Sober worm infections cue up January attack

Security company iDefense claims a further attack triggered by Sober worm infections will occur 6 January 2006, based on code within the last variant unleashed at the end of last month. The US company says that it reverse-engineered and decrypted elements of the worm's code and discovered that it is scheduled to download further code from the Internet on that date - a date which coincides with the 87th anniversary of the founding of the Nazi party. Past variants of the Sober worm have also included Nazi messages. ...more

PlusNet unveils pay as you go pricing model for services up to 8Mbps

PlusNet has announced a significant overhaul of its broadband services, offering speeds up to 8Mbps and a new usage-based payment system. The ISPs Premier customers will be able to choose the speed of their connection but will be charged purely on the basis of the amount of downstream peak-time capacity they use; broadband usage between 1am and 8am will be entirely unrestricted. Monthly charges are as follows: ?21. ...more

Yahoo! Music Unlimited doubles subscription fees

Reportedly under pressure from the music industry, Yahoo! is raising its prices on the Yahoo! Music Unlimited service. From 1 November, the company will be hiking the annual subscription fee by five dollars to $9.99 per month from the current $4. ...more

Intel's Arizona Fab12 to process 300mm wafers

Intel Corporation is to convert its Fab12 production facility in Arizona to handle the new 300mm wafers. The bill for conversion from the existing 200mm process is likely to be around $2 billion. 300mm wafers are 225 per cent bigger than the more common 200mm wafers, which will allow Intel to get a lot more chips per wafer, slashing the cost per individual chip. ...more

Google trials free WiFi service

Search giant Google is expanding its services still further with an embryonic trial of a free wireless service. Google WiFi is currently being trialled in a few locations close to its San Francisco Bay Area headquarters. The free service supports encryption through a downloadable utility as well as connections to corporate networks through existing VPN channels. ...more