Sony dogs kick off in Seattle

The aim is to have a team of robots that can beat the human world football champions by 2005, yes, the annual world RoboCup is back, this year in Seattle. The competition features teams of football-playing robots, some small enough to play on a table tennis table, some the size of adult humans. They compete in four leagues, Simulation, Small-size, Middle-size, and Sony Legged which features those Sony dog robots popularised by TV's Graham Norton. ...more

Symantec software targets Phishers

Security firm, Symantec is targeting the threat posed by phishing and identity theft to home users with a new suite of software. Essentially, it aims to provide additional security when making financial transactions online. The new software, to be known as Norton Confidential, is designed to operate in real time to check visited web sites and scan for Trojans and keystroke loggers before any data can be transmitted. ...more

BBC backtracks on Beethoven digital downloads

UK digital rights campaigners are calling on Roger Wright, the controller of Radio 3, to reconsider his decision to limit the amount of free downloads available during the station's forthcoming 10-day Bach celebration. Radio 3 will broadcast the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach between 16 and 25 December. Last year the station played all nine Beethoven symphonies and made them available to download for two weeks. ...more

Philips, Microsoft in Windows Media and consumer electronics agreement

Philips and Microsoft have announced plans to begin integrating Windows Media technologies, including digital rights management, into a range of Philips' consumer electronics products based on its Nexperia programmable system-on-a-chip. Philips initially plans to support Windows Media Audio and Video and Windows Media DRM 10 in digital media receivers, personal video recorders, portable audio players, IP set-top boxes and video phones. These will be followed by in-car entertainment systems and 'next generation' digital TV. ...more

eBay cracks down on counterfeit Microsoft software

eBayers selling hooky Microsoft products have been pushed off the UK auction site in a recent crack-down. Between August and October, some 21,000 auctions of Microsoft software were targeted, with Windows XP and Office the main products under suspicion. And the campaign had a dramatic effect: August saw eBay removing more than 11,000 articles for sale; by October this had dropped to around 5,000. ...more