It is exam season, and naturally universities across the land are gearing up to attract the next wave of students to their courses. Computer science departments are no different. Some are adding to their postgraduate portfolio, while others are trying to tap into new trends and attract a more diverse mix of students.

CommentFreelance journo and frequent Wired News contributor Michelle Delio is in a bit of a bind, after her editors found it impossible to confirm numerous quoted sources in her stories. As of 9 May, Wired News has amended 24 of Delio's stories in which sources could not be identified.

IBM's head of software hit the SOA trail Wednesday, bringing IBM's version of "clarity" to the debate on SOAs and encouraging ISVs to turn their applications into modular suites.

An open source software license compliance start-up is to participate in a US Navy project on expanded use of open source software.

Microsoft has at last named a date - of sorts - for the next release of Office. Known generally as Office 12, the updated version of Microsoft's suite is coming next year, Bill Gates says.

Napster's loss nearly doubled during the fourth quarter despite a solid rise in revenue.

Our recent revelation that Google maps in the UK had redrawn the entire world according to George Bush provoked much merriment among Reg readers. Naturally, some of you then got down to pushing the fledgling system to its absolute limits. Try this top effort from Andy at the Raster Vision Team:

The Dutch Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands (BREIN) has launched its largest round of lawsuits yet targeting 42 individuals suspected of illegally swapping copyrighted music. However, in order to identify the song swappers, BREIN will sue five Dutch ISPs who so far have rigorously refused to co-operate.

Nigerian 419 stories are like London buses - you wait ages for one and then a whole rack of 'em turn up at once. And indeed the following has just rolled in from reader Paul Garnett, who received a very tempting offer via Skype chat:

Intel increased its previously reported Q1 FY2005 earnings this week, thanks to a reduction in the quarter's tax bill.

Lastminute.com is to be snapped up by US travel giant Sabre for £577m, the one-time dotcom darling confirmed today.

Small form-factor PC specialist Shuttle launched its latest barebones system this week, pitching the product at system builders keen to enter the media centre market.

DDR 2 SDRAM accounted for 23.5 per cent of the world's DRAM production last month, market watcher DRAMeXchange reports.

The British Computer Society (BCS) is continuing its efforts to define a decent set of professional standards for the IT sector with a new programme it says will put the industry on a par with governed or regulated professions such as engineering, or practicing medicine.

Hitachi yesterday claimed the notebook hard drive performance lead as it shipped what it reckons is the world's fastest 2.5in HDD for mobile applications.

Cash'n'CarrionThose readers who have the onerous task of project managing teams of slackers might like to deploy the latest t-shirt from TechnoDepot: the rather tasty "Warning: Dates on calendar are closer than they appear".

Flight controllers on the Mars Express mission successfully deployed the troublesome first boom of the MARSIS experiment. All it needed was a little bit of heat.

Nintendo's Revolution console, its answer to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, will ship mid-2006, a component supplier has revealed.

The Metropolitan Police Service has launched a campaign to highlight the growing problem of "company hijacking" – where criminals fraudulently change a company’s official registration details with Companies House in order that they may impersonate it.

Music fans were this week urged to update their iTunes software following the discovery of a serious security bug that creates a means for hackers to take over vulnerable systems.

Future plc - the Bath-based publishing empire behind such titles as .net, Max PC and Digital Home - has snapped up US gaming web Cheat Planet for £4.6m ($8.7m).

PalmOne's LifeDrive is real, and has had its second outing ahead of next week's formal launch on 18 May, courtesy of US publication Laptop Magazine.

US Wi-Fi hotspot aggregator Boingo has added Boeing's in-flight connectivity service, Connexion, to its list of roaming partners.

AOL is jumping on the webmail bandwagon.

Nvidia's next-generation G70 graphics chip will be unveiled next month at Computex in Taipei, Taiwanese motherboard maker moles have claimed.

Women prefer to use text messages to keep in touch with friends, while men like to pick up their phones and make a call. New research from consumer group Mintel found that men are twice as likely as women to talk on their mobile phones.

Dixons is on the verge of outsourcing its internal IT support in a bid to improve the service and save cash.

Microsoft has bought MessageCast, the messaging and alerts technology startup that provides the foundation for its MSN Alerts service, for an undisclosed sum.

ExclusiveHundreds of technical support workers in the UK will lose their jobs by October as a result of HP's decision to move more work to India, The Register can reveal.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly obtained an emergency court order on Wednesday shutting down dozens of websites allegedly operated by a sophisticated ring of Boston area spammers. The group are allegedly behind millions of unsolicited, deceptive email messages touting unapproved counterfeit drugs, pirated software, and pornography that have plagued email users for months.

Firms using IPsec VPNs for remote access could be vulnerable to hacker attack because of cryptographic weaknesses in key sub-protocols, a UK government UNIRAS alert warns.

Strong sales of storage systems and laptops carried Dell to a solid first quarter.