UK company to trial nationwide lamp post Wi-Fi

A UK company has announced plans to begin trials to provide a nationwide WiFi network by turning lamp posts into wireless hotspots. The aptly named Last Mile Communications aims to install access points in more than 150,000 lamp posts, using the existing electrical cabling to carry signals to the Internet, and will begin testing later this year. The system was originally developed for traffic management and by using existing cables ensures no road digging is required. ...more

Palm shows off next-gen Cobalt handheld operating system

PalmSource has announced new details of its latest operating system for handheld devices: Cobalt. To clear up the nomenclature: Cobalt is really Palm OS 6, but Palm execs said that vendors were concerned that the numerical advances would mean that Palm OS 5-based devices would suddenly be considered out of date once 6 came on the market. And Palm is still developing for Palm OS 5 - except now it's called Garnet. ...more

Sony Ericsson profits from mobile growth

Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson has reported a steep year-on-year incline in revenues for the third quarter, as the public appetite for sophisticated handsets heightens. The joint venture made income before tax of 136mn Euros and a net income of 90mn Euros - a staggering growth of 249 and 49 per cent respectively, but perhaps more reflective of the nascent state of the feature-phone market a year ago. Sales for the quarter were up nearly a third year on year (29 per cent) to 1. ...more

Sony unveils Flash Walkmans

Sony has unveiled its first flash memory-based portable music players, with a bewildering array of nine different models. These latest additions to the Network Walkman portfolio offer 256MB, 512MB or 1GB of storage in three ranges; the entry-level NW-E100 series, the mid-range NW-E400 series and the high-end NW-E500 series. The NW-E100 comprises the NW-E103, NW-E105 and NW-E107, with 256MB, 512MB and 1GB capacity respectively and available in six colours. ...more

Updated: Backdoor trojans make their presence felt

A virus never sleeps. And it seems they don't stop mutating and breeding, too, as there are two new threats to computer users: BDSinit-A and Webber-C. Strictly speaking, they are back-door trojans rather than 'viruses', but they both allow a remote attacker to control your system. ...more