John Lister

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has backed plans to introduce laws on net neutrality . Unfortunately, they face political and legal challenges which appear to have the support of major Internet carriers. In a unanimous vote, the ... five-strong commission agreed to give force to the principles of net neutrality: that Internet providers treat all legal Internet traffic equally . That would outlaw practices such as slowing down access to people using peer-to-peer file-sharing, or blocking applications from running on cellphone networks. The vote doesn't guarantee the rules will come ... (view more)

The battle between Bing and Google has heated up with both sides agreeing to deals with micro-blogging site Twitter. In addition, Microsoft has reached a separate agreement with Facebook, while Google is launching its own, unique search tool for ... social networking sites. User demand is behind decisions by Microsoft and Google to include social networking in search results . While both search sites update their index of web pages regularly, they still struggle to cope with very recent information such as current events. While both Google and Bing have dedicated searches of news websites, that ... (view more)

Microsoft is running a series of special promotions in the hopes of kick-starting sales of Windows 7. The company will offer a new deal each day in the first week of the system's release. The most high-profile promotion starting today takes place at ... Best Buy. The store is offering a package, subsidized by Microsoft, which gives users three HP computers -- a desktop, a laptop and a netbook -- plus an LCD monitor, an Internet router and free set-up advice for a total of $1,199. Three PCs for the Price of a Mac Even taking into account that the desktop being offered is a relatively low-spec ... (view more)

Security firm Symantec estimates that 93% of computer users who wind up with ' scareware ' on their machines have intentionally downloaded it. Symantec also believes some people distributing the scareware could be earning more than a million dollars ... each year. Scareware involves giving Internet surfers bogus scans of their machines, often triggered by pop-up messages on Internet sites falsely claiming the user's PC is infected. The user is then encouraged to buy a fake antivirus / security program to remove it, though usually this program will be of little use. Symantec says it has found more ... (view more)

A marketing firm has offered Twitter $500,000 USD to carry a banner advertisement for just one day. However, the ad to be carried by Twitter is not guaranteed to be accepted because the advertising firm in question has a controversial reputation. ... The CEO of uSocial, Leon Hill, said of the offer "While half-a-million dollars may seem like a large amount to invest in one banner for one day, we believe that the investment will be more than worth it." (Source: adoimagazine.com ) However, Twitter does not currently carry advertising; therefore, even if it wanted to take up this offer, it's ... (view more)

According to a new study, almost 9 out of 10 PCs currently used by businesses are capable of running Windows 7. That's almost double the equivalent proportion when Vista launched. The figures come from IT assessment firm Softchoice. Rather than ... conduct an opinion poll, it gathered the information from the actual set-ups of 248 clients with a total of more than 450,000 Windows computers. The research found that 88 per cent of the computers met the minimum specifications for running Windows 7. That compares with a similar study the firm carried out on Vista's release which found just 50 per ... (view more)

T-Mobile is taking a huge financial hit in the fallout over the Sidekick data loss . But Microsoft, which bears at least part of the responsibility for the mistake, is paying the price with its reputation. As reported earlier this week, the phone ... network had to admit that some users' data had been permanently lost due to a problem with a server run by Microsoft-owned company, Danger. The handset works by storing data such as contacts and appointments on a remote computer rather than on the phone itself. Microsoft Recovers Lost Data BBC news reports today that Microsoft has in fact recovered ... (view more)

Apple has been criticized over its refusal to refund users who buy iPhone applications ("app") that don't work properly. In most cases, the firm only gives refunds if the app fails to download correctly, but not if the app itself is faulty. The ... issue gained attention when it was raised by New York Times blog writer Eric Taub. He complained that the refund policy means users don't have any opportunity to try an app and get their money back if it is of poor quality. (Source: nytimes.com ) Apple Refusing Refunds for Broken Apps However, David Coursey of PC World notes that in some ... (view more)

Users of the Sidekick range of smartphones have been warned that technical problems may mean some of the data they stored on the device has been permanently lost. The story follows a period of around a week during which no users of the device were ... able to access any data services. The phones are carried by the T-Mobile network in the US, and are produced by Danger, now a subsidiary of Microsoft. One of the key aspects of the devices are that they work on cloud computing , meaning most data is stored remotely at a Microsoft owned server rather than on the device. In theory this make for a ... (view more)

It looks almost certain that Microsoft will be redesigning European editions of Windows 7 and its predecessors to offer users a clearer choice of which Internet browser they'd like to use. However, the changes won't be introduced until well past the ... October 22 launch of the new operating system (OS). The European Union will soon begin official testing of a menu system designed by Microsoft. The new menu is meant to answer criticisms that the Redmond-based firm has an unfair advantage by including Internet Explorer as the only browser shipped with Windows. If approved, it could mean the ... (view more)