Google and Yahoo! settle patent dispute

Google has settled a patent dispute with Yahoo! which threatened to damage the company's forthcoming IPO. In return for a licence to a disputed Overture patent, Google will give ]Yahoo 2.7 million Class A shares - about 1 per cent of its stock. ...more

Microsoft returns once more to the iPod battle

Microsoft has launched a venture in Japan with Toshiba, JVC and local telecoms provider DoCoMo in another attempt to end the iPod and Apple's dominance of the digital music market. The three companies will be joined by five others to develop portable players for the Japanese market, with Microsoft providing the software, Bloomberg reports. While Toshiba and JVC will concentrate on building new MP3 players, DoCoMo plans to introduce a mobile phone handset that will be compatible with the Microsoft software. ...more

Rash of Bagle variants launched across Internet

In the wake of the Sober virus epidemic, a rash of 12 fresh variants of the Bagle virus have been launched out onto the Internet. On Wednesday afternoon, Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs said it was aware that those running botnets of computers infected with the Bagle virus were updating their systems; namely, by issuing new variants. The botnets are controlled remotely through backdoors implanted into the infected systems and are made available for hire to spammers, extortionists and anyone else that will pay to hire them. ...more

BT manager 'fesses to Google shares scam

A BT manager has been charged in New York with attempting to swindle people out of $3m (?1.7m) by pretending to have the inside track on getting hold of Class 'A' shares in Google, according to The Guardian. These voting shares have been earmarked for a close circle of people around Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. ...more

New Xbox 360 owners reporting faults with console

The huge hype behind the Xbox 360 launch is paying off with shortages of the new Microsoft console reported across the US. The much trailed Microsoft console launched across the US on Tuesday with near riots reported as gamers struggled to get their hands on the new machine. However the launch has not been without its teething problems, with a number of new owners reporting unexplained crashes of the machine which do not appear to be related to any particular game. ...more