2007. 'In July of 2003, Microsoft gave AOL a $750 million cheque to kill off the browser wars, and let all of us developers go,' said Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe. ...more

Novell acquires Ximian

Novell has acquired Ximian, the Boston-based company that is a force in the Open Source world. The move is intended to drive Novell's growth into the Linux arena and the company believes it is buying 'best-of-breed Linux desktop, groupware and management technologies'. Ximian is best known for its work with the Mono and GNOME projects, and Novell has promised continuing support for these ventures. ...more

Billboard Magazine warns Apple of tolling bell

The US record industry bible is warning Apple to enjoy its dominance of digital music while it lasts, because it won't. Billboard Magazine believes that Apple's 'reign' will last at the most another 12 to 18 months because the iPod and iTunes alone cannot support the extent by which the downloads market is expected to grow. Why this is the case it does not make entirely clear, though the history of consumer electronics would suggest that the iPod cannot maintain an 80 per cent market share for ever, but it is right about what Apple's rivals must do. ...more

Toshiba, SanDisk promising new era of gigabyte memory chips

Toshiba and SanDisk are promising a new era of gigabyte memory chips following the unveiling of an 8Gb NAND flash memory chip at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2005 in San Francisco. Built with 70nm process technology, the new NAND flash memory is based on multi-level cell technology that allows two bits of data to be stored in one memory cell and hence doubling the memory capacity. A combination of burst mode techniques and high read bandwidth delivers a write speed of 6MB/sec and a maximum read speed of 60MB/sec, which, Toshiba and SanDisk say, is 40 per cent faster than today's designs. ...more