France's answer to YouTube has been found guilty of copyright infringement. As the Google-owned YouTube faces a U.S. lawsuit from movie and TV behemoth Viacom, a French high court has ruled against the Paris-based video-sharing site Dailymotion, holding it liable for a copyrighted film posted by its users. Earlier this summer, after a high-profile suit from a man called The Buttock, the same court laid down a similar ruling against MySpace, but its latest order goes a few steps further.

Symantec's profits for its first fiscal quarter slumped 5.3 per cent, but the company managed to beat analyst expectations with increased sales of its Norton security software.

A federal judge said he needed more information concerning allegations that the founder of Facebook stole software code and business plans from the creators of a rival social networking site.

The National Audit Office has urged the government to consolidate its three databases of regulatory information into one system.

About £2.5bn was lost to fraud and error in benefit payments over the last year, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

A cat in Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, appears to sense when one of the elderly residents is about to die, Reuters reports.

Microsoft and news sharing site Digg have signed a three-year deal that will see the software giant manage advertising on Digg.com.

Eircom has got a slap on the wrists from ComReg after the regulator found that the operator was favouring its own retail business over other operators.

Nokia is the most targeted platform around the world, according to a survey of mobile developers.

OSCONBMC Software has kicked off a formal open source strategy by launching a developer network and promising to license projects under BSD.

A company cannot change its contract with consumers simply by posting revised conditions on its website, a US appeals court has ruled (pdf).

The European Commission and US security authorities have agreed a new deal on the handover of airline passenger information. Data will now be kept for 15 years, far longer than the three-and-a-half year limit in an earlier agreement.

CommentTim O'Reilly is like a Burger King sandwich in that he likes things his way.

A Miami lag who decided to crack one off without hiding his modesty beneath a blanket was sentenced to 60 days' extra porridge on an indecent exposure rap, the Miami Herald reports.

After a spate of data losses traced to the use of Winny filesharing software in various sensitive Japanese environments (military warships, hospitals, police departments), it has been reported that a Japanese police officer has been sacked over a disclosure where several thousand sensitive police records went missing from his system.

The UK may well have been dealing with its worst floods since 1947, but the only thing flowing through the IT industry was cash - and plenty of it.

US gamers will again be the first to benefit from a Microsoft retail strategy. The Seattle-based software behemoth today announced plans to reduce the US price of its Xbox 360 HD DVD player by $20 (£9/€14), but failed to mention any similar cut for its European gamers.

Sony has doubled its profit in Q1, thanks to a boost from overseas sales.

Updated:Virgin is to switch off its mobile broadcast video service early next year.

In December 2005, technology consultant Inge Henriksen announced he had found a flaw in Microsoft's flagship web server platform, Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.1.

A UK-based genealogy website gained massive ink yesterday as it offered its users access to a complete database of convicts shipped to Australia from 1788 to 1868.

UpdatedIf the now well-known $100 One Laptop per Child project appeals for its cheap-as-chips price, but you're not taken by the garish colour or crank-up handle, then you might consider the Medison Celebrity laptop, which retails for just $50 more.

A husband and wife team has beaten the taxman in a landmark ruling that could put a smile on the faces of small business owners throughout the UK.

ColumnIf you were one of the SETI at home crowd - three million PC owners worldwide, all trying to scan radio signals from space to find alien transmissions - you may have missed the news that gives us (yes, I was one!) hope of really reaching the stars. I'm thinking of building a living starship.

First personIs arrogance a job requirement when trying to join Google?

The European Space Agency (ESA) has asked Thales Alenia Space, the lead industrial partner on the ExoMars project, to put together a cost proposal for building a Mars Rover, according to reports.

A Samsung representative has confirmed to Register Hardware that online rumours about its creation of a designer touch-sensitive mobile phone are correct - but the bad news is that it won't be coming to the UK, at least for the time being.

Ofcom today proposed that all VoIP phone services allowing users to make calls to ordinary phone numbers must also offer access to make 999 emergency calls.

UK telecoms firm BT has upped its revenue by three percent in its first quarter, in line with analysts' expectations.

Public spending watchdogs in the US have slammed NASA for having such terrible property control procedures that employees have "lost" $94m worth of kit in the last decade.

The UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has released the results of its long-running investigation into involvement by the British secret services in "rendition" operations - the forcible moving of people, normally suspected terrorists, from one country to another without any judicial process such as deportation or extradition taking place.

Newcastle City Council has compromised private details of up to 54,000 people who made payments to it by credit or debit card between February 2006 and April 2007.

If you're inclined to believe published reports, then HP's set to buy French computer maker Bull.

Results from Carphone Warehouse show the company taking advantage of a sector which is doing well overall; with both revenues and profits on the rise.

McLaren has escaped sanction following a hearing which found insufficient evidence that the current Formula One leaders had benefited from leaked Ferrari data.

Thanks to Google, there's extra riches in store for the next winner of computing's "Nobel Prize." Today, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) announced that Google has joined Intel in funding its prestigious Turing Award, upping the accompanying cash prize from $100,000 to $250,000.

OSCONMicrosoft realizes it has a schizophrenic relationship with open source software but can't seem to find any meds capable of correcting the situation.

AnalysisSometimes plaintiffs just don't know when to quit.

ExclusiveSun's latest Niagara and Rock details have reached El Reg, and they confirm that the hardware maker is up to some very ambitious stuff.

What gives an astronaut the steely nerve and heroic confidence to ride on a burning canister of rocket-fuel beyond our earthly confines and into the great unknown?

Steve Ballmer has committed Microsoft to becoming an advertising and consumer device powerhouse, intent on sustaining growth via software sales and diversification into online services.

Microsoft has realized that efforts to rig its online search traffic can only go so far. After using bribes to boost queries on its Live Search engine, the Redmond outfit has decided that it's also a good idea to beef up the engine's architecture, announcing a brand new research center dedicated entirely to search and ad technologies. Set up under the aegis of Microsoft Research, the new Internet Services Research Center (ISRC) will "work closely with MSN and other product groups across the company."

Rackable's new CEO suffered through a tough first 90 days on the job, as gross margins continued to vanish.

National Public Radio reported this week that the FBI has requested $5.3m from Congress to pay telecommunications companies for customer data, funding a massive database that would provide agents with convenient access to customer phone and email records. Just in case.

AMD executives have tried to assure the world that the company's future is sunny, despite a few gray clouds of late, presenting the first ever benchmarks for its highly anticipated Barcelona chip, announcing plans for two new core designs, and saying that next-generation manufacturing technologies are proceeding on schedule.

Storage firm QLogic posted a profit slump today for its first fiscal quarter, citing a major drop in sales of its non-core silicon products.

After years of investigation, the European Commission has issued formal charges against Intel today, for alleged anti-competitive business practices against rival AMD.

Microsoft has finally outlined the extent to which Windows Vista was unfit for the marketplace when it launched six months ago.