The new Digital Economy Bill aims to ensure the UK is at the ''leading edge'' of global online industries, the Government says.  Under the proposed legislation, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would be required to notify users accused of online piracy.

They would also have to record how many times each subscriber receives one of these notifications.  This would allow the copyright holders to apply for a court order to get the name and address of serious repeat offenders so they can take legal action against them.

But the Bill, announced in the Queen's Speech on Wednesday and published on Friday, also makes provision for the Secretary of State to direct communications regulator Ofcom to develop tough sanctions for illegal file-sharers.

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Google offered a glimpse of simplified computing for consumers with the launch of its new operating system. The Chrome OS, which should be available on smaller laptops in time for Christmas next year, is a direct challenge to the dominance of Microsoft’s Windows franchise.

Google is aiming to rewrite the rules of operating systems with a web-based OS that does little more than act as a browser to enable users to get to all the internet applications they use daily, such as search, Facebook and webmail, as quickly as possible.

At a media event at the Googleplex HQ, in Mountain View, California, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, said: “We believe that the web platform is a much simpler way. There is a very important need in the market place now — and that is what we are trying to fulfil.”

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Laws regulating cybercrimes must target individuals and not society as a whole, an IT specialist told an Internet governance forum at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday.

Gisele Da Silva Craveiro from the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil said the broad nature of cyberlegislation leaves it open to abuse by authorities.

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A senior Iranian police officer in charge of cyber crimes has announced that a special police unit to fight “crimes” committed on the Internet has been created.  General Omidi told the ILNA news agency that the 12-member unit will act against “attempted fraud, illegal advertising, insults, and false statements.”

The move could lead to the targeting of websites that have become a platform for the opposition Green movement and its leaders Mir Hossein Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi. On November 12, Iran’s police chief Esmail Ahmadi Moqadam was quoted as saying that cyberspace needs “security.”

Iranians opposing President Mahmud Ahmadinejad have utilized the web to share images, videos, and news about the protest movement.Another Iranian police official, Hassan Karami, the chief in the West Azerbaijan Province, is quoted by ILNA news agency as saying that “the tensions” following the disputed  June 12 election developed because law-enforcement forces did not have enough of a presence in cyberspace.

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While the Internet has opened many windows of opportunity to research, shopping and entertainment, it has also opened up the window for more crime. According to the FBI’s annual Internet crime report, 2008 was an all-time high for cyber-crime complaints — a trend continuing to grow locally, as well.

The report showed 275,284 complaints filed in 2008, up by roughly 70,000 from 2007. Of those complaints, Iowa made up 0.7 percent. “With the use and availability of computers increasing, the crimes are also increasing,” said Lt. Jim Steffen, the Iowa City police investigation commander.

Steffen said the police have seen an increase in cyber crime over the last few years, noting the majority of cases involve identity theft or fraud. And social networkers might be next. Social-networking sites are becoming increasingly popular with hackers, according to a Security Threat Report by Sophos, a security information website. In a single incident in 2008, at least 1,800 users had their profiles defaced by an installed Trojan, according to the report.

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I love it when big, rich technology companies start smacking each other around like robots in a Transformers movie, because you’ll generally find some pretty cool gadgets poking out of the wreckage. Here’s one of them now: the Droid, Motorola’s first phone to use the Android operating system developed by Internet search titan Google Inc. It’s also the first Android phone to be offered by the nation’s largest cellular carrier, Verizon Wireless. The Droid goes on sale tomorrow for $199 after a $100 rebate, and with a two-year Verizon service contract.

No doubt you’ve heard of the Droid from one of its ever-present TV commercials. Most smartphone vendors have tiptoed past direct comparisons with Apple Inc.’s iPhone. But the Droid ads have taken dead aim, flatly declaring that the Droid is better. In some ways, it is.

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Yahoo said it has replaced Google as the search provider on O2 Germany's mobile portal, continuing the battle among search providers for placement on mobile phones. In addition to the search component, the multiyear deal includes links on O2's portal to Yahoo sites including Flickr, Yahoo Eurosport, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Weather, Yahoo News and Yahoo Mail. Yahoo will also provide sponsored search mobile advertising as part of the agreement. O2 has 15 million users in Germany.

The announcement Monday follows one that Yahoo made in 2007 with Telefonica, which owns O2. That deal put Yahoo search on Telefonica phones in Latin America and O2 in the U.K., but it excluded O2 Germany because that operator had just signed a deal with Google, said Mitch Lazar, managing director of Yahoo Mobile Europe.

Yahoo won over O2 Germany by demonstrating the benefits Yahoo brought to O2 in the U.K., he said. In the U.K., the deal with Yahoo has encouraged users to stay on O2's mobile portal for longer times, he said. In addition, Yahoo in 2008 won a search deal with T-Mobile Germany, also displacing Google, and O2 Germany saw the benefits of that deal, he said.

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GOOGLE plans to send its fleet of special cars fitted with panoramic cameras back on the road next month to update Street View Australia. Street View is an online tool that lets users take a virtual tour of landscapes from their computer by perusing an interactive database of millions of 360-degree snapshots.

Australia last year became the third country to be "scanned into" Street View, as much of the east and west coasts were added to the database. Now Google plans to roll out the camera cars again to take a new set of snaps over summer. "Starting from next month in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and parts of Tasmania, we'll be doing our best to cover as many of Australia's public roads as we can during this summer," said Google product manager Andrew Foster.

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From diapers to funeral supplies, Walmart has everything the American consumer needs from birth to death. The nation's largest retailer has begun selling caskets and cremation urns on the company's Web site, but area funeral homes claim they are not worried about being undercut in price. Ed English, managing partner at Lane Funeral Home on Ashland Terrace, said a number of companies already have been selling caskets and funeral supplies online.

"No, we're not worried about it at all," he said. "I believe in a free and open market system." Cade Williamson, owner of Legacy Funeral Home in Soddy-Daisy, agreed. "I've looked at them, and they are really not priced all that much different," Mr. Williamson said. "In fact, some of the ones they have are more than ours."

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Many people think of viruses as a nuisance, and while they are aware of the threats, they believe that ordinary anti-virus software will protect them from the ever-increasing number of attacks in the form of phishing (the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details), pharming (a hacker's attack aiming to redirect a Web site's traffic to another, bogus Web site), worms (malicious software), Trojans (malicious software), bots (collection of compromised computers) and denial of service attacks.

However, most people underestimate the tenacity of the people who perpetrate these attacks, and fail to take the threat seriously enough. The fact is, cyber-crime is an incredibly lucrative business, not only for virus writers, but for people all the way through the chain, and has already overtaken the drug trade in terms of the amount of money made through these criminal activities.

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