Ebookers takes on First Resort for package holidays

Popular travel site Ebookers.com has said it will team up with The First Resort to provide package holidays on the site. The First Resort is one of many cheap and cheerful holiday sites that offers all-in deals to beach resorts as well as city breaks. ...more

IBM launches new low power multi core PPC chips

IBM has announced a new set of PowerPC chips, including dual core and lower power versions, at the Power Everywhere forum in Tokyo. The PowerPC 970MP is a dual-core version of the PowerPC 970FX running at between 1.4 and 2. ...more

SanDisk MP3 players back on show

A German court has lifted an injunction on SanDisk MP3 players, allowing the company to replace the portable devices on its stand at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin. Earlier this week it was ordered to clear the stand after an Italian patent licensing firm secured the injunction. Sisvel claimed that the players violate patents on MP3 technology that it licenses on behalf of a number of other companies. ...more

Microsoft fires broadside at Novell Netware

What Redmond giveth, Redmond taketh away. Barely a week after settling an anti-trust suit with Novell over unfair practices designed to drive Netware out of the Enterprise and a few days since Novell slapped in a similar suit making similar allegations over WordPerfect, Microsoft has fired a broadside at Novell by offering US Netware customers an attractive deal to migrate to Windows Server 2003. Microsoft is offering wavering Netware users a range of goodies including tools, prescriptive guidance, training and technical support to help them migrate to Windows Server 2003. ...more

Open source to power US patent review

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is looking to the open source community to help improve the quality of patents issued in the US. Quality issues have landed the USPTO with something of a reputation as an over-liberal system that one should try to avoid - particularly in relation to efforts in Europe to come up with a harmonised patent legislation for the EU. The successful patenting of what some might consider trivial or obvious inventions, such as 'one-click shopping' has made software patents tricky terrain for the tech industry. ...more