Chinese proposal to meter internet traffic
China wants to meter all internet traffic that passes through its borders, it has emerged. The move would require international agreement - but it is being discussed by the United Nations body in charge of internet standards. It would allow countries which currently receive no payment for use of their lines to generate income. But an EU cyber security expert has warned the plan could threaten the stability of the entire internet.
BBC News

Google's subsidiaries allow company to avoid £450m tax on UK advertising
Google, which has an estimated 90 per cent market share of UK internet searches, last year used a cross-border network of subsidiary companies to ensure it did not pay a penny in corporation tax on its £1.6bn advertising revenues in Britain. The international corporate structure enables Google to avoid paying what could otherwise have been a corporation tax bill in the UK of as much as £450m. Recently filed accounts for subsidiary company Google UK Limited show none of the search engine's advertising revenues from British customers were accounted for in the business, despite operations in London and Manchester incurring "administrative expenses" of £177m last year, including a wage bill of £70m.
The Guardian

Illegal file sharing still rife
Illegal file sharing levels are still not declining despite a recent crackdown by the government, according to new research from British recorded music industry body the BPI. The firm interviewed over 3,000 UK respondents aged 16-54 and 1,012 said they were downloading or filesharing music on peer-to-peer networks or from other web sources. While levels of illegal file sharing remained pretty much the same throughout 2009, the BPI warned of an increase in the use of web-based or “non-P2P” methods during the last six months. The biggest increases in use came from overseas unlicensed MP3 pay sites (47 per cent), newsgroups (42 per cent, MP3 search engines (28 per cent) and forum, blog and board links to cyberlockers (18 per cent).
V3

Heartland settles with Am Ex
The severe financial implications of suffering a data breach were highlighted this week as payment processing firm Heartland Payment Systems revealed it has reached a settlement agreement with American Express of nearly $4million. Heartland, the fifth largest payment processor in the United States, suffered a massive data breach in 2008 which it disclosed in January of this year, after hackers infiltrated its network. The firm has already revealed it has set aside a fund of over $12million to pay credit card companies compensation but the $3.6m settlement with American Express is the first specific agreement named.
V3

Intel updates Atom netbook processor range
Intel has launched a new Atom netbook processor, saying it will bring longer battery life and improved system performance to low-cost laptops. The single-core Atom N450 chip is 60 percent smaller than existing Atom processors, and consumes close to 20 percent less power, said Anil Nanduri, director of netbook marketing at Intel. The chip draws about 5.5 watts of power, said Intel. The small footprint of the chip could also lead to new device designs, like thinner netbooks and tablets, Nanduri said. Netbooks with N450 chips will be shown by major vendors at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas on 7 to 10 January.
Techworld

Mozilla rolls out latest Firefox beta
The Mozilla development community has rolled out the latest beta of its Firefox 3.6 browser. The move follows beta 4 just three weeks ago - the final code is scheduled to be released before the end of the year. In addition to the usual round of bug fixes, Firefox 3.6 beta version 5, comes with a number of new features and performance enhancements. The browser offers the ability for users to easily reskin the browsers with a new visual theme. The new version can also run scripts asynchronously, which should speed load times of pages that have multiple scripts.
Techworld

Vodafone to sell iPhone in UK from 14th January
Vodafone has confirmed that it will start selling the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in the UK from 14th January. The operator has started taking pre-orders today in-store and online, from both consumer and business customers. The cheapest way to get an iPhone through the operator will be to sign up to a £35 24-month contract for the iPhone 3G. The handset will be free, although being tied for two years to a phone that came out in mid-2008 is unappealing, to say the least. The iPhone 3GS 16GB will be free to customers signing up for a £45 tariff for 24 months, or a £50 for 18 months.
Mobile Entertainment

Greystripe says mobile ads 10-20x more effective than online
Mobile advertising firm Greystripe says it's been enjoying startling success with its partnership with online advertising company Tribal Fusion. The pair teamed up to offer a service for Tribal Fusion's clients that transcodes their web Flash ads into iPhone-friendly formats. More than 500 campaigns have made the leap in the last six months, and Greystripe claims they're getting higher CPM and clickthrough rates. Specifically, Greystripe says the iPhone ads are seeing 10-20x "higher performance" than the same online campaigns, with average click-through rates well above 1%.
Mobile Entertainment

e-borders could be illegal under EU law, say MPs
The UK's e-borders programme to gather information electronically on all travellers entering or leaving the UK will be illegal on intra-EU routes under the EU treaty, say MPs. And proposals to include new routes in the programme must be put on hold until concerns over legality and data protection issues are resolved, the home affairs committee said in a report today. Chairman of the Committee Rt Hon Keith Vaz said: "The programme is intended to cost the taxpayer £1.2bn and may be illegal. It is shocking that money has already been spent on a programme which could never be implemented."
Computing

