Because I'll soon have the pleasure of evaluating Windows Vista forThe Register in a series of articles concerned with the user experience, administration tools, and security features, I wanted to be certain that this new OS is compatible with my hardware.

Check Point has added cluster support and more granular controls to its virtual firewall software, memorably named Check Point VPN-1 Power VSX NGX.

A senior journalist at UK Sunday paper News of the World has been jailed for four months after being convicted of a plot to intercept voicemail messages of the Royal family.

Almost a third of businesses in the UK use small internet service providers (ISPs), according to communications regulator Ofcom. Only five per cent of consumers use small, or niche ISPs, the research found.

UK plans to build an education super-database in which everyone from age 14 is given a single ID number should be put on hold, according to a collection of academics, businessmen and local government officials.

Alongside the well-publicised launch of the iPhone, Apple has now pre-announced two of its major plays into the converging consumer digital media marketplace. The other was Apple TV, unveiled last year and available next month. Although pre-announcing is something of a departure for the company, it's clear Apple will be handily placed to deliver a seamless digital experience, going toe to toe with Microsoft and its integrated Xbox/IPTV combination.

Online retailers have been listing AMD's anticipated Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3GHz processor for a wee while now, but it appears the part has now begun shipping, to one reseller at least. The chip wasn't expected to go on sale until next month.

The Information Commissioner has been told that patients will have the opportunity to refuse to have their details uploaded onto the new NHS medical records system. The news comes just weeks after the Department of Health refused patients that right.

YouTube founder Chad Hurley says the company will soon start to share advertising revenue with users of the service who post popular videos.

Adaptec has topped off its revised NAS range with the rack-mount Snap Server 650, which is built around two dual-core AMD Opteron processors and is capable of scaling to over 64TB of disk storage.

Banks and retailers in the United States and Canada have begun to report an increasing amount of illicit transactions thought to be linked to the server breach announced last week by the TJX Companies, the commercial giant that owns retail chains in the US, Canada, and Europe.

Sony has launched what's possibly one of the oddest-looking PC-oriented three-channel speaker set. Well, the left- and right-hand speakers look much like you'd expect, but the sub-woofer's out of this world.

The European Commission has identified unequal broadband provision and piracy as major "roadblocks" to the development of Europe's online creative content industries.

Torex Retail has hired specialist accountants to get to the bottom of a hole in its accounts. The London Stock Exchange is investigating Torex Retail after the PoS and performance management supplier issued a shock profit warning last week.

Scientists will have to go back to the drawing board to find an explanation for the hotter than expected temperatures in the upper atmospheres of the gas giants. New research modelling the upper atmosphere of Saturn has shown that the process put forward to explain the heating actually has a cooling effect.

If you've got £50,000 burning a hole in your pocket you could be the new owner of Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi cloak.

Sony has yet to launch the PlayStation 3 in Europe but already one analyst is forecasting a first-year price cut which will see at least €150 knocked off the €599 launch price.

The comet-hunting spacecraft Rosetta has sent back its first sighting of the asteroid 21-Lutetia, one of two rocky bodies it will study en route to the comet 67p Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will not get anywhere close to the rock for more than two years, but has already begun sending back preliminary data.

CommentThe UK Developer launch of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System was pretty impressive, as such things usually are.

The question of whether it's necessary or desirable to take school children's fingerprints has not made it on the agenda for Parliament.

Microsoft has pulled a patent application for "Object Test Bench" in Visual Studio after it was accused both of copying the idea from the BlueJ community, and of filing the patent application in the full knowledge that prior art existed.

Sony will bring its Flash-based Vaio UX ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) out of Japan next month when it ships the VGN-UX1XN micro PC in the UK. It may be small, but this handheld wireless computer comes at a hefty price: it will retail for a whopping £2,000.

Symantec announced today it would cough up $830m for infrastructure management software firm Altiris.

An unnamed software dealer in Germany has been sentenced to three years in prison for selling unlicensed Microsoft products.

AMD has posted the first version of its Catalyst graphics card driver package to achieve WHQL certification for its Windows Vista compatibility, the company announced today. It's derived from the Windows XP version of Catalyst 7.1, but the two aren't entirely the same.

BT says it has done enough to make its wireless Hub comply with the General Public License despite criticism from gpl-violations.org that it is still in breach of the license.

A Google Australia Day publicity wheeze came down with a bump on Friday when aviation authorities said the firm could not fly a specially chartered plane over Sydney.

Prudential PLC, the British financial services company, is to sell its loss making internet banking unit Egg to Citigroup for £575m ($1.127bn) cash.

The growing popularity of Web 2.0 as a venue for viruses, pedophiles and other online nasties made it only a matter of time before sleaze oozed to professional networking sites, and sure enough, an Australian security firm is offering a detailed postmortem on an attempted Nigerian banking scam on Ecademy.com.

A small number of satellite navigation devices manufactured last year by TomTom were shipped containing malware, the company confirmed in a terse statement that raised more questions - and user ire - than answers.

Imagine CupWell yes, let's face it: it is always good PR to be seen doing something with the kids. And through its Imagine Cup Microsoft has done quite well on that front - from giving kids from around the world a taste of the entrepreneurial life.

IBM is scooping up Softek Storage Solutions, the US data archiving software firm, for an undisclosed sum.