John Lister

eBay has announced cuts to its listing fees, but other changes mean customers may pay more for selling their goods. The fee cuts will come into force in the United States on 20 February and are likely to be extended overseas later. The biggest cuts ... are for items with a starting price below $25, where the fees will now be halved. Most items above $25 will now cost 20% less to list. However, the company is increasing the proportion of the sale price taken if the item sells. For items up to $25, the fee goes up from 5.25% to 8.75%. For items costing more than $25, the seller now pays 3.5% on the ... (view more)

Rockstar Games have failed in yet another bid to get the controversial Manhunt 2 video game on British shelves. A High Court judge has ruled that the game must go back to an appeals committee for a fresh evaluation. The game was first banned in the ... United Kingdom last June when the British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC), which gives movie-style age ratings to video games, refused to give it a rating. This meant it could not legally be sold, the first such ban in 10 years. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) At the time, the BBFC's director said the game's focus on violent killings was too strong. " ... (view more)

Rumor has it the first service pack update for Windows Vista will be out on 15 February. A 'service pack' is a single download produced by Microsoft to fix many different problems and add general improvements to a version of its Windows operating ... system. Microsoft have so far only confirmed that the update will be out in the current quarter (by the end of March). It's thought Microsoft may be confident about releasing Service Pack 1 early because a test version, which users download at their discretion from the company website, has proven successful. The official service pack releases ... (view more)

HBO is launching a 'free' service allowing viewers to watch its programming on computers. The 'HBO on Broadband' system offers a live feed of the television channel, and more than 350 movies and TV shows to download and watch at a later time. That's ... more than most cable TV operators offer through video on demand services. There's no specific charge to use the service, but it's only available to people who subscribe to HBO's television channel. And you must get your broadband access from the same cable company from which you get HBO TV. At the moment it's only being tested on two broadband ... (view more)

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Time Warner is testing a plan that could end flat-rate monthly broadband subscriptions. The second-largest Internet service provider in the US, Time Warner will soon launch a trial in the Beaumont, Texas market with four different prices for those ... downloading up to 5, 10, 20 or 40 gigabytes each month. They chose Beaumont randomly and say the area doesn't have a specific problem with heavy broadband use. A spokesman said it was a possible way to tackle the problem of light users effectively subsidising those who use the Internet more often. "What we're trying to accomplish is to create a ... (view more)

Microsoft has warned that several older versions of Excel contain a bug that could be exploited by hackers. It affects both Windows and Macintosh users. The bug could make it possible to execute code remotely. That means a hacker would be able to ... gain some degree of access to a user's computer, with the potential to steal personal information. The problem affects versions of Excel (including the stand-alone viewer) dated up to and including 2004. However, if the user has downloaded Office Service Pack 3, the bug will have been removed. Those versions dated 2007 or 2008 do not have the bug. To ... (view more)

Yahoo has signed a deal to add all existing Yahoo usernames and passwords to the OpenID database. When a Yahoo user visits one of the 10,000 sites in the scheme, they will be able to simply type 'yahoo.com' in the registration box and will then be ... taken to the Yahoo site to confirm their details before being returned to their chosen website, automatically logged in. (Source: pcworld.com ) People with a Yahoo account could find online life a bit simpler now that the firm has joined the OpenID scheme. However, critics question whether the scheme serves any real purpose. The idea lets Internet ... (view more)

Toy firms Hasbro and Mattel have launched legal action to shut down the popular Facebook feature Scrabulous. The application allows users of the social networking site Facebook to play Scrabble against one another. Around two million people have ... used the feature, with almost 600,000 estimated to play it every day. It's an entirely unofficial game, and the toy companies have described it as a "gross copyright and trademark infringement". Though the feature doesn't specifically use the term 'Scrabble', there is no attempt to keep secret that it's based on the original board game. (Source: bbc. ... (view more)

Britain's Chancellor -- or, finance secretary -- recently unveiled one of the largest and most powerful computers in Europe. HECToR (High-End Computing Terascale Resource) can handle 63 trillion calculations per second, the equivalent of 12,000 ... standard desktop computers. Its power is equal to every person on earth simultaneously carrying out 10,000 calculations in a second. The $220 million machine is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and takes up 60 wardrobe-sized cabinets. It will be used for projects such as predicting climate change effects, projecting how quickly disease epidemics will ... (view more)