McAfee's Falcon flies

Security firm McAfee has unveiled a beta version of its 'Falcon' integrated consumer security service platform. The software suite that comprises anti-virus, anti-spyware, and what McAfee is calling 'proactive threat watch' technologies. Each of the security applications have been configured to provide a single screen called the McAfee SecurityCenter that allows customers to manage their McAfee security products. ...more

INTERVIEW: Richard Stallman on 20 years of GNU

Last week saw the 20th anniversary of Richard Stallman's decision to quit the MIT and start the GNU Project in 1984, with a goal to creating a platform using 'free' software that a user can run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve: the GNU operating system which used widely today in its GNU/Linux form. A year later he founded the Free Software Foundation, a body that seeks to further the development and use of free software. He is also the author of the GNU General Public Licence, the licence under which free software can be distributed. ...more

Toshiba opts for AMD chips in budget laptops

Toshiba has announced that it is to begin buying microprocessors for some of its laptop models from AMD, ending its exclusive ties with Intel. The world's fourth-largest laptop PC maker said that it expects to put AMD processors in about 20 per cent of the notebooks it sells in the US and Europe. The move follows an announcement last year by Dell, the world's second-largest PC maker that had been procuring microprocessors only from Intel for more than two decades, that it would begin using chips from AMD. ...more

Firefox 1.5 released

A new version of the open-source browser Firefox is now available for download, just over a year since the first release arrived. Based on the new Gecko 1.8 rendering engine, version 1. ...more

T-Mobile bails out of mobile payment venture

A consortium of mobile phone network operators has had to shelve plans for a pan-European wireless payments system after T-Mobile withdrew its support. Simpay, a joint operation between T-Mobile, Orange, Telefonica Moviles and Vodafone was hoping to establish a single payment system for m-commerce transactions that would enable mobile device users to buy goods and services from any network provider in any country. The service was primarily designed to facilitate small purchases up to between 10 and 12 Euros. ...more