Hacker buries $1m in backyard

The international hacker, who confessed to stealing tens of millions of payment card numbers, amassed a fortune worth more than $2.7 million, including more than $1 million in cash buried in his backyard in Miami, reports The Register.

Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez agreed to forfeit the ill-gotten booty in a guilty plea that was formally entered in federal court in Boston on Friday. It settles two of three pending cases, including one that accused him of hacking into computer networks operated by TJX Companies, Barnes & Noble, OfficeMax and other companies, and making off with data for more than 40 million cards.

The agreement also settles separate charges brought in Brooklyn federal court, accusing Gonzalez of stealing card details from servers operated by the Dave & Buster's restaurant chain.

The world's biggest social networking site has unveiled a slimmed-down version for people with slow or poor Internet connections, says the BBC.

Facebook has said the Lite site will be faster and simpler because it offers fewer services than the main site.

Initially, it is meant to support users in developing countries and where bandwidth constraints make the current version too slow to use.

Detoured by bad weather in Florida, the shuttle Discovery dropped out of orbit and swooped to a flawless California landing to close a successful space station resupply mission, reports CNet.

Shuttle commander Frederick Sturckow and pilot Kevin Ford fired the shuttle's twin braking rockets at 4.47pm PDT to drop the ship out of orbit for an hour-long descent to Edwards Air Force Base.

After a steep plunge across the Los Angeles basin, Sturckow took over manual control at an altitude of about 50 000 feet above the Mojave Desert landing site and guided the spaceplane through a sweeping 213-degree right overhead turn to line up on runway 22.

Numbers from the NPD Group show the video game industry is still struggling, as sales fell 16% compared to August last year, says eWeek.

The Nintendo Wii posted the best sales of the three major console makers, with 277 400 units sold. Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 posted increases, following highly publicised price cuts.

NPD reported that software sales slipped 15% and sales of video game accessories experienced a 2% gain.