Quadriplegic reads email with mind chip

A 24-year-old quadriplegic man has had a chip implanted into his brain that enables him to control a computer, whether to check email or play a game. The BrainGate chip, developed by Massachusetts-based Cyberkinetics, is a sensor impanted on the motor cortex of the brain, with 100 electrodes tapping into the brain's neurons. In an able-bodied person these neurons send the signals out that control the actions of the body. ...more

Yahoo! to show cable news clips

Internet portal, Yahoo! has signed a deal to offer video clips from two of the US's biggest cable news network CNN and ABC News according to Reuters. The news clips service will go live on Yahoo in September. It will be freely available and be supported by advertising and be integrated with Yahoo! News. ...more

IBM takes G3 to 1GHz

IBM has announced a new G3 PowerPC processor - the 750FX - capable of running between 700MHz and 1GHz, the first PowerPC chip to break the 1GHz barrier. The processor, unveiled at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, California, uses IBM's advanced 0.13 micron copper process with Silicon-on-Insulator technology and includes 512K on-die level 2 cache. ...more

Vista tweak enables iTunes downloads authorisation

Early adopters of Microsoft's Windows Vista have discovered that they are unable to play songs purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store without tweaking Vista's settings. While iTunes will happily play DRM-free songs that have been ripped from CD, when it tries to play a purchased track it prompts the user to authorise it by entering their Apple ID and password. And although iTunes then says that authorisation has been successful it continues to refuse to play the relevant songs. ...more

Pressplay backs pressing CDs

Online music subscription service Pressplay has said it will allow the burning of downloaded files on to CDs. Pressplay, backed by Sony and Universal and also offering EMI's music catalogue among other labels', would be at a distinct advantage with this move over its rival MusicNet, backed by RealNetworks and the remaining major labels. However, while the Pressplay licence agreement will allow you to burn CDs, it won't allow you to export files to portable music players. ...more