Apple sued over iTunes site

An Internet entrepreneur from London is launching a legal battle against Apple Computer to try to overturn a ruling on the ownership of the iTunes Web site address.

Benjamin Cohen (22) is applying to the high court for a judicial review of his dispute with Apple over the address itunes.co.uk, The Guardian reports. Cohen registered the name in November 2000, and says he bought it after failing to register tunes.co.uk, which he wanted to use to redirect Internet users to his site, CyberBritain.

Apple originally offered Cohen $5 000 (lb2 680) for the address, but negotiations collapsed when he insisted it was worth at least lb50 000.

The dispute was referred last year to Nominet, the registry for UK Internet names, which declared the disputed name should be handed over to Apple.

Cohen says he is now asking the high court for a judicial review because "we feel the procedure that Nominet utilises to settle disputes is unfair and biased towards big business at the expense of legitimate small British companies".

A new phishing attack has been launched against Yahoo Messenger users.

According to security firms Akonix and Imlogic, the attack starts with an IM message from a user`s 'buddy` list of contacts. The message directs the users to a site where they log in and reveal their Yahoo identity and password. The phisher then gains access to the user`s personal ID stored as part of the individual`s Yahoo account, Enterprise IT Planet reports.

Neither Akonix nor IMlogic know how widespread or how much damage the Yahoo Messenger phishing attack is causing. Since this attack is focused on Yahoo credentials, the damage may be somewhat limited.

Scientists are working on ways to ensure laptops can stay powered for an entire working day, BBC reports.

The changes include everything from the way chips for laptops are made, to tricks that reduce the power consumption of displays.

Building batteries from new chemical mixes could also boost power significantly, say industry experts. A survey carried out in 2000 by Forrester Research found that the shortness of battery life was the most complained about feature of laptops.

Many laptop makers have committed to creating 14- and 15-inch screens that draw only three watts of power, which is far below the power consumption levels of screens in current notebooks.