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On Tech Brief today: Printable clothes, privileged programmers and your body is a prison.

• The government is listening. But not in the ways you might think. The has revealed that requests from official bodies to snoop on you are at an all-time high, :

"Sir Paul Kennedy disclosed in his annual report that in 2009, public authorities made 525,130 data requests to ISPs to view people's phone and e-mail records. That figure compares with a total of 504,073 requests in 2008. It is probable that the rise is down to the growing number of online crimes that police are having to investigate, said Kennedy in the document."

• In the future your clothes will be printed rather than woven. By future, we mean yesterday. Designer from the is using 3D printers to fabricate, err, fabric rather than go via the old-fashioned route of using sheep, shearers and sewing.

"...cranking out seamless, flexible textile structures using software that converts three-dimensional body data into skin-conforming fabric structures. The potential for bespoke clothing, tailored to the specific individual, are as abundant as the patterns that can be created, from interlocking Mobius motifs to tightly woven meshes."

• that they have been busy with a fascinating form of digital naturalism. The security researchers have been observing the password in all its diversity on the rolling veldts of the world's websites. The pair found huge variation in the way that passwords are treated, stored and safeguarded. They found plenty of bad news:

"On the whole though, the level of security implemented is dramatically lower than security researchers might expect."

There was also succour for those that struggle to remember all the passwords they have.

"At first the insecurity of passwords was blamed on users not behaving the way security engineers wanted them to: choosing weak passwords, forgetting them, writing them down, sharing them, and typing them in to the wrong domains. It's now generally accepted that we should design password security around users, and that users may even be wise to ignore security advice."

• More naturalism, this time of the common or garden geek. The that there was nothing common about those that have been programming from the days of their youth:

"Often, computer geeks who started programming at a young age brag about it, as it is a source of geeky prestige. However, most computer geeks are oblivious to the fact that your parents being able to afford a computer back in the 1980s is a product of class privilege, not your innate geekiness. Additionally, the child's gender affects how much the parents are willing to financially invest in the child's computer education."

• Finally, an end to the dreams we all have of one day leaving behind our fleshy prisons and upload ourselves to a database in the cloud. six reasons why you are going to be stuck inside your human host for a long time to come:

"The human brain only needs 20 watts to run the app called You, but with almost 7 billion of us and counting, we're already straining the earth's ability to host us all. Meanwhile, you know how much juice one Google data center consumes just to index the latest LOLcats (a task much, much simpler than hosting your digital consciousness)? 100 million watts. Do the math: We'd have to invent fusion reactors or build a Dyson sphere just to keep the lights on."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Welsh MPs and Assembly Members want UK ministers to explain the sudden departure of S4C's chief executive, Iona Jones. Her exit follows reports that the UK government plans to cut the Welsh-language channel's budget by 24% over four years, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports.

S4C's the night before her departure.

The [subscription required] BSkyB's purchase of the HBO dramas shows it wants to reduce its reliance on sports rights.

BSkyB's strong results put pressure on Rupert Murdoch to raise his offer for the rest of the company

In my ´óÏó´«Ã½ College of Journalism blog I look at Chris Addison's claim that political reporting is trivialising politics. The stand-up comic and actor from 'The Thick of It' singles out the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Nick Robinson for criticism.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s newspaper review says public spending cuts and reaction to government plans to scrap the mandatory retirement age of 65 fill many papers.

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• ´óÏó´«Ã½ | Shock resignation of Welsh-language channel S4C head
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• Torin Douglas | ´óÏó´«Ã½ College of Journalism | Cut the jokiness from politics reporting
• ´óÏó´«Ã½ | Newspaper review

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• Read Thursday's Media Brief

Commentators discuss the possible implications of plans to scrap the default retirement age of 65.

The the move will bring a change in how people manage their workers:

"For one thing, retirement provides a means of making redundancies without redundancy cheques, but there are also human factors, which go beyond penny pinching. No one wants to tell a long-serving member of staff that they are not longer performing as they once did, and automatic retirement provides one means to avoid such awkward conversations. The proper way around them, of course, is for managers to manage - to appraise carefully what each individual older worker can and cannot do, and where necessary to nudge them away from heavy graft, and towards activities and hours which might provide a better fit."

