09-02-2001 Essential news of the week

Brought neatly together and presented on a plate, here's a roundup of some of the week's main news stories from the world of IT. The ADSL rumble rolls on Palm shuffles memory cards EU copies copyright law to the Net IBM adds to ThinkPads Really tiny hard drive Sun's Web services to be as ONE Microsoft gains eXPerience Like a scene from all those New York movies Xbox seeing double The price of junk mail counted in billions Buy.com snapped up by John Lewis Don't forget, we welcome your comments. ...more

Microsoft acts on anti-trust settlement

In a media briefing that has just concluded, Microsoft has outlined various milestones for achieving its obligations under the terms of its proposed settlement with the DoJ and nine states. Under those terms, Microsoft has to fulfil agreed actions in advance of any final settlement of the ongoing case. Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft, outlined Microsoft's position before fielding media questions. ...more

Microsoft to build Zune plant in China

Microsoft is building its own manufacturing plant in China to assemble a new version of the Zune portable media player. Among the criticisms aimed at the original Zune released in the US last November was that it was little more than a re-badged and repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat and contained little innovation, save a battery-hungry and DRM-encumbered wireless music sharing feature. Microsoft believes that having its own plant will give it greater control over the design and manufacture of the device, which has conspicuously failed to dent the popularity of Apple's iPod. ...more

Skype embeds itself with SkypeNet and SkypeWeb APIs

Internet telephony pioneer Skype has announced that it is releasing new tools that will enable webmasters and programmers to build its VoIP and IM functionality into websites and applications. The news comes hours after Google launched its first foray into the world of instant and voice messaging, although Skype's service is still unique in enabling computers to call not only other PCs but also landline and mobile phones, albeit for a price. Since its debut three years ago Skype has registered 51 million users, from 150 million downloads, two million of whom use its paid-for services. ...more