Mobile bills to include lunch

Members of the Croatian government's Cabinet that interrupt meetings by forgetting to turn off their mobile phones could face more than embarrassment. Prime Minister Ivica Racan has had enough of the Dom Jolly antics of his Ministers and has decided that owners of errant mobiles will have to take himself, the rest of the Cabinet, and any present journalists out to lunch if their handsets go off. Indeed if it then goes off a second time, the penalty is extended to include an entire week. ...more

English rugby tackles broadband

The England Rugby Union team lost their way on Saturday - perhaps they had their minds on an ISP service to be launched in their name. Cashing in on rugby's new-found (short-lived? - Ed) popularity is Englandrugby.net, a broadband service for England rugby fans. ...more

Muso-mobiles cool on WMA, hot on iPod

The success of the iPod is, it seems, having an impact on other portable devices, notably mobile phones. New phones announced this week by Nokia and Sony Ericsson are noticeable for the fact that their integrated music players will play all the iPod-friendly formats - MP3, M4A and AAC - but not Microsoft's proprietary WMA. Now, if you had asked us 18 months ago, we would have pessimistically projected that WMA was ultimately destined to usurp MP3's position at the top of the digital music pile. ...more

Poland continues fight over EU patent directive

Poland has issued a call to arms against the steady progress of the EU directive on computer-implemented inventions. Despite the European Commission turning down requests from both the European Parliament and JURI, the EU Committee on Legal Affairs Commission, Poland is still pressing for change. However, they will be leading from the back. ...more

UK leads Europe for Internet shopping

Tech-savvy Brits shop online more than any other European country, according to new figures from Intel. Intel quizzed 6,075 PC and mobile owners across Europe and found that two-thirds (77 per cent) of Brits use the Internet for buying goods other than groceries, compared to only 60 per cent of people on the continent. People living in the UK are also more likely to do the weekly food shop from home, with more than a third of us getting groceries delivered to our door through the Internet. ...more