Nude Dutch phone frenzy

Nudity, it seems, is on the rise for people who spend their time sat in front of a computer screen, as a Dutch call centre is advertising for staff that want to work naked. Holland, with its multi-lingual workforce and attractive rates of taxation, is a popular location for international call centres, resulting in a shortage of applicants for new posts, but the naked opportunity has succeeded in attracting a rush of highly-qualified applicants, according to Reuters. There could be quite a few from Yorkshire, if results of a survey by NOP for AOL are to be believed. ...more

Another (lego) brick in the wall

A great thing about the new range of Palm products is that you can customise them to suit your mood. Well, I've found one Web site where a Palm user has taken this idea to its limit using the humble Lego brick. The LegoPalm site shows that with the guts of a Palm VII and a selection of well-chosen Lego bricks, you can turn your organiser into a real talking point. ...more

VoIP 911 services to offer video, voice and location

Researchers from several organisations in the US have demonstrated a prototype 911 emergency phone call service for Web-based phones. The US Federal Communications Commission has ruled that VoIP providers include a free 911 service, but under current network conditions the caller can not be automatically located. The NG9-1-1 project was set up to address this problem for IP-based phones and other Internet-based communications devices. ...more

876MHz Power Mac launched

Apple CEO Steve Jobs used his keynote address at Macworld Expo New York to reveal faster new-look Power Macs, called Quicksilver, which include a high-end model with dual-processor 800MHz G4s. The 'second-generation' Power Macs are housed in a sleek pearly-silver enclosure and come in three configurations. The entry-level machine has a G4 clocked at 733MHz, which was previously Apple's high-end machine that cost ?2,499. ...more

AMD cues September launch of Athlon64

According to leaks of AMD's release schedule the Athlon64 processor will be launched 22 September, when the Athlon64-M mobile processor will also be appearing. AMD has already entered the world of 64-bit computing with its Opteron server processor, the industry's first 64-bit, x86 architecture. The Athlon64, however, will bring AMD's eighth-generation processor core to the desktop arena. ...more