Amazon goes gourmet

In a further bid to extend its reach to all areas of online shopping, Amazon has launched an online Deli. Currently available only in the US, the site claims to offer 'tens of thousands' of products from fruit and vegetables to meat and game to seafood and caviar. Amazon says it also includes 700 cheeses from around the world. ...more

Microsoft releases public beta of Vista

It's been talked about for years. It's been hyped. It's been rubbished. ...more

Acer's unveils new Ferrari and own-brand notebooks

Based on surging demand, Acer has launched the second version of its Ferrari-branded notebooks, alongside other mobile products. David White, Acer's notebook manager said demand had outstripped supply three to one in some periods for the company's first laptop featuring the prancing horse badge. And it's amazing how many people are prepared to pay that bit extra to demonstrate their devotion or at least stand out from crowd of silver and black sandwiches. ...more

Microsoft identifies flotilla of security holes

Microsoft has made patches available to cover critical vulnerabilities discovered in IE and Outlook Express. First up, for Outlook Express, there exists a flaw in the processes used to render HTML in emails. An email could be constructed that contained a URL which, if clicked on, would access a file stored on the local machine. ...more

Tiscali pokes at TalkTalk broadband

Tiscali has warned potential subscribers to the new TalkTalk broadband and phone service to be aware that Carphone Warehouse, which owns the service, has no track record for providing DSL to large numbers of people. A spokesperson for the Italian-owned ISP said that 'the ability to provision and service a high volume of broadband customers is yet to be proven'. Tiscali said that Carphone Warehouse is in a 'chicken and egg' situation. ...more