HP under investigation for bribery

Hewlett-Packard is reportedly being scrutinised by authorities in Germany and Russia for paying bribes to win a contract to sell computers to the Russian government, reports CNET.

The Wall Street Journal cites "people familiar with the matter" in reporting that German prosecutors are investigating whether HP paid $10.9 million for the chance to sell a sophisticated computer system providing secured communications to the Russian prosecutor general's office through a German subsidiary company.

HP's offices in Moscow were allegedly raided on Wednesday by Russian investigators looking into the matter on behalf of the German prosecutors.

Submitted last month and accepted this week by Apple, the Opera Mini 5 application is now at the head of all "Top Apps" lists, from every country in which the App Store is available, states AfterDawn.

There are over 50 million Opera Mini users globally. Opera Mini uses Opera's servers to render and compress pages, increasing speed for the end-user, and also working around Apple's stringent rules.

Whether all the downloads are just a curiosity, or proof that iPhone/iPod Touch users are looking for choice within their hardware, remains to be seen, but it seems pretty clear that Opera will gain a significant amount of users.

The stereotype of the teenage hacker wreaking havoc from his mother's basement has been replaced in recent years by the image of organised crime rings in Eastern Europe stealing financial information with banking Trojans, writes eWeek.

But a survey of teenagers in New York City, by Tufin Technologies, indicates hacking is far from dead among young people. Roughly 39% of the New York City teens said they think hacking is "cool", and about 16% admitted to trying it.

Seven percent reported they hacked for money, and 6% said they viewed it as a viable career.

When Discovery's six astronauts take the final space shuttle ride to orbit in September, there will be one more rider sitting in the back of the bus: Robonaut 2, the semi-humanoid robot created by Nasa and GM, says CosmicLog.

The 137kg robot, known as R2 for short, is being outfitted for its first tour of duty on the International Space Station - a tour that marks one small step toward a world where robots and humans work side by side in space.

Unfortunately, R2 can't take one small step right now: it's only a robo-head and torso, equipped with two arms complete with humanlike hands and five fingers.