Sony dogs kick off in Seattle

The aim is to have a team of robots that can beat the human world football champions by 2005, yes, the annual world RoboCup is back, this year in Seattle. The competition features teams of football-playing robots, some small enough to play on a table tennis table, some the size of adult humans. They compete in four leagues, Simulation, Small-size, Middle-size, and Sony Legged which features those Sony dog robots popularised by TV's Graham Norton. ...more

Music industry revenues fall despite anti-file sharing campaigns

The value of global music market declined by about two per cent last year despite high-profile anti-file sharing campaigns and a threefold increase in digital sales. John Kennedy, chairman of the IFPI, the music industry's leading international body, announced the fall at an industry get-together in Cannes, noting that the decline resumes the trend of the past five or so years, after 2004 had seen revenues level out. That the fall came despite the industry claiming that it is winning the war against file sharing 'piracy' had record company bosses accepting that there may be other reasons for people not spending their hard-earned on CDs 'Piracy in all its forms has been the major factor in this reversal but not the only factor,' said Eric Nicoli, chairman of EMI. ...more

And also today (16-May-2001), for the record...

Here, in brief, are some of the day's other stories. That Xbox announcement Bill Gates has announced at the E3 show in Los Angeles that Microsoft will launch the Xbox on 8 November. The asking price will be $299. ...more

Mac users get video with their Skype

It's been a long time coming for Mac lovers of Skype, but there is finally code for general consumption that adds video to the VoIP service. The fact that progress on the Mac and Linux versions of Skype appeared to be hobbling along, compared with their Windows counterpart, has been something of a bone of contention. So much so, that it has been one of the motivating factors behind Skype's release of its Video Preview. ...more

Pacific PC goes under

Pacific PC, the St Albans-based PC builder, has officially ceased trading. In a brief statement issued to the press, the company has announced that it is about to meet with liquidators and has stopped taking orders. Pacific claims that they have been careful to avoid trading insolvently - the Sales Director, Dario Rebaudengo, states that no cheques have been banked without a system being sent out. ...more