Europe

Ireland's largest ISP won't block The Pirate Bay -- the embattled BitTorrent search engine and tracker -- absent a court order, a spokesman said Tuesday.  read more »

A survey of US smartphone users who installed applications on their mobile devices in 2008 reveals that a surprising 16.5 percent spent between US$100 and $499. That level of spending is especially significant given the low cost of most mobile applications, ranging from as little as a dollar or two at Apple's iPhone App Store, to at most about $25.  read more »

Due to a reporter's error, the quote in the 11th paragraph of the story "Skype calls' immunity to police phone tapping threatened," posted Friday, was reported and attributed incorrectly. The quote was from Eurojust. The paragraph has been changed in the story on the wire and now reads:  read more »

The most serious charges against Sweedish file-sharing site the Pirate Bay have been dropped on the second day of the case, after it emerged the prosecution could not prove that illegal downloaders had used the site to distribute media.  read more »

The battle by Microsoft to secure its Live Hotmail system from spammers appears to have failed yet again with the news that the latest version of its CAPTCHA authentication system has been broken.  read more »

The world's largest mobile phone vendor and the biggest cellular chip developer said Tuesday they plan to make 3G (third-generation) mobile devices together for the North American market.  read more »

Skype is developing a VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) software client for Nokia's top-of-the-range N97 smartphone, executives of both companies said Tuesday.  read more »

An initiative backed by both mobile phone manufacturers and operators will result in a universal charger based on the Micro-USB interface for new mobile phones.  read more »

Acer has jumped head first into the smartphone market with its Tempo family of devices. They are all touch-enabled and based on Windows Mobile, the company announced on Monday.  read more »

The Italian police force has become the latest to voice complaints that the Skype VoIP service is undermining their use of wiretapping in criminal investigations.  read more »