Teen probed in 'botnet` attack

A New Zealand teenager has been questioned in connection with a scheme by hackers to remotely take over more than a million computers worldwide and use them for criminal activity, New Zealand police and the FBI said Thursday, reports CNN.com.

The FBI has identified at least 2.5 million unsuspecting computer users who have been victims of so-called "botnet" activity. Hackers install viruses, worms and other attack programs that allow them to take over the computers and use them to commit cyber crimes.

Industry numbers suggest there are as many as five million infected computers.

A South Korean man, whose death initially was blamed on an exploding cellphone battery, was killed by a car accident involving his colleague, police said Friday.

According to the International Herald Tribune, the quarry worker, only identified by his family name Seo, was found dead Wednesday with a melted phone battery in his shirt pocket. Police and a local doctor who examined his body said the battery may have killed the man.

However, after preliminary autopsy results suggested damage to Seo`s internal organs was too great to be caused by a cellphone explosion, police investigated his colleague who first reported the death, said Min Kang-gi, a detective in Chungju, 140km south of Seoul.

Verizon Wireless is shaking up its technology plans for the second time this week, reports CNET News.com.

Two days after the company announced plans to open its network to outside devices and applications, it announced plans to switch gears when it comes to future networking technology.

Verizon Communications and Vodafone, joint owners of Verizon Wireless, plan to use the LTE (long-term evolution) standard, backed by GSM industry players, rather than the UMB (ultramobile broadband) standard backed by Verizon`s current partners.