Google is planning on introducing it's own instant messaging service which will allow users to make calls over computers a la Skype, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The service will be called Google Talk and is expected to be out and about by Wednesday. As well as being able to make calls users can trade text messages over the web, similar to programs like AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger.

A Pilot flew this plane for two hours without realising half the wing had vanished.

And his passengers - two flight engineers on their way to repair a Boeing 767 - also failed to spot it had been ripped off, taking a fuel tank with it.

Their Cessna 210's wing was split in two when it hit a tree on take-off from an airstrip near Shannon in Ireland.

He only realised what had happened when he spotted his back-up fuel tank gauge was on empty as he flew over the Channel on the way to Portugal. He put out a Mayday call and landed at Jersey airport.

A spokesman there said last night: "We were amazed it managed to fly as long as it had. It was in a real state. The pilot was the most shocked as he had not realised the extent of the damage while he was flying."

Cleanliness, efficiency, compactness, cool-factor... for a variety of reasons, automatic doors have become a standard feature of Japanese shops. While the typical sliding star-trek style design has proven itself, the tanaka auto door aims to improve upon a good concept. This new design entails strips equipped with infrared sensors that open to the approximate shape of the person or object passing through, minimizing entry of dust, pollen, and bugs while keeping precious air-conditioning in. The technology for the new design seems to be in it's infancy, but Japan has proven once again that it’s a least 10 years ahead of everyone else.

With newspapers increasingly seeing how the web helps them make money, you'd think they'd want more visitors, not fewer. That's why I've never quite understood registration only websites that consistently go through and weed out any BugMeNot logins. However, it looks like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the site that just realized charging for content doesn't make sense, has come up with another way to stop BugMeNot logins. Instead of just requiring your email and password, they require your name as a third field. I've definitely seen other sites swap these two, so that all the BugMeNot entries that are set with usernames, and not email addresses, no longer work. Either way, all this does is piss off potential readers who won't bother going back and certainly won't send any more readers to the site. And, of course, for those few who actually do go through the registration process, you can bet they're going to give dirty data which is worse than useless in that it compromises the whole set of aggregate data the newspaper was trying to put together in the first place. Users don't feel they're getting anything of value in exchange for giving up their data and will often just go elsewhere.

After installing the first beta release of the upcoming Windows client, some testers noticed suspicious network traffic to their machines. Concerned about a possible attack, these people last week contacted the SANS Internet Storm Center.

After investigating the traffic for SANS, Bakos found the culprit: a peer-to-peer networking feature that is turned on by default in Vista Beta 1, released last month. The feature uses a new version of Microsoft's peer name resolution protocol (PNRP) and connects to other beta machines as soon as an Internet connection is available, he said.

It does go against Microsoft's "secure by design, secure by default and secure in deployment" principle, which the company adopted as part of its broader security initiatives. The principle calls for delivering products in locked-down mode, with features turned off.

The peer-to-peer feature is meant to enable connections between Windows computers without the need for a central server, so that they form a "peer-to-peer cloud."

Turning the feature on by default is risky in a range of ways, Bakos said. The system opens a connection to the Internet using a protocol that has not yet been vetted for security issues. Also, the peer-to-peer service functions as a directory of connected computers and could aid attackers in finding targets.

Unfortunately, small mom-and-pop businesses such as the Amen Gift Shop are the most frequent targets of counterfeiters, says Dale Pupillo, deputy special agent in charge of the Secret Service's criminal investigative division.

With inkjet printers or tabletop color copiers, anyone can make counterfeit cash quickly in his or her home, Pupillo says.

High school students in North Carolina are making fake cash for their lunch money. Petty criminals in Lubbock, Texas, allegedly hope to exchange fake money quickly for real currency.

"They're not interested in color-shifting ink or watermarks or the red and blue fibers (in legitimate money)," he says, referring to concerns of counterfeiters of the past. "They just want something that looks like a $20 bill." Most of the time, that's enough to sneak the fake bills past unsuspecting clerks at small shops, convenience stores or fast-food restaurants.

In a real "LOL" moment a young boy who was up until half three in the morning playing World of Warcraft was busted by his mother. She's also an avid player of the game, proving to us that if anything you should not allow any significant others to get into videogames – forget about all the fun you can have with them and let this serve as a warning to us all.

The young boy was playing the game and made a forum posting at around 3.30am, to which his mother responded: "Pardon me for hijacking the thread, here.. But, Brion - if you don't want your mother to know you were up and on the computer at 3:29 in the morning - DON'T post on a forum that she reads. Busted. Grounded."

Ever since the RIAA started filing lawsuits directly against people for sharing music online, we've wondered why no one fought back and took the case to court in the US.

Earlier this year, a US judge, trying to clean up some of the details in the old, old, old Napster case, also specifically noted that making files available is not the equivalent of distributing -- which is what all the RIAA cases charge.

However, Broadband Reports points to the case of one woman who is fighting back and says she's willing to go to court to fight the charges the RIAA has filed against her, because they're not right. She points out that she had never even heard of Kazaa. The details suggest that perhaps a friend of one of her kids was responsible for the file sharing -- but, that certainly suggests that the RIAA got the wrong person. While the internet account may be in this woman's name, the burden should be on the RIAA to prove who did the actual sharing -- not who owns the account. It's the same reason why they can't sue an ISP for someone doing unauthorized file sharing on their system.

The Recording Industry Ass. of America has acknowledged that P2P file-sharing is less of a threat to music sales than bootleg CDs.

The RIAA's chief executive, Mitch Bainwol, last week said music fans acquire almost twice as many songs from illegally duplicated CDs as from unauthorised downloads, Associated Press reports.

The RIAA's favoured solution appears to be copy-protected CDs, which are gradually spreading throughout the music CD market. This approach "is an answer to the problem that clearly the marketplace is going to see more of," Bainwol told the news agency.

When we reviewed Macrovision's then state-of-the-art CDS-300 version 7 copy-protection scheme last year, while it happily imposed restrictions on Windows users, the sample tracks we were challenged to rip where easily converted from CD audio to MP3 on a PowerBook G4 running iTunes. Right now, the solution to copy-protection appears simple: buy a Mac.

Students of a school in India locked up their teachers for the day as punishment for not turning up regularly.

Police officers led by a local magistrate rescued 12 teachers from a classroom at the Jambura high school, near Agartala.

Magistrate Basir Ali told The Statesman: "The students have genuine reasons to be angry, as some teachers invariably come late or never attend classes at all."

"There were charges of some teachers coming to the school drunk and some of them smoking inside classes."

The school authorities have now been asked to submit a report on the students' allegations.