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Sept |
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Newsletter | |
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Issue 14 |
| i28 Newbury |
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Microsoft fine increased in infringement case |
This bank holiday weekend saw the UK's biggest LAN festival in Newbury. The event saw more than 1000 attendees.
Visitors to the event bring their own computers and spend the weekend connected to
each other and the internet playing games and generally doing what they would normally be doing Attendees paid up to £80 each for the pleasure of pitting themselves against each other. Also at the
event were companies such as Samsung, Creative and Kustom PC's showing off their latest hardware.
There is a more serious side to the weekend's event and that's the World Cyber Games UK Qualifiers. Geeks truly at the top of their game pit themselves against each other in cyberspace for the right to represent their country at this years finals being held in Monza, Italy. This summer we may have been terrible in the World Cup in Germany but in Italy our bottom perched, button pressing cyber games players are expected to kick some virtual butt. By Grant Peck |
A US judge has rejected Microsoft’s plea for a new trial in a patent infringement case and has slapped an extra $25m fine on the software giant. In April, Microsoft was ordered to pay $115m (£64m) to David Colvin, the founder of Z4 Technologies, for infringing patents in its anti-piracy software. Computer aided design firm Autodesk was also ordered to pay $18m (£10m), following a jury verdict against the two firms. Colvin had taken Microsoft and Autodesk to court in 2004, claiming his patents had been infringed in Microsoft's Office and Windows XP and Autodesk's AutoCAD products. The two companies’ request for a new trial has now been thrown out by District Judge Leonard Davis. He upheld the original $115m award against Microsoft and ordered the software firm to pay an additional $25m in enhanced damages plus almost $2m in legal fees. Autodesk was ordered to pay $322,000 legal fees on top of the original $18m fine.
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UK heads EU spyware chart |
Blackberry addiction a serious business, says academic |
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The UK has more computers infected with spyware than any country in the European Union, research shows. The country has replaced Ireland in the top spot, according to an international survey of 19,480 PCs by vendor Webroot. Some 30.5 instances of spyware per 1,000 PCs were recorded in the UK, ahead of the 30.3 in Ireland, 29.3 in Lithuania and 26.5 in Latvia. Forty of the companies surveyed admitted they had suffered a serious security breach resulting from spyware on their machines. In the consumer market, 89 per cent of PCs were found to contain spyware. Webroot’s Daniel Mothersdale says the UK is an obvious target for spyware. ‘Over the last two quarters, Ireland and UK have been the worst affected countries in Europe,’ he said. ‘They both have a very big strength in terms of IT companies and wealth definitely makes them a target. But more of a factor is places where the economy is blossoming, such as the UK, Latvia and Lithuania.’ Mothersdale says UK businesses are now starting to take the problem of spyware much more seriously. ‘At the start of this year there was an amazing turnaround in the marketplace with companies saying that this is something they need to do something about,’ he said. ‘The enterprise sector has really sat up and recognised the problem in 2006. From a criminal point of view there is a movement at the moment to target the big organisations.’ A recent survey conducted by SafeNet found that 80 per cent of IT directors do not have full confidence in their security systems, and 39 per cent are most concerned about unauthorised access to systems by outsiders. Thomas Raschke, senior analyst at Forrester Research, says although spyware has increased in recent times, it is unlikely to get much worse. ‘Spyware has picked up this year, but I think that now the tip of the wave on a global scale is a little bit behind us,’ he said. ‘The UK and Ireland will always be a target because they are English-speaking countries. People launching spyware are largely in the US, and target English language speaking countries.’ |
Employers who push staff to carry handheld devices at all times could be sued for encouraging addictions among their staff, US academics have warned. Rutgers University’s associate professor of management, Gayle Porter, believes continual use of devices such as Blackberrys can be addictive and could mean users lose the ability to forget about work and relax. "IT addiction has been treated by policy makers as a kind of elephant in the room – everyone sees it, but no one wants to acknowledge it directly,” she said. In a forthcoming study, Porter argues that health and safety law may evolve to take the dangers of over-using technology into account. “It may be unfeasible to regulate how much people use technology,” she said. “However, it is reasonable to imagine a time when policy makers recognise the powerful influence of employers that sometimes results in harmful excess among the workforce. “The pressure for using technology to stay connected 24/7 may carry employer responsibility for detrimental outcomes to the employees. |
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Intel Core 2 Duo notebooks hit the shelves |
Office workers found wanting with Microsoft Office |
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Laptop manufacturers have started selling the first notebooks powered by Intel's new Core 2 Duo processors formerly known by their 'Merom' codename. Manufacturers including Dell, Gateway and Toshiba have launched more than 200 new laptop models featuring the dual-core 64-bit processor. Intel is preparing its next mobile upgrade for early next year, when the chipmaker is planning to launch its Santa Rosa chipset. The processor is the first mobile chip to use Intel's Core micro-architecture. The new architecture is largely identical to the Banias micro-architecture which formed the foundation of Intel's previous mobile processors. The new chips therefore offer only limited improvements. Much larger gains can be achieved in the server and desktop segment, where the Core micro-architecture replaces the power hungry Netburst technology. Intel released its Woodcrest Xeon processor in June, which on average offers 80 per cent better performance while consuming 40 per cent less power. Launched in July, the Conroe desktop processor is designed to cut power consumption by 40 per cent while adding 40 per cent in performance. |
Businesses could be losing productivity because staff do not understand how to use Microsoft Office applications, tests have shown. An analysis of the results of more than 4,350 online tests carried out by the ms-iq.com website revealed that the most frequent score was six right answers out of 15. The website allows users to test their Microsoft Office skills anonymously. Andy Brown, who created the test website, said, “This is not much higher than someone choosing random answers would achieve – many people must be struggling to complete relatively simple office tasks and this could be impacting a company's bottom-line.” |
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