Robot submarines continue their advance across the world's oceans

The Met Office has announced that it is halfway towards its goal of a network of 3,000 robot submarines patrolling the world's oceans. The Argo Programme now has 1,500 of the planned instruments at sea - known as Argo Floats - with the aim of monitoring the salinity and temperature of the oceans. Each Argo drifts beneath the waves at a depth of between 1,000 to 2,000 metres. ...more

UK record industry to launch legal offensive against file sharing today

The BPI will today announce the first wave of litigation against individuals it believes have illegally made copyrighted music files available for download. The UK record industry's main body will release details later this morning. On Tuesday, the BPI intimated that action was imminent against what it calls serial uploaders - 'the minority responsible for uploading the majority' of files using p2p applications such as Kazaa and Acquisition. ...more

Toshiba to debut first HD DVD Recorder

Toshiba, the company that has pushed the HD DVD standard has announced that it is to launch the world's first HD DVD Recorder in Japan next month. The new RD-A1 player combines a recordable HD DVD along with a 1Tbyte hard disk. Toshiba says it can record and store up to 130 hours of high-definition broadcasts on its hard disk and record up to 115 minutes of high-definition content to a 15Gb single-layer HD DVD-R disc, and up to 230 minutes to a 30Gb dual-layer HD DVD-R disc. ...more

Power Macs go dual-core

Apple has unveiled a major upgrade to its Power Mac range. In what is likely to be the last major upgrade to the desktop machines before Apple switches to Intel chips next year, Apple has used dual core processors for the first time. Dual core processors have more efficient cache and memory management that enables them to work more efficiently and therefore faster. ...more

Asus strikes UK shores with LCD panels

Asus is entering the UK LCD monitor market with four new 17in models. To make its mark in what is already a crowded space, the company is offering a 1 year 'ZBD' (Zero Bright Dot) returns policy. What this means is that if a single defective pixel is found on the panel within one year, a replacement will be issued. ...more