ECTS 2001: ECTS awards, er, awarded

Rage's Denki Blocks is the unlikely game of the show, with the ECTS Stars heading in some surprising destinations. This year's European Consumer Trade Show, held at ExCeL, London, was a disappointingly underwhelming affair, thanks largely to many of the major players withdrawing from this year's event. Nevertheless, for other developers and publishers ECTS is a vital date in their calendar, with the event being used to showcase up-and-coming product. ...more

UPDATED: Legal woes block UK online ink cartridge reseller

UK online ink cartridge reseller Recharge has agreed to stop selling Epson-compatible cartridges after facing legal proceedings. Epson claims that Bolton-based Recharge Inkjet Technologies Limited, which trades under the name CartridgeMonkey.com, will pay it a 'substantial settlement payment' and promise 'not to infringe Epson's patents and registered designs'. ...more

EU broadband boom expected from 10 new members

Researchers are expecting a boom in broadband among the ten countries that recently became members of the EU. As the countries accede to the EU, they have to implement EU directives on competition within the telecommunications industry that mean incumbent companies have to open up their networks to rivals. Local loop unbundling and other measures, coupled with competition from cable TV networks, will usher in an Internet boom time for these new countries, according to the Yankee Group. ...more

Yahoo! buys into the music downloads business

Yahoo! has become the latest big beast of the internet to make a play for the legal music download business with the acquisition of Musicmatch.com. The internet portal paid $160 million in cash for the service. ...more

Sdbot malware sees McAfee issue its 100,000th signature file

Vincent Gullotto, VP of McAfee's AVERT virus response team, described the addition as a 'milestone', although the virus that garnered such an accolade was far from unique. Indeed, it was yet another variant of the Sdbot malware - which allows an attacker to control infected computers remotely. Gullotto said that more than 50 per cent of the additions to the McAfee database so far this year have been definitions for variants of Sdbot, Agobot and other bots. ...more