AOL is a bachelor once again
AOL and Time Warner met over a boardroom table in January 2000 and just a year later were joined together as AOL Time Warner. After nearly nine years together, the two companies have gone their separate ways in what has largely been an amicable split.
The Inquirer

Microsoft PR outlaws iPhone talk
A Microsoft manager created a bit of a fuss by advising a journalist not to mention the iPhone at a Microsoft event in Germany, betraying frayed nerves in the MS camp. The journalist was apparently guilty of expressing his opinion that no mobile phone was easier to use than an iPhone. We might disagree with that opinion, but we wouldn't demand he stop mentioning Apple products, as one Microsoft manager did.
The Register

Spring release for Apple tablet claims analyst
Another analyst has been grilling their contacts in Apple's supply chain for info on the company's (rumoured) upcoming tablet device. Oppenheimer's Yair Reiner claims that the device will ship in March or April next year, with a 10.1-inch touchscreen.
Mobile Entertainment

Qik submits livestreaming video app for iPhone
Livestreaming startup Qik has submitted a live broadcasting application to Apple for distribution on the App Store, following the release yesterday of a rival app from Ustream.
Mobile Entertainment

Ovi Store: 1m downloads a day, v2.0 coming in Spring
Nokia's Ovi Store is currently generating nearly one million downloads a day, according to George Linardos, the company's VP of Product, Media. However, the company has already been working on a completely rebuilt version of the store, which is due to be launched next year.
Mobile Entertainment

ATC to buy India’s Essar towers for $400m
American Tower Corporation is purchasing a controlling stake in Indian company Essar’s telecom infrastructure unit, in a deal valued between $350 and $400 million. The Boston-based mobile-phone tower operator did not disclose the exact size of the stake to be acquired. The deal may be announced in early January. ATC and Essar have dropped the deal twice earlier, due to disagreements over valuation.
Global Telecoms Business

Google Mobile iPhone App gets a minor bump
The biggest change is in how the app gets things done. Where as it used to boot into Safari as soon as you tapped into any search result, they’re now keeping it all within app – tap a result, and it’ll open in an in-app web view.
Mobile Crunch

London Pupils Get Free iPhone To Learn
As smartphones continue to transform into hand-held computers, it was about time that educators decided to implement the technology in classrooms; Gumley House Convent School in West London has done just that by dishing out 30 Apple iPhones to pupils studying in the school.
ITProPortal

Amazon Preparing Streaming Service With Disc+ On Demand
With an eye on the holiday season, Amazon, the online retail giant, has rolled out a brand new “limited time only” service called Disc+ On Demand. This will enable the consumer to download the digital version of the movies that they have purchased on Blue-ray or DVD from the website.
ITProPortal

Google enriches mobile search experience
In response to search engine advances from rivals like Microsoft Bing, Google has beefed up its own offering, particularly for the mobile platform. In a briefing in the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, it focused on Android and the iPhone to demonstrate the next developments in search, especially in real time, mobile, voice and image.
Moibile Business Magazine

Lords question security firms on cyber-attack prevention
The House of Lords questioned two security firms today on the technical measures needed to protect nations against cyber-attacks and IT infrastructure failure. The meeting was held in response to Critical Information Infrastructure Protection, a report published earlier this year by the European Commission (EC) on the danger to Europe from large-scale cyber-attacks.
V3

First Mobile Firefox nears release
Mozilla is wrapping up work on its first version of Firefox for mobile phones, an important step in bringing the second most popular PC browser to an area where a rival project holds more influence.
ZDNet

Publisher Archant begins taking local titles onto mobile
Regional publisher Archant is targeting local advertisers and readers with its first mobile sites for flagship titles Ilford Recorder and Norwich Evening News. It has signed Suffolk brewer Adnams as the first mobile sponsor of Norwich City FC fanzine site The Pink’Un. Other advertisers on the sites, developed by mobile agency YOC, include local councils, airports, police and car dealers.
NMA

