Apple flicks the switch

Apple has unveiled a series of new ads that mark quite a departure from its previous campaigns. Recent Apple ads have focussed on individual products or solutions. The new ads star members of the public talking about their experiences of switching from Windows to the Mac, and will form Apple's biggest advertising campaign since 1998's Think Different. ...more

E-mails banned on Friday

I don't know about you but when it comes to e-mail, I'm a real Norman No-Mates with my mailbox just visited by the usual selection of pornographic spam. But electronic mail has caught on faster than SMS messaging and some companies believe that it is affecting productivity and actually stifles creativity. Already companies such as Nestle Rowntree and Camelot have told their employees not to read their e-mails on Fridays. ...more

A breakthrough for encryption and authentication

IBM has developed a new algorithm that can simultaneously encrypt and authenticate information, which could be an important breakthrough for securing online transactions. Charanjit Jutla, who works at IBM Research, invented the algorithm and hopes that its capabilities will be available for all types of systems - from servers to mobile devices. Because previous approaches required performing encryption and authentication in separate steps, the new technique can accomplish the same tasks in about half the time. ...more

Borland quick to get Together UML support

It was only a few weeks ago that Borland completed its acquisition of Togethersoft - 15 January, to be precise - but Borland has already announced new editions of Java products. The Together application management tools of Togethersoft have been incorporated with Borland's JBuilder (a Java development environment) and Borland Enterprise Studio for Java (a suite of development and deployment tools). A standalone version of Together Edition for JBuilder will be available (supporting JBuilder 7 using JDK 1. ...more

Mapuche say no to Microsoft Mapuzugun

Mapuche Indians have accused Microsoft of violating their cultural heritage by translating Windows into their language, Mapuzugun, without permission. The language is spoken by some 400,000 indigenous Chileans, some of whom have taken the software company to court for 'intellectual piracy'. A judge in Santiago will decide in two weeks whether the Mapuche have a case. ...more