NTL sees broadband value in local loop unbundling

NTL is planning a major expansion of its ADSL broadband services by unbundling 300 of BT's busiest exchanges. The cable provider has decided that since BT cut the cost of local loop unbundling by 70 per cent DSL is now a more cost effective way of growing the business than widening cable coverage. On completion of the LLU programme, NTL will have added around two million potential customers to the eight million homes currently within reach of its cable network. ...more

Negroponte defends One Laptop Per Child project

MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte took on critics of his One Laptop Per Child project, outlining a roadmap during his keynote at LinuxWorld Boston that could see machines in distribution for $50 by 2010. Both Intel and Microsoft made stinging remarks about the hardware powered by a crank handle: Intel has its own designs on getting its technology to developing nations and Microsoft may be riled by the choice of Linux as the operating system. Negroponte quipped that with Intel and Microsoft nay-saying his efforts, he was more convinced than ever he was on to something. ...more

Comment: File sharing is peerless

The only time I was caught for speeding, it never occurred to me to plead guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Reaching over 70mph was quite an achievement in itself at a time when I had a car fit for a student. Nevertheless, perhaps I could have deflected the blame onto Fiat, which was surely aware its creation was capable of breaking the speed limit when going downhill on the M3. ...more

PGP releases Desktop 8.0.3

Secure messaging specialists, PGP Corporation ahs released the latest version of PGP Desktop. The new version 8.0. ...more

FSFE takes a pop at Microsoft EU documentation

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has called into question the competence of Microsoft after it claimed to have spent more than 120,000 person days documenting its software for the EU to still be found inadequate. Microsoft had previously told the media that it had put 300 people working round the clock on delivering the specification documentation, required by EC sanctions against it for antitrust issues. Georg Greve, president of the FSFE, said: 'For users, this should be a shock: Microsoft apparently does not know the software that controls 95 per cent of all desktop computers on this planet. ...more