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For the record 23 September
Monday, September 23 2002
by Sylvia Leatham


Police in Northern Ireland crack down on child pornography | Google News
officially launches 





Police in Northern Ireland have seized more than 100 computers in a crackdown on
child pornography, according to the Irish Examiner newspaper. The Police
Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Care Unit has searched over 40 premises
over the last two weeks, following a tip-off from the FBI. PSNI detectives also
seized 7,000 items of software for further examination. The swoops are believed
to have been concentrated on people whose work brings them into contact with
children.





On-line travel company Lastminute.com is reportedly preparing to axe up to
70 staff, according to the Sunday Times. Last week, the company said it would
report quarterly profitability in mid-November and announced an outsourcing deal
that would reduce its future cost base by around STG2 million. Commenting on the
deal, a spokesperson told the paper, "We don't have any figures on how many
will be made redundant. There's going to be employees who'll lose their jobs but
some will be able to re-apply and move elsewhere in the firm."





UK mobile phone operator Virgin Mobile may be planning a bid for
Telia's mobile phone arm in Finland, Britain's Independent newspaper
reports. The paper said Virgin Mobile was considering lodging a STG63 million bid
for Telia Mobile, which Swedish telecoms group Telia is obliged to sell under the
terms of its merger with Finnish telecoms firm Sonera. A spokesman for Telia
refused to comment on the report.





The European Commission has approved the acquisition of
PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting business by IBM. IBM announced
its purchase of PwC's global management consulting and technology business in
July. An analysis of the transaction by the Commission showed that IBM's share of
the IT services market will not be significantly altered by the deal and that
consumers will still have sufficient choice and innovation in the sector. The
Commission, concluding that the operation will not result in the creation or
strengthening of any dominant position, has decided to clear the transaction.







Internet search engine Google has launched an expanded test version of its
search engine, . The new search
tool replaces an earlier test version introduced in April, as reported by href="/news.html?code=6759506">ElectricNews.net.
The service searches 4,000 English-language sources for news and information from
Web sites around the world. Results are grouped by topic and ranked on the basis
of freshness, the credibility of the source, and the number of sources that have
published a story on that item. The search results are compiled solely by
computer algorithms without human intervention.





Popular music-swapping service KaZaA has raised its profile in a new deal
with Internet service provider Tiscali. KaZaA's owner Sharman Networks
plans to announce a partnership with the Italian ISP that will see KaZaA
advertising Tiscali's high-speed Internet access. In exchange, Tiscali, which has
approximately 7 million customers in 15 countries, will pay Sharman a "bounty"
for each KaZaA user who signs up for its high-speed service.





Nintendo confirmed this week that it has sold its 49 percent stake in
British video game developer Rare to Microsoft. The financial terms of the
deal were not revealed. Microsoft will use the company to boost sales of Xbox
games. Rare produced best-selling games like Perfect Dark and Donkey Kong Country
for Nintendo exclusively.