Like a scene from all those movies

A new Web site brings digitised cityscapes to your desktop. New York becomes "NY virtual city", with 360-degree views of the metropolis being captured. DizzyCity's site has actually opened with views of Manhattan, but the streets of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are scheduled to be covered in due course. ...more

iTunes set to overtake Real Player

Apple's iTunes software will overtake Real Player later this year to become the second most widely used media software after Windows Media Player (WMP). Nielsen//NetRatings reports that based on current trends iTunes will have just under 30 million unique users by the middle of 2006, compared to the 80 million who use the Microsoft player. Currently iTunes has just 18. ...more

Microsoft cans WinFS

WinFS, the much anticipated and long delayed new SQL based filing system originally intended as a cornerstone of the new Windows Vista operating system is no longer a product-wide feature. Instead, Microsoft says it is planning to scale back the scope of WinFS deployment to the next version of SQL Server, code-named 'Katmai' and 'Orcas' the version of Visual Studio intended as a development platform for Longhorn Server. In a blog posting, Quentin Clark the product manager announced that 'we are not pursuing a separate delivery of WinFS, including the previously planned Beta 2 release'. ...more

Novell and Microsoft 'agree to disagree'

The collaboration between Microsoft and Novell already appears to be crumbling to dust just weeks following the announcement. Novell has issued an open letter in which it asserts that signing a patent covenant with Microsoft not to sue each others' customers is not an admission of infringement. Barely hours later, Microsoft released a statement claiming the companies have 'agreed to disagree' over the issue. ...more

And also today (30-July-2001), for the record...

Here, in brief, are some of the day's other stories. Branson against BT? The The Independent on Sunday reported yesterday that Sir Richard Branson is considering taking on BT in the fixed-line business. Virgin, of course, are already in the mobile phone market with Virgin Mobile. ...more