UK owner of Gmail trademark keeps up legal fight

The UK company that claims ownership of the Gmail trademark is preparing to take further legal action against Google after talks between the two companies failed to reach an agreement. Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) began negotiations with Google 16 months ago after the US search company unveiled its Gmail Web-based email service. IIIR claims a prior right to the trademark as the name of the webmail component of its Pronet software suite, which was first released in May 2002. ...more

LaCie accelerates PocketDrive CD-RW

LaCie has added a faster, 8x4x24 CD-RW drive to its PocketDrive range. Measuring just 152x158mm and housed in a shock-absorbent casing, this portable drive includes both FireWire and USB interfaces and, when connected via the former, can burn a CD-ROM in 10 minutes. The FireWire connection - for which there are two daisy-ports - also powers the drive, though a separate power supply is provided for USB connections or to conserve battery power. ...more

The battle of the front room hots up

While DVD-burning devices hit the PC market and hard disks appear on your set-top box, Panasonic has combined both, this time under your telly. To be showcased at CEATEC JAPAN 2001 in early October, the DMR-HS1 contains a 40Gb hard drive, capable of recording 52 hours of content, and can also burn 12 hours' worth of material onto a double-sided DVD-RAM or DVD-R disc. The unit also reads DV-recordings via i-Link (IEEE1394 or FireWire) and users can set up a Play List - a list of still images that bookmarks sections or chapters of your DVD. ...more

Linux certificate puts kernel developers in impossible position

A patent expert has attacked the Open Source Community's latest initiative to document the provenance of code contributed to the Linux kernel so that proving its origins will be quicker and easier in the face of litigation. The Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.0 asserts that the developer submitting the code which it covers has either written or modified that code according to their rights to do so, or it is being submitted, unchanged, on behalf of someone else who asserts these rights. ...more

Red Hat broadens product line with application server

The major distributor of enterprise-scale Linux systems has pressed the Red Hat Application Server into existence. This is designed to be a lightweight and low-cost app server for those building multi-tier programs to run on open source systems. Claiming to be responding to customer demand, interoperability is promised with enterprise-scale J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) application platforms from the likes of IBM, BEA and Oracle. ...more