Intel Developer Forum, Fall 2006 - the final round-up

For all the processor news from San Francisco, here's our final round-up from Intel's Developer Forum 28 September IDF Fall 2006: Intel chief - 'I hate AMD' He didn't say it out loud, but he typed it out loud. IDF Fall 2006: Intel unveils new mobile platforms Intel's Mobility Group Dadi Perimutter formally unveils Santa Rosa, the next-generation Centrino platform for notebook PCs. IDF Fall 2006: Intel offers $1m prize to evolve the beige box< A million-dollar prize to build a 'sexy, stylish and small' PC, based on its ViiV multimedia platform. ...more

UK music lovers double downloads in 2006

When it comes to downloading music singles, 2006 was a good year for the UK with paid-for sales doubling. According to reported figures from the Official UK Charts Company (OCC), which supplies the stats for the UK music charts, 51.6 million downloads were purchased in 2006. ...more

A new Dimension from Dell

Dell adds a budget offering to its Dimension desktop range. The Dell Dimension 2300 is targeted at home users or small businesses looking for a budget system with 'essential features'. The system is priced at ?399 (excluding VAT). ...more

US intelligence to embrace Semantic Web for surveillance

According to the New Scientist, the US authorities may be looking into how they can combine personal data from social networks with data harvested from comms networks to help them with their intelligence work. A research paper delivered at the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) WWW2006 conference in Edinburgh last month on how to detect conflicts of interest between people based on their participation in social networks was part-funded by a body known as the Advanced Research Development Activity (ARDA). It turns out that ARDA, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service early this year, has the specific remit of funding research to help 'solve some of the most critical problems facing the US intelligence community' with money from the coffers of the National Security Agency (NSA). ...more

New modems for old

ADSL broadband supplier Pipex is offering to swap old external dial-up modems for a brand new ADSL modem - for free - if you sign up to their broadband service. The old modems won't just be thrown away, they will be given to the Computer Aid International charity which will then send them to new computer users in the developing world. Pipex is currently offering free ADSL connections to the first 40,000 to sign up and there are still around 20,000 spaces left. ...more