MGM backs Blu-ray

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is the latest movie studio to back the Blu-ray consortium headed by Sony. The studio is behind the James Bond and Pink Panther franchises. It is also of course the copyright holder of some of the biggest movies and TV programmes of the last 100 years and its archive will give a huge boost to the number of titles available on the new format - many of which will be in high definition for the first time. ...more

BPI wins landmark file sharing case

The UK record industry has won a landmark court case against two men it accused of sharing music files over the Internet. In the first ruling of its kind in this country a Norfolk man must make an immediate payment of ?5,000, plus meet additional costs estimated at ?13,500 and damages. A Brighton man was ordered to pay ?1,500 now with costs and damages to be assessed later. ...more

Dell warms to virtualisation

As businesses become more attuned to the benefits of virtualisation, they need to pay closer attention to systems management or else risk losing control. So says Jeffery Wartgow, part of Dell's Alliance Marketing team, speaking on the topic of virtualisation at a Dell event entitled 'Enabling Business Growth' in Barcelona this morning. '[The industry] needs to be aware of virtual server sprawl,' he said. ...more

Half Brits go online for Christmas spree

A new study reveals the extent of online shopping in the run up to Christmas 2005. Research company IMRG states that as much as half of the adult population in the UK clicked online as sales increased 50 per cent. It seems that shoppers spent ?5 billion online during the 10-week run-up to Christmas, compared with ?3. ...more

Inclement weather floods PC World help lines

PC World says it received more than 10,000 calls to its helplines following bad weather that affected parts of the UK last weekend. The company said that this is the first time this year that it had seen such a spike. Steve Campbell, marketing director at PC World, said: 'There has been a massive increase over the weekend in calls to our support staff with queries about modems and data restoration due to damaged hard drives and modems. ...more