3G is launched in Japan

Daddy, where were you when the world's first 3G mobile phone services network was launched? Were you actually in Tokyo? Did you have a video-phone handset? Actually, no, son. The video-phones weren't available for the first month and there were a number of glitches with the free handsets that were available - lock-ups meant rebooting the always-on access to the Internet and e-mail. But that's what you expect with a trial launch - the full service was actually planned to rollout from October. ...more

Microsoft settles up

Microsoft has settled two further class-action law suits brought by consumers in Columbia and Kansas for violating state anti-trust laws. Both settlements have been given preliminary approval and take the form of vouchers for hardware and software vouchers. Microsoft will keep half the value of any unclaimed vouchers and donate the remaining half to needy schools in the respective states. ...more

Hitachi buys IBM disk drive business

Hitachi is to acquire IBM's hard drive business for $2.05 billion, which it will merge with its own hard drive operations to form a new company. Initially, Hitachi will own 70 per cent of the new company. ...more

Yahoo! joins in with anti-spyware toolbar feature

In the latest round of me-tooism, Yahoo! has introduced an anti-spyware feature for its toolbar. The new tool, based on technology from the award winning Pest Patrol, claims to be able to detect and remove Adware, backdoors, downloaders, browser hijackers, hostile Java and ActiveX controls, tracking cookies and Trojans. Unlike Microsoft's solution launched last week, the Yahoo! tool is purely a detect and destroy tool and doesn't offer any immunisation protection or automatic updating features although it will tell you if a new version of detection database is available for download. ...more

Enthusiasts create eight-core Mac Pro

A computer hardware site has created an eight-core Mac Pro by replacing the Apple machine's two dual core Xeon processors with Intel's yet-to-be released, quad-core Clovertown chips. Anandtech was able to swap the chips because Intel has ensured that Clovertown - the second generation version of the Xeon - supports the same LGA-771 socket. Using a pair of 2. ...more