Spansion - AMD and Fujitsu brand their Flash memory

AMD and Fujitsu has announced 'Spansion' as the global product brand name for its jointly-produced Flash memory products. Spansion memory will be produced by the specially-formed company FASL LLC. 'We plan to make Spansion Flash memory the pre-eminent brand in the memory market,' said Dr. ...more

Google denies music store rumours

Google has denied rumours that it plans to open a digital music store, following a report that it is contemplating a takeover of Napster. The New York Post claimed that the search giant is considering an 'extensive alliance' with Napster that could amount to acquiring the music service, which has struggled to make much of an impact in the face of the dominance of Apple's iPod/iTunes axis. It is currently the third biggest service behind iTunes and RealNetwork's Rhapsody. ...more

Evesham responds to PC Pro readers

Following a PC Pro review (in issue 100, February 2003) Evesham has clarified its position regarding the specification of the Evesham Axis 2400+ MK. The official statement from Evesham, taken from the PC Pro forum, is as follows: 'Regrettably the [Evesham Axis 2400+ MK] review hit the streets at a time when many staff were taking leave and communication was somewhat slow and restricted. Originally the PC submitted was specified to have a standard Radeon card, but due to the difficulty in physically identifying the card, many of our systems went out with the Pro card on board - we believe in excess of 300 people have unwittingly received an upgrade to a Pro card during December. ...more

Automated chat bots help smokers quit

According to the New Scientist, automated chat bots may become a cheap and effective way to help smokers defy their cravings. In a reverse-Tamagotchi fashion, the chatbot's aim is to keep its human partner alive, with a round-the-clock task of talking him or her through the tough times. A group from the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands, and the Dutch anti-smoking organisation Stivoro is working on a softly-spoken female chatbot, with a full complement of facial and linguistic expressions, similar to its human counterpart. ...more

Supermarket shopping is slower online

An investigation into supermarket shopping online has discovered that you can save yourself on average nine minutes by taking a trolley round the aisles of the real thing. The report from the Good HouseKeeping Institute has found that using the websites of major supermarkets takes an average of 46 minutes per shop, compared with 37 minutes for going in and doing it yourself. It also found that the selection online is not as wide-ranging - not one of the supermarket websites had all of the 26 items on the shopping list, and some items in the order had to be substituted. ...more