The new version of Bing Maps, released Wednesday in a “beta” test mode, offers slicker technology so users can zoom in more smoothly from the high-up graphical map to the close-up views showing actual streets from a pedestrian or driver’s viewpoint.

With this version of Bing Maps, Microsoft matches Google Inc. in sending cars with cameras down streets to capture images of every block. Microsoft is offering that in 56 U.S. cities for now, while Google has hit all 50 states and expanded the feature overseas.

Microsoft also used lasers to scan the buildings and constructed a three-dimensional map of those cities.

A New Zealand man living in Queensland and believed to be behind the world’s largest spam operation, has been ordered to pay more than $16 million for running the illegal enterprise.

Lance Atkinson, 26, originally from Christchurch, was living in Pelican Waters on the Sunshine Coast when the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had his assets frozen last year.

He had previously admitted sending spam and was fined $100,000 by a New Zealand court, but the FTC saw that further punishment was due. Yesterday, the Commission fined him $16 million in a decision mirroring that of the Federal Court in Brisbane in October, which handed the same penalty to handed to two SMS spamming companies.

Pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits.

“‘Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 “maritime companies” and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,’ Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. … Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. ‘I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,’ she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. ‘I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the “company.”‘”

The EU justice and home affairs minister are about to agree on a large-scale banking data sharing plan with the United States. The agreement will have a massive impact on the privacy of banking data of European businesses and citizens.

It’s everything about SWIFT, a company that handles the bank transactions for thousands of bank, inluding most European banks. SWIFT is based in Belgium but has also a branch in the USA. Under the TFTP programme the US government forced the US branch (which mirrors all data based in Belgium) to allow government access to all these bank transactions in order to help anti-terrorism operations.

The struggling Internet company AOL plans to shed up to 2,500 jobs - more than a third of its work force - as it prepares to separate from Time Warner and finally sever their ill-fated marriage.

Major job cuts had been expected and seemed certain after Time Warner said last week that AOL would take $200 million in charges for severance and other restructuring-related costs. But the magnitude was not known until Thursday.

AOL, which has already pared thousands of workers in recent years and now employs about 6,900, is asking for volunteers to accept buyouts. If it falls short of the 2,500 target, it plans layoffs to reach a payroll cut of up to 2,300 positions, a third of its current total.

Federal officials have put the PS3 to work breaking passwords on computer equipment confiscated from suspected child pornographers.

the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center, known as C3, has replaced its ‘$8,000 Tableau/Dell server combination’ with more efficient and much cheaper $300 PS3s. Each PS3 is capable of 4 million passwords per second, and C3 currently has 20 PS3s with plans to buy 40 more.

The Boeing Company demonstrated the ability of mobile laser weapon systems to perform a unique mission: track and destroy small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

During the U.S. Air Force-sponsored tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif., the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), which was developed by Boeing under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory, used a single, high-brightness laser beam to shoot down five UAVs at various ranges. Laser Avenger, a Boeing-funded initiative, also shot down a UAV. Representatives of the Air Force and Army observed the tests.

“The Air Force and Boeing achieved a directed-energy breakthrough with these tests,” said Gary Fitzmire, vice president and program director of Boeing Missile Defense Systems’ Directed Energy Systems unit. “MATRIX’s performance is especially noteworthy because it demonstrated unprecedented, ultra-precise and lethal acquisition, pointing and tracking at long ranges using relatively low laser power.”

Two computer programmers designed codes to falsify thousands of fake trade blotters and phantom records for swindler Bernard Madoff and took hush money to help keep the massive fraud going, U.S. authorities said.

The FBI arrested Jerome O’Hara, 46, and George Perez, 43, at their homes on Friday morning on criminal charges of conspiracy for falsifying books and records at both the broker-dealer and investment arms of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) in New York.

“The computer codes and random algorithms they allegedly designed served to deceive investors and regulators and concealed Madoff’s crimes,” said federal prosecutor Preet Bharara. “They have been charged for their roles in Madoff’s epic fraud, and the investigation remains ongoing.”

O’Hara’s attorney Gordon Mehler said “We intend to enter a plea of not guilty” after Manhattan federal court magistrate judge Ronald Ellis ordered the men released on $1 million bail each with travel restrictions.

Perez’s attorney Larry Krantz declined to comment.

Hewlett-Packard Co.’s $2.7 billion takeover of 3Com Corp. is a shot at networking leader Cisco Systems Inc. - and a sign of how old relationships are being frayed by a flurry of maneuvers by technology heavyweights.

HP said Wednesday it has agreed to pay $7.90 per share for 3Com, a 39 percent premium to 3Com’s closing stock price before the deal was announced. 3Com makes things like routers and switches that direct Internet and other data traffic.

HP also raised its 2010 guidance and reported preliminary quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street’s forecasts. The company didn’t provide specific reasons for its better outlook, other than a statement from CEO Mark Hurd that “significant growth in China” and “solid execution” helped HP in the quarter.

The 3Com acquisition represents the latest attempt by HP, the world’s No. 1 maker of personal computers, to expand into more profitable areas than PCs. HP’s PC division made up nearly a third of the company’s total revenue in the last nine months, but only 17 percent of its operating income.

Rupert Murdoch, the media tycoon who has long accused Google of ripping off content from his newspapers, said this weekend that his sites may soon disappear from the search engine’s listings.

Murdoch is chairman of News Corp., the newspaper, TV, and Internet empire that includes The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, 20th Century Fox, Fox News, and Hulu. He made the comments in an interview late last week with Sky News Australia. (See video below.)

After Murdoch accused Google, Microsoft, and others of “stealing” his company’s content, he was asked why he just doesn’t pull his Web sites from Google’s search results.

“I think we will,” Murdoch responded. “But that’s when we start charging.”

“The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs,” Anatoly Perminov said at a meeting of the commission on the modernization of the Russian economy.
RD-0410 NTP Engine developed by Russia in the 1960’s. Credit – Dietrich Haeseler

RD-0410 NTP Engine developed by Russia in the 1960’s. Credit – Dietrich Haeseler

He added that the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia if the country wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the Moon and Mars.

Perminov said that the draft design of the spacecraft would be finalized by 2012, and the financing for further development in the next nine years would require an investment of at least 17 billion rubles (over $580 million).

Newsday will start charging some readers $5 per week for access to its Web site beginning next Wednesday, a move many newspapers have been contemplating but few have yet to try for fear of driving readers away.

Rather than looking to find a significant new revenue source online, though, Newsday’s parent company, Cablevision Systems Corp., hopes the move will make subscriptions to the printed newspaper and its Internet access service more attractive. Customers of either will still get the Long Island newspaper’s site for free.