Bill Gates: I`ll kill spam

Bill Gates has declared war on junk e-mails - vowing to rid the world of them in two years, according to The Sun.

Gates made his pledge in a speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland.

Meanwhile, Britain will give an honorary knighthood to Bill Gates "in recognition of his contribution to enterprise in Britain", reports eWeek.

Because he is not a British citizen, Gates cannot use "Sir" in front of his name, but he can put the letters KBE, for Knight Commander of the British Empire, after his name.

Some 20 teens sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) over "unauthorised downloads" will appear in a Pepsi-Cola ad, reports USA Today.

The ad kicks off a two-month offer of up to 100 million free - and legal - downloads from Apple`s iTunes, the online music seller. The paper reports the RIAA is "all in favour" of the ad and the promotion.

Microsoft has been taking some of its hardest recent knocks in city council and legislative chambers, reports CNet.

Projects to migrate government computers to Linux and other competing software, official decrees favouring open source products and hard-nosed licensing negotiations have put government customers well ahead of private business when it comes to testing Microsoft`s mettle.

As never before, corporate customers are turning to Linux instead of Windows to run big business operations. Now, if only they could get the word processor`s basic "cut and paste" feature to work, argues Daily Times.

At the LinuxWorld trade show, advocates said the next big challenge for the loose-knit "free software" movement is to create a reliable way to run desktop computers and perform mainstream office tasks.

This week`s Wireless Expo in San Jose, California, revealed industry spokesmen coming out in favour of WiMax, reports PC World.

WiMax is based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards. The WiMax Forum, a group of vendors and service providers, will initially certify products based on the 802.16d standard, designed for wireless base stations with a range as long as 50km. It is a point-to-multipoint technology, so it doesn`t require a direct line of sight to the customer.