While Microsoft isn’t about to flip-flop to Blu-ray Disc any time soon, the company’s gaming group expressed that it will consider supporting the competing format with the Xbox 360 should its consumer base demand so.

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A study conducted last year by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and independently verified by the Associated Press revealed that Comcast interferes with BitTorrent and Gnutella sessions by sending TCP “reset” packets to users. Despite the growing body of unambiguous evidence, Comcast still denies allegations that it specifically targets BitTorrent.

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He said ministers were also looking at possibilities including the greater use of more renewable energy sources.

Speaking during prime minister’s questions, he said the UK would become more “independent” of other countries in supplying its own power.

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Olmert told Bush the “bond between the state of Israel and United States of America is unshakeable,” and described Bush “as our strongest and most trusted ally in the battle against terrorism.” Israeli President Shimon Peres said, “We greet you as a great friend.”

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It’s the first time in more than six months that such a rocket has been fired from Lebanon into Israel.

Israeli munitions experts have examined the rockets, which landed in the northern city of Shlomi, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

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But the president of the European Union insisted the bloc still had the momentum to keep expanding despite higher inflation and a credit crisis that may curb the region’s recent surge.

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As many as 20 companies that are members of the HD DVD Promotion Group could be preparing to remove their names from the alliance’s 130-strong membership list, The Times has learnt.

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The founder of Microsoft Corp used his swansong to the technology industry on Sunday to spell out a vision of a “digital decade” of telephones, televisions and cars that respond to voice and touch.

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The cut will bring the UK into line with the charges in the rest of Europe.

Apple currently charges 79 pence per download in the UK, compared with 99 euro cents (74p) in the rest of Europe.

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The shouts and wild applause, and willingness to knock on doors and work on telephone banks late in the evening transformed the Iowa caucuses.

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The attack came on the day before President Bush is scheduled to arrive in Israel in support of ongoing peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

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The restructuring plan will cost $530 million, up from a previous estimate of $500 million, of which $460 million will have been taken through the fourth quarter of 2007. The remainder will be recognized by the end of 2009.

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ViaSat and Eutelsat are cooperating around ViaSat’s Ka-band SurfBeam networking system and a common wholesale business model to offer service through ISPs, telecommunication companies, and direct-to-home television providers, the US company said.

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“Under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding, SNIM and ArcelorMittal will jointly develop a large iron ore mining project, using the El Agareb Iron ore resource in Mauritania,” a statement from the company said.

The move is part of a broader push by Japan’s consumer goods manufacturers to “add value” to their products, in the face of stiff price competition from Asian and US rivals.

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The two rival camps have divided consumers since the two incompatible systems were launched.

But Blu-ray supporters are touting the decision by Warner Bros to shift allegiance as a tipping point.

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Millions of people already “rip” discs to their computers and move the files to MP3 players, although the process is technically against copyright law.

Intellectual property minister Lord Triesman said the law should be changed so it “keeps up with the times”.

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Vehicle sales fell 7.6% to 3.434 million units, its fourth consecutive annual decline and the lowest level since 1972 when 3.406 million vehicles were sold, according to wire reports which cited data released by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.

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As the plane was taxiing, the airline’s board was getting ready for a momentous decision. Maxjet, one of a new wave of business-class-only carriers plying the Atlantic, had for several weeks been running dangerously low on cash. Last-ditch efforts to find new investors had proved fruitless.

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The price is 42% above Fast’s closing share price on 4 January and the shares have risen close to the offer level.

Fast’s board of directors have recommended that shareholders accept the offer and says that holders of 37% of its stock have already done so.

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Read full story.

The troops crossed into northern Iraq apparently in pursuit of Kurdish rebels two days after the Turkish military launched an air and missile assault across the border.

Abdullah said “a small group estimated at about 300 troops” crossed about two to three kilometers into northern Iraq. (more…)

Tymoshenko won the vote with the minimum number of 226 votes, Ukrinform said.

She had failed to win the election a week earlier after receiving only 225 votes, but the 450-member parliament then decided to change the voting procedure by rejecting the electronic system in favor of a show of hands. (more…)

The four were charged with planting crude bombs on two trains at the Cologne station on July 31, 2006.

The bombs, found later, failed to explode because of faulty detonators. (more…)

Dating Web site Match.com, owned by media mogul Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp conglomerate, plans to launch two new features this week that bring greater social networking capabilities to its more than 15 million Match members and to the roughly 58 million active users of Facebook. (more…)

The Czech IPTV launch has proved a big success for O2 and its owner, Telefonica, since it launched in September 2006, attracting 70,000 customers so far. It offers more than 50 channels with content from leading producers including Sony, Disney, Warner Bros and HBO, the US TV producer behind The Sopranos.

O2 has been expected to launch IPTV services in the UK after it snapped up the small broadband player Be, which has the fastest network in the country. Although O2 has launched broadband services, the capacity of the Be network would allow for a robust IPTV service to be carried to customers. (more…)

James Lin, a senior analyst at MDB Capital Group, believes that Nintendo could be selling twice the 1.8 million Wiis it is manufacturing a month.

The $1.3 billion that Mr Lin estimates the group is leaving on the table in the run-up to Christmas by underestimating the market for Wii hardware does not include sales of games software for the console, traditionally the source of the lion’s share of profits in the industry. (more…)

Their device, called a point contract transistor, conducted electricity and amplified signals, a job then currently handled by bulky and delicate vacuum tubes and other components.

Their colleague William Shockley followed soon after with junction transistors. Although Bardeen and Brattain were first, Shockley’s device became the basis for a scientific and industrial juggernaut. (more…)

The move comes at the direction of the court-appointed trustee who has the authority to affect the divestiture of Sparrows Point, Mittal said.

The deal was announced in August but delays have caused Esmark’s agreements with its partners in E2 Acquisition Corp. to lapse. This raised the possibility of a revised proposal for financing the $1.35 billion transaction. The closing date in the purchase agreement was Nov. 30, and that date was extended to Dec. 11. (more…)

Around a foot (30 centimeters) of snow had fallen on parts of the Chicago area, with 10 inches (25 centimeters) in Vermont. The U.S. National Weather Service on Sunday posted winter storm warnings from Michigan and Indiana all the way to Maine. Meteorologists said 18 inches (46 centimeters) was possible in northern New England; more snow was still expected in parts of Michigan. (more…)

A lawsuit has been filed in Weifang, a city in eastern China’s Shandong province, seeking 10m yuan ($1.4m; £0.7m) in damages.

Danone has claimed Wahaha has been illegally selling copies of its drinks, contrary to their joint venture terms. (more…)

The Ministry for Emergency Situations. ministry said improved weather was helping the effort to clear the spill, which environmentalists fear could damage the area for years.

About 2,000 workers are being called on to clean up the oil which has washed up over the past few days. (more…)

CNN Worldwide, a unit of Time Warner, said it would invest almost $10 million to add 15 or 16 correspondents to its staff of 150. (more…)

Carlsberg called the new offer a “full and fair” price, pointing out that it valued the group at a considerable premium to its value as an independent entity.

The increased offer sent Scottish & Newcastle shares 3 per cent higher to 766p in early trade. (more…)

Freight drivers began a 62 hour strike at 1100 GMT, and are expected to be joined by passenger train drivers at 0100 GMT on Thursday.

Drivers’ union GDL is demanding a 31% pay rise, but the national rail operator Deutsche Bahn is not prepared to improve on its current 10% offer. (more…)

It is one of several ventures Google is making into the wireless market as it tries to expand its Internet advertising empire to cellphones. In addition to forging partnerships with wireless carriers, Google is also talking to software developers and handset makers, these people said. Official agreements could be reached during the next two weeks. (more…)

The Mountain View-based company’s shares traded as high as $704.79 before falling back to $700.04 in afternoon trading, up $5.27 for the session. It took less than a month for the stock to leap from $600 to $700, building upon a fervor that has lifted Google’s market value by more than 30 percent since mid-September. (more…)

Leopard may have 300 new features, but it is unable to run Java 1.6, even though that same version is available for both Windows and Linux. That has taken some Mac users by surprise, including some on this user forum on Apple’s website. Several users there say 1.6 is so central to the development work they do on a daily basis that they will be forced to use an OS other than Leopard if it remains incompatible. (more…)

For a while the HP forum, here, has been all a-buzz with problems about the lappies’ Wi-fis not working. The wireless card detected the network with all the efficiency of a blind person trying to find a black cat in a dark room that was not there.

