Sony's robodog to talk

Sony has revealed that it will be endowing its robotic cyber-pup, Aibo, with a voice. Sony engineers want Aibo to be able to interact with its owner using words and, with time, develop its own language skills. At the moment the ?1,600 robomutt only beeps and burps acknowledgement while the new prototype will actually be able to learn about its environment. ...more

iSuppli: Reckoning the Xbox bill of materials

It's not news that Microsoft and Sony don't make money on console hardware, but iSupply have provided the exact figures in a 'teardown' analysis of the latest Xbox 360 console. The research company calculates that Microsoft does indeed price the product well below the total bill-of-material (BOM) costs of the components. Specifically, the total cost for the Xbox 360 Premium reaches $525, which is well above the retail price of $399. ...more

56 per cent of Britons regular Net users

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show 56 per cent of adults in Great Britain had used the Internet in the past three months. The figures also pull the number of households with Internet access up to 12 million (48 per cent), a figure that has grown fivefold in as many years. While 56 per cent of the population of Great Britain had logged on in the past three months, roughly 44 had done so within the last seven days. ...more

Dell boosts Axim PDA range with new processors and operating system

Dell Computer is to launch three new PDAs to be known as Axim X30. The devices are fitted with Intel's latest generation of XScale PXA270 processors, formerly codenamed 'Bulverde', designed for better battery life and with built in multimedia extensions. The PDAs also run the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. ...more

Intel compilers - Itanium processors here we come

Intel has released Intel C++ Compiler for Windows v5.0 and Intel FORTRAN Compiler for Windows v5.0. ...more