the Internet has many of us on a very short leash – an addictive one.

Whether you’re mid-bite, mid-sentence or perhaps mid-sleep, do you react to that ‘bing’ from your smartphone? Or, is it the flashing red light that gets you?You’ve programmed your phone to alert you to messages, or has it programmed you to respond?From the constant smartphone companion to the laptop replacing the lapdog, the Internet has many of us on a very short leash – an addictive one.The consumer research firm Intersperience surveyed more than 1,000 people in Britain and found quitting the Internet is as hard for some as quitting drinking...

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Man arrested over alleged police payments named as Sun journalist

 A Sun journalist has been arrested as part of Scotland Yard's investigation into alleged payments to police officers by newspapers. The reporter is believed to be Jamie Pyatt, district editor of the paper. The arrested journalist was taken to a South West London police station at 10.30am on Friday. Pyatt, 48, has been working at the Sun since 1987. He is the sixth person arrested by detectives working in Operation Elveden, which was set up in July following allegations that police officers had received up to £130,000 over several years...

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Italy government hangs by thread as coalition crumbles

 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's fate hung by a thread Friday and desertions from his crumbling centre-right coalition may have already robbed him of the parliamentary numbers he needs to survive. Berlusconi, caught in the crossfire from European powers and a party revolt at home, agreed at a G20 summit in France to IMF monitoring of economic reforms which he has long promised but failed to implement. But this may soon be irrelevant for the Italian leader, who will return to Rome later Friday to face what looks increasingly like...

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Welcome to Oculto Café – Cordoba’s infamous Satanic saloon.

 GLASSES shoot across tabletops, busty vamps serve blood-red cocktails, and twisted locals raise a toast to an image of Aleister Crowley. Welcome to Oculto Café – Cordoba’s infamous Satanic saloon. The bar is situated in a maze of narrow, winding streets in the ancient ‘Old Town’ district. Stepping outside for a Marlboro, I scan my surroundings. It’s a chilly, moonlit night and the streets are deserted. Strain your ears, however, and you’ll hear muffled voices coming from dark balconies. It’s like a scene from Interview with the Vampire. As...

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Body found in boot of crashed car on Alicante motorway

 Firemen called out to an accident on the A-31 Alicante-Madrid motorway early on Monday found an unidentified body in the boot of a car which had crashed into the central reservation at Sax and then burst into flames. The body was partially burnt but appears to be that of a man. Reports indicate that the deceased had been tied up and gagged. No other occupants were found at the site and the Civil Guard are now trying to identify the victim and the cause of dea...

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Hells Angels have had a rough year in California.

 The Hells Angels have had a rough year in California. Three Northern California members have died violently in the last month amid a turf battle with a rival biker gang. And law enforcement officials on both ends of the motorcycle club's home state are pursuing and jailing members, with 26 Angels and their associates arrested recently in San Diego. The violence spilled into public view in the unlikeliest of places two weeks ago when thousands of Harley-Davidsons rolled up to a San Jose cemetery on a sunny Saturday afternoon to bury a Hells...

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10,000 border arrests due to screening system

 10,000 criminals including rapists and murderers have been held at the UK border thanks to a screening system begun in 2005, a minister has said. Air and sea carriers using UK ports and airports submit passenger and crew details electronically to the e-Borders screening system, prior to travel. It results in about 52 weekly arrests, Immigration Minister Damian Green says. He praised the UK Border Agency and police for the scheme, which covers up to 55% of journeys to and from the UK. "By checking passenger and crew information before...

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charity worker employed by one of David Cameron’s Big Society gurus has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling cocaine with a street value of £120,000

charity worker employed by one of David Cameron’s Big Society gurus has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling cocaine with a street value of £120,000 into Britain.Former US gang member Derrick ‘Anthony’ Mitchell was held at Heathrow this month after UK Border Agency officers allegedly discovered 3kg of drugs in his luggage. Mitchell, 37, is a duty manager at the South London-based Kids Company founded by charity boss Camila Batmanghelidjh....

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Brussels is stifling City of London, Cameron claims

 David Cameron signalled new European battles ahead as he pledged to resist alleged attempts by Brussels to shackle the City of London in red tape. The Prime Minister echoed claims that the emergence of a two-tier Europe following the financial crisis could result in a wave of EU directives that would harm the Square Mile. The Government has said it is determined to prevent the 17 members of the eurozone acting as a bloc to thwart the interests of the 10 EU states, including Britain, that have retained their own currenci...

