europe

Market researcher Gartner said the PC market in Western Europe declined 19 percent in the second quarter of 2011, but Apple was the only top five vendor to show growth.

PC shipments in Western Europe came to 12.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011, down 18.9 percent from the same period in 2010, according to research note from Gartner today. Meanwhile, Apple managed to eke out a modest 0.5 percent growth, Gartner said.

"The PC market in Western Europe suffered from weak demand in both the professional and consumer sectors, a market which also … Read more

ZURICH, Switzerland--There's something about a German sports car that makes even the hairiest road seem like something you want to keep driving.

A few days ago, that feeling was reinforced as I (carefully) wound my way up and over some of the most amazing passes in the Swiss Alps. With barely enough room for one car, let alone two abreast, with drops of thousands of feet just off the side of the cliffs, and guardrails pretty much an afterthought, I knew that I was being tested. But I was driving Audi's terrific RS 5, and I wasn't … Read more

ZURICH, Switzerland--I've never had this nightmare, but I can easily imagine how it goes: My deadline is fast approaching, and I haven't uploaded my story yet. The only way to do so is to get online, but I have no Internet. All the Wi-Fi is slow, or doesn't work, and the clock is ticking away. I wake up screaming.

This could easily have been my real-life nightmare anytime this summer as I traveled throughout Europe on Road Trip 2011, filing stories and photo galleries nearly every day on the wide range of places I visited--tunnel projects, air … Read more

Europe's biodiesel industry could be wiped out by EU plans to tackle the unwanted side effects of biofuel production, after studies showed few climate benefits, four papers obtained by Reuters show.

Europe's world-leading $13 billion biodiesel industry, which has boomed in the wake of a decision by Brussels policymakers in 2003 to promote it, is now on the verge of being legislated out of existence after the studies revealed biodiesel's indirect impact cancels out most of its benefits.

"This study would pave the way for the demise of the European biodiesel sector," Philippe Tillous-Borde, chief of French oilseed giant Sofiproteol, which owns Europe's largest biodiesel producer, told Reuters.

The EU has been arguing for two years over the extent of indirect damage to the environment caused by it setting a target of increasing biofuel use to 10 percent of all road fuels by 2020, from less than three percent today.

Its own analysis shows the target may lead to an indirect one-off release of around 1,000 megatonnes of carbon dioxide--more than twice the annual emissions of Germany.

The emerging picture that the EU has got its policy wrong has proved unpalatable, and the European Commission has refused a Reuters freedom of information request for the latest studies, arguing the public interest of disclosure is insufficient.

However, those documents have now been leaked.… Read more

Ticket to Ride is another solid iPad adaptation of a classic board game, which has the same name, in which you race other players to build railroad routes across a map of the U.S. and southern Canada.

Fans of the board game (and its online version) will find this a satisfying reproduction of the original--but, of course, with the added bonus of not having to fumble with all the little pieces, cards, and bookkeeping. You can play a solo game in about 15 minutes, with no cleanup. If you don't know the game already, it's pretty easy … Read more

Small World for iPad is the two-player iOS adaptation of the popular European-style board game Small World, a whimsically designed, fast-playing game with a little bit of luck and a lot of strategy.

Small World for iPad looks and plays great, with the same board, artwork, and rules as the tabletop version. This exceptions-based game is relatively complex to learn: players compete to dominate the Small World map with randomly assigned combinations of races (for example, Trolls, Skeletons, or Amazons) and special powers (for example, Flying, Wealthy, or Alchemist). Each combination starts with a set number of tokens, which you … Read more

European countries have agreed to tougher penalties for cybercrimes, including new punishments for botnet creators, in an effort to clamp down on massive attacks.

The new rules are part of a European Commission proposal, adopted by the Council of Europe on Friday, which now goes to the European Parliament for approval. It aims to update existing EU rules on cybercrime, introduced in 2005, which cover interference with data and systems, and illegal access.

One new measure is the introduction of penalties for people who develop and supply malware or other tools for creating botnets or stealing passwords. Additionally, the illegal … Read more

FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, Germany--It's one of the most famous photographs ever--the Hindenburg exploding on its mast, lives instantly lost, the romance of a modern way of travel forever tainted.

That is probably true nowhere more than this modest city on the northern shore of Lake Constance, a place where zeppelins were invented and the Hindenburg called home.

Of course, that disaster took place in 1937, but here in Friedrichshafen, the memory of that famous airship, and its many German cousins, lives on every day at the Zeppelin Museum, an homage to an age long before jumbo jets, when flying across the Atlantic meant three days, but three luxurious days for sure.

The Zeppelin Museum is part history lesson, part cheerleader. Visitors--about 250,000 a year these days--are treated both to an education in the origins of the zeppelin as an aircraft, and to a bit of a love affair with the Hindenburg and its famous predecessor, the Graf Zeppelin.… Read more

Hackers went on a rampage late today, targeting Sony Europe, Nintendo, and the FBI-affiliate InfraGard Atlanta in a series of intrusions and security compromises that appears to have exposed passwords of some Sony and federal government employees.

The moves follow reports of hacks hours earlier that involved Acer Europe, Iran, NATO, and the United Arab Emirates.

Sony, whose business units globally have suffered what amounts to about a dozen different computer intrusions already over the past two months, was again targeted. Someone identified as Lebanese hacker Idahc, who targeted Sony Ericsson last week, appeared to have compromised the e-commerce site … Read more