Murcia residents start Facebook campaign to attract global coffee chain – possibly for the muffins, the wifi or the mugs!Murcia is one of the fastest growing cities in Spain, the proud capital of the country's south-eastern market garden region. But the coffee guzzling citizens of Murcia say it still lacks the one thing that would prove they have made it onto the global map of cities that count: the green, white and black sign of a local Starbucks.Now the city's cappuccino and mocha starved citizens have mounted a Facebook campaign to join the list of 16,000 places on the planet with a Starbucks."They have got it everywhere but here," complains Alicia Delgado, a recent contributor to the Starbucks campaign wall. "It is about time we had one too."Enrique Marhuenda agrees: "The day we...

Source of Daily Mail story refuses to divulge 'well-known social network' where he posed as girl of 14 and received sexual approaches from menFacebook has called on the ex-detective who posed as a 14-year-old girl online on a "well-known social network" and said he was approached by men making sexual suggestions within minutes to name the site he used.But Mark Williams-Thomas, whose experiences were described by the Daily Mail in a contentious story this week, declined to name the site today. He suggested that it would not be helpful to the site's users – and that it might damage its reputation or attract paedophiles to use it more extensively.A spokesperson for Facebook said that it was important to identify the site so that young users could be protected. "If you really want to...

A row is brewing over separate projects to use the web to bring people closer to their local police...

Which are the biggest sites on the internet? Explore this interactive graphic to find...

Google have finally published all the Street View pictures of Crawley and Horsham on Google Maps.  The rest of Sussex too I suppose, but I have been looking through the local area...

There are plenty of iPhone covers out on the market these days with it being such a popular smartphone and all, it only makes sense. But here’s another perhaps a more novel and better one, the iBand d3o iPhone Protector case. So what makes this one so different to the others? I hear you ask. Well, here’s the answer. The case fits seamlessly around the edge of the iPhone or iPod Touch to create incredible impact protection, in fact 100% more protection than a standard plastic case. It has all the usual cut outs so functionality is not restricted at all, and the soft(ish) nature of the material (d3o) creates massive shock absorbance meaning you can hurl it around till your heart’s content and it probably won’t break for at least twice as long as it would do in a normal case. Not...

Find out who's made most cash from biggest...

Virgin seem to be dipping their toes into any puddle or pond they stumble upon these days such as offering Virgin Media Broadband internet provision and using Google Mail for those Virgin customers, and since their venture into the TV market has been somewhat of a success, it now seems as though they are going to expand it further by building their next set top box around the current TiVo system. In essence, TiVo is a DVR (Digital Video Recorder), similar to the likes of Sky+ and Sky HD which is probably one of the most highly demanded product of it’s kind at this moment in time. But it is clear that with this move, Virgin look to tackle BSkyB head on with their own box. So what is TiVo? Well for those of you who have Sky+, you will be familiar with such functions as creating what they...

Conservatives try to outdo Labour by promising broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps in technology manifestoThe Conservatives have launched a technology manifesto that aims to increase broadband speeds and improve access to government data as the government's digital economy bill moves quickly through parliament.The manifesto pulls together a number of technology proposals that the Conservatives have floated in the runup to the general election, including promising superfast broadband connections of 100Mbps to most Britons and opening up data on contracts and public sector salaries.The Tories are looking to outdo Labour by promising improved broadband speeds. Labour set a target of universal access of 2Mbps by 2012. The Tories promise 50 times that but to most citizens, not to everyone.Rather...

Gaming is for sad, dreary nerds. People with no social lives sit around trying to wrestle the sword of Albion from a be-tentacled dragon ballsack and blah blah. That’s what a lot of idiots think about computer games. Fact is, video games are better than watching films. The GTA series is like being in a mafia flick except you, dear gamer, get to go on a pretend cop-killing spree should the plot become too boring. However, the way we go about playing games could be about to change. A new service will launch June 17th that will attempt to kill off the traditional gaming console. OnLive, which launched in 2009, will stream popular games online properly this summer. Basically, instead of downloading and going to buy things from a dusty shelf, OnLive promises games on-demand. Imagine...

