The increasingly dirty technology war being fought for dominance of “next generation” DVDs took another twist today when one of China’s largest film distribution groups said it would back Blu-ray, the technology developed by Sony and Philips.

China Film Group’s decision comes as the Blu-ray Disc Association – a consortium of more than 170 content and hardware producers – is reeling from the defection of Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation two weeks ago.

China Film Group, in addition to producing movies such as Kung Fu Hustle and a range of popular film and TV series for its domestic market, plays a central role in the distribution of foreign films in China, acting as a de-facto regulator.

Yahoo! users are urged to upgrade their instant messaging software following the discovery of a brace of security vulnerabilities - the second set of serious security flaws involving Yahoo! Messenger in as many weeks.

The latest security bugs both stem from stack-based buffer overflow flaws in the YVerInfo.dll ActiveX control. Successful exploitation, which is far from straightforward, creates a means for hackers to inject hostile code onto systems running vulnerable versions of Yahoo! Messenger.

In order to exploit the bugs, hackers would need to establish a malicious web page in the yahoo.com domain, which might be done by methods such as a cross-site scripting vulnerability or by manipulating DNS resolution, security notification firm Secunia reports.

Shenzhen Airlines said Monday passengers will soon be able to use their mobile phones and connect to the Internet during flights.

Swiss-based technology firm OnAir, which is providing the service, said the move will allow travellers to call and send text messages from their mobile phones and access the Internet on laptops during flights.

The company said it aimed to set up the service on the airline, which is based in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, by mid-2009.

They also hope three demonstrator aircraft will be in use by the Beijing Olympics next year. Shenzhen will be the first Chinese airline to offer the service.

A Seattle blogger, Dan Twohig, was browsing in Microsoft’s Virtual Earth when he accidentally came across a photo of a nuclear sub in dry-dock. Its propeller is clearly visible — this was a major no-no on the part of someone at the Bangor Sub Base. The designs of such stealth propellers have been secret for decades. Twohig blogged about the find and linked to the Virtual Earth photo on July 2. The debate about security vs. Net-accessible aerial photography has been building ever since.

U.S. government contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. has begun to move part of its network to IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) as a way of showing customers how to make the transition, the company said.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget in 2005 mandated that all government agencies upgrade their network backbones to IPv6 by 2008, and Lockheed Martin’s project is meant as an example, said Frank Cuccias, director of the company’s IPv6 Center of Excellence.