The that the next step needed is to make it easier to sack unproductive staff:

"In future, however, it will only be possible to dismiss the over-65s for the same reasons as under-65s. That is already the case in America, where older employees are a surprisingly dynamic presence in the workforce. But there is a difference. In the US, sacking incompetent staff - of any age - is not difficult. In Britain, it is difficult, thanks in part to indulgent employment protection laws passed by Labour. The situation is not yet as sclerotic as it is in Europe, where a worker practically has to burn down the office before his or her job is taken away, but that is the direction in which we are moving."

that the right to leave work will turn in to a duty to stay:

"[W]hen the retirement age becomes a matter of choice, won't that put us under strong moral pressure to carry on when we'd rather stop?
Ìý
"That's clearly the thinking behind the government's gift of our new 'right', since it will save the country a lot of money if we slog on - £15 billion, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, for every 18 months our average working lives are extended. "

that the move will not allow twenty-somethings like herself to advance up the career ladder:

"One of the supposed benefits of the age-change is that the buying power of those still in employment will further boost an ailing economy, or, as I like to paraphrase it, 'let them eat teacake'. The oldies in the corner offices can keep themselves in chenille socks and Ovaltine, and I'll be out there selling matches and bartering my hair just to stay afloat. But with Mum and Dad firmly ensconced at work, at least I'll be receiving pocket money until I'm about 47."

The director of the Centre of Policy studies that taking away the retirement age will not deprive the young unemployed of jobs:

"Should we fear a generation of bed-blockers sitting tight, denying jobs to the young? Only if you believe that there is a finite pool of jobs in the economy and that for every graduate or school leaver joining the workforce an existing employee must give way.
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"Such a belief has little basis in economics: statistical evidence from the UK as well as other OECD countries shows that increasing the supply of labour improves the rate of economic growth. The more pertinent truth is that the greatest burden on Britain's young people will be the cost of supporting an economically inactive elderly population."

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

BSkyB has reported a sharp increase in profits, up threefold to £878m. HD customers have doubled in the past year reports the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

The BSkyB has bought the entire HBO back catalogue, including The Wire, The Sopranos and Sex and the City.

The BSkyB's 3D channel, which has been showing occasional foootball matches, will launch fully on 1 October.

Personal details of 100m Facebook users have been collected and published. Is it a privacy breach? The ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports that Facebook says not.

The there have been more sightings of the "news raider" who stands in the background during TV news reports.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ newspaper review highlights the papers agree David Cameron has caused a diplomatic storm with his "export of terror" Pakistan warning.

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• ´óÏó´«Ã½ | BSkyB profits from high definition services
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• ´óÏó´«Ã½ | Details of 100m Facebook users collected and published
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Commentators discuss the proposed cap on the amount of people from outside the EU settling in the UK scheduled for April.

that David Cameron is sending a mixed message to India on immigration:

"Mr Cameron's determination to put a cap on non European Union immigration is causing concern in India. Anger too, since he now appears to be wandering around the country preaching the virtues of bilateral economic support while, back home, promoting an implicit message that some of the people who have come to this country in the past for economic reasons are not welcome."

The the coalition government is two-faced in its approach to Indian immigration:

"It wants more contracts, but not the people who go with it. It still has problems with the number of Indian IT software engineers who work in Britain. When the home secretary Theresa May announced a temporary limit of 24,000 skilled non-EU workers, she exempted thousands of Indian IT staff working in Britain, because they had come under a route known as 'intra-company transfers', which are governed by international trade agreements.
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"The argument now is between the business secretary Vince Cable who wants to keep this exclusion in place and the Tory commitment to reduce net migration by making the temporary cap permanent. Many Indian IT staff working in the British branch of their company are subcontracted on work outsourced by other companies. This could allow the home secretary to argue that it is possible to cap their numbers without contravening WTO rules. Mr Cameron has not got much room for manoeuvre if he wants to cut net migration, as there is already a ban on unskilled workers recruited outside the EU. A choice will have to be made and India will be watching which one he makes with interest."

The the issue of immigration is divisive for the coalition but introducing a cap while allowing in highly skilled migrants will be enough of a compromise:

"Dr Cable will clearly be lobbying hard inside the Cabinet for a flexible policy. But the Lib Dems will have to accept that their campaign talk of 'managed' immigration and an amnesty for illegal migrants must accommodate the firmer Conservative commitment to cut the numbers and close the doors to thousands of would-be economic migrants. At this stage, an open row within the coalition is unlikely. But both parties will find that this most divisive of issues must end in compromise. That is the essence of coalition government. And in this case, and on this issue, such a policy is right."

that the immigration cap is meaningless because it doesn't include the EU:

"Unfortunately, there is a severe inhibition on our picking and choosing people whom we want to come here which is seldom mentioned by Mr Cameron: the European Union.
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"EU immigration may have declined as a proportion of the whole, from as much as 60 per cent at the height of the boom to well under half, but it could rise again when economic conditions improve. the truth is that the Government is powerless to prevent this immigration."

that the cap is the wrong way to deal with voters' fears:

"[T]he cap looks likely to fail on its own terms - it will not significantly reduce net immigration. Net immigration to the UK is falling fast already in response to changing economic conditions, and the cap applies only to a small part of immigration flows to the UK (ironically, to the most beneficial and least controversial parts of those flows)... The way to deal with public concerns about migration is to change the political narrative and tackle a wider set of issues including the labour market, housing, and changing communities - the immigration cap does neither."