The internet's most valuable domain name, sex.com, is back on the auction block – and bidding starts at $1mIf you've got $1m for a starting bid, and many millions more available, you could next week be the proud owner of the internet's most fought-over domain name: sex.com.The site's ownership goes up for auction next week by DOM Partners LLC, a New Jersey lender that backed a 2006 purchase of the domain name for up to $14m but which is now foreclosing on the loan.The auction is scheduled for 18 March at the New York law firm Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf LLP, according to legal notices. And there is good reason for the site to attract bidders: at one point, it was making at least $15,000 a day, according to a 2008 book, The Sex.com Chronicles by Charles Carreon.In the late 1990s,...

Town authorities in the Ontario city of Windsor, Canada recently successfully petitioned Google to re-shoot parts of their city because they didn’t like what people were seeing. Do the Windsor authorities have a point, or are they in for a virtual reality check? Either way, if you’re in PR, the whole remit of your profession just widened by the width, depth and breadth of the world wide web… So what’s so bad that the townsfolk of Windsor want Google to re-shoot their city streets? “Within days of adding the 3-D photographic perspective to local streets for internet users around the globe wanting to browse what 130 Canadian cities and towns have to offer, Google Canada agreed to remove a scene of crime tape and bloodied bandages outside west-end strip club...

Social networking site fears reputation permanently damaged by false claim that it let older men pressure teenage girls for sexFacebook has threatened to sue the Daily Mail for damages after the paper wrongly claimed in a piece published on Wednesday that 14-year-old girls who create a profile on the social networking site could be approached "within seconds" by older men who "wanted to perform a sex act" in front of them.The paper apologised in print today and online yesterday for the error, which the author of the piece, Mark Williams-Thomas, insisted had been introduced by editors at the paper despite being told it was wrong. In fact, Williams-Thomas – a retired policeman who now works as a criminologist – had been using another, unspecified social network.But the giant social...

The dawning age of the agricultural...

New skirmishes in war of Daily Mail v the...

A streaming service for games has the traditional gaming console in its crosshairs as it prepares to roll out in the middle of...

This morning Google Street View Coverage in the UK has greatly Improved by up to 95% – 96%. With this imagery update around 238,000 miles of public road are now available in Google Street View in the UK. This update of 210,000 miles of UK public roads available, adds to the 28,000 miles currently available before this morning. This move means that Google Maps users will be able to see 95 – 96 percent of the UK’s approximately 246,985 miles of public roads. People will be able to view and explore 360 degree street-level imagery of places as far North as Shetland and as far South as Penzance; from Pembrokeshire in the West of Wales to Ipswich in the East of England or over the sea to Northern Ireland and many places in between. With this imagery update around 238,000 miles...

Sony unveils new motion controller the PlayStation Move as a contender to market leader Nintendo...

Thu, 11th Mar In this article we’ll take a look at some of the key technology news stories and headlines, from around the world, for Thursday, 11th March 2010. Today’s Hot Topic: OnLive are challenging traditional gaming consoles with a new cloud based offering which needs no console. The headlines in technology news today are gathered from internet based news sources including BBC Technology News, CNN Technology, Sky News, BusinessWeek, Computing, Computer Weekly, BBC dot.life, IT Pro, Register, Wired, CNET News, The Wall Street Journal, Silicon.com, Engadget, Financial Times, PC World, Times Online, Reuters, Telegraph, AppleInsider, The Gadget Show, New Scientist, Gates Notes, Huffington Post and The Guardian. BBC Technology News: Internet up for Nobel Peace Prize CNN...

