Cash strapped CSC is scrapping the Recognising Excellence (RE) award for its top workers as it looks towards another year of austerity. The RE was based on a token system which awarded successful contenders £25, £50 or as much as £100 - those lucky staffers - which could be traded in for M&S, John Lewis and other store vouchers …

Staff at UK electrical retailers such as Currys and Comet know nothing about the products they're selling – unless you're after an extended warranty of course. This revelation comes not from usual source of the bleeding obvious WikiLeaks but from consumer organisation Which? It made 154 visits to shops including Currys, Comet, …

Fraudsters have established thousands of typosquatting sites designed to hoodwink customers of popular shopping sites into handing over personal information to fraudulent dopplegangers. Utilising slightly misspelled domain names, prospective marks are taken to mirror sites designed to either harvest personal data or subject …

Microsoft UK has unveiled its first 'collection' of PCs, chosen by the company to suit lifestyles and budgets. The spring collection features 30 models from nine manufacturers and will be available from all major retailers. The PC makers are Sony, Dell, Packard Bell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, Alienware and Scan. The Collection …

If you want to buy an iPad on Friday, and you aren't near an Apple store, you'd best get down to PC World or Currys. Dixons Store Group International has got a 60-day exclusive to sell the giant phoneless iPhone in 139 stores. Pre-orders are only available through Apple's own shops. The magic pad will also be on sale in Best …

Apple's iPad is available for pre-ordering, but only via Apple's own stores, not its retail partners. Even Apple's approved resellers are not allowed to take deposits or pre-orders from customers keen to try and lay hands on the genius-tablet. We were contacted by irritated Apple dealers, and passed on their questions to Apple …

Sony is to revamp its PlayStation 3 TV tuner, the PlayTV, for the 3D era. At this stage, details are few and far between, but since picking up 3D broadcasts will require HD compatibility, it is likely to involve new hardware. As is stands, the PlayTV can only pick up standard definition Freeview DVB-T transmissions. An HD …

Which?, the UK consumer organisation, has ranked the UK's most reliable laptops. Top of the reliability list is Sony and Toshiba with 93 per cent of Which? members surveyed saying their laptop had not needed repair. Fujitsu-Siemens got 91 per cent and Apple and Dell scored 87 per cent. Next were Acer and HP with 84 per cent, …

HSBC has finally fixed a bug that allowed web surfers to browse the directory structure of a supposedly secure website it helps to run. The John Lewis Partnership card secure website (a joint venture with HSBC) allowed the curious, and potentially malicious, to peek into its underlying structure. "Great if you were planning a …

Intellect, the UK’s trade body for the technology industry, has signed up to a government plan to phase out energy-guzzling consumer electronics products. The organisation's consumer electronics council will join the government-led scheme alongside the British Retail Consortium and retailers to look at ways that manufacturers …

Buying gadgets online can be a troublesome pursuit, according to a new survey. Sample queries submitted to the biggest online electrical retailers revealed just three in 10 got any reply. Those who got a reply only got a relevant response three quarters of the time. Amazon, Dabs, Comet, Argos, John Lewis, Carphone Warehouse, …

Computer 2000 - as Tech Data is called in the UK - has promoted Lee Perkins to run Azlan in the UK. Former Azlan boss Simon Hill was purged last month in the a re-org which saw the loss of 60 jobs. Azlan UK now incorporates C2000's former networking solutions group - which Perkins ran - and its midrange hardware and software …

Online retailers have rubbished claims from the security industry they stand to miss out on billions of pounds of trade this Christmas because of lingering public mistrust in internet transactions. According to Verisign's 2006 online shopping research, 54 per cent of UK consumers have abandoned a transaction because of security …