UK winner announced for Europe's IT awards

The Syngene division of Synoptics Ltd has been named as one of the 20 winners of this year's European Information Society Technologies Prize (EISTP). The EC and the European Council of Applied Sciences and Engineering (Euro-CASE) have announced 20 winners yesterday, three of which will be awarded a Grand Prize worth ?200,000 (?125,000). The EISTP is awarded to "groundbreaking products representing the best of European innovation in information technology", said a statement on the EU Web site. ...more

AOL lays off 1300 staff

AOL is cutting 1300 of its staff with the brunt of the cuts falling at its customer support call centres. The cuts represent seven per cent of AOL's workforce worldwide. The official reason is that the nature of AOL subscribers has changed with today's customers being much more knowledgeable than at the height of its expansion in the mid 1990s. ...more

MacBooks extend Apple's covert 801.11n rollout

Apple has continued its covert rollout of next-generation wireless technology, installing 802.11n-compatible cards in the new Core2Duo MacBooks. The notebooks contain the same Atheros AR5008E WiFi chipset as the recently upgraded MacBook Pro, which supports 802. ...more

Microsoft and Oracle find agreement over .Net access to Oracle databases

Microsoft's campaign to woo its bitterest rivals in the technology industry took another step forward with the announcement that Oracle is to provide developers using Visual Studio .Net with easier access to its best selling database management systems. 'The integration of Oracle's products with Visual Studio . ...more

Microsoft admits to handing over search data to Feds

Microsoft has admitted that it has handed over data from its search engine logs to the Department of Justice (DoJ). Last week, Google refused a similar request saying that the Department's request was 'overreaching'. Although civil liberties may be in the mind of the company whose motto is famously 'do no evil', more importantly, from Google's point of view is its reputation with its visitors. ...more