Telewest revival renews NTL merger rumours

Telewest shares jumped 10 per cent yesterday after the company's managing director predicted that the cable operator would make a trading profit in the fourth quarter of 2003. The news renewed suggestions that Telewest may merge with rival cable operator NTL in 2004. Talk of merger before now has always been overshadowed by the vast debts both companies had incurred whilst swallowing up the UK's cable franchises However, Telewest is expected to complete the restructuring of its ?5. ...more

Receive phone calls through your finger

Japanese telecom company NTT DoCoMo has developed a radical new telephone that enables users to receive incoming calls by sticking their fingers in their ears. The new Whisper device is strapped onto the user's wrist and it translates audio signals into vibrations that travel through the wrist bones to the tips of the fingers. To hear the call, you have to stick a finger in your ear and speak back into the device using a microphone in the wristband. ...more

SCO launches law suit against Linux user AutoZone

SCO has filed a lawsuit against US car parts retailer AutoZone. The Utah based company is seeking an injunction that will prevent it from using Linux software that, SCO claims, illegally infringes its Unix intellectual property. The company alleges that 'AutoZone violated SCO's UNIX copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary UNIX System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights. ...more

Skype users blocked in UAE

Skype users in the United Arab Emirates are being prevented from accessing the company's website to buy minutes for making voice calls. The service has proved highly popular with expatriates, who make up about 60 per cent of the 2.5 million population. ...more

Italian email virus seeks to destroy your documents

Valuable photos, movies and documents could be chomped through by a new mass-mailing virus. Cata-A spreads via email and network shares. Emails arrive with Visual Basic Script attachment, Manutenzione. ...more