EC to investigate copyright cartel

The European Commission is set to take on what it believes is a music copyright cartel. It says that it will open formal proceedings against CISAC - the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and the national collecting societies over the way they collect royalties through new media. The EC has particularly taken issue with monopolistic practices that force both music authors and licensees to work solely through the national collecting agencies. ...more

Open Source leaders plead for Europe to revise new patent Directive

European leaders of Open Source software have appealed to the European Council not to rubber-stamp a Directive that would legalise software patents in Europe. Linus Torvalds, the founder of the Linux operating system, Michael Widenius of the Open Source database MySQL and Rasmus Lerdorf behind the widely used PHP server-side scripting language, have published a letter urging members of the European Council to exclude software as patentable from a new patent Directive on 'computer-implemented' inventions. 'The political decision on the patentability of software should be based on merits, economic logic and ethical considerations, not on whatever may have been the practice of the patent system in recent years,' they write. ...more

AMD and ATI chiefs outline acquisition benefits

AMD and ATI chiefs, Hector Ruiz and Dave Orton, have fleshed out more details of the merger announced this morning in a press briefing this afternoon. Repeating the mantra of 'growth, innovation and choice', Ruiz expects to see cost savings worth $75m in 2007 and $125m in 2008 and no major lay-offs. He insisted the deal was about gaining share in new and existing markets rather than reducing customer choice. ...more

Apple multi-clicks the Mighty Mouse

Apple has finally bowed to popular demand and introduced its first ever multi-button mouse, the Mighty Mouse. The mouse has four independently programmable buttons, plus an 'ingenious' Scroll Ball that lets users scroll in any direction - vertically, horizontally and even diagonally. The right- and left-click buttons are touch-sensitive areas to the front of the mouse, while the force-sensing side buttons let you switch between applications. ...more

Google snaps up Picasa

Search engine Google has bought up Picasa, a company which sells some highly rated digital photo management software. 'Picasa enables users to easily manage and share digital photographs, and its technologies complement Google's' said Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice president of Product Management. Founded in 2001, Picasa already has a relationship with Google's Blogger service to make publishing digital photos easier. ...more