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US commentators give their views of federal judge Susan Bolton's decision to block key parts of Arizona's strict anti-illegal immigration law, hours before it took effect.

that the ruling has neither clarified nor ended the battle over border security:

"It seems confusing, and it is. But there is one thing about which there is no doubt. When someone unfamiliar with the judge's decision asks, 'Who won?' you can say with complete confidence: Nobody."

that while opponents and supporters of the tough law will be further polarised, those tasked with enforcing it will be relieved:

"Perhaps the only full sigh of relief was breathed by police chiefs around the state, many of whom do not share Arpaio's zealousness. Almost from the start, they had sought to temper the heated rhetoric with some broader realities: Illegal immigration in Arizona is down, as is crime, which is no more associated with illegal immigrants than any other subset of the population. Many never expected the law to result in mass arrests or deportations, as activists on both sides had predicted, but mostly to instill fear."

Judge Bolton moved "wisely" on parts of the law, but that the fight is far from over:

"Judge Bolton's partial injunction is a reality check for those who want to rush in with their own laws. But the only way to stem the tide of illegal immigration and bad state policy is for Congress to pass long overdue immigration reform legislation."

saying that the ruling means the legal process will "now act as a surrogate debate" for a what is a political problem:

"The answers aren't easy, and the courts certainly can't address them all. But doing something is better than the status quo of Congress doing very little. That's probably why Bolton took pains to both encourage Arizona while also writing a lengthy explanation for her decision."

that the ruling has broadly vindicated the Obama administration's high-stakes move to challenge the law:

"Now Judge Bolton's ruling has shifted the political pressure back onto President Obama to show that he can effectively enforce the border, and to move forward with an overhaul of the immigration laws, so that states will not seek to step in as Arizona did."

calling it an Obama victory:

"A federal judge's decision barring police in Arizona from demanding immigration documents from people they suspect of being in the country illegally was a dramatic victory for the Obama administration and civil rights groups that may be hard to overturn, at least in the short run."

However, that the ruling is unlikely to change the politics of immigration in the US:

"The equation spelling gridlock in Congress remains unchanged: The comprehensive overhaul promoted by Obama - and Bush - lacks any GOP support in the Senate, and therefore cannot pass."

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On Tech Brief today: Chatroulette cleans up and your robot friend on the other side of the world, and the end of the mouse, sort of.

• Google already has Orkut and Buzz. Now, , it is in talks with several makers of online games to beef up its social networking services or even release a new one.

"It is unclear when Google may launch the new gaming offering and the plans aren't finalized, but people briefed on the matter said the games would be part of broader social-networking initiative that is under development by the Mountain View, California, company."

• Chatroulette - the site where random strangers can meet and chat online via webcam - has decided to clamp down on its seedier side. As : "My son reckons he is getting a ratio of 14 naked men to one worthwhile conversation". Now, its founder has :

The founder of online video chat-room sensation 'Chatroulette' has revealed the company has been storing the IP addresses and even taking screenshots of users engaged in inappropriate conduct whilst connected to the service.

• Apple announced it is finally releasing its Magic Track Pad - a multi touch device for desk top computers - later this year. It prompted a flurry of stories about the death of the mouse, including :

"The mouse may be destined to become a precision tool that professions such as designers use. History may prove that this Magic Trackpad was the final mouse trap that signalled this end."

However, after a flurry of comments from readers, he was forced to update with :

"Let me be clear: I'm not saying trackpads and other multi-touch surfaces are going to replace the mouse overnight. Of course they're not. I'm also not saying that the Magic Trackpad specifically is going to kill the mouse. Of course it's not -- it's Mac-only, that's still a small percentage of overall computer users. What I am saying is that the Magic Trackpad is the device that is signalling the end of the mouse era."

• And finally, business travel could soon be a thing of the past, if a Silicon Valley start-up has its way. Anybots, first mentioned on Tech Brief back in May, has released the first of its tele Presence Robots, :

"A telepresence robot can, for example, tour a plant in China while the person controlling it follows along from their office in California. The tour guide could talk to the robot like they're talking to the person on the other end and can soon forget they're talking to a robot."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The and that the director of ´óÏó´«Ã½ North, Peter Salmon, is not moving there with his family, but will rent a flat in Salford. Staff at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Breakfast are said to be "disgusted". The ´óÏó´«Ã½ says he does not want his children's education disrupted and will move home at a later date.

Daily Mail owner DMGT has reported a 13% rise in ad revenue in the past three months. The [registration required] a 46% jump in digital ad revenue illustrates why it doesn't want a paywall round its MailOnline website.

BSkyB is expected to post record earnings later this week. this will widen the gap between Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which wants to buy the shares it doesn't own, and the other investors.

Former Channel 4 chairman [registration required] the new series of Dragon's Den reveals the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s "prejudice" against business.

Who would pay to use Twitter? No one, according to a US survey .

