Police smash £1bn internet fraud gang

British police yesterday hailed the arrest of an international gang of fraudsters as a landmark victory against internet crime, following a sting across four countries. More than £8.5m worth of fake cheques and other fraudulent documents were seized in a series of overnight raids across the UK in a joint operation overseen by Britain's Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) more...

Huge fine for US music downloader

A court in the US has ordered a woman to pay $222,000 (£109,000) in damages for illegally downloading music. The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 32, from Minnesota, to pay for offering to share 24 specific songs online - a cost of $9,250 per song more...

New Zunes to take on Apple's iPod

Microsoft has launched three new models of its Zune digital media player in an effort to compete with Apple's iPod. The players - which come in 4GB, 8GB and 80GB models - have wi-fi so users can automatically download music, photos, and video from their computer more...

Ultra-thin TV to hit the market

An ultra-thin television brighter and crisper than current generation screens will go on sale from Sony in December. The TV uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) to produce the image, resulting in a screen only 3mm thick. OLED screens are more energy efficient than LCD panels as they do not need a backlight to boost brightness more...

Spam weapon helps preserve books

A weapon used to fight spammers is now helping university researchers preserve old books and manuscripts. Many websites use an automated test to tell computers and humans apart when signing up to an account or logging in. The test consists of typing in a few random letters in an image and is designed to fight spammers more...

Data row hits mobile mast website

The future of a website which details all the mobile phone masts in the UK is in doubt following a row over divulging "commercially sensitive" information. The Sitefinder website is maintained by media regulator Ofcom, following a request from the government in 2000 more...