Blu-ray and HD-DVD - no merger in prospect

The backers of Blu-ray and HD-DVD have given up hope of reaching an agreement to merge the two technologies and create a single standard for next-generation, high-definition DVDs, according to a Japanese newspaper. Yomiuri says that both Sony, the main force behind Blu-ray, and Toshiba, HD-DVD's creator, have conceded that even if an agreement could be reached there is no longer sufficient time to develop a single format before the launch of compatible products. 'Late August is the practical time limit,' said Yoshihide Fujii, Toshiba's corporate senior vice president. ...more

nVIDIA to support AMD's DDR chipset

NVIDIA has announced that its next generation of graphics processors (GPUs) will support the new Athlon processor. AMD's latest processor sports a 266Mhz front-side bus, and its AMD-760TM chipset supports Double Data Rate (DDR) memory. Ned Finkle, director of AMD's Infrastructure Enablement Group, said: "NVIDIA is. ...more

YouTube speeds police hunt for murder suspect

A YouTube video has helped Canadian police find a man they believe responsible for a murder. Police in the Southern Ontario city of Hamilton said that they uploaded a one-minute, 12-second clip from a surveillance tape onto the video-sharing YouTube site. The video, which showed suspects arriving at a local nightclub for a Sean Price hip-hop concert, garnered media attention and was viewed more than 30,000 times. ...more

Gates commits Microsoft to an interoperable future

Microsoft has pledged itself to an interoperable future. In an open letter to business leaders, Bill Gates says that Microsoft recognises that it can't have it all and that the future for the company is in making its products work with those of other vendors. In the letter Gates says 'Over the years, our industry has tried many approaches to come to grips with the heterogeneity of software. ...more

Microsoft's MBU issues SP2 for Office 2004

Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has released Service Pack 2 for Office 2004. The update provides expanded support for Microsoft Exchange Server accounts, performance improvements, security enhancements, and increased stability for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage. Microsoft strongly recommends that system administrators apply this service pack before deploying Entourage 2004 within an organisation. ...more