US corporations must accurately reflect the value of stock options in their accounts from June next year, the accounting industry's board FASB ruled today.

The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has filed a further 754 lawsuits against named and unnamed individuals it claims have infringed its members' copyrights.

Symbian CEO David Levin is to leave the company to join publishing and media group United Business Media (UBM), it was announced last night.

Market watcher Gartner has once again cut the amount of money it reckons the world's chip makers will invest in new equipment next year.

Episode 42 So I'm prancing around the office with my Santa hat on when the PFY walks in.

Lock up your laptops - the "World's Biggest Luddite" is coming to the UK.

The US Department of Homeland Security is having some homeland cyber security issues on its systems providing remote access to telecommuters, according to a newly-released report by the DHS Inspector General's office.

AMD will continue to grab market share from Intel next year, investment house Piper Jaffray (PJ) forecast this week, thanks to what the researcher called a "very compelling product line".

A 22 year-old Australian gamer has bought a virtual island for $26,500 in the largest Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) purchase ever.

The British National Space Centre and the Department for Education and Skills have joined forces to bring real-life space science into the classroom.

iRiver's parent company has revealed the portable music player maker's next major release: the 5GB hard drive-based H10.

Swansea Council has named Capgemini to run its ambitious £100m eGovernment programme.

eBay is spreading its wings still further with the acquistion of Rent.com for $415m. The apartment rental site claims to be the biggest of its type in the US and boasts an annual revenue of $40m.

Adobe has released updates for Acrobat and Reader to fix security bugs that might allow attackers to gain access to unpatched systems. A trio of vulnerabilities pose a risk to users of version 6.0.0 to 6.0.2 of Abode’s products.

PalmOne has posted instructions detailing how Treo 650 owners can claim their free 128MB SD memory card.

Swiss company Swatch and Microsoft have jointly designed a new computer wristwatch called Paparazzi. The miniature computer tells you what the weather will be like tomorrow, which movies are showing in local cinemas, the sports results and even current stock-exchange prices.

Builders on Antoni Gaudi's landmark Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona are to get helping hand in realising the Spanish architect's vision - in the form of new software from Dassault Systemes and IBM.

German police have arrested five suspects of Internet-banking fraud that successfully targeted Postbank account holders. A sixth suspect is on the run, German news site Heise Online reports.

PalmOne saw its sales grow 37.8 per cent sequentially and 29 per cent year on year during the second quarter of its 2005 fiscal year, the smart phone and PDA maker reported yesterday.

Wanadoo UK has denied that the roll-out of its new internet telephony service will be delayed, after problems with the VoIP service in France.

Brazilian and Barcelona football star Ronaldinho has won his namesake domain name, www.ronaldinhogaucho.com.

A middle-aged Frenchman has become the latest victim of murderous technology after his car exploded as he activated the central locking system.

Letters Afternoon, lovely readers, and welcome to Friday's trawl through the letters bag. We'll hand over to John Lettice to kick things off today:

Apple has declared itself "very happy" with Motorola's attempt to build an iPod-style mobile phone that can play songs downloaded from its iTunes Music Store.

We're delighted to report that Playboy is once again pushing back the envelope of soft porn by offering iPod Photo users the chance to acquire some free snaps of naked fillies.

So 2004 has started and ended with a major US cellco merger. The difference in style and execution of the two deals symbolizes wider contrasts that will filter through to the market as the four companies involved go through their transition periods. The takeover of AT&T Wireless by Cingular was messy, protracted and the buyer has been saddled with an inflated purchase price and a difficult consolidation process. Though the two companies achieved market leading bulk, their marriage was one of deeply flawed operations with poor customer service records and unimaginative future technology paths.

NTL is looking for a new CIO after Phil Pavitt confirmed his decision to quit the cableco next year.

Canada's levy on blank media that could be used to record copyright material does not apply to MP3 players, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has ruled.

Motorola CEO Ed Zander is approaching his first anniversary in the job, one that will be overshadowed by the probable loss of the company's largest equipment customer, Nextel. As analysts mulled over the potentially serious impact of that loss, Zander rolled out his long awaited corporate restructuring, in an announcement that was low key, but highlighted many pointers to a future Motorola.

Microsoft this week quietly fixed a security weakness in the configuration of the built-in firewall component of Windows XP.

The space around the Earth is more dangerous than scientists thought, according to new research. This could mean plans for lightly shielded, very cheap satellites will have to be shelved for the time being.

The Home Office's collection of tough-sounding but pointless laws continues to grow, despite the departure of David Blunkett mid-week. Today's addition is the Drugs Bill, which includes proposals to give police powers to order ultrasound or x-ray examinations of "dealers who swallow their drugs to conceal the evidence."

Shares of Adobe were down 2 per cent during Friday's trading even though the software maker posted better than expected fourth quarter figures one day earlier.