The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Newspaper review says the fate and future of BP feature in many of the newspapers again.

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Commentators discuss David Cameron's pitch for Turkey to become part of the EU.

The David Cameron's efforts to keep "hammering on" at allowing Turkey into the EU:

"It is not just that Turkey has a fast-growing economy or that it has a youthful workforce. It is because, with the failure or stagnation of so many key US and EU policies in the region, we could really do with the help.
Ìý
"This is not to paper over the gaps that open up between civil rights in Turkey and European norms, nor the period of political turbulence that the Justice and Development party is about to enter as it approaches an election. Nor indeed do we minimise the contradictions of Mr Cameron's position: praising Turkey's candidacy, but stepping back in horror when millions of Turkish workers knock on our doors. But none of this undermines the value of building a secular, majority Muslim bridge to the Middle East, the Caucasus and central Asia."

that Turkey's EU membership could prove invaluable to Western security:

"As a country which has good relations with both sides, Turkey could be useful in negotiations with countries such as Iran. Turkey should not be given membership purely for the sake of wanting to reward a moderate Muslim country but, with the right encouragement with regards to further reforms, its membership could prove invaluable to the security of the West."

The David Cameron is being disingenuous, calling his speech a "load of baloney":

"[H]e is the representative of a British electorate who are not remotely "angry" about Turkey being excluded from the EU just now. Most British voters do not know much about Turkey's membership hopes. Successive governments in Britain have been leading supporters of Turkish accession, along with places like Poland, Spain or Sweden. But when the British public are asked about the question directly they are distinctly lukewarm. The EU is wary of polling the Turkey question too often, but a 2006 Eurobarometer found only one existing member, Sweden, where more people supported Turkish entry than opposed it. In Britain, 30% said yes to Turkey, 52% said no, and 18% did not know."

In about why David Cameron would want to side with Turkey against France and Germany:

"France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel are both on the record resisting Turkish entry. Which are they: the polarized? Or is it the prejudiced? Or, perchance, might they be motivated by national interest? (Wait: Might the U.K. itself be motivated by national interest?)...
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"Name-calling accomplishes little in such a fraught enterprise. And making it all seem obvious and uncomplicated is only condescending.
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"The Turkish surely know this. Perhaps Cameron was calculating that earning good graces in Ankara was worth risking scorn in Berlin and Paris. But I wonder whether all he's done is lose credibility all around."

Conservative MEP that David Cameron's move was not anti-Tory:

"Cameron's reasons for backing Ankara's bid for EU membership are solidly Tory: Turkey guarded Europe's flank against the Bolshevists for three generations, and may one day be called on to do the same against the jihadis. In the circumstances, he believes, the Turks are being treated ungratefully by their allies. "He's right. The EU's treatment of Turkey will one day be seen as an epochal error. Had the Eurocrats made clear at the beginning that there was no prospect of full membership, and instead sat down to negotiate an alternative form of partnership, Ankara would have swallowed its disappointment."

David Cameron can support Turkey without worrying about the negative consequences of them joining the EU:

"Turkey can't join until it resolves its dispute with Greece over the division of Cyprus. Greece today depends on Germany for economic survival. So long as Berlin pulls the strings, Turkey has no chance of becoming Europe's 28th member state."

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On Tech Brief today: Broken phones, hypertext monks and brain repair via the power of games.

• America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been criticised almost since the day it passed into law. It was drafted as a way to limit piracy but the version that passed into law criminalised many cases that was argued were not really piracy.

Critics have had some success in rolling back the DMCA's more controversial elements thanks to the three-year ongoing review process.
The changes, , decriminalise some of the things commonly done with digital stuff, such as unlock smartphones, use video clips to educate and mash-up movies. the most "surprising" exception is the one on jailbreaking smartphones, such as Apple's iPhone.

"Apple showed up at the hearings to say, in numerous ways, that the idea was terrible, ridiculous, and illegal. In large part, that was because the limit on jailbreaking was needed to preserve Apple's controlled ecosystem, which the company said was of great value to consumers."

• Those who argue that the net does nothing new have a new ally: medieval monks. they might have been hypertextual before there was any hyper and not much text.

"The function of these images in illuminated manuscripts has no small bearing on the hypertext analogy. These 'miniatures' (so named not because they were small - often they were not - but because they used red ink, or vermillion, the Latin word for which is minimum) did not generally function as illustrations of something in the written text, but in reference to something beyond it. The patron of the volume might be shown receiving the completed book or supervising its writing."

• The French polling institute BVA has taken a look at Digital Natives, those aged 18-24, to see how technology shapes their lives. Almost completely, .

"The way a Digital Native see his (or, once for all 'her') environment is deeply shaped by computer games. 'When he is buying something', says Edouard Le Marechal who engineered the survey, 'finding the best bargain is a process as important as acquiring the good. The Digital Native enjoys using all tools available in his arsenal to outsmart the merchant system and to find the best deal. He doesn't trust the brand. Like in a game, the brand is the enemy to defeat'."

