High street charity shops enjoying CD donation boom

High street charity shops are enjoying a boom in CD donations, as people increasingly store all their music on their computers. Cerebral palsy charity Scope said that its stores are receiving 'sack loads' of unwanted discs - both old and new material - as people clear out CD collections that cover an estimated 23,000 miles of shelf space across the UK. However the charity-minded are far outnumbered by those who offload their CDs on eBay. ...more

Dates leaked for Vista launch

The release of Vista will go to the wire, if you believe reports that are circulating on the Internet. Microsoft is reportedly set to release Vista for businesses - and Office 2007 - on 30 November, and release consumer editions on 30 January. In other words, almost the last possible days for Microsoft to keep its pre-announced schedule. ...more

Regulating the Internet drives out jobs - Euro business groups

Attempts by the EU to regulate Internet content will drive out jobs, according to European business groups. Seven organisations have come together to warn the European Commission that its Television Without Frontiers proposals will stifle the development of digital content and services by applying rules designed for traditional broadcasters to all online audio-visual content, the Financial Times reports. As a consequence, media companies will move their Internet operations out of the EU. ...more

Giove satellite sends first signals

The Giove satellite has sent its first signals back to earth. The successful transmission and reception of the signals means that the European Galileo project is officially in business. Passing the milestone means another step in creating a global satellite navigation system that is ten times more accurate than the one currently in use. ...more

Maya to support Shockwave 3D

Alias|Wavefront, the developer of 3D animation package Maya, has announced it is developing a plug-in to enable users to export content into the Shockwave 3D format. The Maya Shockwave 3D Exporter will "serve as a high-speed scene optimiser and export solution allowing for the rapid refinement of content for the soon-to-be released version of the Shockwave web platform", according to Alias|Wavefront. Macromedia has just announced Director 8. ...more