Games to blame for rise in UK inflation

The latest figures from the government's National Statistics Office reveal that our love of games, DVDs and computers is fuelling inflation. According to the office, the Consumer Prices Index, by which the Government measures the level of inflation, rose from 1.5 per cent in May to 1. ...more

Springdale boards on top of mobo makers' program lists for CeBIT

Motherboards based on Intel's new 865 (Springdale) and 875 (Canterwood) chipsets are expected to enjoy the sole spotlight at the CeBIT Hannover exhibition beginning next week, as Taiwanese chipset designers have still not obtained technology licensing for the 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) standard, the new feature of the Springdale platform. As a result, in addition to Springdale and Canterwood products, board makers will focus on featuring Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) K8-based motherboards, Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 series graphics cards and ATI Technologies Radeon 9800 series cards as well as WLAN (wireless local area network) products. On the chipset designers' part, Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) will highlight its K7 and K8-supporting chipsets, while ALi Corporation (formerly Acer Laboratories) will feature its multimedia and peripheral-use chip lines, such as the M5271 USB2. ...more

DVD Jon attacks Windows Media encoding

Notorious software hacker DVD Jon has succeeded in removing encoding on Windows Media streams that restricts playback to Microsoft's Windows Media Player software John Lech Johansen, who got his nickname after hacking the copy protection on DVDs so that they could be copied to a computer hard drive, revealed in his So sue me blog that he had reverse engineered encryption coding in order to allow people to access the content using open source media player software. Derk-Jan Hartman, who works on one such open source player, VideoLAN, said that he and a fellow developer had expressly asked Johansen to help. 'VideoLAN members need to multicast video, but the Windows Media Player creates NSC files that contain encoded text,' he said. ...more

NHS facing massive cost overrun for IT system

A mammoth IT system for the NHS is expected to cost billions more than expected, possibly eating into funds needed for front-line local health services, according to reports. The system, which will enable patients to book hospital appointments at times and places that suit them and give health staff access to patient records wherever they are, was originally billed at ?2.3bn over three years. ...more

The set-top box giveaway (for Microsoft TV developers)

Microsoft makes moves to support development of next-generation television services. Microsoft has taken advantage of the National Association of Television Program Executives Conference in Las Vegas to announce that it is teaming up with Motorola to provide advanced set-top boxes to registered developers. Developers involved with the new Microsoft TV Content Builder Initiative (CBI) will receive Motorola's DCT-5000+ set-top box for development and testing. ...more