Twitter valued at $1bn

Twitter is nearing a deal for as much as $100 million in new funding, by investors who say they believe the Internet short messaging giant is worth about $1 billion, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The investor group is expected to include mutual-fund giant T Rowe Price Group and private-equity firm Insight Venture Partners, which would be new investors to Twitter.

Existing Twitter investors, including Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, are also expected to participate in the round.

Cyber-criminals have adapted their methods to the effects of the recession, with a crime being committed on the Internet every 10 seconds, states Computing.co.uk.

According to a report by security vendor Garlik, losses due to banking fraud have more than doubled since last year.

Tom Ilube, chief executive of Garlik, says fraud cases involving hijacking legitimate accounts have increased 207% in the past year: “We fear that account-takeover fraud will continue to increase in 2009 due to the decline of available credit and tighter credit-checking by the banks.”

Google has rolled out an Internet Explorer plug-in that turns Microsoft's browser into a Google browser, says The Register.

As it prepares to grant widespread access to the preview version of Google Wave, its new-age communications platform, Google has introduced an IE plug-in that equips Microsoft's browser with the rendering and JavaScript engines at the heart of Google Chrome.

Microsoft has fought back, saying Google's plug-in has doubled the attack area for malware and that running a browser inside a browser makes the user more vulnerable to attacks.

Intel is building an Atom-based system-on-a-chip design for television sets to make them the hub of social networking and interactivity, says Internet News.

The 45-nanometre Atom CE4100, which supports 3D graphics, aims to make the TV take on more PC-like function and interact with other devices so it can learn what viewers' interests are and adjust accordingly.

The computer knows what TV shows the viewer had been previously watching and makes TV-channel suggestions.