EU, e-business and consumer bodies agree on e-commerce

A breakthrough agreement has been made that could lead to a common standard for conducting business on the Internet in Europe. The EU, European consumer organisation BEUC and the Union of Industrial and Employers Confederations of Europe (UNICE) have agreed common standards covering commercial communications and fair marketing practices, pre-contractual information, confirming and acknowledging orders, payment and security, data protection, handling complaints and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Also to be implemented is an effective monitoring and approval system including neutral third-party assessment of trustmark schemes to ensure that commitments to these standards are met in practice. ...more

British Computer Society honours UK IT users and industry

2006 BCS IT Professional and Information Management Awards winners announced. The British Computer Society has announced the winners of its 2006 IT industry awards. At an awards ceremony held last night in Central London, the BCS and 1,500 guests gathered to see 300 individuals and organisations competing to win awards across 33 categories. ...more

Nikon talks up new digicams

Nikon has announced three new digicams to catch the Easter holidays. Most noteworthy is the innovatively-styled Coolpix SQ, with a swivel hinge allowing you to take shots from nearly any angle, including self-portraits where you can twist the lens to face you while the LCD display remains in view for lining up the shot. It also incorporates technology taken from Nikon's high-end cameras, such as the D100. ...more

Yahoo!'s new search is a great find

Yahoo has at last begun the process to wean itself off its reliance on the Google search engine. It has now released a revamped version of the Inktomi `Slurp` spider to crawl the web. As a result, the Yahoo web search results now appear to be exclusively those from Slurp and Google has been dropped from the listings. ...more

Tesco checks out broadband

Tesco is set to launch its first ADSL broadband service. Tesco.net, the Internet arm of the retail giant, will initially provide a 512Kbit/sec service, with a free modem and free activation for ?19. ...more