Assange threatens News Corp empire

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he has a trove of private documents on Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp empire, and is prepared to release them in the event the whistle-blower Web site is taken down, reveals The Register.

“If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, 'insurance' files will be released,” he told The New Statesman. “There are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting organisation and there are cables on Murdoch and News Corp.”

The comments came a day after Assange told journalists in the UK that WikiLeaks planned to step up the publication of confidential US diplomatic cables following a lull in late December.

Sony has opened legal action against hackers who uncovered and published security codes for the PlayStation 3, reports the BBC.

The hack potentially allows anyone to run any software on their machine, including pirated games. Sony's lawsuit argues that this constitutes copyright infringement and computer fraud.

George Hotz, one of the hackers at the centre of the controversy, told BBC News that he was "comfortable" the action would not succeed. "I am a firm believer in digital rights," Hotz said.

YouTube has said it is serving up more than 200 million videos daily to smartphones and other Internet-linked mobile devices, states AFP.

News of the milestone came as the Google-owned video-sharing service began routing Vevo music videos from artists such as Lady Gaga and U2 onto smartphones powered by newer versions of Google-backed Android software.

"As the world goes mobile and more people watch videos on their smartphones, we expect more partners will take advantage of these new mobile advertising capabilities and make more of their content available across more devices," YouTube mobile product manager Andrey Doronichev said in a blog post.

TalkTalk has reiterated its stand against the Digital Economy Act ahead of the firm's legal challenge to the controversial legislation, writes V3.co.uk.

TalkTalk and BT are to take their grievances to court in March, and Andrew Heaney, executive director at the ISP, has argued again that the legislation will have little impact on file-sharing and is likely to affect innocent Web users the most.

"Users who want to engage in file sharing activities will always find a way to do so, while implementing the Act will recoup estimates of 20% of lost revenues, set against millions having to be spent enforcing the Act," he said at a House of Commons meeting organised by the Federation Against Software Theft.