'You can keep it' - Brit's nicked laptop turns up on Iranians' sofa
Tracking app on swiped PC snaps pics of family
A British animator who used tracking software to trace his stolen laptop to Iran has apologised to its “innocent new owners” after pictures of them were splashed all over the internet.
Dom Del Torto's Macbook Pro was nicked from his London flat in February and he was able to watch its 3,000 mile odyssey to the Islamic Republic …
Brit cops blow £14m on software - then just flush it down the bogs
Plods lose love for Siren, decide to go with another system
Surrey Police has pulled the plug on a multi-million-pound computer system it spent years developing.
Way back in 2005, the force began overhauling its criminal intelligence setup. Since then it has spent £14.8m developing gear called the Surrey Integrated Reporting Enterprise Network (Siren). It is unclear how much of this dosh …
Go-go Gadget watch? Apple posts job ad for 'flexible display' bod
Recent posting sought 'senior optical engineer'
Apple has pulled a job advert looking for a flexible display expert just a week after it was posted.
The fruity firm placed an advert on its American site on 1 April which said it had a role as a "senior optical engineer" that needed to be filled.
The notoriously secret firm has not revealed why it binned the message, but it is …
Microsoft Xbox exec quits after ENRAGING the INTERWEBS
'Always-on' Twitter gaffe provoked wrath of gamers
A high-flying Microsoft creative director has quit after enraging Xbox owners with a widely publicised tweet saying they should get used to consoles being constantly connected to to the internet.
A week ago, Adam Orth provoked the wrath of bedroom-bound gamers and industry experts alike after sharing his thoughts on the always- …
Dinosaur embryos FOUND: Resurrection 'out of the question'* - boffin
Fast-growing bones point to SUPER-SHORT incubation period
Dinosaur embryos wiggled around in their eggs just like the embryos of modern birds, scientists have found. The boffins made the discovery after a cache of fossilised dino bones and eggs were dug up in southwest China.
The scientists are hoping to find out more about the Jurassic-era creatures by analysing remnants of complex …
P2P badboys The Pirate Bay kicked out of Greenland: Took under 48 hours
Arrrrr... But we only just got here
The Pirate Bay has been torpedoed after telecoms companies from two countries blocked the website’s dual domains.
The world’s largest file-sharing site moved a Swedish .se domain to a Greenland-based .gl address between late Monday night and early Tuesday morning after apparently being tipped off that the Swedes were planning to …
Inuit all along: Pirate Bay flees Sweden for Greenland
Tip-off of imminent domain seizures sends pirates scurrying
The Pirate Bay has set sail for Greenland after receiving a tip-off suggesting the Swedish authorities were about to seize its current domain.
Owners of the world’s largest file-sharing site lifted anchor on Tuesday night and moved from their current address to the .gl domain in a bid to evade Swedish cyber-cops.
British …
Attack of the CYBER NORKS! Pyongyang in frontal assault online
Jong-un's a WRONG 'UN, claim southerners
As the Korean peninsula flirts with supposed nuclear war, North Korea has been accused of launching cyber-attacks on banks and TV broadcasters in the south.
Investigators in Seoul said Pyongyang was behind the hacking of tens of thousands of computers last month.
Tension is already running high on the peninsula after North …
Achtung! German Amazon workers out on strike
In a very orderly and efficient manner
Hundreds of workers at web bazaar Amazon’s central depot in Germany have walked out on strike in protest over working conditions and pay.
Around 500 people protested on Tuesday at the box-crammers' Bad Hersfeld site, which is one of seven distribution points in the country.
It is the first time Amazon workers have launched …
Finance bods probe RBS over bank-crippling IT cock-up
Bank could face fine for outsourced system collapse
A banking watchdog has launched an investigation into the IT meltdown that crippled bank accounts held by millions of NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank customers in June last year.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has begun a probe into the disaster, which saw the RBS group unable to process payments following a catastrophic …
French spies do a Barbara Streisand over secret nuke radio base
Sacrée vache! Violoneux-wiki ont laissé échapper le force de frappucino
A Wiki page about a French military base has gone viral after Gallic spooks tried to censor it.
French internal spies at the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur called in a volunteer Wiki editor to their Paris office and ordered him to spike an entry about the Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre-sur-Haute, a …
British LulzSec member pleads guilty
Hacker to be sentenced next month
A 26-year-old British man pleaded guilty to one count of computer hacking today after admitting he was a member of Anonymous splinter group LulzSec.
Ryan Ackroyd, 26, from South Yorkshire, appeared at Southwark Crown Court, where he faced charges of launching attacks on the websites of high-profile companies including Nintendo, …
iQuit: Apple union boss chucks grappling hook up garden wall
Cory Moll leaves after 2 years battling Cupertino
The founder of a union for Apple retail workers has quit his job after two years spent battling for better pay and job prospects.
Cory Moll, who works in San Francisco, founded the union in 2011 and has been an outspoken critic of the fruity firm's treatment of its staff.
At the time of writing, no one had stepped up to fill …
MISSING LINK between HUMANS and MONKEYS FOUND
Smart simians ape pub banter, says bio-boffin
Scientists claim to have identified the missing link between human speech and monkey chatter.
