Straight-to-pod CD ripper announced

A Taiwanese company has unveiled a new device that rips CDs straight to an iPod, without the need for a computer. Zettabyte's iUpload rips the tracks as MP3s and transfers them to the iPod - or in theory any portable player - and even includes an Internet link for automatically tagging songs. iUpload is expected to be available later this year. ...more

Vodafone live! living up to expectations

Vodafone has announced that it has signed up 380,000 customers and is on target for a million users. Vodafone has announced that it has signed up 380,000 customers for its live! service, which offers picture messaging, games and other multimedia services through a mobile handset, in the two months following its 31 October launch. Sir Christopher Gent, Chief Executive, said: 'In the first two months of Vodafone live!, we have achieved over 380,000 customers across eight markets and are on track to achieve our target of a million sales to customers by the end of March. ...more

Panasonic's IT oven

If you're one of those types that spends their lives in front of a screen, breaking the monotony only to heat up a ready meal in the microwave before returning to your Excel worksheet, then Panasonic has just launched a life-changing product. The NE-SD10 microwave oven combo has a 3.8in colour LCD screen all of its own, with an SD-card slot to boot so you can store 8Mb worth of recipes. ...more

Hackers welcome Web 2.0

According to security experts, companies embracing web 2.0 technologies could open themselves up to new forms of attack by hackers. The fact that these technologies introduce both JavaScript and XML onto the desktop to mediate between the browser and the web server makes things more problematic, said Pete Simpson, ThreatLab manager at content security company Clearswift, speaking at a round table event. ...more

Cracked copies of Vista carrying malware

People searching the Net for pirated copies of Microsoft's Windows Vista should avoid downloading illegal versions of the software, a security expert warned. Around half of all downloads claiming to be copies of Microsoft's new operating system Vista are actually malware, according to John Safa, security expert and chief architect at firewall security company DriveSentry. The new operating system sees its consumer launch next week but already chat forums, discussion boards and peer-to-peer networks have been bombarded with messages advertising free 'cracked' copies of the software. ...more