BT signs up Macdonald's for drive-thru Wi-Fi

Macdonald's fast food joints will soon be supporting Wi-Fi access following a deal with BT. The golden arches will now be the location for a further 500 BT Openzone access points. The idea of lingering over fast food might seem contradictory but in fact most of the sites will be at drive-thru restaurants. ...more

HP defects to Real, quits iTunes

Hewlett-Packard has announced that it is ditching Apple's iTunes music jukebox software in favour of RealNetworks' rival offering. The computer maker has been pre-installing iTunes on its PCs since 2004, when it began selling iPods under its own brand. However late last year it stopped offering the music player through its online store, hence the decision to despatch with iTunes. ...more

Gowers copyright report calls for UK right to private copying

A right to private copying should be enshrined into UK law, a Government-sponsored review of intellectual property has concluded. The report, by former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers, also recommends that the current 50-year limit for copyright on sound recordings is retained, rejecting music industry arguments for it to be extended, and proposes exemptions to IP law for libraries and educational establishments. Gowers recommends a strengthening of the law in some areas to tackle commercial counterfeiting and piracy and called for new powers and duties for Trading Standards to take action against infringement of copyright law and tougher penalties for online copyright infringement - with a maximum 10 years imprisonment. ...more

Online music stores dent teens' p2p habit

Commercial music stores such as iTunes are having an effect on the music downloading habits of teenagers according to a survey by Piper Jaffray. The investment bank found that 36 per cent of US teens bought their music from online services in 2006, up from 28 per cent the previous year. At the same time the use of p2p networks to obtain free, unlicensed music fell by eight per cent, although the proportion remains high, with 64 per cent of the 600 teenagers surveyed admitting to using unauthorised sources. ...more

Which? finds ink racket prices outstrip vintage champagne

Is the cartridge a third-full completely empty? No, it's not a way of looking at life, but the findings of the latest report on inkjets by Which? magazine which discovered that chips in Epson inkjet cartridges prompted the user to replace them, even though they were sometimes more than one third full. Replacement cartridges cost as much as ?29 for a typical HP replacement cartridge, which works out at ?1.70 per millilitre, more expensive than a bottle of 1985 Dom Perignon Champagne (about 23p per millilitre). ...more