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Qantas grounds all flights

 Australia’s Qantas Airways grounded its entire fleet on Saturday over a bitter labour dispute in an unprecedented move that prompted the government to warn it feared for the airline’s future and would seek action to end the dispute. EDITOR’S CHOICE Strikes cost A$15m-a week in lost sales - Oct-28 US airlines earnings hit by fuel costs - Oct-27 Lufthansa scales back passenger forecasts - Oct-27 Virgin eyes tie-up with Etihad on BMI - Oct-14 Qantas overhauls lossmaking international operations - Aug-16 Qantas said it would lock out all...

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Failure to solve Europe's debt crisis will cost UK taxpayers billions

 Britain has already injected £1.88bn into the European Investment Bank (EIB) and pledged another £35.7bn, equivalent to close to 2pc of UK GDP, to be drawn down as required. Although the EIB, which is the world's largest non-government borrower, ranks above other unsecured creditors, thanks to its "privileged relationship" status under the EU treaty, it could face huge losses in the event of a euro break-up. If the UK's stake in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is included then the total capital commitment for the...

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full brutality of former Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi's regime has been revealed in chilling video footage of prison torture sessions.

The full brutality of former Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi's regime has been revealed in chilling video footage of prison torture sessions.And the fallen dictatorship's former foreign minister, Musa Kusa - who was released by the British authorities six months ago after he defected to the UK in March - is facing fresh allegations that he was directly involved in the beating of political prisoners.The footage - obtained by the BBC's Panorama programme...

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The slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi secretly spirited out of Libya and invested overseas more than $200 billion

 The slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi secretly spirited out of Libya and invested overseas more than $200 billion -- double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, The Los Angeles Times reported late Friday. Citing unnamed senior Libyan officials, the newspaper said US administration officials were stunned last spring when they found $37 billion in Libyan regime accounts and investments in the United States. They quickly froze the assets before Kadhafi or his aides could move them, the report said. Governments...

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¡Ole! Spain drives legality into mobile services with Sybase 365

 Spain was one of the first countries to start to lay down laws relating to old non-registered pay-as-you-go SIM cards for anti-terrorism reasons i.e. you MUST tell the authorities your name and address and get a new SIM if you had one of the old anonymous ones. Following on from this "mobile legality" theme, news this week bubbles of Sybase subsidiary company Sybase 365 working with Spanish mobile operator Yoigo. The two firms have joined forces to offer registered SMS, a new service allowing companies to send customers confirmation text...

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FSA broke its own rules in Keydata probe, judge rules

 High Court judge found that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) had wrongfully used privileged emails to bring its case against Keydata. A further "relief hearing" will now determine the impact of the ruling, which could de-rail the case altogether. It is the latest in a line of setbacks for the regulator, which has been investigating regulatory breaches at Keydata and millions of pounds of missing retail funds for two years. Keydata invested in "life settlement funds", which buy and sell US life insurance and generate high returns. In...

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US issues travel alert linked to Iran plot

 The US State Department late on Tuesday issued a worldwide travel alert for US citizens, warning of the potential for anti-US action after the United States accused Iran of backing a plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington.   Murder Plot Iranians charged over assassination plot / Reuters American authorities uncover plot to bomb Israeli, Saudi embassies in Washington, assassinate Saudi ambassador Full story "The US government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive...

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Tech Savvy Street Gangs Take On Social Media

 The fight against Indiana’s gangs isn’t always waged on the street. School officials, social workers and probation officers said the newest battle ground in gang warfare is social media. According to Indianapolis anti-crime advocates who attended a gang awareness seminar on Friday, Indy gang members are younger, more mobile, and they’re using social media networks to recruit and plan. An Indianapolis Metro Police Department gang unit detective said he carries out most of his investigations online and undercover, 6News' Jack Rinehart reported....

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Roll over Einstein: Law of physics challenged

 One of the very pillars of physics and Einstein's theory of relativity - that nothing can go faster than the speed of light - was rocked Thursday by new findings from one of the world's foremost laboratories. European researchers said they clocked an oddball type of subatomic particle called a neutrino going faster than the 186,282 miles per second that has long been considered the cosmic speed limit.  The claim was met with skepticism, with one outside physicist calling it the equivalent of saying you have a flying carpet. In fact,...

