Usability and accessibility issues dog councils' online efforts

Barking and Dagenham only site to gain top rating in survey by the Society of IT Management. Of the 468 local authority websites across the UK, just Barking and Dagenham has achieved an excellent rating in a survey by the Society of IT Management (Socitm). The study graded every local authority website on their content, accessibility and level of usage. ...more

Pricerunner announces its retailers of the year

Price comparison engine Pricerunner has announced the winners of its retailer of the year awards based on nearly 6,000 reviews from customers. The awards cover Pricerunner's four most popular categories: Home Appliances, Sound and Vision, Computers and Photography. To qualify, retailers had to have participated for at least six months and have garnered at least 100 customer reviews. ...more

Microsoft launches kit to protect digital rights and push Windows Media

Microsoft shores up copyright and market dominance. Protecting copyright material in digital form has long been an issue troubling the media empires, who have invested billions in defending their content and combatting piracy. Microsoft has today announced a new component of its Windows Media 9 Series technologies called the Windows Media Data Session Toolkit that will help protect content and promote the Windows Media format. ...more

Strong iPod sales push supplier Foxlink's performance

Foxlink (Cheng Uei Precision Industry), a Taiwan-based consumer-electronics component maker, cites iPod music player orders from Apple Computer as a major growth factor for the company in the second half of this year. Buoyed by rising shipments, the maker's gross margins grew about three percentage points sequentially to 18.2% in the third quarter, the sources added. ...more

BarrysWorld gets fragged

BarrysWorld, one of the UK and Europe's most popular online gaming community websites, has announced that it is to cease trading on 5 February 2001. Despite the fact that its community boasts over 300,000 players and website page impressions have topped the 160 million per month mark, it appears that it has struggled recently to raise sufficient funds to maintain itself and its substantial quantity of online gaming servers. Ade Brownlow, CEO of the company, said that the current depression in both the computer games and Internet market had been the major reason behind the lack of incoming funds and was subsequently the main reason behind the decision to close its doors. ...more