New Sony Clie packs 2-meg digicam

Sony's new Clie PEG-NZ90 tops out its Clie range of handhelds, sporting Palm OS 5 zipping along over an Intel chip at 200MHz, along with Bluetooth and a 2megapixel digital camera. Available at the end of the month for a suggested retail price of a shade under ?600, the PEG-NZ90 maintains the same clean lines you expect from the Clie range and incorporates the swivel/rotate higne that allows you to position the button keyboard underneath the 320x480 TFT colour screen or flip it behind to protect it when not in use. The key addition to the PEG-NZ90 is the 2megapixel integrated camera, with built-in flash and scene modes for difficult lighting settings. ...more

US Court throws out enforced content protection

A US Appeals Court has overturned a bid by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to force electronics companies to make products that recognise content protection technology and render existing non-compliant products illegal. The FCC was pushing its Broadcast Flag legislation to make it mandatory that televisions, set-top boxes and essentially anything able to utilise high definition television signals should be compliant with protection technologies that dictate how that content is viewed, copied and saved. However, the Appeals court has found that the FCC was going beyond its remit in its zealous campaign, and sided with concerns of associations opposing the Broadcast Flag rule, which included numerous US consumer and library organisations. ...more

Anyone can write code

A Cambridge-based programmer claims to have come up with a piece of software that will allow you to write a computer program using everyday language. The New Scientist tells how Bob Brennan has developed the programming kit that can turn a number of pre-programmed commands into machine code. Brennan says that his program can cut development time and uses a store of logical rules to generate the final code. ...more

Ask Jeeves expands its search options

Ask Jeeves has refined its search technologies to provide an enhanced version of related links to particular searches. It has introduced two new tools 'Zoom' and 'Web Answers', which are available now. Zoom appears on the right hand side of the search results. ...more

Electronic trading, it's a proposition you shouldn't refuse

IBM is getting serious about moving towards a paperless state. It spells out its views on the desirability of electronic trading in a letter sent out to its suppliers. The implication is that those who do not comply risk losing their contracts with Big Blue. ...more