However there had not been a dicky bird from HP until hacks at ZDNet wrote an attack on the outfit for ignoring its users. (more…)

To me, the ultrasmall, ultralightweight computer remains the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, you still pay a premium for miniaturization. The $399 Asus Eee PC 701 (available November 1) shatters that perception, though. For a fraction of the cost of competing ultramobile computing devices, Asus delivers a highly functional portable, without the fancy specs. (more…)

Huchison 3G, branded as “3″ in the U.K., is offering free calls between Skype users through the 3G mobile phone, which goes on sale Friday in the U.K. The Skypephone will be released by the end of the year in Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macau and Sweden.
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Users who want SSH access can do so by installing the BSD subsystem, Community Sources and then Open SSH, the last of which allows Finder drag-and-drop access to iPhone/iPod contents. All of these do however require a desktop computer to be available, as well as more technical knowledge. Jailbreakme also does not provide an easy means of installing the third-party software it is meant to open access for. (more…)

Within hours of Leopard’s Friday debut, users began reporting a “blue screen of death” that appeared after running the default Upgrade option. On affected Macs, the blue screen stymied the required restart after the install, locking users out of their computers. (more…)

Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of murdering 48 people, but insisted he had killed 60 in his quest for one death for each square on a chessboard - a total of 64.

The sentence was the harshest possible under Russian law. (more…)

The group arranged for an independent UK lab to test the phone’s components. “An independent scientific laboratory tested 18 internal and external components of the iPhone and confirmed the presence of brominated compounds in half the samples, including in the phone’s antenna, in which they made up 10% of the total weight of the flexible circuit board,” according to a statement on Greenpeace’s website. “A mixture of toxic phthalates was found to make up 1.5% of the plastic (PVC) coating of the headphone cables.” (more…)

To coincide with the NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800 GT launch scheduled for later today, Intel jumped the gun today with its immediate embargo lift on its high end 3.0 GHz 45nm quad-core Penryn QX9650 processor.

The Extreme Edition QX9650 desktop processor is Intel’s first 45nm offering. True to Intel’s “tick-tock” approach to processor design, all initial 45nm processor offerings will be process node shrinks of the Core 2 Duo architecture. The only feature difference between these processors and the Core 2 Duo Kentsfield processors announced last year is the inclusion of additional L2 cache, SSE4 instructions and higher clock frequencies. (more…)

Some attempts to upgrade to Leopard were stymied after the installation process was almost complete and users attempted to restart their machines. A long thread on Apple’s discussion forums outlined the problems, in which their Macs would get hung up on the initial boot screen. That screen happens to be blue, inviting comparisons to the infamous Windows “blue screen of death” encountered when Windows crashes. (more…)

In other words, MTV Networks, the Viacom division that encompasses the MTV, VH1, and CMT brands as well as a host of other pop culture channels, is aiming to renew its focus on music by bringing lyrics to the forefront. This will begin rolling out in November and is expected to be complete by the middle of 2008. (more…)

Hulu is a web platform for viewing and sharing TV shows, movies, and clips. The programming selection (via newTeeVee PDF) for Hulu on launch is pretty impressive. Content providers include Fox, NBC, E!, Bravo, FX, SciFi, USA, and Universal. Hopefully we will start to see some more TV networks and movie studios jump on this because I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed to see that a couple of my personal favorites, Lost and Adult Swim weren’t included in the list. (more…)

Ars has heard from multiple Comcast employees since the story broke, and they’re all telling us the same thing. They’re supposed to tell customers asking whether Comcast limits access to BitTorrent that the ISP doesn’t block access to any application, including BitTorrent. Furthermore, tech support workers are supposed to toe the party line at all times, or they’ll be fired. (more…)

The ex-Hollywood actor said in a GQ interview that he had not taken drugs, even though he was shown smoking a joint in 70s documentary Pumping Iron.

“That is not a drug. It’s a leaf,” he told the magazine. He added: “My drug was pumping iron, trust me.” (more…)

The new policy started Oct. 25, said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. Before then, there was no cash restriction and the purchase limit was five per person.

“Customer response to the iPhone has been off the charts, and limiting iPhone sales to two per customer helps us ensure that there are enough iPhones for people who are shopping for themselves or buying a gift,” Ms. Kerris said. (more…)

The Thai company, privately-held Global Care Solutions Thailand Ltd., designed and developed its software in collaboration with Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital PCL, one of the world’s leading international hospitals. (more…)

China, a permanent member of the Security Council that can veto any U.N. resolution, is expected to overtake Germany as Iran’s biggest trading partner this year. Germany and other European countries had consistently been Iran’s largest trading partners for more than a decade, according to the Iran Investment Monthly. (more…)

Acer is known as the top PC vendor in Taiwan, but here in the United States Acer doesn’t give much competition to likes of HP and Dell.

In August, DailyTech reported that Acer announced it would purchase Gateway for $710 million USD. The move specifically allows Acer to gain market share in the United States. The purchase price raised the ire of some Gateway shareholders who claim that Gateway was worth well over the selling price Acer paid. In September, Gateway shareholders had filed two separate lawsuits over the purchase. (more…)

In early Asian trading on Monday, US light crude broke through $93 a barrel for the first time, hitting $93.20 before easing back slightly to $93.06.

London’s Brent also hit a new high of $89.90 a barrel, up $1.21. (more…)

One-club man
Aside from a single season at CS Târgovi?te in 1981/82, Dobrin dedicated his entire career to his local side, Arges, making his first appearances for the club at the age of 15 and continuing to work for them as a coach and administrator after he retired. He helped the club to lift their only two Romanian titles in 1972 and 1979.

Bad luck
Regarded as the most talented Romanian player of his age, he scored six goals in 48 international appearances but suffered two major setbacks in his career. He did not get to play in a FIFA World Cup match – as an unused squad player in all three of Romania’s games at the 1970 finals – and was widely believed to have been denied a move to Real Madrid CF in the 1970s by Romanian authorities.

Read full story.

“Due to the restructuring of the Playing for Good Foundation, the philanthropic trip to Rwanda that the foundation had previously planned with Paris Hilton has been postponed,” the organization said Thursday in a statement.

“Paris has been a loyal and gracious supporter of Playing For Good but the foundation has to regrettably reschedule this trip. Playing for Good would like to thank Ms. Hilton for her generosity and her continued support of this initiative and is looking forward to rescheduling the trip with her at a later time.” (more…)

Spears was not required to attend the hearing on the misdemeanor charges stemming from an Aug. 6 parking lot mishap.

Superior Court Judge Susan Speer dismissed the hit-and-run charge after a lawyer for the pop star said his client had paid an undisclosed amount to a woman whose car was hit in a Studio City parking lot.

A charge of driving without a license was not dismissed and a pretrial hearing was scheduled for Nov. 26. Speer accepted a not guilty plea entered on Spears’ behalf by lawyer Michael Flanagan to that charge. (more…)

Lohan’s 21-year-old daughter Lindsay, star of “Mean Girls,” “Freaky Friday” and other films, has said that her father’s behavior and her parents’ divorce have caused her to act out.

Michael and estranged wife Dina Lohan settled their long-simmering divorce in August, months after he left a New York state prison where he served almost two years for drunken driving and other charges.

He reunited with Lindsay in September after a 3 1/2-year estrangement. She had entered a drug and alcohol treatment center the previous month after reaching a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges. (more…)

As flames continued to light up the sky, most of these evacuees have no choice but to wait out what may be the worst fire in San Diego’s history, reports CBS News correspondent Hattie Kauffman.

By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned 1,200 homes and businesses and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. Tuesday’s forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive Santa Ana gusts. (more…)

Fears grew north of Los Angeles that the winds may fan three wildfires into one monster blaze, with too few resources available to fight it.

More than 56,000 homes are threatened by the three fires.

In San Diego County, 300,000 evacuees sought refuge in shelters, schools and stadiums as fires pushed into new areas Tuesday. (more…)

Pitt, 43, and Jolie, 32, are teaming up for their first producing project, a new series for HBO, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

And it’s a subject close to their hearts: The untitled drama will go behind the scenes of an international aid organization and follow workers who put their lives in danger to help others. The series is being written by Scott Burns, who co-wrote The Bourne Ultimatum and produced Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. (more…)

Jax Joseph Nilon was born at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 18 and weighed 4 lbs. 7 oz., and Jaid Thomas Nilon was born at 8:31 p.m. and weighed 4 lbs. 9 oz.

