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Dead STEVE JOBS was a CROOK - Judge
A US judge has found Apple guilty of conspiring with major publishers to fix the price of ebooks and has called for a trial on damages.
District Judge Denise Cote stayed true to her initial impressions of the case, and ruled that Apple had colluded with Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster on digital …
Big Beardie is watching you: Lord Sugar gets into facial recognition
Lord Alan Sugar is building a huge outdoor network of advert-slinging, face-detecting cameras.
When complete, the bearded tycoon's creepy surveillance technology will monitor up to 50 million Europeans and then beam tailored ads at them.
The Apprentice star's company Amscreen runs a huge digital advertising network of 6,000 …
Barnes & Noble chief walks as Nook ereader stumbles
Barnes & Noble chief exec William Lynch is resigning his post as sales at the firm's bookstores continue to plunge and the Nook ebook reader fails to revive B&N's fortunes.
In a flurry of shuffling, the bookstore chain announced that Lynch was leaving the chief's chair after three years. At the same time the firm said that …
Zynga's CEO tried to buy game slinger in 2010... while Xbox chief - report
Zynga’s new chief executive Don Mattrick liked the online gaming firm so much, he considered buying it for Xbox while he was a Microsoft bigwig.
Mattrick, until last week the head of Microsoft’s entertainment division, negotiated with Zynga founder Mark Pincus to buy Zynga in 2010, "insiders" told Bloomberg.
According to the …
Star bosses name asteroid to honor author Iain Banks
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has officially named an asteroid after the recently-deceased Scottish author Iain Banks, a 6.1 km (3.8 mile) "stony" rock in the main asteroid belt orbiting the Sun.
Dr Jose Luis Galache of the Minor Planets Centre (MPC) heard about Bank's diagnosis of cancer and, as a reader of his …
US states: Google making ad money on illegal YouTube vids
Oklahoma and Nebraska have joined Mississippi in calling on Google to crack down on internet ads for powerful drugs sold without prescription.
The states' attorneys-general have written to the Chocolate Factory about ads that pop up on YouTube videos for pharmacies willing to sell painkillers like percocet and oxycontin without …
Yahoo! slurps! up! auto-shorteur! vidapp! Qwiki!
If you thought Yahoo!'s spending spree was slowing down, you were wrong. The exclamatory firm has just snapped up video app Qwiki for a reported $50m.
Rumours of the Purple Palace's interest in splurging cash on the iPhone app started circulating last week, when AllThingsD said the acquisition was likely.
Yahoo! said on its …
Apple TV 'close' to deal with Time Warner - report
Cupertino is close to closing a deal with Time Warner that will allow fanbois to watch proper grown-up telly - and Disney films - through their Apple TV boxes.
Bloomberg says that insiders "with knowledge of the negotiations" spilled the beans. When the agreement is officially inked, it will mean that Time Warner Cable customers …
Rest your head against a train window, hear VOICES in your SKULL
Sky's ad agency has been showing off train windows capable of pushing ads direct into the skulls of tired commuters, as though advertising wasn't all-pervasive enough already.
The Talking Window uses bone conduction to startle commuters who rest their weary head against the glass of the train window, admonishing them for failing …
British Bebo founder buys back social network for $849m profit
"Buy low, sell high," is the investor's mantra. Michael Birch, the British founder of Bebo, has just amply demonstrated that principle by spending a piddling $1m to buy back the social network he sold to AOL for $850m five years ago.
We just bought Bebo back for $1m. Can we actually re-invent it? Who knows, but it will be fun …
Sky News hack of Canoe Man's email in public interest, Ofcom says
Sky News hacked into Yahoo! email accounts owned by John and Anne Darwin and broadcast their contents to the world - but Ofcom reckons that's OK, thanks to the unique nature of the case.
John Darwin is better known as the "Canoe Man", who faked his own death so his wife could collect his life insurance and they could both enjoy …
Yahoo! announces last hurrah of ancient AltaVista search
Fans of the venerable AltaVista search engine – whomever they might be – have just a little over a week to comb the web like it's 1996, because Yahoo! will soon shut down the service along with 11 other unloved offerings.
Seemingly taking a page from rival Google, which regularly mothballs batches of its less successful products …
Schwarzenegger says 'I'll be back' for Terminator 5 reboot
Paramount has confirmed it will reboot the Terminator franchise with a fifth film, and the former California governor and Mr. Universe bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will be back in a starring role.
"The studios want me to be in Terminator 5 and to star as the Terminator, which we start shooting in January," he told a …
Labels to get, count them, 0.13 cents per play on Apple iRadio
Apple has begun telling music labels exactly how much money they can expect to earn from their new iRadio service - and it ain't gonna be very much.
