Microsoft to reveal source code for Office

Software giant Microsoft has announced that it is to open up the source code of its flagship Office 2003 suite to more than 30 governments worldwide as part of its Government Security Program initiative. The aim, Microsoft says, is to reassure the participating governments that its code is secure and that it will work with other technology systems. The code itself remains Microsoft's intellectual property and governments that sign up to the program have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. ...more

Dell abandons hard-drive music players

Dell has decided to cease production of hard-drive portable music players. The company will instead focus on the Flash memory-based DJ Ditty. 'We saw an opportunity to streamline and consolidate our portfolio,' Dell spokesman Liem Nguyen said. ...more

Beijing officials not amused by online Olympic pranks

After a rash of spoof images and videos appear on the Internet, Beijing organizers have threatened legal action against those who poke fun at official Olympic symbols. An image of the 2008 Olympic emblem 'Dancing Beijing' circulated on Chinese Websites and chat-rooms this week - the original symbol of a human figure in motion morphed into 'male' and 'female' symbols commonly seen on public toilet doors. The 2008 Olympic mascots - cartoon representations of four animals and the Olympic flame - were also targeted, their heads replaced by Japanese cartoon heroes, Chinese pop idol finalists and celebrity footballers, including David Beckham. ...more

LaCie unveils fastest 500GB FireWire drive

LaCie has introduced a new FireWire hard drive that it claims is faster than most internal drives. The 500GB drive employs a FireWire 800 connection to deliver a sustained throughput of 88MB per second. The company says it is ideal for video editing, VideoRAID and 2D and 3D image work. ...more

Internet Explorer suffers .HTA critical flaw

There is another security hole in Internet Explorer to be aware of. Reported by one Jeffrey van der Stad, the vulnerability in Internet Explorer is caused by a problem in handling .HTA files (HTML Applications). ...more