HM Revenue and Customs wants stronger powers to investigate tax crime including authority to take fingerprints to avoid delays in finding a police constable, the right to charge suspects, and simplified procedures for obtaining search warrants.

Intel continues to carve off its least impressive units. This time around the chipmaker has made a bundle out of its telecommunications business and mailed it to Canada's Eicon Networks.

Microsoft has insisted is Software Assurance (SA) maintenance program is ontrack despite reports its planning incentives for businesses hurt by delays to Windows Vista and Office 2007 and Gartner advising users to bluff Microsoft when renewing their contracts.

"The Internet is becoming more and more widespread and will increasingly represent a scientific random sample of the population" - Joi Ito

Education IT supplier RM Plc has bought a musical instrument supplier through a subsidiary.

The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) has launched a new ICT Infrastructure Services Procurement Framework.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pumping $500m into the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - its biggest grant to the fund so far.

Social networking sites are behind a surge in viruses, spyware and other "nasty stuff", according to web security firm ScanSafe's monthly report.

UpdateAir travellers were being stripped of electronic devices at UK airports this morning after authorities said they had disrupted a plot to blow up as many as 10 US-bound airliners.

Don't invest in a technology just because it is being hyped, and don't ignore a technology just because it is not living up to early expectations. So says Gartner, which today released its annual hype cycle for emerging technologies.

AMD has begun shipping its anticipated budget-priced Athlon 64 X2 3600+, initially pitching the processor at the Chinese market but with a view to offering it across a wider range of geographies in due course.

Nvidia has finalised its Quad SLI drivers and yesterday shipped the software with a new, non-beta WHQL-certified driver package. The 32.8MB download is listed as version 91.45 and is part of Nvidia's ForceWare Release 90.

In June 2006 IBM, through the IBM Institute for Value in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), published a research paper "The trader is dead; long love the trader".

Intel has told its customers that from 15 December they will no longer be able to order Pentium D 830, 840, 930 and 940 processors because demand for said chips has now shifted to other products.

VIA will this month ship its EPIA EK Mini-ITX mobo, pitching the product at enthusiasts, system builders and OEMs keen to construct near-silent x86-compatible machines. The motherboard provides six-channel audio, plus MPEG 2 and 4 decoding hardware, and yet consumes no more than 19W of power, the company claimed.

Two men have been charged with intercepting mobile phone voicemail messages following an investigation into allegations that the phone calls of staff working for Prince Charles were illegally accessed.

A partygoer drank 12 pints of cider, stole a goat from a smallholding and took it on a backseat joyride in a Volvo he TWOCed from a nearby farm.

A never-shipped 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP graphics card has popped up on eBay to tempt fans of historical GPUs. Speaking of fans, this boy has four of 'em, one each for the four VSA-100 graphics chips the board sports - along with 128MB of frame-buffer memory.

CommentSo there really is going to be an honest to goodness broadband wireless WiMAX network in the US, with tons of spectrum and an national reach, thanks to Sprint’s decision, leaked earlier yesterday that it will use the fledgling technology for an all purpose US wide network costing $4.5bn.

Researchers at Cardiff University have uncovered a flaw in HSBC's online banking security process that has left over three million customer accounts vulnerable to attack over the last two years.

Sony Ericsson this week launched a mainstream 3G phone, touting the handset as a media-friendly business-oriented device - it's got push email support on board - that's no bigger than an average GSM/GPRS-only machine.

AnalysisOne of the US's largest ever spectrum auctions kicks off this week, with 168 companies listed as applicants for a share of the AWS (Advanced Wireless Spectrum) band, which could support 3G or other broadband wireless services.

An attempt by former Brocade executives to have the charges against them for stock option irregularities dismissed was denied by a federal magistrate.

Childcare guru Gina Ford says she is not seeking to close down the Mumsnet website, but has merely acted to defend herself from what she describes as a "long-running campaign by which Mumsnet published very serious and offensive libels about me".

Compel announced today that Paul Berry has stood down from the board after 13 years at the company.

A hacking program, due to be released next week, will demonstrate how to use a connection from BlackBerry devices to potentially bypass enterprise security defences.

Intel has released open source drivers for the GMA X3000 and 3000 graphics engines it's building into its G965, Q965 and Q963 chipsets. According to the company, the drivers provide both 2D and 3D rendering under Linux.

O2’s network in London and the South East had a major wobble today following a fibre break near one of its switching sites in London.

Hardware sites appear to be going crazy for Hauppage's TV Anywhere, a system that brings together the company's USB-connected TV tuner and Orb video streaming software, all for just £100. However, we don't think Sling Media, make of the Slingbox, needs lose any sleep over it just yet.

First Neuros' MPEG 4 Recorder had an SD card slot. Then it got a Memory Stick slot instead. Now it's got the SD slot back, fortunately without losing the PSP-friendly Memory Stick compatibility. The company is offering the MPEG 4 Recorder 2 Plus, just like its predecessor but now fitted with a multi-format card reader which does MMC too.

The inquiry into reports of shenanigans at the Rural Payments Agency has resulted in four staff being booted out of their Newcastle jobs. A further five have received written and verbal warnings.

Spyware authors have crafted a new attack that poses as an invitation to Turkish people to try Skype, the popular IP telephony application. Instead of being able to download the popular VoIP application, punters responding to Turkish-language emails containing the bogus offer will be directed towards a fake site.

IBM has made its third software acquisition in two weeks, buying FileNet for $1.6bn in cash to beef up its "information on-demand" strategy.

Valley JusticeYou're going to need to read the next sentence twice: The US patent system looks to be improving.

CommentUS Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff appeared relaxed, even amused, during a Washington press conference where he explained the American response to the UK airport terror emergency.

Cisco has lined up yet another "spin-in" by shelling out a $50m investment for start-up Nuova Systems.