Pirate Bay founder says: 'filesharers shouldn't feel ashamed'
Earlier this month the Swedish-based pro-piracy group that helped to set up controversial file-sharing site The Pirate Bay disbanded. Swedish anti-copyright group Piratbyran (which means "piracy bureau" in English), originally created The Pirate Bay, then later moved away from being associated with the notorious file-sharing site.
Tech Radar

3 UK tries to spark price war over iPhone 4
Trust the UK’s smallest mobile operator, 3 UK, to try to start a price war over the latest Apple device to hit the shelves. We say ‘try’ to start a price war because it’s become apparent that the UK has sold out of iPhone 4s, at least for now anyway. Still, 3 is allowing users to register their interest on site, and will let consumers known as soon as it has devices in stock. On paper, the pricing looks like it will be attractive to consumers and may even spark a price war in the UK, given that almost every carrier is now offering the iPhone 4.
Telecoms.com

Microsoft makes a 'kin price cut
It looks like Microsoft's 'kin phones are not exactly jumping off the shelves and it appears that ISPs have ordered a price cut. Despite being a reasonable phone, and having a huge TV advertising campaign, the 'Kin has not got much attention from the great unwashed. It has faced stiff competition from the iPhone and other smartphones, which don't cost any more per month and offer the ability to run thousands more applications. This left US telcos with shedloads of inventory which does not look like it will shift any time soon. The 'Kin One fell from $49 to $29, while the Kin Two went from $99 to $49 which is 'kin cheap even if you have to sign your soul away for a two-year contract and agree to a $29 or higher monthly data plan.
Tech Eye

Researchers develop method for 1,000 times faster net speeds
Researchers at MIT have developed a new way of organising optical networks which could make internet speeds up to 1,000 times faster, according to RedOrbit. The new approach from the MIT research team led by Vincent Chan, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is called Optical Flow Switching (OFS), which allows the establishment of a dedicated path between locations in a network that does not require optical signals to be converted to electrical signals.
Tech Eye

Google tries new approach in China
Google's conflict with Chinese censors took a fresh twist today as the search engine added an extra step for mainland users wishing to access its homepage, in an effort to placate the country's internet authorities. The company began diverting google.cn users to its Hong Kong site google.com.hk in March after saying it was no longer willing to censor search results as required under Chinese law. But today it said users were now being redirected to a holding page with a link to the Hong Kong search service, after officials made it clear it could not renew its licence on the mainland if it continued with its current model.
The Guardian

Currys pays up for Lampard's World Cup 'goal'
Currys has stated that it will recognise England's 'goal that wasn't' in their game against Germany as part of its pre-World Cup Cash for Goals offer.  Currys offered £10 back for each England goal if you spent more than £599 on a telly at the store, and certainly didn't rue the decision when England failed to fire. After three perfectly legitimate goals, Frank Lampard's effort should have added a fourth and made the first half score 2-2 against Germany, but was not given because of myopic officials and Sepp Blatter's ludicrous Fifa mandate not to look at goal-line technology.
Tech Radar

IT pros still leave security to chance
As threats to corporate data grow, and the cost of breaches increase, a survey of alleged security conscious professionals has remarkably revealed that over half of respondents (52 per cent), who admit to carrying company data on a USB stick, do not encrypt it. Remarkably, 11 per cent of this savvy audience, who really should know better, ‘protect’ their devices with passwords alone, an insufficient defence that is widely understood to be easily breached. The study, sponsored by Credant Technologies, provider of endpoint data protection solutions, questioned 277 IT security professionals who, theoretically, view security seriously enough to spend time attending InfoSecurity Europe. The type of unprotected data being carried would have serious repercussions to the organisation should it be misplaced, from intellectual property(67 per cent), customer data (40 per cent) and employee details (26 per cent).
Mobile Business Magazine 

It May Take 10 Years, But Obama Agrees To Increase Wireless Broadband
President Barack Obama signed a presidential memorandum today that is expected to double the amount of spectrum available for wireless broadband networks. The action is in line with the new National Broadband Plan unveiled in March, which identified a spectrum crunch based on Americans increasing demand for using data on mobile phones. While this signing is a critical step to fulfilling that need, the plan could take up to 10 years to complete and many carriers feel there is already a shortage today. By signing the memorandum, Obama is making 500 megahertz of spectrum available for auction. For comparison, all of the U.S. carriers use a combined 450 megahertz of spectrum today.
mocoNews

Germany voices concerns over iPhone data gathering
Germany has echoed US concerns about the data Apple collects about the users of its iPhones. German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has asked Apple to reveal the kind of data the company is collecting, according to the New York Times. The move comes after US congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton sent a letter to Apple chief executive Steve Jobs about the same issue. They asked for an explanation of recent changes in the company's privacy policy. They also expressed concern about the impact of collecting geo-location data on iPhone users' privacy.
ComputerWeekly

EU agrees to share banking data with US
The European Union has reached an agreement with the US to continue sharing European bank data to help fight terrorism, after initially rejecting a proposal to extend information sharing because of privacy concerns. Liberal members of the European Parliament insisted on stronger privacy guarantees before supporting the five-year agreement, according to the Washington Post. The agreement, scheduled to come into effect on 1 August, allows US officials to request European financial data relevant to a specific terrorist investigation if they substantiate the need for the data.
ComputerWeekly