Microsoft buys Lionhead games studio

Microsoft has bought the British games studio Lionhead headed by the legendary games developer Peter Molyneux. The studio will now concentrate solely on producing games for the Xbox and Windows platforms. The two companies have previously collaborated to create the popular role-playing games 'Fable' for Xbox and 'Fable: The Lost Chapters' for Xbox and Windows, which together have sold over two millions around the world, making 'Fable' the best-selling role-playing franchise on the Xbox platform. ...more

European publishers back suing Google

European publishers have backed moves by a French news agency to sue Google for copyright infringement. Agence France Presses is suing Google for at least $17.5m because the search engine allows AFP copyright pictures headlines and stories to appear on its Google News service. ...more

Yamaha burns at light speed

Yamaha has put forward its super-burning CD-RW offering in the form of the LightSpeed CRW2200 Series. Like the Iomega announced yesterday, it features impressive specs: 40-speed read, an 'industry first' 20-speed write and ten-speed rewrite performance. The drive also features Partial Constant Angular Velocity (P-CAV) technology, which keeps the disc spinning at a constant speed while adjusting the data transfer rate in rewriting mode. ...more

IDF Spring 2004: Intel and Dolby make sound pairing on new audio spec

Intel and Dolby have been singing from the same High Definition Audio songsheet at the Spring IDF. Announcing joint agreements to promote the audio High Definition Audio specification, the companies are looking to promote consumer electronics (CE) sound quality as part of a PC experience. For those who like to collect little stickers on their laptops, the good news is that Dolby will be starting a PC Logo Program. ...more

Microsoft leaks release date for Whistler

Microsoft has set the internal date for the final version of Whistler at 18 April 2001, according to an internal e-mail. ZDNet News reports that the e-mail says the final version of the follow up to Windows 2000 will be minted in the spring and in the shops in the second half of 2001. Beta 1 is due to be released on 11 October and Beta 2 is due on 6 December. ...more