UK worst e-waste recycler

According to a survey by Dell, the UK has the lowest rate in Western Europe for the recycling of electronic hardware, says Computing.co.uk.

The study found 13% of UK consumers do not recycle electrical goods at all, more than four times as high as the figure in Germany.

Dell also found that consumer confusion around the recycling options available for old electronics means one out of two British consumers do not correctly recycle their old technology.

A justice from Massachusetts's highest court has ordered police to return a laptop and other gear seized from a Boston student's dorm room after rejecting prosecutors' arguments that hoax e-mails he was suspected of sending might be illegal under a computer crime statute, reports The Register.

The decision, issued by justice of the Supreme Judicial Court Margot Botsford, also ordered police to immediately cease any ongoing search of the seized property.

Police confiscated 23 items, including three laptops, two iPods, two cellular phones, a digital camera, and a variety of data-storage devices, during a 30 March raid on the dorm room of the Boston College student.

Video-sharing Web site YouTube has removed hundreds of pornographic videos, which were uploaded in what is believed to be a planned attack, says the BBC.

The material was uploaded under names of famous teenage celebrities such as Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.

Many started with footage of children's videos before groups of adults performing graphic sex acts appeared on screen.

As Intel tries to expand beyond the personal computer chip business, it is changing in subtle ways, reports The New York Times.

For the first time, its long unheralded software developers, more than 3 000 of them, have stolen some of the spotlight from its hardware engineers. These programmers find themselves at the centre of Intel's forays into areas like mobile phones and video games.

The most attention-grabbing element of Intel's software push is a version of the open source Linux operating system called Moblin. It represents a direct assault on the Windows franchise of Microsoft, Intel's long time partner.