The fruity firm will hand over just 0.13 cents per play, along with 15% of their advertising revenue, according to reports. If the record label manages to survive a year on those …
ASA bans Samsung's 'misleading' free Galaxy Tab 2 ad
The Advertising Standard Agency has ordered Samsung to pull two "misleading" online and television adverts.
In an adjudication published today, the ASA said it had received complaints over adverts which claimed customers would receive a free Samsung Galaxy tab or money off the firm's products when they upgraded to high-end …
Sci-fi and horror scribe Richard Matheson: He is Legend
Obituary Acclaimed science fiction and horror writer Richard Matheson, who will perhaps be best remembered for his novel I Am Legend, has died at the age of 87.
Matheson was also the man behind some of the classic Twilight Zone television episodes, including 1963's Nightmare at 20,000 Feet starring a fresh-faced William Shatner. …
German Kim Jong-un lookalike spaffed official Nork pics over Instagram
A German teen with an uncanny resemblance to Kim Jong-un has been outed as the manager of an "official" North Korean Instagram account.
A North Korean news agency claimed that Moritz Ferdinand Arend Kotheder, an 18-year-old student from Stuttgart, ran the account, which featured retro-massaged propaganda images beamed over from …
Pink Floyd blasts Pandora for 'tricking' artists with petition
Three members of iconic British psychedelic rockers Pink Floyd have penned an editorial condemning the practices of streaming music service Pandora, which they say has been trying to trick recording artists into cutting their own pay.
The editorial, which appeared in USA Today on Sunday, called out Pandora and its CEO Tim …
Telly psychics fail to foresee £12k fine for peddling nonsense
Psychic TV has been fined £12,500 for failing to remind viewers that it’s all nonsense, while interactive quiz channel The Big Deal got stung with a 10 grand fine for advertising the service - something neither of them saw coming.
The broadcast breached Ofcom's latest guidance for flimflam artists: that they must regularly …
Apple: If you find us guilty in ebook price-fix trial, EVERYONE suffers
Apple has claimed that ruling against it in its ebook price-fixing trial will have a "chilling effect" on how businesses enter new markets.
The fruity firm's legal beagle, Orin Snyder, said in closing arguments of the proceedings in New York that finding Apple guilty would "send shudders through the business community", …
Suck it Vine: Instagram adds 15-second video clips with fancy filters
Instagram has unveiled its foray into video uploads with an app for iOS and Android that captures 15 seconds of video and gives amateur auteurs some fancy tools to play with to make it special.
Instagram video Click to record, post and bore people to death
"At our core, visual imagery is everything. It's in our DNA and it's …
Hey, wannabe Murdochs, yet more chances to run your own telly station
Ofcom has opened the bidding for seven new Local TV stations, and scheduled a further 23, to join the 14 already awarded, some of which could be on the air by the end of year.
As well as offering hyperlocal telly for the lucky inhabitants of sleepy North Wales town Mold (population 10,000), the latest round of licenses will …
Facebook RSS reader said to uncloak June 20
Facebook has sent out invitations for a press event on June 20, and it's widely rumored to be the announcement of a new RSS reader aimed at scooping up disaffected Google Reader users.
In March, Google announced it was going to shut down the Reader system on July 1, saying that the number of users had declined over the years and …
It's official: 'tweet' an English word – not just in the avian sense
Proving either – or both – that the English language is a living organism in constant flux and evolution, or that the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary is cheapening itself with a premature bow to cultural pressure, the word "tweet" in its social-media sense has been added to that sacred paragon of lexicography.
This …
Facebook killing off Sponsored Results in search pages
Facebook has confirmed that it will drop the sale of Sponsored Results in its search pages, a "feature" that plenty of El Reg readers have been less than happy about.
"In keeping with the goal of streamlining our ad products, starting in July advertisers will no longer be able to buy sponsored results," the company told El Reg …
Google gobbles HALF of world's mobile ad cash
Over half the $8.8 billion dollars advertisers spent on mobile ads last year went to Google, along with a third of all internet ads.
The $4.61bn Google raked in from mobile ads that year represented 52.36 percent of the total worldwide spend, eMarketer reported on Thursday, putting the search company far ahead of rivals such as …
STEVE JOBS hits back at ebook ruckus FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
The "smoking gun" Steve Jobs email that US prosecutors hope will nail Apple at its ebook price-fixing trial was NOT sent by the doomed biz baron, lawyers claim.
The fruity firm has been defending itself against allegations that it conspired to artificially hike the prices of digital tomes sold through its iTunes store.
The US …
BBC lied to Parliament about doomed £100m IT monster, thunder MPs
Analysis The BBC lied to Parliament by giving MPs and auditors glowing progress reports on a £100m computer project that embarrassingly flopped, it is claimed.
