British journalist: James Murdoch approved out-of-court settlement in phone hacking scandal

September 21st, 2009 Facebook shuts down thorny marketing toolNEW YORK — Facebook is closing an uncomfortable chapter in its five-year history. The social network says it will shut down Beacon, a program that tracks users' activities on other Web sites.

February 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Rs.70 billion (Rs.7,000 crore) accounting fraud at Satyam computer Services was not a corporate scam but a 'governmental scandal', senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani said.

August 21st, 2009 Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon to fight Google book dealSAN FRANCISCO — The fight against a legal settlement that would give Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of copyrighted books is starting to resemble a heavyweight brawl in the library.

September 10th, 2009 Top US copyright cop opposes Google book dealSAN FRANCISCO — The nation's top copyright official has joined the mounting opposition to a class-action settlement that would give Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books.

April 9th, 2009 MELBOURNE - A new British study has revealed that some people log on to social networking sites Twitter or Facebook and chat over the Internet while they are driving. In a survey of 1,000 people conducted by British insurance company Esure, one in 10 admitted to "tweeting" or updating their Facebook profile while behind the wheel.

June 30th, 2009 Texas man accused of hacking into clinic computersDALLAS — A security guard is accused of hacking into computers at a Dallas medical clinic where he worked in hopes of launching a massive computer attack before or on July 4. Jesse William McGraw is being detained following his arrest Friday on a charge of downloading malicious code into a computer without authorization.

July 23rd, 2009 SoCal man held in estranged wife's machete deathFONTANA, Calif. — A man is under arrest for allegedly hacking his estranged wife to death with a machete outside the Fontana beauty shop where she worked.

July 29th, 2009 LONDON - A decision to recruit at least 100 Indian workers, if not more, to fill finance and IT posts at the British Council in New Delhi and other parts of India has infuriated unions, who fear that this could be the blueprint for Whitehall. Final decisions about which jobs will go to India will be taken in the next few weeks, but they are expected to include 58 finance posts, up to 40 IT posts and 15 posts for a new centre of excellence, The Times reports.

August 11th, 2009 MC Hammer's cousin appears in court on rape chargePLEASANTON, Calif. —The cousin of rapper MC Hammer has been charged in California with raping a 40-year-old woman he met through an online social networking site.

August 25th, 2009 UK says illegal downloaders may lose Web accessLONDON — People who repeatedly download copyright-protected films and music could have their Internet connection cut off under proposed laws the British government unveiled Tuesday to tackle illegal file-sharing. Treasury Minister Stephen Timms said that previous plans, which would only have restricted users' broadband speed, did not go far enough.

October 3rd, 2009 LONDON - Had he been alive today, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of India, may have overcome his aversion to technology and embraced the mobilizing power of software such as Facebook and Twitter to organize massive pro-democracy protests, claims George Paxton of the London-based Gandhi Foundation. Gandhi, who advocated a return to a simpler way of life, "at times sounded very anti-technology," National Geographic quotes Paxton, as saying.andhi's view was that technology was often used at the expense of the poor, Paxton said.

September 2nd, 2009 Amazon.com makes its case against Google book dealSAN FRANCISCO — Online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. is warning a federal judge that Internet search leader Google Inc.

September 15th, 2009 Coming to mobile phones: Wall Street Journal feesNEW YORK — The Wall Street Journal plans to start charging as much as $2 a week to read its stories on BlackBerrys, iPhones and other mobile devices, expanding the newspaper's effort to become less dependent on its print edition. The mobile fees will be imposed in the next month or two, according to Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of the Journal's owner, News Corp.

July 24th, 2009 Maine court upholds IBM heir's adoption of loverPORTLAND, Maine — Maine's highest court has given a legal victory to a woman who stands to stake a claim to a share of one of America's premier business fortunes thanks to her adoption by her lesbian partner. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday overturned a 2008 lower court decision that annulled the adoption.

July 21st, 2009 UK court rejects suit on Google search resultsLONDON — A British judge has ruled that Google cannot be held responsible for defamatory words that appear in results on the popular Internet search engine. Justice David Eady said that Google is not a publisher because searches are carried out entirely by computers and the search engine does not choose the terms itself.