BT pulls the trigger on Broadband-ometer

BT needs no confirmation for speedier broadband upgrade. BT Wholesale is taking the 42 day confirmation process out of its controversial broadband registration scheme, enabling the company to immediately begin upgrading 18 exchanges where registration has topped the trigger level or where the confirmation process is already in place. Bruce Stanford, director of wholesale products at BT, said: 'We've seen more than 200,000 people register their interest in getting broadband since the registration scheme was launched and 10 exchanges are now live for broadband as a result. ...more

Researchers close to breaking 1024-bit RSA encryption

The 1024-bit RSA encryption algorithm is close to being cracked, after encryption researchers demonstrate that a 307-bit Mersenne number can be broken down into primes. The breakthrough will lead to changes in the way data is encrypted, according to the scientists. The researchers - from the Ecoles Polytechniques Federales de Lausanne, the University of Bonn, and Japanese telco NTT - also broke a new record for discovering the prime factors of the number in 11 months. ...more

Palm settles Graffiti dispute with Xerox

The long-running legal battle between Palm and Xerox has been settled, with the two companies agreeing to end the patent dispute. Dating back to 1997, it involved the use of Graffiti handwriting recognition software, which translates particular strokes into alphabetic characters. Xerox alleged that the system infringed patents for its own Unistrokes handwriting software. ...more

BarrysWorld gets fragged

BarrysWorld, one of the UK and Europe's most popular online gaming community websites, has announced that it is to cease trading on 5 February 2001. Despite the fact that its community boasts over 300,000 players and website page impressions have topped the 160 million per month mark, it appears that it has struggled recently to raise sufficient funds to maintain itself and its substantial quantity of online gaming servers. Ade Brownlow, CEO of the company, said that the current depression in both the computer games and Internet market had been the major reason behind the lack of incoming funds and was subsequently the main reason behind the decision to close its doors. ...more

Microsoft settles ?684m antitrust suit

Microsoft has settled a pending class action lawsuit in an agreement worth up to ?684m ($1.1bn). The class-action suit, which would have gone to trial towards the end of February, was brought by businesses and individuals in California who alleged that the company used its monopolistic power to violate antitrust laws and overcharge customers for its products by as much as ?25. ...more