Intel and Microsoft add a pinch of Salt to speech apps

Industry giants collaborate on Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) for talking over the Web. The initiative will involve reference designs for both software and hardware speech technologies. The idea is to enable businesses, such as ISVs (independent software vendors) and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), to more easily build and deploy telephony and speech application systems. ...more

Madonna fights to own her .com

Madonna is claiming rights over Madonna.com. The pop star has complained to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) accusing Don Parisi of cybersquatting and, "holding the domain name hostage. ...more

Google lands contract to build wireless San Francisco

Search engine Google along with partner ISP EarthLink has landed the contract to provide a wireless network to cover the whole of the City of San Francisco. The 'Goolink WiFi' network will provide a 300Kbps free service, which will be subsidised by advertising. Alternatively, the network will offer a 1Mbps ad-free subscription service costing $20 a month. ...more

OS X 10.1 available Saturday

As expected, Apple confirmed yesterday that OS X 10.1 will be available this Saturday. 10. ...more

eBay bans sale of in-game goods

eBay has moved to ban the sale of in-game items from its US and UK sites. The practice - dubbed 'gold farming' - occurs when gamers trade their hard-earned virtual resources for more tangible currency. The ban includes the sale of game accounts, game characters, game currency, game points or any other similar game items. ...more