It seems that Castlereagh Borough Council, some of whose members are normally so reluctant to make meetings and minutes public, are about to join the vast majority of other local councils in Northern Ireland and start to publish their minutes online.This morning’s Belfast Telegraph brought the news that Castlereagh’s full council meeting in February approved the decision by its Central Services Committee to start “to publish minutes from all council meetings on its website from this week”. They’ll finally be bringing their practice in line with the advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office.The paper's article noted that “Castlereagh Council will back date minutes on its website for the current electoral term, making them available from 2005”.Castlereagh’s website...

I was 31 floors up in Centre Point on Tuesday to witness Sharp’s new line of televisions which, for the first time in tele history, is rocking a fourth, yellow, sub pixel joining its red, green, and blue buddies. Sharp is waiting before joining the possible ‘fad’ of 3D and is instead looking to make large screen TV’s more economical (40% less power used compared with other LCD’s), brighter, ’sharp’er and with a larger pallet. “The revolutionary new four colour technology enables billions of colours to be displayed, providing brighter video gaming, clearer sports viewing and sharper action enjoyment”, says the company. Sharp actually played around with introducing white and cyan pixels but the yellow pixels had the best...

Initially, Google Street View was fairly controversial with many people complaining about invasion of privacy and such issues. However, those concerns have not stopped Google from expanding the service, because as of tomorrow (11th March 2010), you lucky (or unlucky depending on which side of the fence you’re sat) people in the UK will have access to a total 96% of all roads, streets and avenues across the isles. The infamous camera cars have been out and about over the last year busily snapping up everything from busy city streets to little lanes in the middle of God knows where, there’s even been some Google Path View images captured using specially equipped trikes. In some parts, such as the village of Broughton, the journey of the car has been somewhat treacherous with...

Italy signs a deal with Google to put online the contents of its two national libraries, including works by Dante and...

The internet is among a record 237 individuals and organisations nominated for this year's Nobel Peace...

Web giant takes on Microsoft with Google Apps Marketplace offering cloud-based applicationsGoogle has announced that it has opened the Google Apps Marketplace to developers. More than 50 companies wil be involved in the Apps Marketplace, which will offer business software such as a project management application, a tax and a payroll program, an electronic fax program, an e-signature service, and a design tool for Google Docs. The third-party cloud-based applications will be integrated within Google to work like native Google apps. It will charge developers 20% of the revenue from sales on the marketplace site, apart from a one-off fee of $100."The Google Apps Marketplace eliminates the worry about software updates, keeping track of different passwords and manual syncing and sharing of...

Mobile technology that could allow prying bosses to monitor every movement of their staff is developed in...

ISPs, Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo sign letter saying clause threatens free speech and could lead to blocking of sitesAmendments made to the digital economy bill by the House of Lords threaten freedom of speech and will lead to British websites being blocked without due judicial process, the bosses of leading technology companies said today.The heads of the four largest UK internet service providers – BT, Orange, Virgin Media and TalkTalk – as well as Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo have all co-signed the letter, along with consumer groups, academics and the technophile television host Stephen Fry, objecting to amendment 120A to the bill, which was added to the bill last week with support from Liberal Democrat and Conservative peers.Ministers had been seeking powers to amend...

Facebook calls on game designers to make an iconic title, such as Mario or Halo, specifically for the social...

BT's boss comes out fighting on file-sharing...

Facebook and iPhone applications can help you stub out your smoking habitAre you one of the more than 2 million smokers ready to quit on No Smoking Day? Then today is your day! Don't worry, you won't be alone as there is an app for it – well, several. And this is how you can call it a day:First of all, you install the WeQuit Facebook app to let everybody know what your are up to. It's best to grab one of your chain-smoking friends for a competition. The Facebook version of WeQuit helps you to reward your friend if they achieve success and punish them in case of failure, perhaps by throwing a sheep at them. You can also use WeQuit to bet your Facebook friends to see who can give up for longest, or sponsor someone to quit to raise money for charity. Secondly, you can use your iPhone to...

