Music label accepts demos online

Parlophone has become the first major UK record label to introduce an online demo submission system. A&R Tools lets artists upload mp3s and publicity pictures to Parlophone's A&R team. The system records everything the team has reviewed and allows them to rate tracks and artists, who are automatically informed once their tracks have been reviewed. ...more

Intel climbs TOP500 supercomputer rankings

In the 24th edition of the TOP500 List of World's Fastest Supercomputers released on November 8, 232 of the systems included are powered by Intel Xeon processors. The Xeon's rise to prominence has been rapid, from just one Xeon-powered system in the June 2002 list, to 20 in November 2002, 76 in June 2003, 152 in November 2003, and 223 in June of this year. Intel processors, including the Itanium and Xeon, now power 318 (63. ...more

Google Adsense to accept image ads

Google is to expand its AdSense pay per click scheme to include image ads. The search engine is currently piloting a scheme so that websites can include a variety of standard advertising formats as animated GIFs Amongst the sizes accepted under the pilot scheme are Banners at 468 x 60 pixels, Leaderboards at 728 x 90, Inline Rectangles 300 x 250 and Skyscrapers 120 x 600. At the bottom of each image ad will be the URL and a Google feedback link. ...more

Smartphones hit by Trojan virus

Symbian-based phones including Nokias using the Series 60 platform are again the target of a new mobile phone virus that will stop the phone dead if it is rebooted. According to Finnish security experts F-Secure, the Trojan virus Fontal-A - a variant of the Comwarrior virus - has no propagation mechanics but may be manually received from file-sharing networks or via memory cards in an infected file called Kill Saddam By OID500.sis. ...more

Microsoft goes public with Longhorn server beta

Microsoft has unveiled the first publicly available test version of the next edition of Windows Server, code-named Longhorn. It says Longhorn has been designed to build on Windows Server 2003 R2 by addressing the automation of daily management tasks, tightening security, improving efficiency and increasing availability. According to Microsoft internal research, approximately 70 per cent of an IT budget is devoted to daily management tasks, indicating a high demand for services such as help desk, infrastructure health monitoring, and systems and update management. ...more