• Games are not just a lifestyle - as - they can be a therapeutic tool to accelerate recovery:

"When Jane McGonigal got a concussion last year, her recovery was taking longer than expected and she got discouraged. Then she decided to make her recovery process into a game called SuperBetter."

In the game, McGonigal dreamed up a secret identity for herself as Jane the Concussion Slayer who was destined to defeat the everyday activities that aggravated her symptoms such as drinking coffee, playing games and exercising. the game was so successful it's about to become a book and guide for anyone else that wants to pursue it.

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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Commentators discuss the resignation of BP's CEO Tony Hayward.

to say goodbye to Tony Hayward:

"I'll refrain from calling Hayward a Toffee-Nosed, Yacht-Racing-Snob as others have called him. I'll just continue to hope that without him, BP will at some point have a chance gain a soul and remember the now 26 Americans who have been killed in two BP accidents, 5 years apart. Safe operations and profit are not mutually exclusive. You just need a management who cares enough to make it so."

that Tony Hayward's resignation won't be the end of BP's troubles:

"When an executive becomes responsible for the fate of a company, he gets power, privilege, and enormous pay. He is expected to act to enhance the institution, not to undermine it. Of course, his departure will not save BP nor miraculously reverse the damage. But Hayward's departure allows BP to grab a broom for a clean sweep and fresh start."

The [subscription required] the BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to resign as well:

"Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP's Swedish chairman, was scarcely visible for much of the crisis. When he eventually arrived on the scene and visited BP's disaster operations in Houston, he did so accompanied by his girlfriend, on his way back from Thailand. He had gone there on holiday while his colleagues worked through the May nights to contain what turned out to be America's worst oil spill.
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"Mr Svanberg is not paid almost £750,000 a year to be strong and silent. He is paid to take responsibility, to communicate effectively, to manage the board and to back his management in difficult times. His failure to do that has too much resembled an attempt to protect his own reputation. In fact, he has sabotaged it. He has misunderstood the role of chairman: it is more than corporate governance."

if Tony Hayward's replacement Bob Dudley will be any better:

"BP appears prepared today to answer its very American problem with a very American solution - replacing its decent and gentlemanly, yet deeply British and culturally tin-eared CEO, Tony Hayward, with Bob Dudley, who grew up in Mississippi and is demonstrating a knack with American public relations. That's the strength and also the weakness in the choice of the 54-year-old Dudley - he'll do as well as anyone toward getting BP back on track with Washington, and limiting the political fallout of the April 20th Gulf of Mexico oil spill. But whether he's the type of personality who can turn around Wall Street, and battle successfully for assets around the world, are other matters entirely."

that the route of BP's mistake is trying to drill in hard-to-reach places:

"The new chief executive needs to learn from Tony Hayward's mistakes and turn his back on deepwater drilling as well as even more risky projects in the untouched Arctic wilderness and the tar sands. Greenpeace is urging Bob Dudley, the company's new CEO - who once worked at BP's solar and wind business - to take the company in a new direction after his predecessor's concentration on high risk, environmentally reckless sources of oil."

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Ofcom says internet users are not getting the broadband services they are being sold. It is revamping the ISPs' code of conduct the ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones says Ofcom's report is good news for Virgin Media, bad for BT.

that the Adevertising Standards Authority should be tougher on ads for broadband.

The Department for Culture Media and Sport is to close the UK Film Council and the Museums Libraries & Archives Council, and review many other quangos, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports.

Film director that closing the UK Film Council is like "abolishing the NHS".

Will Channel 5 do an advertising sales deal with Sky or Channel 4? Analysts that Richard Desmond's reported target of doubling its share of ad revenue is impossible. Dawn Airey has told executives it's "business as usual" at the moment.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s newspaper review shows papers are focussed on the leaked military files.

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• ´óÏó´«Ã½ | UK 'misled' on broadband speeds, says Ofcom report
• Rory Cellan-Jones | ´óÏó´«Ã½ | Ofcom: Broadband's broken promises
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Parliament breaks for summer recess today so commentators look back at how the coalition has gone so far.

Ex-Conservative MP that David Davis's jibe that this is a "Brokeback coalition" uncovers fear among some on the right of the Tory party that they are being ignored by their leader:

"But there's a real Tory anxiety behind the camp jokes that compare the Prime Minister and his deputy to gay cowboys. After all, it's only a few weeks since Cameron tried to merge the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers with his Ministerial team. He was forced to back down, and the internal elections that followed were a landslide for the Right. The PM recently wooed a mass meeting of Tory MPs, telling them that he will do more to love his party. But they suspect his passions are engaged elsewhere. 'I wish I knew how to quit you,' says one of the Brokeback Mountain lovers to the other. Some Conservatives fear that their leader, too, is gripped by a compulsion he simply can't resist."

