Yahoo sued over 'defamatory' statements on its messageboards

A lawyer has sued US internet portal Yahoo for not revealing the identity of messageboard users that left abusive messages. Californian insurance specialist Stephen Galton said he was subjected to a 'barrage of harassing, defamatory and abusive messages' after posting a message defending one of his clients on a Yahoo-run forum. According to Reuters, he registered his own name on the messageboards and following his posting defending his client - who wasn't identified in the suit - was the target of messages such as being described as 'overly robust geezer that makes a living walking behind the elephant with a shovel'. ...more

Fujifilm launches photo recovery service

The more precious the picture the more disastrous it would be to lose the image. This is the concern addressed by Fujifilm and its newly launched Digital Image Recovery Service (DIRS). Whether digital photos or movies have been 'lost', accidentally deleted, or damaged due to incorrect formatting, the service will use the latest tools and software to attempt to recover files. ...more

Microsoft hopes to set new digital media standard

A number of companies, among them Microsoft and Universal Music, have established a forum hoping to simplify the delivery and playing of multimedia content across different platforms. The Content Reference Forum is aiming to develop standards that will enable content such as music and video to be played on any device in any country, whilst conforming to local contractual and copyright constraints. Rather than devices being sent the content itself, they would be sent an Internet-style link, which would then give them access to the song or video in the correct format for that device and under the terms imposed by the content owners. ...more

16 per cent increase in UK Net connectivity

Figures for UK Internet usage in July 2002 have been released by the National Statistics office. The monthly stats for July reveal a 16.5 per cent year on year increase in the number of subscriptions to access the Internet. ...more

Virgin Media cuts broadband speeds for heavy downloaders

Virgin Media has confirmed that it has begun implementing traffic shaping for around five per cent of its broadband users. The ISP, formerly ntl:Telewest, said that it occasionally moderates downstream speeds for subscribers 'downloading an unusually large amount' of data, sometimes as much as 3GB, during the peak 4pm-to-midnight period. 'Our boffins recently ran a trial to see how much our service was being affected,' it explained. ...more