“We’re so in love with them,” Beauvais-Nilon tells PEOPLE. “They boys are just gorgeous.”

The twins, who were born in Los Angeles, join Oliver, the actress’s 15-year-old son from a previous marriage.

Friends such as Angie Harmon and Virginia Madsen have already showered the boys with gifts, including individual outfits from Janie & Jack and Gymboree. (more…)

The actor showed his comic side again, joining brothers Luke and Andrew along with Jessica Simpson, Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson and Dan Rather for a lawn mower-riding competition in Texas.

The Bad Boy Lawn Mower Race, held at Nelson’s homestead near Austin last week, was part of a music-video shoot for his new song, “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore,” reports the Austin American-Statesman. (more…)

The singer on Saturday was spotted driving with her children in Studio City, Calif., in her white Mercedes convertible, which was decorated with pumpkins on the dashboard.

A presumed court-appointed monitor was seated in the front seat, with her sons in the rear. (more…)

“It’s a real personal song,” Anthony said before belting out Journey’s “Faithfully” inside a packed Staples Center. “This song has a whole new significance.”

It was when he sang the song’s lyrics “They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family” that concert goers erupted in cheers. He noted to fans that the song had “quite a special significance,” dedicating it to the couple’s “friends” in the audience as well. (more…)

Notably absent were any big-name celebrities being doused in Nick’s traditional green slime. That, of course, was good news for Emma Watson, who also was named Nickelodeon’s Best Movie Actress.

“This is so cool. I’m so thrilled,” the 17-year-old Harry Potter star said. (more…)

“I completely adopted the new name and I love it … I’m a Parker now,” she said Thursday at the Padres Contra El Cáncer (Parents Against Cancer) annual benefit in Los Angeles. “I love every bit of it … I like the tradition of changing the name.” (more…)

Croucher Brewing Co. co-owner Paul Croucher said Friday the computer contains “all our financials” as well as label designs for new beers and business contacts.

“So we decided that if anyone does come into possession of it we’ll be happy to offer them a reward — a dozen (bottles) of beer a month for the rest of their life,” he said. (more…)

Virtual Earth-3DVIA will let people create 3D structures with textures and colors and share them with one other online. The models can also be tagged with real-life addresses or town information so that they can be viewed in Virtual Earth as they would be on a map. (more…)

TorrentFreak said in August that Comcast was surreptitiously interfering with file transfers by posing as one party and then, essentially, hanging up the phone. But when we contacted Comcast at the time, it flatly denied doing it.

Thanks to tests reported Friday by the Associated Press, however, it’s clear that Comcast is actively interfering with peer-to-peer networks even if relatively small files are being transferred. (more…)

Bush ordered the Treasury Department Friday to freeze the financial assets of additional members of the repressive military junta. He also acted to tighten controls on U.S. exports to Myanmar, also known as Burma, and called on the governments of China and India to do more to pressure the government of the Southeast Asian nation. (more…)

The price for November delivery fell back to $89 by noon, a level that still defied the predictions of many veteran oil analysts.

“The surge in oil markets to $90 . . . seems underpinned more by financial flows and political risk than by fundamental factors,” said a Lehman Brothers report issued today. “Although we expect a correction, several risks could push prices higher still.” (more…)

In morning European trading, the euro bought $1.4319 — surpassing the mark of $1.4310 set Thursday — before settling back slightly to $1.4306. (more…)

Officer Mike Lopez said Spears turned herself in around 9 p.m. and left about 45 minutes later. Spears was fingerprinted and photographed, he said.

“She was fine, cooperative,” Lopez said. “She did her business and came out.”

Spears, 25, was wearing large designer sunglasses and a black turtleneck dress and jacket. As she left the station, she told KCAL-TV that all went smoothly.

“They were nice,” she said of police. She told the station she was wearing the sunglasses because she had pinkeye. (more…)

In attendance for Hilton’s first runway show was the 24-year-old designer’s personal Prince Charming (of nearly a year), David Katzenberg, also 24. After arriving an hour early for the event, he told PEOPLE, “I am very proud of her. She worked hard on it.”

When it came time for the designer to take her walk down the runway for the event’s finale, Katzenberg gave her a kiss on the cheek and white roses, then said, “I was extremely impressed.”
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“The only time I’m reminded that there is something different about him – that he has some deviation of what is perceived to be normal – is when I see him with other 4-year-olds. Then I go, ‘Oh yeah,’ and it comes back to me,” Farrell tells the Irish Independent. “But from day one I felt that he’s the way he’s meant to be.”

Farrell says James shows “amazing courage,” and adds: “[I’m] incredibly blessed to have him in my life.” (more…)

The onetime party girl, 21, arrived over the weekend and had a low-key evening with friends Sunday, seeing the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age and visiting a tanning salon.

Lohan was due this week on the set of the tango-themed film Dare to Love Me, the film for which she was preparing in July when she was arrested for DUI.

Lohan’s mother Dina says her daughter is eager to get back to work, telling PEOPLE, “Lindsay is very happy and her life is back in control.”

Earlier this month Lohan checked out of the exclusive Cirque Lodge Treatment Center in Utah, where she has been since August. (more…)

AriX sent us a press release Sunday promoting iJailbreak, an automated program that allows third-party applications to run on the iPod Touch. It doesn’t work for the iPhone, and it’s only available for iPod Touch owners that are using Intel-based Macs. I don’t have an iPod Touch at my disposal right now, so I’m unable to test whether it actually works, but some users on MacRumors.com reported that it worked. (more…)

Salih Saif Aldin, 32, was reporting on the violence that has plagued Baghdad’s Sadiyah neighborhood Sunday afternoon when he was shot in the forehead. According to residents of the neighborhood and the Iraqi military officers at the scene, he was taking photographs on a street where several houses had been burned when he was killed. His wounds appeared to indicate he was shot at close range.

Read full story.

Not content with dominating the internet, the search giant is now believed to be planning to take the mobile communications market by storm. Analysts at Lehman Brothers predict that when it unveils its third-quarter results on Thursday, Google’s revenues will rise 8.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter to $2.98bn with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) of $1.8bn. For the full year 2007, Lehman predicts a 58 per cent year-on-year increase in turnover to $11.56bn with Ebitda of $7.03bn, representing a year-on-year rise of over 52 per cent. The investment bank has raised its target price for Google shares to $714. (more…)

The construction of the A380, able to carry up to 800 passengers, has been beset by persistent and costly delays.

It has also been overshadowed by allegations of insider trading against managers at parent company EADS.

Chief executive Thomas Enders said it would still be the “greatest challenge” for Airbus to meet future deliveries. (more…)

A flight attendant for ATA Airlines recently asked a flier watching a movie midflight on the way to Hawaii to shut off his iPhone, not for the perfectly reasonable reason that the man was watching the inane Jennifer-Love Hewitt vehicle I Know What You Did Last Summer, but because you’re not allowed to use cell phones inflight. Casey, the iPhone user, told Consumerist that he tried several times to explain to the flight attendant that the iPhone was in “airplane mode,” with all the radios disabled. But the flight attendants did not accept that explanation, and continued to insist that FAA regulations prohibit talking on cell phones when the cabin door is closed, despite the fact that Casey wasn’t actually talking and the fact they were over the middle of the Pacific Ocean. (more…)

It would be easy to dismiss the next generation gaming experience as simply eye candy.

The latest games all look great but the potential offered by the processing power of consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3 does not end there. They also give developers a wealth of new gameplay possibilities. (more…)

“If such an option is chosen, whatever its price, it will be paid,” Erdogan told reporters in response to a question about the international repercussions of such a decision, which would strain ties with the United States and Iraq. “There could be pros and cons of such a decision, but what is important is our country’s interests.”