Tory blogger the coalition is doing well with working out differences:

"Of course there are differences between coalition parties. Otherwise the two parties would become one. So far any differences have been ironed out very quickly, and the fact that interpersonal relationships are good says a lot about the goodwill between the party leaderships. I actually think that goodwill is reflected in the vast majority of both parliamentary parties and their memberships."

The despite positive poll results, the coalition members will still have to do more to convince the public:

"On balance, the public likes parties to co-operate and thinks the coalition is doing a good job. But this could change as the political drumbeat increases in the autumn, Labour elects a new leader and the cuts kick in. Any such change is likely to rattle Lib Dem nerves before it shakes... If they are to avoid party revolts and major disenchantment among well-wishers, Nick Clegg and his Lib Dem ministers are going to have to do a much more active and sensitive job of selling the coalition, and the place of the spending cuts within it, than they have done thus far."

how the coalition has been working out for the opposition:

"As it is, Mr Cameron's enforced marriage to Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats has bred a lethal complacency on Westminster's opposition benches.
Ìý
"Savage public spending cuts will soon enough put an end to the coalition's honeymoon, the reasoning goes. All Labour need do is sit tight, denounce each and every cut, and wait for Mr Clegg's party to lose its nerve. Labour, after all, is only 50 seats behind the Tories in the House of Commons. Political professionals call that a one-election margin.
Ìý
"The trouble with this thesis is that there is no iron law of politics that says an electorate fed up with its government will necessarily opt for the alternative. One might have thought that Labour had learnt that lesson during the 1980s. Angry as it will doubtless become with the coalition, the nation is not stupid."

that once Labour has a new leader, the Liberal Democrats will be in danger:

"Over the summer, the Coalition will have to devote considerable energy to working out how to protect the Lib Dems against the onslaught that is coming from the new Labour leader. Any further erosion in the Lib Dem poll rating could well destabilise the government."

[subscription required] that the coalition is going so well that there may be further alliance in the next election:

"What is a very real possibility, though, is some sort of electoral pact. Michael Portillo recently predicted that Conservative and Liberal Democrats would stand as 'coalition candidates' in 2015. Another option is for both parties to encourage anti-Labour tactical voting. Yesterday Mark Field, a Tory MP, said he thought that the Conservatives would give Lib Dems a 'free run' or 'hold their fire' in seats where Labour is the main challenge...
Ìý
"The introduction of AV would, of course, make it easier for the two parties to come to an informal arrangement. Mr Cameron could simply urge Conservatives to put Lib Dems as their second choice, and Mr Clegg ask supporters to put the Tory below the Lib Dem. This may be why the Prime Minister is agnostic about a change to the voting system - and why some of his allies are actively promoting the idea of reform."

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Will Richard Desmond's takeover of Five turn out OK? that while he's known for cost-cutting, he's also prepared to dig deep into his own pockets - spending up to £100m establishing OK in the United States.

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on the Andrew Marr Show he wants to meet the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Director General Mark Thompson to discuss pay at the Corporation, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports.

[registration required] he does not feel under siege at the ´óÏó´«Ã½:

"A few members of the press and others might be standing out there with placards saying, 'You're faced with a vast siege here.' But look at what the public say about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and it's not there."

The new presenter for the One Show, Alex Jones, bears more than a passing resemblance to Christine Bleakley, and not just in looks, the .

Mad Men's Joan, played by Christina Hendricks, is a better physical role model for women than stick-thin models, according to the equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone. The that the minister plans to meet fashion industry representatives, to propose that digitally enhanced images carry a warning.

The Queen has put many of her photographs on Flickr, including many historic ones, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s newspaper review says the expected departure of BP chief Tony Hayward is widely reported by the papers.

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Commentators wade through more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the Afghanistan conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks and published in the , and .

the leaks show Islamabad is the "Taliban's faithful ally":

"In fact, one might say that the one good thing to come out of this latest leak - a thing so good that it is worth the 'collateral damage' to the US from everything else - is that it could spell the end of Pakistan's repulsive double game. This is a game in which that country takes billions of dollars of our aid money (money paid, in part, in taxes by the kin of American soldiers killed by the Taliban) and then blithely, devilishly, mendaciously stabs us in the back by arming, protecting, financing, hiding, and advising the same forces against whom this country is at war. We pay them money so that they can help our enemies kill us."

