Apple considers next steps against iPod shuffle look-alike

Apple's lawyers are said to be 'weighing their options' after a company refused to remove its iPod shuffle lookalike from its stall at the CeBit technology show in Germany. Luxpro temporarily took the portable music player from its stand on Friday only to bring it back out on Saturday, leading to what has been described as a heated exchange of words with a distraught Apple representative. Luxpro's Super Shuffle is a near identical copy of the iPod shuffle, although its feature set differs slightly, with an FM tuner, voice recorder and support for WMA rather than AAC files. ...more

Sun celebrates EU action on Microsoft server market

Sun has welcomed the EU decision to order Microsoft to give rivals access to technical information that will allow their products to interact with those of Microsoft. Lee Patch, VP, legal affairs, Sun Microsystems, said: 'Sun applauds the European Commission's decision in the Microsoft case.. ...more

Virgin enters iPod territory in US

Virgin has joined the lengthening list of companies trying to grab some of iPod's share of the digital music player market. Its Virgin Electronics arm has unveiled the literally-named 'player 5GB' in the US to complement the Virgin Digital online store that opened last month. The hard-drive based player sells for $249. ...more

NEC revisits 3G phones for the UK

NEC has launched its second generation of 3G phones on the 3 network in the UK. The two new handsets - the e616 and e313 - are a step ahead of their e606 predecessor in the fact that they look like phones as opposed to a chunky PDA with built-in 3G radio. The higher end e616 is a clam shell design and uses NEC hardware that allows multiple applications to run at the same time - so you can play a game and make a voice call for example. ...more

HP knocks out boardroom spying case in $14.5m settlement

The computer giant shells out $14.5 million to end the civil case against it but the criminal investigation remains HP will pay $14.5 million to settle the alleged spying case that resulted in the computer giant's chair Patricia Dunn's resignation, in addition to vowing to adopt certain reforms as part of a five-year programme. ...more