Erdogan also had harsh words for the United States, which opposes a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq — one of the country’s few relatively stable areas. (more…)

“We need to prove that we are able to substantially improve our performance,” Mr. Enders said in an interview at Airbus headquarters here. “If not, who will give us the money to develop competitive products in the future?” (more…)

With the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, sitting opposite him during a meeting at his dacha at the start of two days of US-Russia negotiations, President Vladimir Putin surprised his guests by embarking on a spirited monologue in which he said, somewhat cryptically: “We may decide some day to put missile defence systems on the moon but, before we get to that, we may lose a chance for agreement because of you implementing your own plans.” (more…)

“Significant failings” at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday.

The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said.

“The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed,” said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy. (more…)

EA is the world’s biggest games publisher and will now acquire Bioware and Pandemic Studios.

They are private firms that have been partners since a 2005 deal brought them together in VG Holding, a deal backed by private equity firm Elevation.

The buy is the biggest ever for EA, known for its Sims and Madden games. (more…)

“Please tell everybody – categorically I am not pregnant,” Anderson told Las Vegas celebrity blogger Robin Leach.

“It’s just not true,” the mother of two added to Leach, who interviewed her at a party Wednesday night for airline magnate Richard Branson. “I would tell you if it was.”

To underscore it, at the party Anderson was “celebrating her marriage last weekend with bottles of expensive Cristal champagne,” Leach writes. (more…)

To insure the 21-year-old actress continues her recovery from alcohol and drug abuse, a sober companion, trained to be with people overcoming addictions, will be with her, Michael Lohan told PEOPLE.

On Oct. 5, Lohan left rehab at Utah’s Cirque Lodge Treatment Center, which helped the actress find the companion.

“Lindsay’s companion is really, really tough, and she’s really nice, she’s an amazing lady, a great influence on Lindsay’s life,” the elder Lohan said before attending a family court hearing in Westbury, N.Y., concerning his youngest children Ali, 13, and Dakota, 11. (more…)

Later Thursday night, Federline arrived at a club called The Liquid Room in downtown Wilmington, where he partied like a rock star in the VIP area, ordering up rounds.

“He’s drinking Jack and Coke and Patrón. That’s all he drinks,” a cocktail waitress told PEOPLE.

When the deejay spun his ex-wife’s new song, all eyes darted to Federline, clad in a white T-shirt and jeans and wearing noticeable bling. “When ‘Gimme More’ came on, I looked at him, and he didn’t have any reaction. He wasn’t dancing,” said a reveler in the club. (more…)

“Samaire Armstrong decided to enter an outpatient facility to deal with some personal issues in a therapeutic atmosphere and is doing very well,” the rep said in a statement Friday. “She continues to work on her show and will be completing her treatment in a matter of weeks.

The nature of the personal issues wasn’t revealed. (more…)

“I’m just really excited right now and just happy. I’m the luckiest guy on earth,” the 33-year old actor tells PEOPLE. “She’s the coolest girl in the world.”

He was among the celebs who came to pay tribute to comedian Billy Crystal when he received this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center on Thursday night.

Fallon and his bride-to-be haven’t picked a wedding date yet. “We’re still planning it,” he says. But “the sooner the better for me. I’m in love.”

Juvonen, 40, is Drew Barrymore’s long-time business partner, and produced Fallon’s 2005 romantic comedy, Fever Pitch. (more…)

The pop star, who appeared relaxed in blue jeans and sunglasses as she entered the courtroom – telling reporters, “I’m good, thank you” – emerged 45 minutes later appearing solemn and declining to comment.

But the hearing was a rare victory. The judge expanded her visitation schedule, giving her one monitored overnight visit a week with Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, a court spokesman said. Lawyers will work on when the new schedule begins. (more…)

Witnesses told police the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star was driving alone on Fountain Avenue when another vehicle cut him off and he hit a parked car, said Officer Ana Aguirre.

Bloom, 30, wasn’t injured and filed a report with police, Aguirre said.

“No alcohol was involved, and he wasn’t speeding,” Aguirre said. There was minor damage to his car and the parked car, she said.

Aguirre didn’t know the exact time or location of the crash. (more…)

Attorneys for Talib Mutlaq Deewan, who was injured in the shootings at Nisoor Square, and the families of Himoud Saed Atban, Osama Fadhil Abbas and Oday Ismail Ibraheem, who were killed, filed the lawsuit this morning in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking for an unspecified amount of money to compensate for alleged war crimes, illegal killings, wrongful death, emotional distress and negligence. The lawsuit names Blackwater USA, The Prince Groupand Blackwater founder and CEO Erik Prince as defendants. (more…)

Testifying by video-link from the Court of Appeal in Paris, Antonio Lopes Borges denied a lawyer’s suggestion that he had told his companion, Ana Simao, that he thought it might be an assassination.

The issue arose as a coroner’s inquest resumed in London following a trip to Paris, where the jury saw key scenes, including the Ritz Hotel, which Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed left shortly after midnight on Aug. 31, 1997, and the Pont d’Alma tunnel, where they were fatally injured when their car crashed into a pillar. (more…)

Best Coverage of SIAB 2007 [video, 65 minutes]

SIAB Photo Galery

Entire Photo Gallery (450+ photos) (more…)

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave marginal scores in side-impact tests of 2008 versions of the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, Jeep Grand Cherokee and two SUVs built by Nissan Motor Co. — the Pathfinder and Xterra without optional side air bags.

In similar side testing, the Toyota 4Runner and Pathfinder and Xterra models equipped with side air bags received top marks of good in the side testing. The Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer received the second-highest rating of acceptable. (more…)

Two separate lawsuits were filed Friday in San Jose — one in federal court and the other in state court and both seeking class-action status.

The federal case accuses the companies of unfair business practices and violations of antitrust, telecommunications and warranty laws. The state case raises some of the same allegations. (more…)

Light, sweet crude for November delivery climbed 31 cents to $81.61 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by mid-afternoon in Singapore. The contract rose $1.04 to settle at $81.30 a barrel Wednesday in New York.

Oil prices often rise when oil supplies are threatened in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer and one of the top overseas suppliers to the United States. (more…)

A global study by analysts comScore revealed that more than 61 billion searches were performed by more than 750 million users in the month.

Users performed more than 37 billion searches via Google, more than all the other major search engines combined.

Yahoo was the second most used engine, followed by Baidu, the Chinese language search engine, the report said.

“Seeing Asian search engines like China’s Baidu.com and Korea’s NHN ranked alongside Google and Yahoo underscores the fact that search has become a truly global phenomenon,” said Bob Ivins, executive vice president of international markets at comScore, in a statement.

Read full story.

At least 42 people were killed or found dead across Iraq.

The nearly simultaneous attacks in Beiji were the deadliest in a series of bombings in recent days as the terror network apparently steps up its promised Ramadan offensive as the end of the Islamic holy month draws near.

The attackers in the oil hub 155 miles north of Baghdad drove a minibus laden with explosives into the house of a local police chief and detonated an explosives-packed Toyota Land Cruiser outside the home of a leading member of the local Awakening Council, a group of Iraqis who have turned against extremists in the area. (more…)

France’s Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg independently discovered a physical effect in 1988 that has led to sensitive tools for reading the information stored on hard disks. That sensitivity lets the electronics industry use smaller and smaller disks.

“The MP3 and iPod industry would not have existed without this discovery,” Borje Johansson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences told The Associated Press. “You would not have an iPod without this effect.”

The two scientists discovered a phenomenon called giant magnetoresistance. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads. (more…)

“She has returned the medals,” attorney Henry DePippo said Monday. “She’s not going to comment on the matter while it’s pending in court but the medals were returned today.”

The track star admitted in federal court Friday that she took a steroid known as “the clear” before, during and after the Sydney games. She also pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice.

“I want you to know that I have been dishonest and you have the right to be angry with me. I have let (my family) down, I have let my country down and I have let myself down,” a tearful Jones said after the court session. (more…)

Sabrina Sakaë was born Sunday morning in New York and weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz.

“Mother, father and baby Sabrina are all healthy and very happy and will be residing at their ranch in Colorado,” the singer’s rep said in a statement.

When the Mexico City-born singer’s pregnancy was announced in June, a posting on her Web site read: “Her pregnancy is going well and she is healthy, very happy and full of energy, as usual.”

Asked for Mottola’s opinion about expanding the family, Thalía, 35, told PEOPLE EN ESPAÑOL that her husband, 58, has wanted to have kids together for years. (more…)

Speaking amid a crowd of people outside the ABC studio in the middle of Times Square, where Lopez, 38, performed a live concert to promote her new CD Brave, a pained-looking Sawyer said to the singer: “All right, all right, I know what everybody’s asking, and I know you have so little privacy in your life … so, I’m just going to say, ‘How are you?’ ”

Replied Lopez: “I’m very well, thank you. This is really, really a great, happy time in my life. … Everything’s great.”

