Digital jukebox hopes to stave off iTunes

Online music provider OD2 has launched a new Windows-only digital jukebox service to counter the threat of Napster and iTunes. SonicSelector is a plug-in for Windows Media Player that gives access to a variety of online music stores from MSN, Tiscali, Packard Bell and MTV all of which draw on OD2's catalogue of 350,00 tracks. Unlike its rivals, however, SonicSelector not only lets you download tracks and albums but also stream songs to your PC at 1p a time. ...more

Intel faces ban on Itanium

The final judgement of a US District Court has found against Intel and its use of two patents owned by Intergraph. These relate to parallel instruction computing (PIC). The injunction on making the processors has been suspended until 29 November, however. ...more

Intel debuts 64-bit Pentiums

Intel has slipped out what is probably the biggest change in its mainstream product line in years. The new Pentium 4 600 series features a larger cache as well as adding in some power management facilities borrowed from its Centrino line of mobile processors. Most importantly, it is the first Pentium to support 64-bit processing. ...more

ADSL market leaders see off competition

Despite ever-increasing competition, the UK broadband market continues to be dominated by a handful of service providers, with no indication that this will change any time soon. A survey by research firm Point Topic revealed that just five companies provide 80 per cent of all ADSL connections. The newly merged NTL and Telewest is now the market leader, with 2,822,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2006, followed by BT/Yahoo! (2,481,000), AOL (1,300,000), Tiscali (1,085,0000) and Orange, formerly Wanadoo (986,000). ...more

Million Dollar Homepage facing extortion

It may have been that the criminal fraternity thought this was just too easy a way of making money - tantamount to robbery. But the boy with the million dollar homepage has been hit by extortion attempts and denial of service attacks. 21-year-old Alex Tew's money-spinning brainwave of selling adverts on a web page by the pixel, and at a dollar a dot, finally made the magic million earlier this month, earning him a lot a publicity. ...more