Tiscali to webcast the Reading Festival

Tiscali is following in the footsteps of the BBC at Glastonbury and AOL at Live 8 to webcast the Reading Festival. The Official Online Sponsor of the festival, which takes place over the bank holiday weekend, 26-28 August, will have exclusive footage from the Carling Weekend on its website, where you will also be able to win tickets to gigs at the Tiscali VIP Tent. Headline acts include The Pixies, The Killers, Foo Fighters, Iron Maiden, Marilyn Manson and Iggy and the Stooges. ...more

RFID chips capable of transmitting viruses

A group of Dutch researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to insert malicious code into an RFID chip. Until now the prospect of viruses appearing on RFID units has been considered remote because of the tiny memory capacity in the devices and the possibility of transmitting remote code simply by scanning. RFID or Radio Frequency Identification chips are becoming increasingly common as a method of tracking or securing goods in transit. ...more

easyGroup enters online music market with 25p downloads

Stelios is tapping his feet to the rhythm of a new venture in the form of easyMusic, to be launched in time for Christmas. The easyGroup company has teamed up with London-based music service Wippit to launch a typically budget service, with downloads starting at 25p a track. Due to Wippit having secured international rights with some labels, the service will be available globally. ...more

BT plays down hacker claims

BT has denied that its new online music subscription service's built-in security can be hacked. As we reported yesterday, a hacker known as Beale Screamer claimed to have successfully hacked Microsoft's Digital Rights Management System, which is designed to prevent unauthorised copying of downloaded music in the WMA format that BT has chosen for the service. However Ben Drury, Btopenworld's head of online music, claimed the hack was a one off and that Microsoft is close to releasing a fix. ...more

Doctor, my files are breaking up

Executive Software has updated Diskeeper, its defragmentation system. Version 6.0 sees he addition of "Smart Scheduling" technology and improved power management. ...more