She credited her happiness to her new album and her current concert tour with husband Marc Anthony – for which Lopez has dressed in modest, loose-fitting ensembles designed by Roberto Cavalli. (more…)

Crandon Police Chief John Dennee, speaking outside the police department about two blocks from the shooting site, would not say whether the suspect was dead. But he said: “We’re not looking for anybody anymore.”

A dispatcher for the State Patrol who declined to give his full name as a matter of department practice said several of the patrol’s officers went to Forest County to help investigators because the suspect is an employee of the Forest County Sheriff’s Department and a part-time officer for the Crandon Police Department. (more…)

“It’s a pretty tragic situation here,” said Forest County Supervisor Tom Vollmar, who lives just outside Crandon, where the shootings occurred. “There are five or six people dead.”

Other details were not immediately available. Messages seeking comment were left with the sheriff’s office.

The neighborhood where the shooting occurred has been blocked off, Vollmar said. (more…)

Other details were not immediately available, according to the AP. Messages seeking comment were left with the sheriff’s office.

The neighborhood where the rampage happened been blocked off, Vollmar said. (more…)

The pair tied the knot Saturday night in Las Vegas at the Mirage Hotel before Anderson’s children and members of her family, sources confirm to PEOPLE.

A conventional marriage it wasn’t, as the nuptials actually took place in an hour-and-a-half between Anderson’s two magic shows.

Anderson, 40, donned a white denim Valentino dress at the small ceremony. Wedding guests included Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas and magician Hans Klok.

Anderson has had two high-profile marriages – to ex-husbands Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, who famously fought at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. Salomon, 38, is divorced from actress Shannen Doherty. (more…)

“Brit really needed her mom,” a source tells PEOPLE. “So Lynne flew out and they met.”

Spears will be needing all the support she can get. Documents released Thursday regarding her heated custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline revealed stricter measures, particularly placed on her.

With regard to her supervised visitation rights with her two sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, the document says: “the monitor shall terminate visitation immediately if any conduct or action by [Spears] endangers the minor children.” (more…)

“She’s finished the program,” one source says. “Lindsay is done, but she may come back for outpatient treatment. She over-extended her stay because she wanted to. She could have been out awhile ago, but she chose to stay.”

Lohan’s mother, Dina, told PEOPLE Friday: “I’m proud of her. She’s moving ahead with her life. Things were getting out of control. She took action. She took responsibility. She really needed to heal.”

Lohan was photographed Friday afternoon with her father Michael, who carried her suitcases, leaving Cirque Lodge. “I will be there in her life as best I can but from here on she’s going to have a lot of decisions to make on her own,” Michael told PEOPLE Friday. “Now that she is going out into the world, I can only hope for the best.” (more…)

The custody-battling pop star is now getting pounded in the court of public opinion for her new pole dancing video for the single “Gimme More” off her upcoming album, Blackout, to be released Nov. 13.

“Our analysis: Looks like it was shot in one take on the cheap and then gussied up with a bit of cutting and camera work,” grumbles Rolling Stone on its Web site. “There’s no real choreography (just a bit of dancing near a pole) and all the smoke and mirrors – literally and figuratively – made us nauseous.”

Entertainment Weekly complained: “I’ve seen sexier pole work during an afternoon of fly-fishing.”

And Stereogum.com says that this Tale of Two Britneys “hurts like the Dickens.”

For Spears, the good news is that the video is considered a step up from her disappointing performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. (more…)

On Thursday night the two, both 25, went to London’s Brinkley’s restaurant before making their way to Boujis nightclub. The pair was later seen smiling and jumping into a waiting Range Rover before heading home after a late night.

Despite calling it quits in April, William and Kate were back together in only a matter of weeks. Yet they tried to keep a low profile, meeting up for secret dates including a party at army officer William’s barracks.

In August, they vacationed in the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, making it official they were together again. There, having arrived on separate planes, they went diving and read books by the pool. (more…)

More specifically, Bebo users who have provided the site with their AIM usernames will now see an AIM icon displayed on their profiles so that other members can click on it to IM them directly through Bebo’s interface. There’s also a new “AIM Friend Finder” in Bebo so that members can invite the denizens of their AIM buddy lists to join Bebo, as well as a co-branded downloadable client so that Bebo has a presence on AIM as well. (more…)

www.gateway.com or 1-800-GATEWAY, as well as technology and electronics retailers that sell Gateway products. It is priced at $1,699.99.

Of late, OEMs like Dell have tried to differentiate themelves and their brands by offering premium monitors, which they can pair with boutique systems. To date, however, Gateway has not offered a boutique line, and the company is in the process of being acquired by Acer. (more…)

The name of Sergei Korolyov, the visionary rocket scientist whose brains and determination made it possible for the Soviet Union to thrust open the door to the space age, was a top state secret during his lifetime. It became known only became known after he died and was given a lavish state funeral.

“We take a rightful pride in the fact that it was our nation which opened the way to the stars for humanity,” President Vladimir Putin said in a statement. (more…)

At this point, the 11 domain names are meant primarily for software developers and Web site designers to test the new system, but they are the first such names entered in the 13 key domain name directories, known as root servers, after years of discussions and limited-access tests.

If the global tests go well, non-English domain names could be in use by the end of 2008. (more…)

However, there is no fix available just yet. Apple believes it’s a software issue—the spokesperson said that the company is working on tracking down the bug and will issue a fix later this month in a software update. “We apologize for the inconvenience.” No problem, Apple. Let’s kiss and make up. (more…)

The band’s spokesman, Murray Chalmers, said the collapse of the site was caused by waves of British fans logging on after the announcement about the album. They were followed by fans on the east coast of the US, who woke to the surprise news, followed by Radiohead enthusiasts on the west coast.

“It’s getting busy in there, busier than they expected,” guitarist Jonny Greenwood wrote of the band’s official W.A.S.T.E. store, which is selling In Rainbows. “So, if you please bear with us, it should get cleared out soon.” He added: “I sound like a bouncer. Get behind the rope. No denim. Thanks for your patience with the site and interest in the record.” (more…)

For those who need a refresher, OpenSuse is the faster-moving but mostly unsupported version of Linux from Novell and various outside contributors. It competes most directly with Linux versions such as Canonical’s Ubuntu and Red Hat’s Fedora. Novell has tried for years to pit it against Windows as well, even as it cooperates with Microsoft in a legally thorny partnership. Novell’s supported product, Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Server, is sold in the form of an annual support subscription. (more…)

On Monday, Nokia agreed to pay $8.1 billion in cash for Navteq in a deal that will likely help the cell phone maker break into the GPS/navigational space. After the deal closes in the first quarter of 2008, Navteq’s current map data business will continue to operate independently, but will be known as a Nokia Group company, Nokia said. The move comes after European car navigation maker TomTom in July said it would shell out approximately $2.8 billion for digital mapping company TeleAtlas; the deal became a formal takeover bid earlier this month. (more…)

ARM, based in Great Britain, unveiled the collaboration at its ARM Developers Conference at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center on Wednesday. The company develops chip designs and then licenses them to chip makers and hardware firms. Many of its designs are for mobile phones or the handheld device market.

The company formed an alliance with Marvell, MontaVista, Movial, Mozilla, Samsung and Texas Instruments. Together the group will create a platform - a blueprint for software developers - to help them more quickly develop better mobile software to run on the Linux operating system.

Intel has the same market in its sights. At its Developer Forum two weeks ago, executives at the Santa Clara chip giant demonstrated that certain cell phones with ARM chip designs cannot access some Web sites, as they touted Intel’s own designs for new cell phone chips. (more…)

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program. (more…)

The A380’s visit to San Francisco is significant as SFO was the first U.S. airport to be ready to accommodate the plane’s immense size. SFO’s seven-year-old international terminal was designed specifically for planes like the A380 in mind. Those improvements included extra-large gate and check-in areas, expanded baggage carousels, and gates with multiple Jetways on two levels to board the A380’s two decks simultaneously. Remember that the Airbus holds about 525 people (or more), which makes it quite a bit larger than the already big 747. (more…)

Other winners included work on treating hamster jetlag with impotency drugs, extracting vanilla from cow dung, and the side-effects of sword swallowing.

