Sony launches DD-RW drive

While most of the computing world waits for a cheap consumer DVD-RW drive to fall into their little mitts, Sony has put details of its new DD-RW (double density) on its web site. The Spressa Double Density CRX200E/A1 EIDE drive can record 1.3Gb of data on special DD-RW or DD-R discs. ...more

Mobile phones come to the pulpit

In a bid to increase revenue, the Church of England invited 16,000 parish churches in England and Wales to offer their church towers, spires and flagpoles as telecommunications masts to mobile operators. A list of interested churches will be published in January, with preferred bidders being announced in April, reported the Financial Times today. Revenues from the initial bids will go to the Church of England to cover the costs of organising the tenders, but individual churches will receive around ?5,000 a month in rent. ...more

Website reveals where's in a name

A new website has been launched that shows the geographical distribution of surnames throughout the UK. The surname profiler has geographical data on more than 25,000 surnames and is the result of a year's research into social patterns such as economic and cultural migration. The data comes from the 1881 census and 1998 electoral register. ...more

Microsoft to unveil new Internet communications kit

Microsoft will introduce new hardware later today designed to connect the workplace phone to email, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and mobile communications. Together with nine leading manufacturers - Asustek, GN, LG-Nortel, NEC, Plantronics, Polycom, Samsung, Tatung and Vitelix - the company will unveil 15 new devices at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2007. These are designed to work with the recently released Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 public betas. ...more

Second-generation Predator

Iomega has announced a USB 2.0 version of its stylish external CD-R/W Predator drive. The new drive offers 40-speed read, 24-speed write and 10-speed rewrite performance, meaning you can burn an hour's worth of content in under four minutes. ...more