Yes, Amazon already has an online on-demand movie service, but that won’t stop the world’s most famous web retailer from buying NetFlix, the movies-through-the-mail company that recently built an on-demand service of its own. At least, that’s what the Associated Press is reporting.

According to the AP, a Jackson Securities analyst named Brian Bolan has “heard buyout speculation from industry contacts.” With Blockbuster turning up the heat on NetFlix and Amazon shares trading higher in recent weeks, Bolan believes the rumor makes perfect sense.

A team of scientists from MIT has come up with a way to light a 60-watt lightbulb. The trick is that the bulb is located about seven feet from the power source and no wires connect the two.

Wireless electricity, or “WiTricity” as MIT likes to call it, could one day allow consumers to carry notebooks or cell phones without batteries. It could also make it easy for contractors to remodel homes. Someday. To make it happen, the waves would need to be targeted and tracking mechanisms would need to exist to link the power source and the intended target.

Various techniques for transmitting power wirelessly have been around for years. Radio is an example. Transmitting electrical power, however, is tricky.

Dell will sell a wider variety of television sets made by other manufacturers over its Web site but denied reports that it plans to stop making LCD TVs.

A number of industry blogs reported Thursday that Dell would exit the LCD display market as soon as June, citing a story in the Taiwanese newspaper Economic Daily. That move would allow the company to focus on selling more profitable PCs, the report said.

On Thursday, Dell acknowledged that it is making changes to its TV line, but said it will continue to sell Dell-branded televisions with screens of 37 inches and smaller.

A US judge yesterday ordered a retrial of a schoolteacher found guilty of computer porn charges after a sustained campaign by internet specialists proclaiming her innocence.

Julie Amero, 40, was convicted in January of being responsible for a series of sex advertisements that popped up on a classroom computer and were seen by pupils, in a case that has caught nationwide attention and raised important questions about content control on computers.

CA has updated its anti-virus software to guard against a brace of flaws that created a means for hackers to turn the security protection software against its users.

Both bugs involved problems in processing malformed CAB archives. Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities potentially allows execution of arbitrary code (malware) or system crashes thanks to that perennial hacker favourite, buffer overflow flaws.

The vulnerabilities affect CA Anti-Virus and eTrust security packages, enterprise versions of these products, as well as systems management and backup suites that bundle the security software. CA has published an update (30.6, if you must know) designed to address the flaws

Amnesty International has warned that the internet “could change beyond all recognition” unless action is taken against the erosion of online freedoms.

The warning comes ahead of a conference organised by Amnesty, where victims of repression will outline their plights.

The “virus of internet repression” has spread from a handful of countries to dozens of governments, said the group.

Amnesty accused companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo of being complicit in the problem.

Dell Inc. is leaving the LCD television business to focus on its core PC products amid an ongoing company overhaul by founder Michael Dell, Taiwan media reported on Thursday.

Dell, the world’s No.2 personal computer maker, would cease making Dell-branded LCD televisions this month, the Chinese-language Economic Daily reported, citing unnamed sources.

A Dell spokeswoman said the company currently sells LCD TVs in a limited number of markets, including Japan and the United States, but had no comment about the Economic Daily report.