Sony releases big-small USB stick

If you find those USB sticks a touch on the weighty side to have to drag around with you, Sony may be able to help. With more than a Gigabyte to every gram in the highest capacity model, the new Micro Vault Tiny weighs just 1.5g, with capacities from 256MB to 2GB. ...more

CIA in secret chat room shocker

The CIA, that US guardian of secrets, has discovered one secret that it didn't know about - a secret chat room used by its own staff. The chat room was created within its classified computer system by employees at the agency and was used to trade standard office banter. However, the CIA has taken a dim view of the incident and has put up to 10 employees on leave while an inquiry gets underway. ...more

Internet Explorer suffers as Web users explore alternatives

Web users are increasingly looking for alternatives to Internet Explorer, according to new figures from analyst WebSideStory. For the first time, there has been a fall in the share of surfers using Microsoft's browser. In the last three months IE was used by 93. ...more

A Choice of Bagles in new wave of worm attacks

Security specialist Sophos has issued a warning about two very similar versions of the Bagle virus, just hours after the original 'Bagle' expired. The company says it has received many reports of these files infecting machines in the wild. The two new variants - dubbed Bagle-F and Bagle-G - are both email worms which transmit themselves via their own SMTP engine to addresses held on the infected machine's hard disk. ...more

Microsoft betas Vista-bound WinFS file system

Microsoft has unleashed a beta version of its Vista-bound WinFS file system for Windows XP. Originally highlighted as a key part of Vista, WinFS was dropped from the launch version of Vista a year ago, but has now reappeared ahead of expectations, albeit in beta, on Microsoft's MSDN developer network. It's still not due as an official part of Vista until next year, however. ...more