The awards, founded in 1991, mark achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think”.

The prize ceremony took place at Harvard University, US. (more…)

Verizon, AT&T, and Frontline Wireless have all since petitioned the FCC to change the rules in different ways. AT&T wants more clarity around the “public/private partnership” part of the auction, while Frontline wants a lower reserve price. Verizon, however, is directly targeting the most innovative part of the auction, the “open access” requirements on some of the new spectrum. It has filed a federal lawsuit asking that this part of the rules be struck down by a judge, and it also appears to be lobbying the FCC directly to water them down.

Google, which fought hard for those rules (and actually wanted more “open” conditions applied), is now attacking Verizon both in public and at the FCC. (more…)

While Dynamo is not a complete operating system by itself, it is an intriguing solution to the problem of always-available, fault-tolerant online database storage. For the last year or so, Dynamo has been at the core of many of Amazon’s web services, including the shopping cart, customer preferences, and the product catalog. It has also been used to power S3, Amazon’s online web application storage service. (more…)

The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq’s security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops. (more…)

Yesterday, Microsoft announced a Web site called HealthVault designed as a central place for consumers to store their health-related data and share it with doctors and other medical professionals. The site also offers Internet search and a Web page for viewing and organizing articles and other information on health.

The service throws Microsoft into a crowd of insurance companies, employers, Internet companies, start-ups and tech companies trying to provide digital-health records to patients and consumers. Included are Aetna Inc. and WellPoint Inc., which hold billing and claims data that they are trying to use to build personal-health records, and newcomers like Microsoft and Google Inc., which says it is working on a system but hasn’t disclosed specific plans. (more…)

In a highly critical statement that accused BAA of acting “against the public interest” in its running of Heathrow and Gatwick, the watchdog suggested a reduction in the allowed cost of capital from 7.75 per cent at the two airports to 6.2 per cent at Heathrow and 6.5 per cent at Gatwick. The cut comes despite furious lobbying by BAA and its Spanish parent Ferrovial, who argue that such cuts reduce the incentive for the proposed multibillion pound development schemes for the airports.

Stephen Nelson, chief executive of BAA, reacted furiously to the ruling. “We see little in the CC’s report which delivers the incentives to transform the airports,” he said. “Nor do we believe that the CC recognises the scale and nature of the challenges we face in seeking to deliver a step change in the passenger experience.” (more…)

In the case in federal district court in Duluth, Minn., a Minnesota woman was found liable for willful copyright infringement. The jury awarded the music companies a total of $220,000, or $9,250 for each of the 24 works the music industry said the woman uploaded. The decision will likely reinvigorate the music industry’s strategy of suing U.S. file sharers — even as the practice of file sharing continues to increase.

Jammie Thomas was fighting charges she illegally uploaded songs, ranging from Green Day’s “Basket Case” to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The four major record labels that brought the case said she was the person using a computer address on Feb. 21, 2005, that was traced back to a user of the Kazaa file-sharing service who was making nearly 2,000 songs available for sharing. Ms. Thomas said she isn’t the culprit. (more…)

But the jury also watched video from security cameras at the Ritz that gives no outward sign that Henri Paul was drunk when the Mercedes he was driving crashed in an underpass while being chased by paparazzi, as both French and British police have concluded.

Paul is seen squatting in the lobby of the hotel to tie his shoe laces, shifting his weight from one foot to another and rising steadily. He is also shown bounding up stairs two at a time. (more…)

BT has backed a global wireless sharing service called Fon, billing it as the “world’s largest wi-fi community”.

The firm’s three million broadband customers will be able to share their wi-fi with others in the Fon community.

BT’s scheme with Spanish firm Fon will boost the 500,000-strong community of users around the world and add to the existing 190,000 Fon hotspots.

The BT Fon service lets people share a “small portion” of their home broadband connection by opening up a separate secure channel on their wireless router.

Fon users can access broadband when in range of another community member’s hotspot. (more…)

For the three months to 1 September, the Canadian firm made a net profit of $287.7m (£141m), compared with $140.2m for the same period in 2006.

RIM said the profit jump, which beat market targets, was helped by global users breaking the 10-million mark.

Blackberry is the market leader in handheld e-mail devices. (more…)

Private rents in 2006 were two-thirds the cost of a 100% mortgage on a two- or three-bedroom house, for a young household on average incomes.

For many years, renting a home was thought to be just as expensive as buying one.

But that position has been changed by the rapid rise in house prices. (more…)

Sporting a shaggy blond beard and a dark jacket, Wilson was joined by fellow cast mates Adrien Brody, Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman and filmmaker Wes Anderson. It was among Wilson’s first public appearances since a suicide attempt in late August.

Before the movie started, Anderson introduced Wilson, his longtime friend and collaborator, saying, “I’ve never made a movie without him and I hope I never have to.” (more…)

A passionate film-lover from an early age, legend has it that the young Shaw first cut his teeth in the business by distributing film reels on a bicycle to rural, village cinemas in Singapore and Malaysia, giving poignancy to his name “Run Run.”

He started out helping his elder brothers Runje, Runde and Renme set up a film studio in Shanghai in 1925. The brothers later moved into Hong Kong — making and distributing films to its chain of around 100 cinemas spread across other Asian markets like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. (more…)

The judge recommended that Snoop Dogg and Priority Records put their contractual dispute before the court’s case evaluation service. The service will give both sides a neutral idea of strengths and weaknesses of their case before it heads to trial, she said. (more…)

Isaac Hanson, 26, was diagnosed with venous thoracic outlet syndrome, said spokesman Ken Phillips. Also known as Paget-Schroetter Syndrome, the potentially fatal ailment occurs when a blood clot forms in a deep arm or shoulder vein.

Dr. Bradley Grimsley, Hanson’s surgeon, said he expected the guitarist to make a full and swift recovery, Phillips said in a news release. (more…)

The video – for the song “Gimme More” – will premiere on MTV’s TRL at 3:30 p.m. ET., a rep for the network confirms to PEOPLE.

Although details about the final version of it are being kept a secret, Spears, 25, was spotted in costume at a Los Angeles warehouse back in July, reportedly filming a video. Her outfit consisted of a short black dress, black boots and a black hat.

But it is not for certain that the footage from that particular shoot made the final cut that will air on TRL.

In fact, the video will contain footage from two different shoots, sources say. (more…)

Documents released Thursday reveal other stricter measures L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon handed down the previous day, particularly pertaining to Spears.

The commissioner specified that “a missed test, refusal to submit to a test, or failure to respond to the testing agency’s call … shall be deemed by the court as a failed test,” the documents read. Spears, 25, is still expected to complete twice-weekly random testing for drugs and alcohol.

Spears was also ordered to complete at least three individual counseling sessions by the next hearing. (more…)

“She has fulfilled her requirements for a California driver’s license,” said the DMV’s Mike Marando.

L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon, who’s overseeing her custody case, had ordered her to show proof that she was a legal driver. Her lawyer told PEOPLE that among the reasons she lost temporary custody was because she lacked a valid license.

On Monday, Spears, 25, handed off sons Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, to a bodyguard for ex Kevin Federline, then drove with a friend to a DMV office in Van Nuys, Calif. (more…)

In high school, “I had crises of faith,” Pitt, 43, tells Parade.

“I’d go to Christian revivals and be moved by the Holy Spirit, and I’d go to rock concerts and feel the same fervor,” he tells the magazine in its new issue. “Then I’d be told, ‘That’s the Devil’s music! Don’t partake in that!’ I wanted to experience things religion said not to experience.”

Pitt, who took up journalism at the University of Missouri at Columbia, says when he started questioning religion, “It wasn’t a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self. I had faith that I’m capable enough to handle any situation.”

The young Pitt also had a little help from a college girlfriend. (more…)

Recalling what it was like in the 1970s, when her mother, Betty, was undergoing treatment for the disease, the talk show host, 49, tells USA Today, “Everything was a dirty little secret back then.”

With October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, DeGeneres adds, “The fact that she had a mastectomy was not spoken of. She tried to shield me from it a little bit, but she needed my help with recovery and physical rehabilitation. It bonded us even more.”

