Botnet army massing in China - Prolexic

China is now the most infected country in the world and Asia contains half the world's infected computers, according to security company Prolexic. The figures come from the company's Denial of Service (DDoS) Weather Report, which reports on the botnet activity around the globe from infected computers. Countries in Asia account for five of the six most infected territories around the world, with the US in second place. ...more

EC charges towards powerline Internet access

To help develop the next generation of powerline technology - using national electricity grids to carry broadband access - the European Commission is spending €9.6 million. The Open PLC European Research Alliance (Opera) will use the funding to rollout and to test how well the low-cost internet access works for high data rate applications such as telephony and video-on-demand. ...more

Glass disk giant builds new factory as 1in drive demand skyrockets

The world's leading manufacturer of glass hard drives for computers and portable devices is to open a new plant in Vietnam to meet with growing demand. Japan's Hoya Corporation, which makes around 75 per cent of 2.5in glass disks for PC drives and 100 per cent of 1in disks for devices such as the iPod. ...more

Intel and VIA settle patent lawsuits

Intel and VIA have agreed to settle their long-running legal dispute without the further aid of lawyers. The dispute, which has lasted more than a year and a half, involves a series of patent-related lawsuits covering chipsets and microprocessors. The battle has spanned five countries, with 11 pending cases involving 27 patents. ...more

AMD extends the Athlon XP

The Athlon XP 2200+ is AMD's latest high performance desktop processor, designed to carry the more demanding multimedia applications. While being compatible with AMD's existing Socket A infrastructure, the processor's performance is delivered from lower power and a smaller die size. Keen as ever to expose the 'megahertz myth' - valuing the performance of processors by headline clock-speed alone - AMD stresses improved user benefits for the new Athlon. ...more