IBM bags most US patents in 2006

Big Blue has topped the patent pile once again, earning 3,621 patents in the US in 2006. IBM outdid its own previous records and topped the patent list for the fourteenth consecutive year. While IBM was awarded 3,651 patents, Samsung was second with 2,452 and Canon was third with 2,378. ...more

BBC online gears up for complete and collaborative overhaul

The BBC is planning a radical overhaul of its website along the lines of collaborative, interactive sites such as the phenomenally popular MySpace.com. In a presentation entitled Beyond Broadcast, Ashley Highfield, the BBC's director of new media and technology, launched a competition - open. ...more

Panasonic plans Blu-Ray player for September

Japanese consumer electronics giant Panasonic has announced that it expects to introduce its first Blu-Ray DVD player, the DMP-BD10, in September. Although pricing has not been finalised, the company says it expects to start selling the new machines at under $1,500 in the US. The company says that it will also be introducing a high definition television set at the same time to accompany the DMP-BD10. ...more

World Cup fever in your Palm

Here's a noteworthy freebie for all Palm-owning soccer fans. PalmOS-based handheld owners can get hold of TinyStocks' WCup 2002 for free and keep up to date with the latest games. Look up which games are played on which days and what games are played at each of the 20 stadiums. ...more

Google serves up new music search

Google is looking to capitalise on the fast growing music downloads market with the introduction of a 'music search' function to its standard search interface. Having noticed that a lot of people search for information about music (its amazing what you can find out when you have 3,000 PhDs in Computer Science working for you), Google is now offering a single box at the top of a results page that it has decided is about music. Clicking on a link will give you a standard list of links to official pages and fan sites, and news and pictures for the News and Images indexes. ...more