Two year mobile contracts surge to 59 per cent market share
The number of customers tied into two year contracts has surged tenfold in one year, according to new figures from GfK.  Two year contracts, such as those associated with Apple’s iPhone, represented a 58.5 per cent share in October 2009 – up from 6.8 per cent in October last year.
Mobile Today

Facebook gives users more control of privacy
Facebook is launching new privacy settings, designed to simplify the process for its 350 million users. It is the latest in a string of changes that have been made to its privacy policy this year.  The site claims that only 15-20 per cent of users have ever adjusted their settings.  One new feature - the ability to control who sees every post made - was made following a stream of requests from users.
BBC News

One in four UK businesses suffer unreliable broadband
Ofcom survived 1,200 British businesses and found that 28 per cent have encountered issues with reliability of their internet connection.  Results showed that 24 per cent of the surveyed businesses have changed service providers during the last four years due to reliability problems.
Information Age

Mobile phones will come of age in 2010 – and this time I mean it
For years The Guardian’s Victor Keegan has been ribbed by colleagues for claiming that “next year will be the year of the mobile” but this time he means it. With a 10 per cent predicted rise in sales after the poor seven per cent decrease this year, and the continuous innovation and cannibalisation of other products, he has a point.
Guardian

Nokia targets China for new platform
Nokia is trying to transform itself from a hardware vendor to a provider of services and content and is using China as its test bed. In a bid to boost its services business, Nokia has joined forces New Alliance with the task of launching the handset maker's Ovi services platform in the country next year
FT

EA chief conservatively estimates a billion gamers
EA CEO, John Riccitiello reckons there is over a billion gamers worldwide, but agrees he’s being conservative with his estimate. Riccitiello, who spoke in a video interview on America's PBS Nightly business report, believes that given the influx of new gamers who play mobile phone games, MMORPGs, and grow crops and fight the Mafia on Facebook, the number of gamers is set to grow further.
Hexus

Humax Freeview HD 2010 line unveiled
Humax has unveiled its first two Freeview HD boxes utilising UPnP to access media over Wi-Fi. Freeview HD has been switched on in some areas of the UK and further roll-out is expected in 2010. Both set-top boxes come with hard drives to record content and upscaling from 720p broadcast service to 1080p full HD.
Electric Pig

Central gov upbeat about IT
A new study shows that central government organisations are generally positive about the capabilities of their IT. Benchmarking the Back Office: Central Government, published by the Cabinet Office along with the Putting the Frontline First strategy document, shows that on a scale up to 5.0 most organisations rate their IT capability at over 3.5. The average rating is 3.8.
ZDNet

Amazon.com buglite
Amazon.com has fewer bugs on its website than Wal-Mart or Target, according to a study by software-testing company uTest, which had 600 testers scour the sites in November. Amazon.com is looking likely to have a good holiday 2009.
eWeekEurope

Brazilian kings of spam
Brazil has topped China as the biggest source of the world's spam and junk mail, according to latest reports. Cisco's latest report claims that Brazil was responsible for 7.7 trillion spam e-mail messages in the last year through to November 2009.
TechRadar UK

Nokia to release fewer smartphones
Nokia has announced that it will be reducing the amount of new smartphones that it will release during 2010. This year saw the company release 15 smartphones but it intends to reduce that number in the future, roughly, by half because, as Antti Vasara, head of Nokia smartphones R&D, said to the Reuters website, "We have cut down unnecessary differentiation, so that we have a far more focused portfolio for next year," he said.
Mobile Choice

V&A's Decode interactive art show starts today
The V&A and onedotzero have come together to celebrate cutting-edge digital and interactive work in an exhibition titled Decode: Digital Design Sensations, which starts today. Decode offers up a whole host of styles from screen-based graphics to large-scale, immersive installations. It features works by Daniel Brown, Golan Levin, Daniel Rozin, Troika, Benetton’s studio Fabrica and Simon Hejidens.
Digital Arts

Internet safety for children targeted
Lessons in using the internet safely are set to become a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary school children in England from 2011. The lessons are one element of a new government strategy being unveiled called "Click Clever, Click Safe". Children will also be encouraged to follow an online "Green Cross Code" and block and report inappropriate content.
BBC