Researchers analysed the distinctive "lip-smacking" sounds made by wild gelada baboons of the Ethopian highlands and found striking similarities to human speech.
Their noises are so human-like that Thore Bergman, an assistant professor …
Virgin on London Underground Wi-Fi: O2's company, Three's a crowd
Download that cat vid before entering the tunnel, though
Mobile network O2 has become the latest to offer its customers access to free wi-fi on London's Tube platforms.
It joins EE, Vodafone and Virgin Media in offering internet access on the Underground, leaving Three customers as the only mobe users who can't connect while commuting.
However, Virgin hasn't managed to conquer the …
Get lost, drivers: Google Maps is not for you – US judge
California clamps down on furtive fingering
Checking Google Maps has been placed on the list of things you're not allowed to do while at the wheel – at least in the US.
A court in California has ruled that accessing a GPS app on a mobile phone while driving is illegal.
In January last year, plods pulled over Steven R. Spriggs and slapped him with a charge of driving …
Website which 'could have prevented Rwandan genocide' goes live
Anyone ever called you a cockroach? Sperg? Swingbelly?
A genocide prevention charity and a campaign software development house have joined forces to create an all-encompassing database of online hate speech.
The insults are collected together on a site called HateBase, which aims to provide NGOs and governments with the ability to "use hate speech as a predictor for regional …
Parking ticket firm 'exposed private info' - ICO making enquiries
Exclusive Katie Price's throbbing ride apparently NOT revealed, though
Britain's privacy watchdog will investigate a major car-parking contractor after its website allegedly leaked drivers' personal information.
Readers will be relieved to know, however, that representatives of chesty TV princess Katie Price say she has avoided having any sensitive private information revealed during the affair. …
Hold on! Degrees for all doesn't mean great jobs for all, say profs
Maybe ... just maybe ... some degrees are a bit useless?
Over-qualified grads are being forced into unsatisfying jobs which don't suit their skills, a report has found.
In an article published in the journal Human Relations, Belgin Okay-Somerville (PhD, Human Resource Management) from the University of Aberdeen and Professor (of Human Resource Management) Dora Scholarios from the …
Shark-tooth war cutlery reveals tale of fishy extinction in Pacific
A story with real bite emerges from chomp-cutlasses
They are the sort of weapons that could be worth hundreds to your average tooth fairy.
But a cache of weapons made from shark teeth is also valuable to scientists because they have revealed the localised extinction of two species of shark.
The swords, with a certain resemblance to ceremonial Klingon cleavers, were made by the …
Sci/Tech quango promises an end to 'events with no women'
Except when its own management get together
Sci-tech quango Nesta has announced a ban on all-male panels at its events in a bid to challenge the blokeyness endemic in the fields it covers.
The quango, nowadays officially a charity but one which spends lottery money on "innovation" (more here) promised to actively seek out women to chair public meetings and debates.
It …
Wikileaker Manning peace gong petition backed by thousands
Something to treasure while in military confinement
Nearly 40,000 people have signed a petition calling for Wikileaker Bradley Manning to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Private First Class Manning, 25, is facing 20 years behind bars for divulging 250,000 classified US intelligence documents - a cache of which ended up on Julian Assange™'s Wikileaks website. But the private …
Firefox: Use new stealth window to satisfy your wife, suggests Mozilla
Need to splash some money while on the job?
Porn-lovers and prezzie shoppers alike are celebrating today after Mozilla announced the release of the privacy-minded version 20 of Firefox.
According to the Mozilla blog, the new iteration of the browser allows users to launch a private browsing window whilst keeping other sessions open.
"You can shop for a birthday gift in a …
Yahoo! drops! size! limit! on! email! attachments! with aid from Dropbox
Get a 'load of this
Size is everything in the world of email attachments and with a limit of just 25MB, Yahoo! wasn't measuring up - until now.
The would-be ad giant has belatedly dropped its size limit with the announcement of a partnership with Dropbox which will allow users to attach huge files to their emails.
Both Google and Microsoft have …
Monkey poo probe reveals secrets of middle-management brains
If you have any, fling it now
It might be tough at the top, or at the bottom - but it's even tougher in the middle.
That's the claim made by boffins from Liverpool and Manchester universities who say their study of monkeys proves that middle managers suffer more stress than anyone else.
'If you could go ahead and remember to do that from now on'
Katie …
Steve Jobs to supervise iPhone 6 FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
Cold dead genius to relinquish control in 2014, maybe
Apple designed the next two versions of the iPhone while Steve Jobs was alive, it has been claimed.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón was told by an Apple representative that the next two iPhone models "preceded Tim Cook", according to a report in The Examiner.
He met with Apple’s government liaison Michael Foulkes …
Model S 'leccycar selling better than expected, says Tesla
Even devastatingly negative publicity is good publicity
Tesla Motors has sold a few more electric cars than anticipated, prompting the Elon Musk-run biz to cautiously expect a profit in the first quarter of 2013.
Today the manufacturer told shareholders and US financial watchdog the Securities and and Exchange Commission that it has sold 4,750 Model S cars - 250 more than the 4,500 …
