File-sharing not to blame for music sales decline - report

The growth of digital music will not reverse the overall decline in the European music market until 2010 and its not just the fault of p2p file sharing, according to research firm Screen Digest. The European market has shrunk by 22 per cent since 2001 and Screen Digest believes that it will continue to contract for another four years until digital sales can begin to offset the decline. 'Online music has been booming,' said Dan Cryan, Screen Digest analyst. ...more

BBC used as lure for unpatched IE exploit

Snippets of BBC news stories are being used to lure Internet users into installing a damaging Trojan on their computer it has emerged. Emails containing the 'news' stories end with an invitation to 'read more', which takes the reader to a malicious website and installs software to monitor their visits to banking websites and other financial institutions. The keylogger Trojan exploits the unpatched 'Create TextRange' flaw in Internet Explorer which has been rated as 'highly critical' by security firm Secunia. ...more

Apple, Dell, HP and Lenovo to talk lithium-ion battery standards

Four of the leading laptop makers are to meet to discuss the formation of manufacturing standards for lithium-ion batteries. Apple, Dell, HP and Lenovo hope to have agreed a standard by July 2007 that will prevent the kind of problems that recently led to Dell having to recall more than four million Sony-made batteries. Apple has also had to replace batteries in the past, having recalled 128,000 in 2005. ...more

One in three software installs are pirate copies

Over one third of software packages installed in 2005 were pirate copies. The trade amounted to more that $34 billion according to research carried out by analysts IDC for the Business Software Alliance. On the positive side, the worldwide drive against piracy appears to have stemmed the tide in some of the world's emerging markets such as China, Russia, India and in Central/Eastern Europe and the Middle East & Africa. ...more

BBC digs deeper into its archives

The BBC has opened up yet more of its archive material this week. For teachers, the BBC has launched the Open Schools Archive. Content here is divided into six categories, covering geography, history, nature, politics, places and audio resources. ...more