Screensaver hits spammers where it hurts

Internet portal Lycos has developed a screensaver designed to deter spammers by increasing their operating costs.

By endlessly requesting data from sites that sell goods and services mentioned in spam, the screensaver will keep spammers` servers running flat out, causing their monthly bandwidth bills to skyrocket.

By getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver, Lycos hopes to get spamming Web sites constantly running at almost full capacity, reports BBC.

However, the screensaver has been carefully written to ensure the amount of traffic it generates from each user does not overload the Web, says Lycos Europe spokesperson Malte Pollmann.

"Every single user will contribute 3MB to 4MB per day - about one MP3 file."

Sony, IBM and Toshiba have released limited information about the Cell chip, which will be used in the PlayStation 3.

According to BBC, the chip will be able to carry out trillions of calculations per second, and the three companies claim it will be up to 10 times more powerful than existing processors. The PlayStation 3 is only due in 2006, but developers are expecting to get prototypes early next year in order to tune games appearing on it at launch.

The chip has also been refined to be able to handle the detailed graphics common in games and the data demands of films and broadband media.

Sun Microsystems has agreed to acquire closely held SevenSpace for an undisclosed amount.

According to Reuters, Sun says the deal will further add to its managed services offerings, with the purchase expected to be complete by the end of March next year.

SevenSpace`s outsourcing technology manages business software programs, including those from SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft, and operating systems such as Sun`s Solaris version of the Unix operating systems, Microsoft`s Windows and Linux.

SevenSpace will now become part of Sun`s services organisation, the company said in a statement.