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Millions of Hotmail users cut off by Microsoft 'cloud' failure

 As well as Hotmail, the outage affected Office 365 and the Skydrive online storage service. Microsoft said the cause appeared to be related to the Domain Name System, the computer network that ensures that web addresses are connected to websites. “Preliminary root cause suggests a DNS issue,” the firm said on its office 365 Twitter feed. The problems lasted for at least two-and-a-half hours, beginning at around 4AM British Summer Time. On a company blog, Microsoft said it had fixed the problem at 5.45AM, but the repairs took some time to...

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Starting today, companies and celebrities will have a 50-day "sunrise" period allowing them to officially register under the .xxx domain and put down bids to set up shop in the Internet's red-light district.

 (Lance Whitney/CNET)(CBS News)  Starting today, companies and celebrities will have a 50-day "sunrise" period allowing them to officially register under the .xxx domain and put down bids to set up shop in the Internet's red-light district. The new .xxx top-level domain is open not just to porn sites but to nonporn sites that want to block the use of their names on the .xxx domain. Florida-based ICM Registry, which is administering...

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UK police said they arrested the alleged second of four co-founders of the hacking supergroup Lulz Security

UK police said they arrested the alleged second of four co-founders of the hacking supergroup Lulz Security, one of those still at large branched out into a legal form of protest, promoting a boycott of PayPal.Scotland Yard said it arrested the suspected Lulz Security spokesman, a 19-year-old known online as Topiary, at a residence in the Shetland Islands on Tuesday. That came a week after a 16-year-old believed to be Tflow was picked up in South London.The tender ages of the suspects surprised some private security experts who have been involved...

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FBI Arrests an Alleged Lulzsec Member

Earlier in January, the FBI agents have performed searches of more than 40 residents across the U. S., however, no arrest results were announced following those searches. Afterwards, a team of investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation have raided a natives’ home in Hamilton, suspected as a member of hacker group LulzSec . However, the FBI Spokesman has refused to utter any further details while confirming the search. Sources have claimed that arrested man is an alleged LulzSec member.Additionally, British Police in collaboration with...

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Motorists are to be told officially for the first time which traffic cameras are the country's biggest money spinners under a new "transparency" move to be launched on Monday

Mike Penning, the Road Safety Minister, will order police and local authorities to stop treating drivers like "cash cows" and open up a whole range of previously hidden statistics to the public, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.The evidence will give a broad picture - for the first time - of whether cameras have been effective in saving lives and preventing injury - or whether they are simply useful revenue raisers.Up until now authorities have been reluctant to publish admit which cameras were the biggest income generators, with details having...

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French search engine seeks multi-million euro damages from Google

French search engine seeks multi-million euro damages from Google 1plusV pleads with Mountain View to end 'suffocation' of marketBy Kelly Fiveash • Get more from this authorPosted in Music and Media, 28th June 2011 10:34 GMTFree whitepaper - Email storage affecting productivity? SaaS email archiving can helpA French search engine is demanding damages of €295m from Google, in a legal spat over Mountain View's dominance of the market.1plusV, a local rival to Google in France, alleged that Mountain View's command of the search engine biz had...

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Hacking suspect Ryan Cleary 'has Asperger's syndrome

19-year-old charged with hacking the website of the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a court has heard.Ryan Cleary, from Wickford, Essex, was arrested as part of a Scotland Yard and FBI probe into online hacking group LulzSec.His counsel told City of Westminster Magistrates' Court he had the form of autism, along with agoraphobia.He was granted bail, but remains in custody after prosecutors objected.Ben Cooper, defending Mr Cleary, said he was concerned the alleged hacker would have to remain in custody...

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Motion Picture Association petitions BT to block access to Newzbin

The Motion Picture Association has applied for a high court injunction that would force internet provider BT to block public access to a file-sharing hub.The outcome of this trial, which is a UK legal first, could set an alarming precedent. If the high court rules in favour of the MPA it could allow the entertainment industry to strong-arm BT and other broadband providers into censoring the internet.The website in question is the British site Newzbin,...

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People who post ratings on websites tend to exaggerate, research suggests

Five-star product ratings on Amazon and restaurant review websites have long reassured online shoppers and diners that they will not be wasting their money.Now, however, new research suggests that perhaps we should treat some of them with caution.The findings, to be published in the Economic Journal, show that, in a world where everyone is competing to get their message across, there is a strong incentive for people to express extreme opinions.According to Dr Kohei Kawamura, an economics lecturer at Edinburgh University, this incentive means that...

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