Government officials in Canada may temporarily block wireless signals as part of an effort to secure world leaders during the G8 and G20 summit scheduled in Ontario later this month. Wireless companies told the CBC they've been warned their signals may be blocked and no advanced warning will be given. The jamming is expected to be used to create a “moving bubble of electronic silence around motorcades."

The co-founder of PayPal, and developer of the Tesla, the first modern electric sports car, has long wanted to get into the space business as well. Now he has. The launch into orbit from Cape Canaveral, on June 4th, of a test capsule carried by a Falcon 9 rocket built by his company SpaceX, is a turning-point in the development of private space flight. Though the industry’s coming of age is still some way in the future, this launch marks its transition from childhood to adolescence.

Adobe has released the final build of Flash 10.1 and AIR 2 for Windows, Mac and Linux, along with a bundle of patches for existing code. Flash 10.1 for Android will be released later this month. Flash 10.1 has been designed to operate on a wide variety of platforms, and has been optimised to work with different powered processors and memory capacities. Improvements include a lower memory footprint, especially for bitmap-intensive applications, a tweaked ActionScript virtual machine and lower power consumption for content running in the background on a non-visible browser tab.

O2 is telling its smartphone customers – notably including users of Apple's iPhone – that it is ending its unlimited" data plans, and that those who use a lot of data will have to pay up in time. Unveiling its new data tariffs ahead of the launch of the iPhone 4 on 24 June, the mobile operator insisted that 97% of users will not notice the difference – and that its changes were really aimed at about 2,000 users who use extraordinarily high amounts of data every month. Instead, it said that a tiny number – just 1% of smartphone users – are using 36% of its total mobile data traffic, and that they needed to be encouraged to change their behaviour.

Google has issued a fresh round of security updates for its Chrome web browser, addressing 11 vulnerabilities for the Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions. Eight of the flaws in the Chrome 5.0.375.70 update are labelled as 'high risk', while the remaining three are listed as 'medium' risk. The vulnerabilities range from memory corruption and cross site scripting flaws, to keystroke redirection risks. Two of the flaws are listed as discoveries which brought cash rewards. Google has a policy of paying bounties to researchers who directly report zero-day flaws in Chrome.

Motorola co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha has said he has "never been a great believer" in demand for video conferencing, as announced on the iPhone 4 this week, but that Motorola will support the technology nonetheless. The latest Android smartphones offer video-calling through apps, and Mr Jha added that Motorola’s range this year would include up to four phones with front-facing cameras that could be used for video-calls. He has already launched two in recent weeks. 

They thought they were among the lucky few: the "VIPs" who were the very first to get their hands on Apple's latest gadget. But those high-ranking military officials, media bosses and even White House staff might now be wishing they hadn't bothered, after an online security breach exposed the personal details of thousands of iPad users. The email addresses of around 114,000 Apple iPad owners who subscribe via America’s second largest mobile phone provider AT&T were hacked by an internet security group

Home secretary Theresa May has said the government is planning to begin issuing new biometric passports in the autumn. She said it is looking at providing better physical security and stronger electronic security for a new design of passport to be made available from 5 October. This follows the new government's decision to drop plans for fingerprint passports. Speaking in a House of Commons debate on legislation to abolish aspects of the previous government's National Identity Scheme, May said: "We are halting work on fingerprint passports — the so-called second-generation biometric passports — because we believe, in common with the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, that we can maintain the integrity of our passports by other security measures."

Portugal’s Christiano Ronaldo is the most searched-for footballer on the planet, while in the UK, searches for Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Theo Walcott have also proved popular. Fifa's official World Cup website is the eighth most-visited sports site in the UK, while a combination of the World Cup, the forthcoming Wimbledon championships and the good weather has also seen UK internet visits to sports and fitness retail websites up 18 per cent on the same period last year. 

Dell said on Thursday it will take a $100m charge on its first quarter 2011 earnings, as a result of the federal investigation of accounting fraud at the PC maker. Dell and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed on the settlement, which includes the liability payment and a civil injunctive action against the company. It is a result of Dell's violation of federal securities laws related to its accounting practices and a separate investigation into its relationship with Intel. The $100m (£68m) payment will establish a reserve as the SEC and Dell work out the final tally of fines the PC maker will pay.

ZDNet