Should you be getting an e-reader for the planet's sake? I'd always thought not, but a new study has made me think againThe recent announcement that Foyles are soon to launch the bebook is further proof (as if any were needed) that the e-reader bandwagon is well and truly rolling. News that the New York Times book review will soon be available in e-reader format, meanwhile, also points the way to an increasingly interesting future for what we used to know as the "print industry". The ability to buy something I wouldn't be able to get in a better format elsewhere (so long as the UK remains starved of the glory of the Sunday NYT delivery) even makes me think I might possibly find a use for an e-reader. Up until now, they've struck me as less pleasant than books, far more problematic in...

Wed, 10th Mar In this article we’ll take a look at some of the key technology news stories and headlines, from around the world, for Wednesday, 10th March 2010. Today’s Hot Topic: Cisco are in the news today after announcing CRS-3 technology which CNN are reporting may be able to offer downloads of up 322 Terabits per second. The headlines in technology news today are gathered from internet based news sources including BBC Technology News, CNN Technology, Sky News, BusinessWeek, Computing, Computer Weekly, BBC dot.life, IT Pro, Register, Wired, CNET News, The Wall Street Journal, Silicon.com, Engadget, Financial Times, PC World, Times Online, Reuters, Telegraph, AppleInsider, The Gadget Show, New Scientist, Gates Notes, Huffington Post and The Guardian. BBC Technology...

Illegal file-sharers should be fined, rather than have their internet connection cut off, says the boss of...

Korean company Samsung kicks off the industry-wide push by launching a 3D range that will be in British shops by the end of the monthThe friendly green monster Shrek, the blue-skinned Na'vi of the planet Pandora and Wayne Rooney's shots on goal will shortly take on a new, three-dimensional glory.Spurred on by the success of the Hollywood fantasy blockbuster Avatar, the world's top electronics companies believe they can make 3D television sets the norm for consumers in the US and Europe within three years.The Korean company Samsung kicks off the industry-wide push – and battle for brand supremacy – by launching a 3D range that will be in British shops by the end of the month.Billed as the world's first high definition, three-dimensional LED televisions, Samsung's range will be...

So when exactly could an iPod speaker be considered over the top? When the neighbours come knocking? When the police get called? Nope, now it seems there is a new benchmark – size. Introducing the Wall Of Sound which dwarfs any personal speaker I have ever seen in my lifetime. Weighing in at 225 pounds and completely handmade, the Wall Of Sound can be purchased for mammoth price of $4,495. Promoted as the world’s most powerful iPod speaker, the Wall Of Sound has a frequency response of 40Hz – 20,00kHz, which is impressive to say the least. Here is the actual description of the product as seen on the official website; So would you buy one? Or more importantly, could you fit one in your house? I know I couldn’t, perhaps this is something for Steve Jobs himself,...

We’re warned when we’re about to view some Ryvita dry, crappy government site with a handy .gov.uk suffix, so why not filth? Well, there is a plan to create a specific domain for filth-peddling websites. It’s looking like it’ll be .xxx which was first put forward three years ago but was rejected by internet regulators, Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). The governing body will reconsider the .xxx scheme on 12th March. Initially, Icann had welcomed the domain with open legs back in 2005, but then chickened out after a bunch of protests from US conservative groups. No-one should ever listen to those idiots, should they? They think everything is immoral… especially three consecutive x’s in a domain name. “If the contract is...

Last Sunday I was lucky enough to visit the annual Focus on Imaging exhibition where I joined the anticipated 35,000 other people that will be coming through the doors of the NEC over the next few days (until this Wednesday 10th March 2010, so it’s not too late for you to pay it a visit) to see what has become the most popular photographic show in the country. What everyone comes to see is one of the biggest concentrations of cameras and anything vaguely related to them this side of Buckingham Palace, and to see some of the biggest names in the business showing off their best and newest offerings to the market: people such as Panasonic, Nikon, Canon, Adobe, Epson, Fuji, HP… I could go on! So having spent a good few hours there I’ll give you a little taste of what you’ll be...

It can be hard for MPs to give a balanced...

A plan to create a net domain for adult content could be revisited three years after it was rejected by...

Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years but it could cause problems for users of Windows...