President Bush appoints an anti-piracy tsar

President Bush has appointed an anti-piracy 'tsar' to co-ordinate efforts against global intellectual property theft. Chris Israel, a former Time Warner executive, will be Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement with responsibility for the entire gamut of piracy, from movie swapping on the Internet to counterfeit car parts, according to US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Top of Israel's list of priorities will be China, where an estimated 90 per cent of movies and music in circulation are illegal copies, although Gutierrez acknowledged that achieving the administration's long-term aim of reducing China's piracy level to zero will not be easy. ...more

Apple unveils the iPhone

iPhone it is - in Apple's words not a single device but three revolutionary products in one: a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls and a 'breakthrough' Internet communications device. It is also a camera and, at a push, a PDA. But in the UK you will have to wait until the end of the year to get your hands on one. ...more

Analysis: Mobile industry pursues Linux platform

Mobile companies are clubbing together to create a foundation in pursuit of a Linux platform for mobile phones. Handset builders Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung and operators Vodafone and NTT DoCoMo announced yesterday they will build the world's first 'global, open Linux-based software platform for mobile devices'. It aims to develop an API specification, reference architectures and implementations, and a set of developer tools. ...more

Toshiba to market household robot

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has come up with a 'home robot' designed to help with household chores. The ApriAlpha is apparently able to recognise up to 100 different faces and can hold a conversation. The machine is said to be programmable to manage the operations of other networked household devices through a Bluetooth interface. ...more

Russian protection racket raided by Hi-Tech Crime Unit

Three Russian men have been detained in connection with extortion and money-laundering offences that threatened online bookmakers in the UK with denial of service attacks unless they paid an annual fee. The men, aged 21, 23 and 24, were nabbed in a series of raids across St Petersburg and in the Saratov and Stavropol areas of southwest Russia in a joint operation between the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), and specialist divisions of Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs. One has been arrested, while two are being questioned. ...more