Yahoo! buys Konfabulator

Yahoo! has bought Konfabulator, the software that brought widgets to the Mac and latterly to Windows. Apple has since developed its own widget environment, Dashboard, and integrated it into the latest version of OS X. It was assumed that Konfabulator would quietly die; instead the developers brought out a Windows version good enough to attract the attention of the Internet search giant. ...more

Gartner warns against over-hyped IT fears

Analysts at Gartner have identified five IT risks they believe are being wildly overblown in the industry, and urge companies not to hold back IT expansion plans. Most of the points centre around burgeoning new industries. Internet telephony is picked out as being tainted with the notion that it is simply unsafe. ...more

Price Check: Graphics Cards

With both of nVidia's and ATi's latest and greatest graphics cards finding their way to the UK, it means the moneyed can up the graphics ante, while those of shallower pockets should see prices fall on those cards that have been usurped. And if there's nothing more annoying than finding what was billed as the best money can buy being superseded just months later - as we've seen with nVidia's new NV35 chipset that has just arrived in the form of the GeForce FX 5900 - at least the erstwhile leader the nVidia FX 5800 card should quickly become that much more affordable. It'll take ?388 to get the former to turn up at your door, in a card from Creative and available from Dabs. ...more

The phone that thinks it's a pen

Ahead of this year's CeBIT, starting 18th March, the German company has lined up some new communications gadgets, and leading the way is the mobile PenPhone (pictured). The rather neat idea is that you use the pen to 'virtually' write out phone number you wish to call and it dials if for you. It also lets you write SMS messages directly into the phone. ...more

Microsoft adds .Net services support to Silverlight

Microsoft has announced several key additions to the Silverlight Web-based media technology that it announced just a fortnight ago. Ray Ozzie, the company's recently appointed chief software architect, explained to a Web industry gathering in Las Vegas how Silverlight fits into the company's overall strategy and its .Net platform. ...more