LLU broadband take-up skews heavily towards London

LLU broadband take-up in the UK is skewed heavily towards London, with some areas having no access to the cheaper services and faster speeds that the technology has enabled. Forty-five per cent of LLU lines are in the capital, with the South East and North West, especially Manchester, also showing relatively high levels of penetration. That contrasts markedly with Northern Ireland, for example, where not one exchange has been unbundled. ...more

Novell moves to dismiss SCO's Slander of Title suit

Novell has filed a motion to dismiss SCO's Slander of Title suit, for failing to properly detail its claim so that potential damages and other relief can be assessed. In a filing yesterday, the company asked for dismissal 'for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted'. SCO contends that Novell's claims that it owns certain Unix copyrights have damaged its business, causing customers to take their business elsewhere. ...more

VIRUS ALERT: Winur-D attacks the caring, sharing user

Sophos has issued a warning about Winur-D, a virus that tries to delete AV programs and spreads through file-sharing networks, such as Morpheus and KaZaA. The W32 worm targets users on BearShare, Morpheus, eDonkey2000, Gnucleus, KaZaA, KaZaA Lite and LimeWire peer-to-peer filesharing networks and also exploits the file-sharing capabilites of the ICQ instant messaging system. It copies itself to these programs' folders and sets registry entries to allow sharing through these networks. ...more

One in eight would switch to a Windows-app compatible Intel Mac

Analyst Needham & Co has found that if the new generation of Intel Macs can run Windows applications then Apple could see a sharp rise in the number of PC to Mac switchers. It believes that while the iPod halo effect is persuading some to ditch their PCs, the most significant barrier to switching is application incompatibility. The research firm quizzed 255 students in the US, 44 per cent of whom said they would be more likely to buy a Mac if it was capable of running PC apps. ...more

New products @ Macworld expo [4]

The deluge of new products continues in San Francisco, so the daily digest returns. There's lots of high-profile stuff today, from FileMaker, Macromedia, Formac, and the makers of Toast and Disk Warrior. FileMaker demonstrated the Carbonised (OS X compatible) version of its database application FileMaker Pro, which is 90 per cent complete, and announced that its entire product range will be ported to OS X. ...more