Chinese firms create OSS giant
Two of China's leading providers of telecom software and systems integration services are merging to create a company with more than 8,000 staff and annual revenues of more than $400 million, they announced over the weekend. AsiaInfo Holdings and Linkage Technologies International Holdings are combining to form AsiaInfo-Linkage.
Light Reading

BSNL cancels Huawei GSM order
Indian state-run telco mulls new tender for 93 million mobile lines amid latest crisis to hit network expansion scheme.
The crisis surrounding BSNL's 93-million-line GSM tender deepened over the weekend after the state-run telco cancelled its equipment order with Huawei. The Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on Sunday that the operator's surprise move was prompted by conditions placed on the order by the Chinese vendor.
Total Telecom

US regulator looks at privacy of consumer data
With companies able to collect and store vast amounts of data about consumers for very little money, the Federal Trade Commission discussed guidelines on how firms use that data to advertise. While there are little in the way of legal requirements to protect consumer information, the FTC has issued voluntary guidelines on how that information should be collected, saved and shared. The guidelines will be extended to Internet service providers and mobile providers.
Reuters

Google goes real-time with search
Google has taken its search real-time, adding Tweets and other social networking updates as well as breaking news to its results.
The company is set to roll-out the system over the next few days, and also include other social networks like Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca.
IT Pro

Troubled £12bn NHS IT system to be scaled back
The government is to scale back its £12bn NHS IT system in what the Tories are calling a "massive U-turn". Chancellor Alistair Darling said he would be delaying parts of the scheme in Wednesday's pre-Budget Report as it was "not essential to the front line". The move may save hundreds of millions but Mr Darling admitted it was only a fraction of total spending cuts needed. The Tories and Lib Dems have been calling for the IT system, which has been hit by costly delays, to be axed.
BBC News

Online retailers predict record sales on busiest day
Online retailers have forecast record sales as they prepare for the busiest internet shopping day of the year. The first Monday in December is considered the peak and one-day sales are expected to top £350m, with the busiest hour between 1300 and 1400 GMT. Stores have already seen a surge in sales compared with 2008, when about £320m was spent on the busiest day. But online spending still accounts for only 4% of total retail sales, according to national statistics.
BBC News

Court battle as Craigslist and eBay fight for control
Craigslist and eBay, two of the world's biggest websites, are going head to head in a dispute that could have major implications for the future of the classified advertising giant. Lawyers for the two Californian companies will take to a court Delaware on Monday, amid arguments over the size of eBay's stake in its rival and allegations of deceptive behaviour. The case - which has been in process since last year - centres on eBay's decision in 2004 to buy a significant stake in Craigslist from one of the site's early shareholders.
The Guardian

Unmask Swetorrents file-sharers or face fine, ISP told
A Swedish court has ruled that an internet service provider must either release the names and addresses of suspected illegal file-sharers or face a €72,000 fine. Teliasonera will have to pay up SEK750,000 or give out the names and addresses of the founders of file-sharing torrent site Swetorrents, a TechCrunch report said. The verdict followed the passing of the so-called IPRED law in April this year. This says ISPs must give out contact details of file-sharers to copyright holders if they ask for them. Swedish internet traffic dropped by one-third after the law was passed, TechCrunch said.
Computer Weekly

IT is most powerful weapon in climate change fight, says ITU
Information and communications technologies are the most powerful tools to stave off potential climate catastrophe, says the secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union, on the eve of the climate change talks that open today in Copenhagen. Hamadoun Touré called on the COP15 delegates not to dismiss how advanced technologies could cut emissions by many industries. He said studies showed that more effective use of ICT could deliver "tremendous" CO2 savings. Some had showed that ICT could cut emissions by more than 40 per cent by 2050 - five times what they would contribute in that time, Touré said.
Computer Weekly

Google tailors search results based on user behaviour
Starting this week, Google will present search results in the order in which users are most likely to prefer, based on their recent search histories. In a blog post, Google's director of search product management, Johanna Wright, said Google is now better able to provide the most relevant results using analysis of 180 days of Google search activity from users' browsers. If someone always searched for ADA and often clicked on results about the programming language, Google might show them those results before it showed results for the American Dental Association, for example, she said. Also starting this week, Google will automatically deliver search results based on what it thinks users meant when they typed in their search terms.
Computer Weekly

