Yahoo! buys up online picture sharing site Flickr

In yet another round of search engine follow-my-leader, Yahoo! has bought Canadian photo sharing company Flickr. The acquisition follows a similar move by Google last year when it bought up the Picasa picture sharing website. The Flickr startup has won many plaudits for its free picture management download software and service. ...more

Palm releases Outlook 2007 sync patch

Palm has released a software patch that enables all its handhelds to sync emails, calendars, contacts, tasks and notes with the new version of Outlook in Microsoft Office 2007. The patch updates the sync conduits on the PC, making no changes to the software on the handheld. It is not required where the Palm Desktop software, rather than Outlook, is used for syncing. ...more

PS2 at the double

The next three months will see Sony double production of its much-hyped, next-generation console. The company has said that it wishes to ship 10 million consoles worldwide by the end of March in an attempt to make up for the production delays that saw the number of pre-order machines being cut. At the moment, Sony is producing 1 million units a month and analysts believe that it would be difficult for the company to double production. ...more

Apple considers next steps against iPod shuffle look-alike

Apple's lawyers are said to be 'weighing their options' after a company refused to remove its iPod shuffle lookalike from its stall at the CeBit technology show in Germany. Luxpro temporarily took the portable music player from its stand on Friday only to bring it back out on Saturday, leading to what has been described as a heated exchange of words with a distraught Apple representative. Luxpro's Super Shuffle is a near identical copy of the iPod shuffle, although its feature set differs slightly, with an FM tuner, voice recorder and support for WMA rather than AAC files. ...more

AMD aims for a quiet revolution

AMD has set out a new range of its desktop processors with the emphasis on low power consumption. The company has announced new energy efficient AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core, AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Sempron processors, based on the new socket AM2 design. Two new types of lower power design are being introduced - a standard 'energy efficient' range and an 'energy efficient small form factor' series. ...more