The the Afghanistan war logs highlight the risk to the US from Pakistan:

"But yesterday's White House response to the claims that elements of the Pakistan army had been so specifically linked to the militants made it plain that the status quo is unacceptable. It said that safe havens for militants within Pakistan continued to pose 'an intolerable threat' to US forces. However you cut it, this is not an Afghanistan that either the US or Britain is about to hand over gift-wrapped with pink ribbons to a sovereign national government in Kabul. Quite the contrary. After nine years of warfare, the chaos threatens to overwhelm. A war fought ostensibly for the hearts and minds of Afghans cannot be won like this."

that the war logs don't tell us anything new:

"Otherwise, I'd say that so far the documents confirm what we already know about the war: It's going badly; Pakistan is not the world's greatest ally and is probably playing a double game; coalition forces have been responsible for far too many civilian casualties; and the United States doesn't have very reliable intelligence in Afghanistan...
Ìý
"I do think that the stories will provoke a fresh round of Pakistan-bashing in Congress, and possibly hearings. But the administration seems inclined to continue with its strategy of nudging Pakistan in the right direction, and is sending the message: Move along, nothing to see here."

In the against the that overall the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war:

"What does it mean to tell the truth about a war? Is it a lie, technically speaking, for the Administration to say that it has faith in Hamid Karzai's government and regards him as a legitimate leader - or is it just absurd? Is it a lie to say that we have a plan for Afghanistan that makes any sense at all? If you put it that way, each of the WikiLeaks documents - from an account of an armed showdown between the Afghan police and the Afghan Army, to a few lines about an local interdiction official taking seventy-five dollar bribes, to a sad exchange about an aid scam involving orphans - is a pixel in a picture that does, indeed, contradict official accounts of the war, and rather drastically so."

that even if the leaks don't reveal anything new, they can still have major consequences:

"Sometimes it can be crystallizing to see hard truths articulated not by reporters covering a war but in the real-time reports of the men and women on the ground. Moreover, the media frenzy about the documents--we're already seeing comparisons to the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers - is bound to startle the public and put a further dent in support for the war.
Ìý
"And that's not nothing. In recent months we've seen a steady drumbeat of bad headlines from Afghanistan, from the mixed success of the ballyhooed Marjah offensive to the spectacular flame out of General Stanley McChrystal. The Wikileak dump is certain to accelerate the feeling, both around the country and here in Washington, that the war effort isn't sustainable for much longer. And right now, the biggest secret of all, the one no one is leaking, is whether Barack Obama agrees."

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Richard Desmond faces a grilling from MPs if his £100m bid for Channel Five is successful, . The owner of Express Newspapers is expected to be named today as the preferred bidder. The deal is unlikely to be blocked by regulators.

Keith Chegwin is under fire from comedians who claim he's using their jokes on his Twitter feed. says the Daily Mail. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Magazine looks at whether you can copyright a joke.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ newspapers review says prison parties and the decision not to prosecute a police officer dominate the papers.

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Commentators discuss drinking culture at the start of a government consultation on licensing.

24-hour drinking "Labour's ghastly mistake":

"One man's right to drink himself into an aggressive frenzy denies another man the right to walk home safely. Freedom to drink into the small hours is often inconsistent with the freedom to enjoy a good night's sleep without the fear that some hooligan is being sick on the front door step or tearing plants out of the garden...
Ìý
"A society which endorsed round-the-clock drinking is half way to accepting that such conduct, even though undesirable, is unavoidable. I am a very long way from believing that is so. England can do better."

that preserving good pubs is the key to responsible drinking:

"Yet pubs are still, I think, the key to responsibility in drinking. They just have to be the right kind of pubs. We need to get back to the idea of drinking as a social activity in ordinary pubs, not getting off our faces in town-centre booze factories, because a sensible social setting is a check on the worst excesses of drinking...
Ìý
"The most important part of the proposals trailed yesterday is not about licensing hours, but the plan to end the sale of shop alcohol at below cost price. That is something we must tackle if we are to save the British pub, and remove alcohol from the pocket-money range of Welsh schoolchildren."

that the Tories would be right to ban 24-hour drinking:

"This is one New Labour mistake worth rectifying. It was the brainchild of James Purnell, who has now quit politics, having trashed our public spaces with his daft ideas of 'continental drinking'."

The reform to the licensing hours which allowed 24-hour drinking was long overdue:

"Reform to licensing hours was overdue. The old fixed drinking times were not a venerable English tradition. They were imposed in the First World War, to herd people home early so that they could rise at dawn and be in the munitions factories on time. It is true that Labour's changes did not lead to a much talked about 'continental' drinking culture taking root here. In retrospect it was foolish to raise such expectations. The British pub, the French cafe and Spanish tapas bar are very different species.
Ìý
"In the meantime, the link drawn between the phenomenon of binge drinking, to which people rightly object, and more flexible licensing hours, needs questioning. A fruitful line of inquiry might explore the connection between excess drinking and the availability of very cheap alcohol in clubs and supermarkets. It might also be worth pondering why so many people in this country feel a need to seek total oblivion from their surroundings through alcohol."

Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers chief executive that nothing is decided yet:

"I am appalled by the Daily Mail. They are trying to take ownership of a consultation document and assuming it will all be passed through. Of course, we all know that the majority of places that have 24-hour licences are the supermarkets."