Cisco finally wins Tandberg battle
Cisco has finally won control of videoconferencing leader Tandberg by snagging 91.1 percent of the company's shares. It was a long-fought battle. Cisco had to raise its initial $3 billion offer and extend the acceptance deadline three times in order to gain control of the company. Cisco's initial offer, made on 1 October, was rejected by more than 90 percent of Tandberg shareholders.
Techworld

Dell to go to mobile
Dell is to set up a new business unit surrounding mobile products as it tries to expand its presence in the communications market. The newly formed communications solutions division will be responsible for developing mobile products like smartphones, said David Frink, a Dell spokesman. "The focus will be on developing and bringing to market connected computing products and services through new channels of distribution; including telecommunications, cable, satellite and others," Frink said.
Techworld

Intel scraps Larrabee graphics chips
Intel has announced that its is shelving its 'Larrabee' graphics chips project, with development proving more time-consuming than the company expected. Intel had hoped to launch its GPGPU chip either this year or next, with the company using the technology it uses for its integrated graphics in the design of a discrete chip. However, graphics giants NVidia and AMD will be pleased to find out that Intel's plans have suffered a major setback, and plans for a Larrabee GPGPU chip have been shelved.
Techradar

LEDs to beat barcodes for sharing data?
We've seen light used as a way to transfer information in public settings before, but very little of such technology has made it off the drawing board recently. Nevertheless, there are high hopes for a new method using LEDs to speak to mobile phones. The technique comes from NEC and Toshiba, whose researchers are suggesting that flashing LEDs embedded in advertising hoardings could easily transmit binary data containing relevant information to phone cameras.
Techradar

Twitter co-founder launches mobile payment firm
Jack Dorsey's new firm "Square" is developing a payment service and portable device which allows vendors to process payments and customers to track purchases via mobile phones. The service centres on a card scanner which plugs into an audio input jack.
V3

Web giants attack Digital Economy Bill
Google, Yahoo, eBay and Facebook have written to Lord Mandelson asking him to remove measures in the Digital Economy Bill, which they say could stifle innovation and derail the government's plans for Digital Britain.
ZDNet

New app stores to fail?
Getjar boss Ilja Laurs has predicted that at least 90 per cent of mobile app stores will fail in the next 12-18 months, even as the successful stores dramatically change the mobile entertainment market. Laurs, who is CEO of one of the more high-profile device-independent app stores, made the prediction in a list of forecasts for 2010.
Mobile Entertainment

Google set to charge to stream TV shows on Youtube
In its quest to squeeze as much cash as possible from the infinitely popular Youtube, owner Google has entered ‘preliminary discussions’ on the subject of offering paid-for streaming of full TV shows.
T3

GSM make up 90 per cent in Latin America
Based on data provided by Informa Telecoms & Media, 3G Americas has reported that the Latin America and Caribbean region had over 447 million total GSM-HSPA subscriptions as of third quarter of 2009. ¬There were 119 GSM operators serving every country in the region, with 73 million new GSM-HSPA subscriptions added in the year ending September 2009.
News Now

Security Predictions For 2010: Smartphones, Windows 7, Search Engines, Ads, Are Targets
Websense security experts are predicting an increase in blended security threats with increased activity in smartphone hacks and Botnet wars. Websense believes hackers will be looking to compromise new platforms and to take advantage of the popularity of Windows 7.
Business Computing World

Nokia working on its first Maemo 6 device
Nokia has confirmed it is currently working on its first Maemo 6 OS device whilst it is also beavering away on a new user interface for its other principle operating system, Symbian.  The new Maemo 6 device has been described as a mobile computer and will be available in the second half of 2010.
Mobile Choice UK

Revamp proposed for police IT procurement
A government white paper released today has stated that over £400m of taxt payers money could be saved each year if police are compelled to use a nationally agreed Information Systems Improvement Strategy (Isis) frameworks where necessary.
ZDNet

PSPgo 'will die without software price cuts’, says Burton
Sony’s handheld ‘for the digital lifestyle’ will die out if its downloadable software keeps to UMD prices, according to Traveller’s Tales director Jon Burton. Burton held the majority view that digital content will eventually eclipse physical, but said the change would happen quicker if downloadable games offered better value than their disc-based counterparts.
Develop Online

Nintendo Wii fastest selling console in UK history
Independent performance and sales tracking company, Chart Track-GfK, has revealed that the Wii has now sold more than six million units in the UK since launch making it the fastest selling console in UK history.
Pocket Lint