Mr President, I can not tell a lie

With the US elections almost over, new software has been used to test which of the candidates has talked with biggest forked tongue. A piece of software called Truster has the supposed ability to root out little white lies from those big black ones! Time magazine recently routed the two presidential candidates' voices through the software while they were taking part in a debate and the results proved interesting reading. It seems that Al Gore could only muster 23 false statements during the test while George W Bush scored an impressive 57 fibs. ...more

Microsoft VSA technology drives source control change

Expect an announcement from Microsoft in the coming weeks about a next-generation source control solution. A motor for change is the scheduled mid-year arrival of VSA (Visual Studio Applications) technology, which is a framework for making traditional "back-office" functionality modifiable by end users. An issue that VSA introduces, however, is the version control management implicit for such systems, which will often have multi-level customisation built-in. ...more

BT plans to squeeze knowledge from the Net

With the start of the WWW2006, the 15th international World Wide Web conference, which this year is being held in Edinburgh, BT has been outlining its R&D efforts for the Semantic Web and how to make it more of a commercial proposition. In a nutshell, the Semantic Web is a World Wide Web Consortium-backed initiative (W3C to give the Web more meaning) that seeks to put more 'meaning' into online data, such that it can be more effectively processed by computers rather having to be interpreted at a basic level by humans. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web no less, is among those pursuing development of the Semantic Web, at Southampton University. ...more

Narrowband "a good deal", says Oftel

Oftel has concluded a review of the dial-up Internet connection market and its initial conclusion is that UK customers fare well, despite some reservations. The review shows that ten million households now have Internet access, up four million in a year, and that 35 per cent of households choose some form of unmetered access. However, Oftel recognises that consumers are concerned about the quality of customer service and the availability of information that enables them to select the right package. ...more

The Internet remains easier for Explorer

New research indicates that despite the rise in popularity of alternative browsers to Internet Explorer, many websites are specifically designed to be viewed in IE and as many as 10 per cent are inaccessible using the alternatives. Perhaps one of the more heinous acts of incompatibility rests with www.jobcentreplus. ...more