UK games chart: Cricket gets comfortable at the crease

August is always a quiet month for games and with no new entries in this week's ELSPA UK games chart we watch the existing pack shuffle - Ashes interest fuels Brian Lara's return to the top of the charts with Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 Behind Codemaster's cricket game for the PC, PS2 and Xbox, Activision's multi-format movie spin-offs line up, with Madagascar at two and Fantastic 4 at number three. Also benefiting from the efforts of Vaughn and his boys is Cricket 2005, EA's leather and willow game for the PC, PS2 and Xbox. Indeed, Xplosiv's International Cricket Captain: Ashes 05 also makes it to the top of the chart for budget PC games. ...more

Website guides parents on gaming issues

A website has been launched to help parents understand the age ratings system for computer and video games. The idea is that they will better understand the choices about games for their kids or perhaps decide what is unacceptable when they start buying games themselves. The site www. ...more

Novell backs up Unix claims against SCO

The Groklaw website reports that Novell has filed documents in its defence against SCO's claim of Slander of Title that clearly state Novell was to retain key Unix intellectual property that SCO claims it does not own. The case centres on SCO's belief that Novell is damaging SCO's revenue claims for the use of Unix intellectual property - that Novell is claiming that it never passed them on to SCO when it sold Unix back in 1995. However, the latest filing details minutes of a meeting of the board of Directors at Novell the very day before the Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) to transfer Unix to SCO was signed. ...more

AOL floats ICQ Lite

AOL is today expected to release a new version of the ICQ instant messenger today, to be known as ICQ Lite. The new software will be separate from, but interoperable with, AOL's other IM, http://www.aim. ...more

Rio launch CD player

The company synonymous with MP3 players has announced the launch of its very first CD player. The new Rio Volt plays standard CDs but it is perfectly at home with a CD-R chock full of MP3 or WMA files, which means you can store over 250 songs on one CD. The player features a text window that can display the track number, song title, artist name and album and an easy-to-use navigation system via a remote control. ...more