Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie privacy controls in a browser.

Several services even use the surreptitious data storage to reinstate traditional cookies that a user deleted, which is called 're-spawning' in homage to video games where zombies come back to life even after being "killed," the report found.

This car - actually, it's two cars, the BMW 760Li High Security and the BMW 750Li High Security - features a the kind of stuff normally found in military vehicles and Jerry Bruckheimer movies.

Tick the "high security" option and you'll ride around in a bank vault with a suspension tough enough to carry a car weighed down by armor plating and bullet resistant glass.

And BMW offers options such as flag holders (we love those) and, our favorite, a gun case with compartments for two, count 'em two machine guns in the center console.

Researchers have found that dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures, can count up to five and can perform simple mathematical calculations.

Professor Coren, who presented his work on Saturday at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, believes dogs are among the most intelligent animals and can rival apes and parrots for their ability to understand language.

Professor Coren said: "Dogs can tell that one plus one should equal two and not one or three."

Rival environmental groups are lining up supporters to try to take control of a new net domain aimed at green groups.

".eco should mean something and it should be about something more than just another domain," Trevor Bowden told BBC News.

The .eco domain has been made possible because of a relaxation on Icann's strict rules on top-level domain names.

The ongoing Meltdown has required many unemployed workers to take jobs below their station, but perhaps none have fallen further than two industrial robots who are now employed as noodle chefs in Nagoya, Japan.

The shop's owner, Kenji Nagoya - who just coincidentally is a robot manufacturer - told Reuters that "The benefits of using robots as ramen chefs include the accuracy of timing in boiling noodles, precise movements in adding toppings, and consistency in the taste."

Twitter was taken offline for more than two hours whilst Facebook's service was "degraded", according to the firms.

For example, in January this year Twitter announced that 33 accounts had been hacked, including those belonging to US President Barack Obama and singer Britney Spears.

"With the eyes of the world's media all trained on Twitter at the moment, those behind this latest attack may be using it as a means of highlighting the vulnerability of the sites we take for granted."

Trina Thompson, 27, graduated in April from Monroe College in the Bronx, New York with a bachelor's degree in IT. That lofty educational achievement hasn't yet helped her land a job, and so she's suing the college for reimbursement of her tuition - $70,000 - plus an additional $2,000 "for the stress I have been going through looking for a full-time job on my own," according to court documents.

The New York Post quotes the aspiring admin as saying about her former school, "They have not tried hard enough to help me."

Although lead content in paint has been restricted in the United States since 1978, University of Cincinnati (UC) environmental health researchers say in major countries from three continents there is still widespread failure to acknowledge its danger and companies continue to sell consumer paints that contain dangerous levels of lead.

In that study, 75 percent of the consumer paint samples tested from countries without controls - including India, Malaysia and China - had levels exceeding U.S. regulations.

The ATM looked like a working system, but when people would put their cards in the machine, it would scan their card information and record the PINs they entered. He didn't know how long the ATM had been at the Riviera.

The criminals probably didn't realize that they were installing their ATM in a hotel that was soon going to be flooded with more than 8,000 security professionals, he added.

Yesterday the website WikiLeaks* published TOP SECRET information about loans made by Kaupthing bank just before the Big Meltdown last October.

The leaked document shows definitively that massive loans were made to a select few during that time, most notably the largest shareholders in the bank and associated parties.

As soon as the information became available on WikiLeaks, Kaupthing's legal department went into overdrive trying to get the info removed.