Technology News

BERLIN (AFP) - Confidential data on 30 million German phone users could be consulted on the Internet as a result of an error until the phone company locked access, a spokesman for Deutsche Telekom said Saturday.

Correction: This post initially misstated the portion of spectrum cited in newly released FCC report. It was updated 3:15 PDT with corrected information and related background.A Federal Communications Commission engineering report released late Friday essentially backs a plan to create a free wireless Internet service by dismissing concerns about interference for existing providers.

President Bush on Friday signed into law a bill that would facilitate the collection of data regarding broadband access in the United States, though most of the actions required by the law have already been accomplished by federal regulators.

Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO) on Friday announced it's shipping the TransDock Direct, a new dock and charging system for the iPod. It costs $59.99.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Apple Inc. rallied more than 9 percent Friday, as investors saw a newly attractive valuation in the battered stock and anticipated new laptop computers.

LOS ANGELES - Now that Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG have broken off their troubled relationship, known as Sony BMG, the Japanese company hopes to harmonize its consumer electronics and its music, a duo that was badly out of sync.

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) - American millionaire video game guru Richard Garriott followed in his astronaut father's footsteps Sunday, blasting off aboard a Russian rocket to become the world's sixth space tourist.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Wannabe rock stars will have a greater choice of instruments and songs to choose from as videogames like "Guitar Hero World Tour" and "Rock Band 2" introduce new features.

Crystal ball-peering transhumanist Ray Kurzweil has recently unveiled the world's first massively multiplayer online forecasting game, Superstruct.

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Connie Talbot's first release, "Over the Rainbow," has already gone gold in the United Kingdom (100,000 copies) and platinum in Korea (15,000 copies) and has logged more than 46 million hits on YouTube. Not bad for a 7-year-old.

LOS ANGELES - Now that Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG have broken off their troubled relationship, known as Sony BMG, the Japanese company hopes to harmonize its consumer electronics and its music, a duo that was badly out of sync.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - YouTube, the largest video-sharing Website, has started to run full-length TV shows from CBS Corp's archive, in its latest step to boost advertising revenue by adding professional programing.

DUBAI (AFP) - Computer hackers claiming to be Shiite shut down the website of Saudi-owned satellite channel Al-Arabiya on Friday, a month after Iran reported similar attacks on many of its websites by hardline Sunnis.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Computer security specialists warn that hackers are using fake YouTube pages to trick people into opening their machines to diabolical software.

David Kernell, who was accused of accessing Gov. Sarah Palin's email account without authorization, pleaded innocent to the charges on Wednesday.

Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO) on Friday announced it's shipping the TransDock Direct, a new dock and charging system for the iPod. It costs $59.99.

Delkin Devices on Friday announced it's shipping its Secure Digital to CompactFlash card adapter. The adapter costs $29.99.

An investigation by Apple shows some MacBook Pros may have faulty Nvidia graphics processors after all, despite Nvidia's earlier assurances to the contrary, the computer maker has announced.

Mozilla is doing its part in the battle against clickjacking. The open-source company is offering an updated plug-in for the Firefox browser that blocks what security researchers call one of the most dangerous problems on the Web.

OpenOffice.org will host a launch party in Paris on October 13 to celebrate the eighth anniversary of OpenOffice and the release of version 3.0. The goal? As always, provide a free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.

San Francisco - As we've seen time and again, in an increasing number of enterprise software categories, open source has become a promising alternative to commercial software. But there's no free ride.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Culture fans thousands of miles from Beijing can now visit its famous Forbidden City, through a three dimensional recreation of the vast palace that also allows them to dress up as an imperial eunuch and meet a courtesan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of houses in ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia were torched in August, after Russian troops took control of the area, according to an analysis of satellite images released on Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO - Savvy Internet users know that downloading unsolicited computer programs is one of the most dangerous things you can do online. It puts you at great risk for a virus or another time bomb from a hacker.