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by Stan Beer
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Google intends to get a piece of the online shopping pie with a new shopping cart payment service for buyers at participating online retailers. The new online service, called Google Checkout (http://checkout.google.com), aims to offer one-stop checkout option that enables shoppers to purchase from participating stores with a single Google login. It also works with Google's search advertising program, AdWords.
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by Stan Beer
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Computer maker Dell has launched a new level of support for server and storage system customers, The company says its Platinum Plus service is the result of a $200 million investment and will integrate Google Earth to provide an interactive 3D command centre for clients.
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by Stan Beer
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A larger screen, longer battery life, increased memory and possibly Bluetooth earphones are new technology improvements that are being touted as features of the new iPod range that was due to be released later this year. The bad news is that for iPod fans is that implementing the improvements will probably force Apple to delay the release of the new range for a quarter and possibly longer.
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by Stan Beer
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Microsoft has acquired iView Multimedia, a UK based digital photo management company, which has an application that can compete directly Adobe products such as Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks.
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by Stan Beer
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Microsoft has responded to misgivings that users have expressed about its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program. However, rumours are now circulating about a possibly more ominous intrusion into their privacy by the software giant.
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by Stan Beer
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Multimedia tools and document authoring software vendor Adobe Systems has announced the availability of the Adobe Flex 2 product line and Adobe FlashPlayer 9.
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by Stan Beer
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One thing you have to say about Quentin Tarantino movies is that they always seem to come up with novel ways to explore the dark and violent aspects of human nature. At the same time, they somehow manage to get the audience to empathise with the characters perpetrating the violence.
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by Stan Beer
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According to a senior technical manager at chipmaker AMD, the new dual core Intel Xeon 5100 server processors are not all they're cracked up to be because of a major design drawback. The problem, according to the AMD technical guru, is that the so-called dual core processors share a single memory cache unlike the dual core AMD Opteron processor, which has separate dedicated cache for each core.
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by Stan Beer
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The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which includes some of the world's top mobile and internet players, wants to make it as easy to use the Web on a mobile device as on a desktop computer. Today, W3C, claims to have brought that mission one step closer with the publication of a document called Mobile Web Best Practices a Candidate Recommendation, a set of guidelines for developing applications on mobile phones.
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by Stan Beer
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A new poll indicates that most internet consumers are not interested in buying movies online - or at least not paying US$9.99 for a movie through iTunes as proposed by Apple Computer.
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by Stan Beer
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PC vendors have reduced hardware annual failure rates by approximately 25% in the past two years, but 15% of notebooks break down in the first year and nearly a quarter of notebooks owners will have to replace them after three years, according to a new benchmark study.
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by Stan Beer
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Microsoft obviously has an eager throng of would be Office 2007 users judging by the number people wanting to take a beta version of the product for a "test drive". At least that's what we think might have caused the 60 minute delay we would need to endure in order to use the Microsoft web services system that enables users to try out the features of the new version of Office.
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by Stan Beer
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Chip making market leader Intel Corporation aims to claw back at least some of the server market share it has lost to rival AMD with the release of its dual-core Xeon Processor 5100 series, previously codenamed Woodcrest. Aimed at the high-volume server, workstation, communications, storage and embedded market segments, the processors are based on the new Intel Core Microarchitecture and the hype surrounding the release has been extensive.
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by Stan Beer
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The more unnerving threats of going online, such as identity theft, phishing, pharming and keystroke logging, have been with us for sometime. However, to date, the major security vendors have dropped the ball on criminal scams and focussed mainly on the plethora of virus, spyware and spam attacks that pervade the net. With Microsoft entering the ant-virus fray at cut prices, market leader Symantec has given an indication that it intends to widen its horizons and devise systems to trap scammers.
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by Stan Beer
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It would be tempting to write off the news of the news of the shelving of Microsoft's much vaunted next generation filing system WinFS, which was first supposed to ship with Vista, then later as a standalone application, as a ho-hum, so what event. However, the way the product was quietly canned without any public explanation has caused some disquiet among market watchers.
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by Stan Beer
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 AMD has been stealing Intel's thunder for the past two years, increasing its processor market share from the mid-teens to over 20% and openly claiming that it will capture a 30% share by 2008. Intel hopes to avert that disastrous secenario with its Woodcrest server chip.
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