InternetNews Staff

NEW ZEALAND –Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), has been extending its shelf space by about a kilometre a year to keep up with the growth of paper-based land records but relief is in store with the government’s approval this week to go totally electronic. LINZ chief executive, Dr Russ Ballard, says Cabinet’s approval of phase […]

SINGAPORE — Derivatives contracts on the Singapore Exchange Derivatives Trading (SGX-DT) system are now accessible via the Internet. Developed by patsystems, a provider of electronic trading systems, the SGX’s electronic trading system (SGX ETS) is said to make available a low-cost alternative to leased lines and dedicated terminals for order routing. Patsystems, which is listed […]

Storage giant EMC Corporation this week announced it has acquired FilePool NV, a venture-backed software development company based outside of Brussels, Belgium. EMC acquired FilePool NV in a cash transaction valued at less than $50 million. David A. Donatelli, EMC’s Senior Vice President of New Business Development, said, “Acquisitions such as FilePool position EMC for […]

LONDON — More embedded Linux news as an industry consortium announces platform standards, and Lineo signs deals The Embedded Linux Consortium has announced that it is to publish a single unified specification for an embedded Linux platform. The ELC Platform Specification will be based on existing specifications, such as POSIX 1003.13 PSE 52 and PSE […]

SOUTH AFRICA — Linux guru Linus Torvals recently delivered a scathing criticism of Apples new MacOS X. “Its a piece of crap,” stated Torvalds in no uncertain terms, referring to MacOS X’s kernel, Mach. “The kernel contains all the design mistakes you can make, and manages to even make up a few of its own,” […]

LONDON — Adobe releases beta version of Acrobat Reader for Palm handhelds, as well as After Effects 5.0, Adobe Streaming Media Collection and Adobe Digital Video Collection for enhanced video on the Web. In line with its strategy of Network Publishing – “Publish anything, anywhere, on any device” – Adobe has released the beta version […]

Internet service providers say profitability is the greatest challenge now facing their businesses and that adding subscribers is essential to enhancing their bottom line profit. They also rate keeping churn rates low and customer satisfaction high as equally challenging issues according to a recently released survey of visitors to InternetNews’ sister site ISP-Planet. InternetNews parent […]

Handspring Inc. said Wednesday it has extended its license to use the Palm OS operating system on its Net devices. The revised agreement enables Handspring to use the Palm OS through April, 2009. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the revised agreement. Handspring, which launched its Visor handhelds in late 1999, was started […]

SYDNEY — Recently privatised general insurer NRMA is claiming to be the first in the Australian industry to make Compulsory Third Party (CTP) car insurance available in a beginning-to-end online transaction. The new service allow users to “receive an insurance quote, complete CTP new business or renew their current policy online,” said NRMA Insurance e-commerce […]

With media giants BMG Music, EMI, Sony, and Universal Music Group already on their customer list, Loudeye Technologies, Inc. took a logical step this morning, announcing that they would begin to focus their resources on supporting new business initiatives that directly enable the authorized delivery of digital music. The announcement comes on the heels of […]

SYDNEY — Electronic Trading Concepts (ETC), a subsidiary of e-commerce security provider SecureNet, will assist the Commonwealth Department and Regional Services implement its online services initiative after winning a contract with the agency. ETC will work alongside the department as it introduces its plan to provide a range of its administrative, information services, database functions, […]

While the novelty of a talking paper-clip assisting me with my Microsoft Office documents may have lasted for the first minute I turned on my Office 97 product, like many others, I switched him off moments after his debut… or at least I thought I did. Clippy seemed to have a unique ability to somehow […]