DeGeneres was 16 at the time her mother was battling the cancer, which was further stigmatized by the fact that, Ellen also recalls, she was raised in what she considers the confining atmosphere of small town Atlanta, Texas. (more…)

Reed, whose face has graced campaigns for Diesel and Abercrombie & Fitch,
follows on the heels of swimsuit model Josie Maran, who was eliminated from the first week of the competition last Wednesday. While Maran received a lukewarm reception from the judges, Reed seemed to impress the panel with his quickstep on Monday night. But a solid score wasn’t enough to keep him around for a third week.

“I’m stunned but I’m not surprised,” Reed told PEOPLE minutes after Tuesday’s show ended. “I just don’t have the fan base that other people have, but that’s okay. I was able to get my foot in the door, even if it was only halfway,” he joked. (more…)

Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury at the inquest into the deaths of the princess and her lover Dodi Fayed that scientific evidence might be unable to demonstrate “one way or the other” whether she was in the early stages of pregnancy.

But he said they would hear “intimate” details of her personal life.

Baker told the 11 members of the jury — six women and five men — Diana may have been on the contraceptive pill and that evidence she was poised to get engaged to Dodi on the night she died was contradictory. (more…)

Dongmei Li of Queens, New York, claimed the company violated price discrimination laws when it slashed the price of the 8-gigabyte iPhone by a third, from $599 to $399, within two months of the gadget’s June debut.

Apple lowered the iPhone’s price on September 5 and also said it would stop selling the $499 4-gigabyte model. Hundreds of early customers who paid full price didn’t expect a reduction so soon and complained. (more…)

The threat raised the specter of a renewed dispute between Russia and Ukraine that could affect European supplies, and it came amid uncertainty over the results of tense parliamentary elections in Ukraine.

State-controlled Gazprom said it had informed European clients about the matter Tuesday. Company spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said Ukraine has taken no action despite repeated requests and warned that, with consumption rising as winter approaches, “if the debt is not settled in October, Gazprom will be forced to begin decreasing deliveries of natural gas for consumers in Ukraine.” (more…)

The players - which come in 4GB, 8GB and 80GB models - have wi-fi so users can automatically download music, photos, and video from their computer.

Microsoft is also launching a social networking site dubbed Zune Social to allow users to display and share music.

Last year Microsoft sold 1.2 million Zunes compared to 100 million iPods shifted since its launch in 2001.

The new players go on sale in the US in mid-November. There are no details yet as to when they will be released in Europe. (more…)

Turns out everyone got “Punk’d”: Longoria’s video was the latest spoof to show up on Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die Web site.

“I’m so amused. It’s so funny. Oh my gosh. I’ve gotten like 100 calls on it saying it’s so hilarious,” Longoria gushed to Ryan Seacrest during his KIIS-FM radio show Tuesday.

“We’ve got this comedian called Perry Hilton, who does everything that Paris Hilton does. If you go on there, he’s gotten a DUI. He goes out clubbing … So, they go, ‘We want to do a sex video in that night vision – kind of like the one she did,’ ” Longoria explained. (more…)

Lufti, whom Kevin Federline’s camp attempted to subpoena in the ongoing custody battle, reminded PEOPLE in an e-mail that Federline getting custody is “temporary.”

“We … signed all the necessary documents that she needed to get done,” he said. Spears, he added, is “in a good mood, no problems, very optimistic.”

Monday a judge granted Federline physical custody of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, “until further order of the court.” Lufti told PEOPLE that what led to the ruling was just a misunderstanding. (more…)

“I’m sort of superstitious, so I saved all of the negative [pregnancy] tests in a drawer,” Berry reveals on the Oprah Winfrey Show Tuesday, talking about her struggle to get pregnant. “Don’t ask! I don’t know why, but I did. … After about 35 tests, we finally got a positive test.”

Of the lengthy process, she says, “while I was trying to get pregnant, we tried really hard, so it was a lot of staying home and just doing what you do.”

In addition to her own mothering instincts, she says her boyfriend, Canadian model Gabriel Aubry, 31, will be a great dad. (more…)

After a closed-door hearing Monday, a judge ordered that, starting Wednesday, Kevin Federline will get physical custody of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, “until further order of the court.”

L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon didn’t outline his reasons in the written ruling, but Spears’s attorney, Sorrell Trope, says, “We weren’t able to prove compliance with what the judge ordered.”

“Specifically,” Trope says, “the judge ordered that by 10 a.m. (Monday) morning, both parties show valid California driving licenses. I’ve been unable to produce evidence of that.”

Later Monday, after handing over her sons to a bodyguard of Federline’s, Spears applied for a California driver’s license in Van Nuys. (more…)

The front of the bus was blown apart by the blast at the start of the morning rush hour on a narrow road in a shopping district in the city’s western outskirts.

Shop windows were shattered and blood and body parts strewn on the ground. A police officer at the scene said women were among the dead and he had picked up the bodies of a number of children. (more…)

The handsets will go on sale in Europe by the end of the month, said Anthony Lee, a spokesman at Samsung. Pricing has not yet been determined.

The handset doesn’t look much like a mobile phone: the top half is dominated by a navigation wheel, the designers having dispensed with buttons. The 2.26-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) touch screen is below the navigation wheel, in the place where the buttons are found on conventional mobile phones. (more…)

Halo 3 is one of the fastest-selling games ever created, and also one of the highest scoring when it comes to critical reception. How aggravating, then, that its graphics have been found to be sub-par. Microsoft specifies that games on the Xbox 360 system must render at a resolution of at least 720p - that’s 1280×720 to you PC folks. The 360 will then either output that or upscale it to 1920×1080 for output on larger displays.

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Instructions, available here on an iPhone development wiki, have been tested by the folk at Macworld and it turns out they’re in working order - a previously broken iPhone was reverted to a usable state although it had no access to the phone itself or data network. (more…)

he Yemeni Coast Guard rescued 21 of the 29 Yemeni military personnel who were on the island when the volcano erupted, but they requested help from a nearby six-ship NATO task force en route to the Suez Canal, according to Ken Allan of the Canadian Navy’s HMCS Toronto.

The Canadian ship located the first survivor about five miles off the coast of the volcanic island, Allan told CNN’s American Morning. (more…)

In a statement, Nasdaq President and Chief Executive Bob Greifeld said the deal will extend the company’s offerings and allow it to offer a second quote in the U.S. equities market.

“We believe a second exchange license in both equities, and in the future options, will provide market structure flexibility as we continue to deliver on our mission of being the number one trading platform in the transactions business,” he added. (more…)

First out was the ever-so imaginatively named HTC P6500. This is the firm’s first ever venture into the grown-up enterprise world of mobile handsets. It’s a Windows Mobile 6 Professional driven device with open platform support for industry applications. All meaning it shouldn’t struggle with running off-the-shelf mobile business apps or bespoke, as now seen in other competitors’ products. It’s a Tri-Band HSDPA with Quad-Band GSM/EDGE support, bundled with Wifi and Bluetooth. Hitting all the possible angles for connections, operator and otherwise. They’ve even gone as far to build in GPS and include a three mega-pixel camera. The latter could provide 2D barcode scanning and business card recognition. It has 1GB internal memory and 2 SDIO slots for expansion with a nice fingerprint ID sensor for security conscious individuals. This will be wandering to the regular outlets in November; unfortunately no prices were given out. (more…)

Teimlo launched the service called Ecumen to deliver daily prayers, wallpaper and ring tones.

Erik Fok, head of sales and marketing, said he believed young people would appreciate the service.

“The market for Christian content on mobile phones hasn’t been well-served,” he said. (more…)

As I said, I think that’s a good deal– the XO is likely to be a pretty interesting machine, even though its price is twice its original $100 target and battery life isn’t likely to live up to OLPC’s original projections (I covered that issue here and here).

Another low-cost Linux-based laptop that you’ll soon be able to buy is the Eee PC from Asus. Pricing for this machine, originally expected to start at $199, is now rumored to begin at $260 when the machine goes on sale later this month, with high-end models coming in around $400. (more…)

Separate reports point to a December release in the US, with the European debut taking place early in 2008.

