IBM fires e-commerce lawsuits at Amazon

IBM is taking Amazon to court. Big Blue has filed two patent infringement lawsuits against Amazon, relating to the technology used by its online sales service. The suits accuse Amazon of willfully violating technology patents covering such functionality as allowing users to order items from an electronic catalogue and displaying advertising in an interactive service. ...more

Sony PlayStation news round up

In one big dollop of news, we cover Sony's new PlayStation portal, the launch of the PS One and which games will be released with the PlayStation 2 on 24 November. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has launched a new web portal for its PlayStation range which links onto 14 adapted European sub-sites, covering five languages and creating 21 different versions of the initial site. The new design was conducted by agency Icon Medialab and will be hosted from London. ...more

AMD reveals Opteron chipset with PCI Express boosted data throughput

AMD has announced details of a new chipset for Opteron-based servers and workstations. Part of the AMD-8000 series, the AMD-8132 HyperTransport PCI-X 2.0 tunnel brings PCI-X 2. ...more

Denmark considers separating iTunes store from iPod

According to reports, the Danish government is being petitioned by native companies to follow France and force Apple to break its tight integration of iTunes and the iPod and make its music store DRM-interoperable. Ars Technica reports that the country's largest telco TDC and supermarket Maersk - both of whom operate online music services - have urged Denmark to follow France and introduce legislation that ensures DRM interoperability. This is reported in the Danish-language Politiken. ...more

World Cyber Games: the UK trail starts in West London

You too can join the devalued ranks of honed, muscled, professional (kinda) sportsmen by taking part in the World Cyber Athletics. Yep, this weekend the 15-person team to represent the UK in this year's World Cyber Games in Korea is being finalised at the Shepherds Bush Pavilion. With ?30,000 in prizes up for grabs this weekend, the winners will also head off to the Olympic village in Seoul, Korea to compete for $350,000 in prize money at the World Cyber Games in October. ...more