Boss blames smartphones for stress as company suicide rate comes under scrutiny September 25, 2009 Comments 12 A top executive at France's biggest telecommunications company, which is dealing with a spate of suicides, warned that the barrage of emails from smartphones and personal computers was stressing out employees.

Research in Motion's popular BlackBerry has been dubbed CrackBerry in the United States, where some users say they are addicted to checking emails.

That is probably something we've not undertaken, not only at France Telecom but, it's more a global society issue, the impact of the new ways of working on personal behaviour," Pellissier said.

Crazy Noonga' website sparks racism outrage FRAN RIMROD September 24, 2009 A website set up by a Perth student about a fictional Aboriginal character has been shut down and is being investigated by police amid racism claims. The website, which Radio 6PR reports was created by a 19-year-old Curtin University student, features audio excerpts  of a character called "Nigel the crazy Noonga", who prank calls businesses and fast-food outlets with a fake Aboriginal accent. The portrayal of negative Aboriginal stereotypes has sparked outrage from the Aboriginal community. Craig Somerville, lecturer at the Curtin University Centre for Aboriginal Studies, told 6PR he believed the material on the website had crossed the line between humour and racism.

The Facebook "Just for fun" group set up for "Nigel the crazy Noonga" has 317 members and describes "Nigel" as "your friendly neighbourhood Noonga". It also pokes fun at the character's fictional solvent abuse, describing it as his own personal "dreamtime". Sergeant Greg Lambert said police were aware of the website and were investigating.

We sat on the ground and the message from all these fishermen was along the lines of: "They may be talking about an economic crisis in Europe but if you want a real crisis it's right here in Senegal."

A very animated and infuriated Abdoulaye told me that his son left for Spain in a fishing boat five years ago, and was now living a far better life than he was. "I am 45-years-old and I don't have half of what he has now, like a nice house and a car," he said, adding that he would do all he could to send more of his relatives to Europe. None of these young men referred at any stage to the risks of getting to Europe even though hundreds - probably thousands - have died at sea in recent years. Senegal looks to Europe more than most countries I have visited. Not so much to Spain, but to the old colonial power, France, which has maintained strong links.

If it were not for the West African street traders, the whole of Europe would be squinting and struggling to keep their trousers up, judging by the number of people I have met who said they made their living selling these goods on the streets.

Tech giants unite against Google By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley Not everyone in the coalition wants the deal blocked, some want revisions Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library.Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo will sign up to the Open Book Alliance being spearheaded by the Internet Archive. They oppose a legal settlement that could make Google the main source for many online works. "Google is trying to monopolise the library system," the Internet Archive's founder Brewster Kahle told BBC News.

Critics have claimed the settlement will transform the future of the book industry and of public access to the cultural heritage of mankind embodied in books. The Internet Archive scans around 1000 books a day at 10 cents a page "The techniques we have built up since the enlightenment of having open access, public support for libraries, lots of different organisational structures, lots of distributed ownership of books that can be exchanged, resold and repackaged in different ways - all of that is being thrown out in this particular approach," warned Mr Kahle. The non-profit Internet Archive has long been a vocal opponent of this agreement. It is also in the business of scanning books and has digitised over half a million of them to date. All are available free. As the 4 September deadline approaches, the number of groups and organisations voicing their opposition is growing. But with three of the world's best-known technology companies joining the chorus, the Open Book Alliance can expect to make headlines the world over.

In its defence, Google has argued that the deal brings great benefits to authors and will make millions of out-of-print books widely available online and in libraries. In a statement, the company said: "The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition."

Fairfax, News to charge for online Tom Hyland August 9, 2009 THE loyalty of readers accustomed to getting their news online free is about to be tested, as Australia's largest newspaper groups prepare to charge for access to their websites.Fairfax Media is considering two levels of access, one free and the other incurring a charge, as newspapers move to protect declining revenues.Last week, News Limited chief executive Rupert Murdoch announced that sites featuring the news content of his stable of papers would no longer be free.The plan to erect pay-walls around their online sites comes as newspaper companies confront a decline in the advertising revenue that has financed print production.

Monetisation will have to happen, because without monetisation of the online sites that the newspaper industries have operated very successfully, we can't afford to keep the big newsroom staffs we have,'' he said.Fairfax was looking at a number of pay models, including offering readers two levels of access - free entry for a mass audience, with a charge for ''more upmarket, high quality data''.

The move is a risk for both publishers, which are gambling on readers being prepared to pay for news they have been receiving free - and will remain free on sources such as the ABC.While newspaper websites carry advertising, they do not finance the news content, most of which comes from the papers

Twitter taken down to silence one man New York August 9, 2009 CYBER attacks on Twitter and other popular web services last week disrupted the lives of millions of internet users, but the real target was one man: a 34-year-old economics professor from the republic of Georgia.

The attacks were ''the equivalent of bombing a TV station because you don't like one of the newscasters'', said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at internet security company F-Secure.

The hackers used a botnet, a network of thousands of infected personal computers, to direct massive amounts of junk traffic to Cyxymu's pages on Twitter, LiveJournal, YouTube and Facebook in an attempt to disable them.The millions that were affected were, in a sense, simply bystanders, experiencing shrapnel from an internet blitzkrieg that took aim at one person and knocked out an entire community.

Students to dump textbooks for e-books Carmel EganAugust 16, 2009 HEAVY book-filled school bags could soon be a thing of the past, with the e-book industry claiming most of students' textbooks will be contained in light hand-held portable devices within three years. The internet-linked reading devices will store hundreds of e-textbooks bought online or borrowed from school libraries. ''E-textbooks will be mainstream within three years,'' the executive director of DA Direct, Australia's largest distributor of portable reading devices and e-books, Richard Siegersma, predicted. Mr Siegersma said digital technology would lead to the costs of e-textbooks falling in a year to 18 months. ''There will be just-in-time and customised delivery to flexible, full-colour screens; textbooks with audio and video components; touch screens for handwriting and margin note-taking and text highlighting,'' he said.

HEAVY book-filled school bags could soon be a thing of the past, with the e-book industry claiming most of students' textbooks will be contained in light hand-held portable devices within three years.

''E-textbooks will be mainstream within three years,''

A comment thread attached to a report about the announcement contained about 140 replies from readers – most of then opposed to the move and many of them threatening to quit News Corp websites when charges are applied.

"'Quality reporting does not come cheap.' I agree," reads a comment posted by Dean of Brisbane. "But we are talking about News Corp here - not quality reporting. I currently pay exactly what I think it is worth - FREE."