Samsung launched the BD-U5000 at the IFA show in Berlin last month. Then, it said the player would arrive in Q4. In the US, it will, but the release schedule announced in Europe could reasonably be applied to the local roll-out too. (more…)

Mexens is the maker of the Navizon software, which uses cell towers and WiFi to triangulate your position and display it on your phone. The company released the iPhone version of its software on September 18, with a 15-day trial period. Unfortunately, the new firmware hit shortly after the release, rendering the software and the distribution system (Installer.app) useless. Due to the timing, the company didn’t sell many copies of the $25 software, but it is generously refunding the money of anyone who did buy a copy. (more…)

Mr Brown also confirmed Basra province could be handed over to full Iraqi control within the next two months.

Britain currently has about 5,500 troops stationed at Basra Airport. (more…)

The invitation from Ferdowsi University in the northeastern city of Mashhad asked Bush to answer questions from students and professors “just the same way” that Ahmadinejad took questions “despite all the insults directed at him.” (more…)

Syria’s first high-level statement on the peace talks, planned for next month, may be an attempt to widen discussions aimed largely at a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. But Assad’s rejection also could play into the Bush administration’s preference that Syria not attend unless it moderates its position on several issues, U.S. analysts said.

In a rare interview with the BBC, Assad also for the first time confirmed an Israeli airstrike in northern Syria on Sept. 6, asserting that warplanes hit an unoccupied military compound. Syria reserves the right to retaliate and still is considering how to respond, he said. (more…)

The suspect was taken into police custody after he was seen dropping the bag and fleeing on foot, Vienna police spokeswoman Michaela Raz said.

No one was injured, but police sealed off the neighborhood as a precaution and shut down or rerouted nearby bus and tramway lines. Officers patrolled the area with bomb-sniffing dogs.

The suspect was described only as a 42-year-old native of Bosnia-Herzegovina who now lives in the province of Lower Austria, which encircles most of the capital. Police said they made the arrest a short distance from the embassy building in a neighborhood where security is tight. (more…)

The industry skirmish has swelled into a political battle that will find an audience in front of members of Congress today. Sprint, of Reston, along with some competitors, says it has hundreds of millions of dollars riding on an upcoming Federal Communications Commission decision, which hinges on the unpredictable swing vote of Republican Commissioner Robert M. McDowell. (more…)

Dongmei Li of Queens, N.Y., claimed the company violated price discrimination laws when it slashed the price of the 8-gigabyte iPhone by a third, from $599 to $399, within two months of the gadget’s June debut.

Apple lowered the iPhone’s price on Sept. 5 and also said it would stop selling the $499 4-gigabyte model. Hundreds of early customers who paid full price didn’t expect a reduction so soon and complained. (more…)

The world’s largest fast-food chain has been talking openly for nearly a year about plans to add such drinks as lattes and cappuccinos following its success with premium coffee, introduced in 2006.

Crain’s Chicago Business, citing planning documents, reported that the rollout of the new coffee drinks will occur in 1,500 restaurants by the end of this year and in the rest of U.S. restaurants by the end of 2008. It said McDonald’s predicts the new drinks will add more than $1 billion a year to sales. (more…)

Switzerland’s largest bank wrote down SFr4bn (£1.67bn) at its fixed-income business, took an axe to its executive team and announced 1,500 investment banking job cuts.

UBS said the write-downs would mean a loss of up to SFr800m for the third quarter. Credit Suisse, UBS’s biggest rival in Switzerland, also felt the pain but said it had a profitable third quarter and was still in line for record profits for the full year.

The quarterly loss will be UBS’s first since it wrote off its investment in Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. (more…)

The acquisition marks the group’s largest takeover and its latest effort to expand beyond its core business, but analysts balked at the $78-a-share cash offer and shares in the Helsinki-listed group fell as much as 4 per cent, recovering to close down 2 per cent at €26.17.

Navigation is one of the hottest segments in the technology industry with sales of personal mapping devices expected to triple in the next four years. (more…)

As part of its makeover, the revamped Yahoo! search engine will suggest ways to phrase a search as a user types into the query box and will produce more links to photos, videos and music on the main results page.

The new “Search Assist” tool will also pull information from Yahoo!’s calendar service, Upcoming.org, to highlight local events when they are relevant to a search request. (more…)

Together that amounts to a loss of value of $1.43bn, compared to the $2.6bn price paid for Skype in 2005.

Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have quit as executives.

“I think this is a testament that the Skype franchise is not worth as much as eBay originally thought,” said Youssef Squali of the brokerage Jeffries & Co. (more…)

Memory chips are used to store information on products such as mobile phones and digital cameras.

Sony’s decision to agree a joint venture highlights the growing trend of chip makers sharing the large costs of design and manufacture.

The price of these processors has also been falling and this has squeezed the profits of manufacturers. (more…)

The findings from AC Nielsen include all sales outlets. The firm’s previous figures showed a drop of 7%, but only covered sales in pubs and clubs.

AC Nielsen said July was an exceptional month and the combined drop of 7.3% in July and August was more indicative. (more…)

“Today’s incident was the result of one person’s desire to do his job and my desire to maintain my privacy,” he said through his U.S. publicist, Paul Freundlich.

“Some have already attempted to inflate the facts, but the reality is this: While out riding to an AA meeting, a time when my privacy is especially important to me, I felt myself being pursued. I sped up, and, in an effort to elude an oncoming car which was making an illegal u-turn, saw no choice but to drop my bike,” said Urban. (more…)

“It can only help her recovery,” Lohan’s mom Dina tells PEOPLE in an e-mail. “It’s time to mend.”

She adds, “He is visiting Lindsay alone because we are giving her dad a chance to make amends.” A protection order against her former spouse, she says, precludes both parents spending time together with their daughter simultaneously.

During the first week of September, father and daughter ended their three-and-a-half year estrangement when Michael visited Lindsay at the Cirque Lodge Treatment Center. They have been in contact since and Michael is set to arrive in Utah late Monday night to begin their five-day retreat together Tuesday morning. (more…)

Mr Gambari is attempting to mediate between the junta and the opposition, and end a bloody crackdown on mass pro-democracy protests.

The sources said Mr Gambari almost certainly met senior general Than Shwe.

Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy easily won elections in 1990, that were annulled by the generals. (more…)

Two Britons, two Japanese and eight Chinese tourists were hurt by the bomb - reported to have been homemade.

Local media said the blast was triggered using a mobile phone and washing machine motor attached to a gas cylinder.

This is the first time a bomb has exploded in the Maldives. (more…)

The al-Askari shrine, one of Iraq’s most sacred Shia sites, was partly destroyed in two attacks over two years by suspected Sunni militants.

Thousands have died in sectarian violence triggered by the first attack.

The rebuilding work will be carried out by a Turkish company, and is being funded mostly by the EU and Unesco. (more…)

The Commission has established limits on the amount mobile phone companies can charge their customers.

Operators can now charge a maximum of around 34 pence a minute for making calls, and 17 pence to receive a call.

The move has been welcomed by consumer groups, but some say charges are still too high when using a mobile phone outside the European Union. (more…)

The other nominees are rap pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, literate songwriter Leonard Cohen, the original British Invasion combo The Dave Clark Five and surf rock instrumentalists The Ventures.

The nominations illustrate how far the Hall of Fame has stretched its definition of rock ‘n’ roll to incorporate a variety of musical styles. (more…)

The issue does not look to be widespread and occurs in rather exceptional only under specific circumstances; it occurs because the Windows XP Repair CD replaces all system files, including Windows Update, with older versions of those files. Meanwhile, the most current version of Windows Update (which is already present on the system) includes a file that is not present in the Windows Update image on the Repair CD. After performing the repair, the new file remains on the system and creates a registry mismatch, causing subsequent installation of some updates to fail. (more…)

Earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device “permanently inoperable”.

Thousands of iPhone owners hacked their expensive gadget in order to unlock it for use with other mobile carriers and to run a host of unsupported programs.

There are also reports of the update causing issues with unaltered iPhones. (more…)

Microsoft was scheduled to stop selling the six-year-old operating system on 30 January 2008 to leave the field clear for Vista.

Now the date on which many sellers of XP will no longer be able to offer it has been lengthened to 30 June 2008.

Microsoft said the change was to help those customers that needed more time to make the switch to Vista. (more…)

The programme focuses on 19th Century books, many of which are unknown as few were reprinted after first editions.

The library believes online access to the titles will help teachers.

“If there are no modern editions teachers cannot use them for their courses,” said Dr Kristian Jensen, from the British Library. (more…)