German music service backs DRM-free downloads

Germany's leading alternative to iTunes as a source of music downloads has decided to abandon DRM for music from independent labels, with some success according to Jupiter Research. MusicLoad is the most successful ISP music store in Europe; so successful that Apple only recently claimed to be the market leader in Germany. Although it has long added DRM to its downloads in order to secure content from the major record companies, it recently revealed that such copy protection accounts for three quarters of complaints by its customers, noting that DRM 'makes the use of music quite difficult and hinders the development of a mass-market for legal downloads'. ...more

Apple should use our chips, says Intel exec

A senior Intel executive has lambasted Apple for using IBM chips in its new Power PC G5 computers. Pat Gelsinger, Intel's senior vice president and chief technology officer, says, unsurprisingly, that Apple should have used Intel chips instead, a mistake the company has been making for 20 years. 'I think Steve Jobs has made the wrong CPU choice for 20 years, he just added a few more years to the life of his bad decisions,' Gelsinger told the Edmonton Journal. ...more

PS2 delayed indefinitely in Hong Kong

Gamers may be complaining that there are shortages of the PlayStation 2 in the UK, but be grateful that the console has been released over here at all. Fans of the super console aren't so lucky in Hong Kong and south Asia, as Sony has postponed the release indefinitely, causing buyers to get their PS2 fix from the black market. The machine was already delayed, being brought back from a July release date to the end of the year but now that promise has been broken. ...more

Intel to launch Springdale chipset with 3.2GHz P4

Intel is expected to launch its Springdale (865 series) chipsets tomorrow. According to motherboard sources, a new top-of-the-range Pentium 4 processor, clocking 3.2GHz, will also be announced. ...more

Sophos warns of April hoaxes

With April Fool's day tomorrow, Sophos has warned that hoaxes may be a bigger problem than viruses. April Fool's day may seem to be a prime time for virus's to discharge their payload, but Sophos says virus writers wised up to that many moons ago. Carole Theriault, Senior Consultant at Sophos, said: 'Consider the Jerusalem virus, one of the first viruses ever written. ...more