Today's other stories in brief

Microsoft ready to offer new product

Microsoft said this week it had completed the software code for its Office 2007 suite and will begin to offer the world's most popular package of desktop software to corporate customers on November 30th.

Microsoft will also make the new Windows Vista operating system and 2007 Exchange e-mail server available to business customers on the same day, and said all the products will become widely available to consumers in early 2007.

In June, Microsoft pushed back the release of its upgrade to Office, which includes the Word processor, Excel spreadsheet and PowerPoint presentation software, marking the latest in a series of development delays that have plagued the company.

Windows Vista and Office 2007 represent major upgrades to Microsoft's two most important products. Windows and Office together account for more than half of the company's total revenue and nearly all of its profit. - (Reuters)

Road atlas beats new technology

A good, old-fashioned road atlas beats new technology when it comes to motorists finding their way from A to B, according to research out today.

An experiment by Computing Which? magazine put the road atlas top in competition with a satellite navigation (sat-nav) system, a route-finding computer system and the UK Government's official travel website Transport Direct.

Computing Which? found sat-nav units were easy to use overall but were sometimes confusing.

Computing Which? editor Abigail Waraker said: "With all the hi-tech software available to direct drivers from A to B, it's remarkable that the traditional road atlas came out top.

Yahoo cooks up new business

Yahoo is going into the food business. The California company has said it was offering Yahoo users thousands of recipes, advice from regional celebrity chefs, video cooking guides and easy-to-use web tools to help cooks answer the daily question: What's for dinner?

The web media giant is looking to create a new lifestyle business in a category that, while well-established in Internet terms, is largely fragmented among food industry players and niche recipe sites, with few big independent media players.

Yahoo Food (http://food.yahoo.com/) will be served up to the US market initially. Early in 2007, it aims to move into other English-speaking countries like Australia, Britain and Canada, then expand into other global markets, officials said. - (Reuters)

Apple launches new MacBooks

Apple has begun selling a new line of MacBook consumer notebooks that are just one inch thin but up to 25 per cent faster than the previous generation of the same product.

The notebooks feature a built-in video camera that can be used for video conferencing, a power adapter that safely disconnects when under strain, and Apple's suite of digital lifestyle applications. Prices start at €1,119.