Spy centre seeks code-breakers

UK intelligence agency GCHQ has launched a code-cracking competition to help attract new talent, reports the BBC.

The organisation has invited potential applicants to solve a visual code posted at an unbranded standalone Web site. The challenge has also been "seeded" to social media sites, blogs and forums.

A spokesman said the campaign aimed to raise the profile of GCHQ to an audience that would otherwise be difficult to reach.

Apple has found itself in trouble again, thanks to its voice-command assistant software, Siri, reports ZDNet.

The latest debacle came about after it was discovered that Siri had few answers when it came to providing information about medical facilities that offer services and information related to reproductive health matters.

The lack of information caused a firestorm, particularly because Siri seems to retain information about so many other health and sex-related topics, but not requests about the morning-after pill or abortions.

The creators of the no-holds-barred animated TV show South Park are teaming up with developer Obsidian (Fallout: New Vegas) and publisher THQ to release a role-playing game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, according to Game Informer magazine, revealed Wired.

“As the new kid in South Park, it'll be up to you to make friends and defend the town from a wide range of threats,” wrote an editor of the monthly gaming magazine in a story posted online yesterday.

The game will be fully detailed in THQ's January issue, to be released next week. It will feature an interview with South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who are co-writing the script for the game.

Barnes & Noble's expensive investments to keep its Nook e-reader competitive with Amazon's Kindle led to an unexpected quarterly loss for the bookseller, reports Reuters.

The top US bookstore chain, which has bet its future on the Nook as book sales shrivel, said sales from the Nook group of devices, including content like e-books, rose 85% to $220 million in its fiscal second quarter ended 29 October.

But updating the device and promoting it through an aggressive national television and newspaper advertising campaign weighed on results and will continue to do so, the company said.