Judge approves Microsoft MP3 patent damages

A US judge has approved a jury's decision to award Alcatel-Lucent $1.52 billion after it ruled that Microsoft had infringed an audio technology patent. District Court Judge Rudi M Brewster in San Diego rejected Microsoft's request that he reduce the amount of damages awarded in February, after the jury decided that Microsoft had infringed an Alcatel-Lucent patent by providing MP3 support in Windows Media Player. ...more

Freeserve to drop Google searches

Britain's biggest ISP Freeserve is to drop using Google as its search provider. Instead it is to announce a deal with Overture to use the listings from FAST - the search engine Overture bought for $70 million back in February. The deal will be cover the whole Wannadoo's group across Europe and not just Freeserve UK. ...more

Symantec warns Mac users of a false sense of security

Mac users are living under a false sense of security, according to Symantec. The company, which makes security software for the Mac, said that although there have yet to be any widespread exploits of vulnerabilities in OS X, the system is increasingly becoming the target of malicious hackers. 'It is now clear that the Mac OS is increasingly becoming a target for the malicious activity, contrary to popular belief that the Mac OS is immune to traditional security concerns,' Symantec says in its latest Internet Security Threat Report 'As Mac OS X users demand more features and implement more ports of popular UNIX applications, vulnerabilities and exploits targeting this operating system and its underlying code base are likely to increase,' it adds. ...more

Handspring bucks PDA trend

Handspring was the only major PDA manufacturer to increase its sales in the last fiscal quarter, as worldwide shipments of handhelds fell by nearly 10 per cent over the three-month period. Handspring shipments grew by more than 17 per cent, while market-leader Palm's fell by just over 14 per cent. Both platforms run Palm's PalmOS software. ...more

NEC pilots power line broadband

NEC is to investigate using high-speed communications over ordinary power lines. The Japanese electronics giant is to launch a trial using modems that could achieve data rates of 200Mbit/sec, reports NE Asia Online. According to the website, the trial will take place in the Japanese city of Ibaraki and use the high-frequency band ranging from 2MHz to 30MHz. ...more