British man invented iPod in 1979. 3.5 minute storage capacity failed to impress. Apple stole idea

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That poor bloke there invented the concept of iPod back in 1979. He’s British, although his alarmingly American-sounding name – Kane Kramer – suggests otherwise. Kane lives in Hitchin.

Mr Kramer came up with the idea of a portable music player, called the IXI, when he was 23. However, technology wasn’t ready for this in 1979. Kramer’s player could only store 3.5 minutes of music on its memory chip…

Bill Gates flexes his acting skills with Jerry Seinfeld, as Microsoft kicks off $300m Windows ad campaign

It is an advert about nothing. This clip made its debut on US television last night, bewildering viewers by showing Jerry Seinfeld and Mr Gates trying on shoes in a discount shoe shop. Then buying some shoes. Then leaving.

But it’s not an advert for shoes. Neither man has fallen that far since quitting the things that made them rich and famous. See if you can guess what it’s for.

Of course you know what it’s about and for – Windows. Microsoft’s bunging $300m into a new marketing campaign, designed…

EU helping reduce your Vodafone direct debit – proposes capping roaming SMS and data fees

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The EU is once again aiming its twin bureaucracy cannons at the mobile industry, this time planning a crackdown on roaming fees charged when users TXT THER M8s from holiday.

The EU, lead by a rampaging Viviane Reding, has already signalled its intentions to attack rip-off roaming fees, but now we have facts – a cap of 11 euro cents (8p) per roaming text is proposed, a 62% reduction on the current average roaming fee of 29 cents…

Half of teachers think the internet's useful, half don't, and 20% don't understand it at all

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That long-winded headline is the summary of a survery carried out by LM Research, which interviewed 1,500 teachers, parents and students about how the internet is changing the classroom.

Half of teachers think that internet tools like Wikipedia are good, but half think they’re of no educational use and simply distract the youth of today…

EMI adding over 400,000 new tunes to We7's free streaming library

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We7, the free-to-use ad-funded music site that’s famously the brainchild of musical wildcard Peter Gabriel will, finally, soon feature the Peter Gabriel back catalogue in its listings.

This is thanks to music goliath EMI announcing a deal to stick 400,000 of its songs up on the streaming service before the end of the year, a move which will significantly boost the amount of content on the rapidly-growing free music site. Sony BMG…

Raygun testing begins – 100kW electro-laser nearly ready for battlefield use

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Military developer Northrop Grumman has a dream. A dream to create proper rayguns. A dream we would happily fund by paying extra tax and posting it off to the American government should it be able to pull it off.

But that’s not necessary – it has already done it. Northrop will soon start testing a 100 kilowatt model of its Joint High Power Solid State Laser, which chains together eight smaller 15kW models. It has already successfully tested a chain of two…

Whoever owns the Commodore brand is getting in on the Netbook scene, with the UMMD 8010/F

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Honestly, my dad’s got a Netbook coming out this Autumn. He’s pitching it against my mum’s, which is simply a lower-spec version of the one my sister put out last year.

The point is, everyone’s releasing bloody mega-portable Eee PC-alikes these days – even companies we all thought had long since stopped existing. Like Commodore here, with its all-new UMMD 8010/F, a netbook featuring pretty much what we’ve come to expect from one of these new wave mini laptops. Brace yourselves, the technical specifications paragraph is coming up next…