VIRUS ALERT: Bugbear on the loose

Nothing cuddly about this one UK security experts Integralis have warned that IE5 users are prey to a worm. Discovered yesterday and orginating in Asia, Donal Casey of Integralis tells us that now, just one and a half days later, the Bugbear worm accounts for 10 per cent of new infections reported and that, as the US wakes to an inbox full of infection, that figure is set to rise. And fast. ...more

Toshiba pushes iPod-sized disk to 80GB

Toshiba has announced an 80GB version of the 1.8in hard drives used in the iPod. The drive sets a new capacity record for its size and combines several developments including a new magnetic disk structured to support perpendicular recording, a new high performance perpendicular magnetic head and disk and head integration to maximise their combined performance. ...more

Motorola goes text mad!

Following on from our report about the popularity of SMS messaging, it seems that one manufacturer has listened to the consumer and designed the phone that they want. If you can think back to that news report, the survey said that people want more phones with QWERTY keyboards and bigger screens. Well lo and behold, three days later Motorola announces its new V. ...more

HP in dock over claims of ink cartridge scam

A woman in the US is suing HP, alleging that its ink jet cartridges are designed to expire by a certain date, whether or not they have been installed in a printer. According to a report from Reuters, the suit, filed in the Santa Clara Superior Court in California says 'The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer'. The cartridges have a sensor inside them which are designed to detect when the ink reservoir is low and alert the consumer to buy a replacement. ...more

New Media New Charity

In terms of charity, we British are not as generous with our donations as we sometimes like to think, being left well behind in the giving-stakes by our more charitable American cousins, for example. But new research suggests this may change. We often run stories that show the Net in its darker and stranger form, so we are more than happy to balance the picture with a more positive report of online behaviour - the emergence through the Internet of "young and well-informed" donors. ...more