The project in question, the "strategic" Digital Media Initiative (DMI), has now been abandoned at a cost of at least nine figures; a rapid decision by the new BBC Director- …
Pandora to hit airwaves with terrestrial radio station buy
Streaming music service Pandora has announced that it has purchased a terrestrial radio station, in a move it says will allow it to negotiate more favorable license terms from music publishers.
In an editorial published by political website The Hill on Tuesday, Pandora assistant general counsel Christopher Harrison writes that …
Thanks, NSA: Amazon sales of Orwell's 1984 rise 9,500%
A glance at the "Movers and Shakers" page of Amazon shows there's been an unusual reaction to the current NSA spying scandal: sales of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four are up 9,538 per cent.
It was somewhat ironic that the news of the NSA's systematic slurping of phone records and the subsequent …
Online music world on iRadio: Apple, imagine our concern
Leading figures in the online music industry have cast doubt on Apple's claims that its new streaming iRadio service will revolutionise the way fanbois listen to songs.
The fruity firm announced iRadio at the WWDC yesterday, telling the gathered hordes that it would allow them to listen to personalised radio stations and then …
1-in-10 e-tomes 'are self-published'... most are 'rubbish' says book ed
Self-published ebooks now account for 12 per cent of the entire digital book market, according to new research, and also have up to a fifth of the genre fiction market.
A full 20 per cent of crime, romance, sci-fi, fantasy and humour ebooks sold are self-published, although authors who go it alone in graphic novels, food and …
Author Iain (M) Banks falls to cancer at 59
Obit The internationally renowned Scottish author of both literary and science fiction Iain Banks has passed away unexpectedly early at 59 after suffering from an aggressive form of cancer.
Iain Banks/Iain M Banks Science fiction loses a giant (credit: Murdo MacLeod)
"Too soon. Iain died in the early hours this morning. His death …
Spotify and Pandora to FACE THE MUSIC as iRadio inks Sony deal
Apple has now struck deals with all three major record labels for use of their music on its new online "radio" service, set to launch next week.
The fruity firm has reportedly inked an agreement with Sony, sparking furious speculation that a free iRadio service will be unveiled at next week's WWDC.
Apple had already signed up …
BBC's Digital Moneypit Initiative known to be 'pile of dung' for years
BBC executives ignored warnings that the corporation's £100m+ digital media extravaganza project DMI was on the rocks - and now it's being reported that the National Audit Office had been misled about the state of the project.
The extravagant scheme was cancelled by new Director General Tony Hall last month, with almost £100m …
Tech patents latest: Google, Cisco search pockets to sling $490m at TiVo
Googorola and Cisco have settled their upcoming patent infringement trial with TiVo out of court, agreeing to pay the telly box firm $490m upfront.
The patented technology in question covers the playing back of digital video that was recorded live, pausing said footage in the right place, and similar work; TiVo, a maker of …
'I can’t believe Jobs made the statement … Incredibly stupid'
QuotW This was the week when the ebook price-fixing trial got off the ground in the US - and the "incredibly stupid" comments of dead technology legend Steve Jobs weren't making Apple's case any easier.
The government kicked off its condemnation of the fruity firm with a string of email evidence from executives at Amazon, Apple and …
Google says it can predict movie box office with 94% accuracy
What makes a successful movie? Is it a good plot? Strong characters? Popular leading actors? Impressive special effects? Not necessarily, says Google – and moreover, the online giant says it's figured out how to predict a film's box office performance with up to 94 per cent accuracy.
According to a Google whitepaper published on …
Whitehall grants freetards safe haven until 2015
Just as the Bahamas and Panama provide a safe haven for tax evasion, the UK will provide a safe haven for copyright pirates … until at least 2015.
The Ministry of Fun has confirmed that notification provisions - written warnings for downloading stuff illegally, in other words - in the 2010 Digital Economy Act will not be enacted …
Publishers put a gun to our heads on ebook pricing, squeals Amazon
A top Amazon executive has said that publishers gave the etailer an "ultimatum" to let them set the price customers would be charged for ebooks.
Testifying at the fruity firm's trial for price-fixing, Russell Grandinetti, veep for Kindle content, said that if Amazon had the choice it would still be on the old wholesale model of …
Amazon yoinks Dora and SpongeBob from Netflix for MEELLLIONS
Amazon has signed a deal to stream Viacom's kiddies' TV shows for a rumoured whopping $200m.
The giant web bazaar said yesterday that it will get its hands on popular children's telly shows, including Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants, in the deal for its Prime subscribers in the US. Amazon-owned LoveFilm users in the …
Penguin chief: Apple's ebook plan 'dramatically changed' market
The CEO of publishing house Penguin has admitted that Apple's arrival in the ebook market triggered a dramatic shift in how the digital tomes were sold.
David Shanks said, under questioning from the Department of Justice's lawyers in the ongoing Apple ebook price-fixing trial yesterday, that he understood all publishers signing …
