UK games chart: Mercenaries keeps hold of number one

The Lucas Arts action game Mercenaries keeps its place at the top of this week's ELSPA UK games chart. Priced at ?34.99 for the PS2 and Xbox consoles, the game stays ahead of Sega's Sonic Mega Collection Plus, at number two, and THQ's The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, which remains steady at number three. ...more

Price Check: MP3 players

Christmas is around the corner, and for those who can't wait for the Carol singers to turn up, downloading festive tracks to a digital player means you can enjoy aural yuletide cheer wherever you go. Digital music players established themselves some time ago as a more than competitive alternative to portable CD players. And with Apple making its iPod the premium must-have audio accessory this year, we'll also take a look at more budget-friendly players. ...more

palmOne LifeDrive isLaunched

palmOne has finally officially unveiled the latest addition to its PDA line-up, the LifeDrive. As we first reported in April, the LifeDrive will be the first PDA with a hard drive (a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive to be precise), making it a viable option for storing photos, short video clips and music. The expansion slot supports SD, SDIO and MultiMediaCard formats for transferring photos from a camera. ...more

Web creator slams ICANN proposal for more top-level domains

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has launched an attack on the ICANN proposal to introduce a new series of top level domains. He argues that other expansions such as .info and . ...more

Apple secures patent on music and video downloading

Apple could reap revenues from every song and video downloaded over the Internet after securing a 1996 patent. The company has reached an out of court settlement with the patent's original holder, an unnamed Vermont 'inventor' of a system comprising desktop computer holding multiple songs with an interface allowing a hotel guest to select three songs and play them on an electric grand piano. The inventor's lawyer, Michael Starkweather, claims that he spotted the potential in the patent and extended and redefined it to cover music and video downloading on a much larger scale. ...more