Record industry ventures blank idea to boost sales

Record label BMG's latest ruse to buck falling CD sales is to introduce half-price, no-frills disks. German newspaper Der Spiegel reports that the so-called 'anti-piracy CD' will look like a home-burned disc, with just the title printed on it. It will sell for €10, while a version with cover and lyrics will be €13. ...more

UK must work harder to encourage universal digital takeup by all

Government, industry and the voluntary sector need to work harder to ensure everyone in the UK embraces the digital age. A new report looks at ways in which today's laggards can drawn kicking and screaming into the digital age. The report was written by the Digital Inclusion Panel (DIP) - a panel of representatives of the public, private and voluntary sectors brought together by the Government. ...more

Microsoft edges closer to closing November settlement

Light at the end of the Tunney. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly yesterday released a 36-page memorandum saying that the Microsoft, the Justice Department and the nine states seeking a settlement proposed last November had acted in accordance with the Tunney Act. The Tunney Act stipulates that interested parties must be above board and that no behind-the-scenes deals were made during the negotiation process. ...more

A tiny Flash player for Intel's micro-architecture

Macromedia is working with Intel to bring a Flash Player to Intel's XScale micro-architecture. The idea is that devices based on XScale will be able to support the rich content of Flash via reasonably sized files. The optimised system will apparently take advantage of Intel's Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP) - assembly code for improved audio and video. ...more

UK boasts highest growth rate for broadband penetration in Europe

The UK is showing the fastest rate of take-up for broadband in Europe. The bad news, however, is that we still stand second from bottom in the European broadband stakes, according to the April 2003 figures from Nielsen//NetRatings. The total for take up is 22 per cent, marginally greater than Italy, at 16 per cent. ...more