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On Tech Brief today: Gaming is good for management and the unluckiest thief in the world

• Here is some news to quote during your next appraisal. Playing video games, such as World of Warcraft, can help you prosper in big business. :

"When you're in a raid that's poorly led, it was really easy to see how things like managing the social dynamic, making sure there was the right level of preparation and making sure there was a clear hierarchy were affected."

All this makes Tech Brief wonder how crazy must the domain name business be if it regularly resembles a 25-man raid on or a take-down of , broodmother of the black dragonflight.

• "Pirate" ISPs that let their subscribers file-share with impunity could soon be sailing on the seas of the UK's cyberspace. They could be pushed into existence by the controversial Digital Economy Act which :

"According to Pirate Party UK, this automatically makes them more pirate friendly than large ISPs, and provides an opportunity for Pirate ISPs to be set up, which also avoid the heavy financial cost of implementing the Ofcom rules."

• It would have been hard for one luckless criminal to choose a worse time to try to steal an iPhone from Jordan Sturm who was brandishing said handset on San Francisco's South of Market street. :

"'What are the odds,' Kahn asked, 'that you would grab someone's cell phone during a demonstration of the ability to track the phone's location in real time? That's what this unfortunate thief did.'"

The thief was tracked and caught within 10 minutes.

• Downloads have done interesting things to the music industry and the evidence is that they are becoming a significant factor in PC gaming too. :

"They're now estimating that download sales constitute 48% of the PC market, which means previous recent surveys have ignored about 21.3 million units. Whole lotta cash. That's even before you factor in the giant cash-pile generated from free-to-play games' microtransactions and whatnot."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

The Government has deferred until 2013 a decision on whether future home England Ashes Test matches will be available on free-to-air television the .

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports young people rarely see positive portrayals of lesbian and gay people on television, according to an analysis by Stonewall.

Facebook now has more than 500 million users, gaining 100m in the past six months the ´óÏó´«Ã½ reports.

The that it was a record year at the cinema box office, according to the UK Film Council

Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 will be shown on Freeview by TopUp TV. It's charging less than BT and Virgin, which will also carry the channels after an OFT ruling. But it means further confusion for the "Free" view concept .

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Trust has charged hotel and travel expenses of £36,000 after "refusing to move to London", . But the ´óÏó´«Ã½ says the Trust's expenses fell.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Trust members have "embraced the age of austerity" by slashing expenditure on entertaining, travel and accommodation by 20% to just over £60,000.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ newspaper review says that the papers focus on the performances of David Cameron and Nick Clegg on either side of the Atlantic.

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Commenators discuss the Scottish government's decision in 2009 to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi from prison and the US senators' calls for an inquiry.

that the Scottish decision was based purely on compassion:

"As far as the Libyan agreement is concerned there may well be issues for UK ministers to address, but not for the Scottish government. As a devolved administration it has no access to any BP tax revenues - these flow directly into the Treasury, and it is forbidden from playing a formal role in international affairs. There were no political, economic or diplomatic advantages for the SNP government in releasing Megrahi."

The that the decision can be seen as British, rather that Scottish:

"It was patently to the advantage of the Labour government to see Megrahi released. It not only set the seal on the return of Libya into the international community (a wholly desirable development), but also opened the way to potentially lucrative commercial deals, particularly in oil and gas. Yet Gordon Brown remained silent until Megrahi was back in Libya, determined not to attract the inevitable opprobrium; he was more than happy to see his old foes, the Scottish Nationalists, take the flak."

there is an advantage forScotland to the release being seen as a British decision:

"Considering even American politicians seem to have missed the distinction between Scotland's role and that of the UK - as calls by Senator Chuck Schumer to restore 'the integrity of the British government' suggest - it seems unlikely the anger against Scotland will be protracted."

The a full Lockerbie inquiry:

"Cameron has indicated that if any fresh concerns arise over the release he would consider an inquiry. But it is not the release of Megrahi which is at issue.
Ìý
"The basis of conviction is an entirely different matter. Lockerbie is unfinished business that will not end with Megrahi's death. That can only be achieved by a wide-ranging, independent inquiry with the power to demand all the available documentation. That is what should be assessed."

that the basis of Megrahi's conviction "was one of the great judicial scandals of the 20th Century":

"Amid all the bellowing about the release on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted of the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988, all current commentary ignores the hippo in the room - which is the powerful evidence that Megrahi was innocent, framed by the US and British security services and originally found guilty because Scottish judges had their arms brutally twisted by Westminster."

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US commentators give their judgement on British Prime Minister David Cameron, following his meeting with President Obama.

that David Cameron was "notably defensive" when talking about BP but one subject took over the event:

"Cameron had hoped to use his first visit to the US since taking office 10 weeks ago to build his standing as a statesman and develop his relationship with President Barack Obama.
Ìý
"Instead, the Lockerbie issue overshadowed a broader agenda that Obama and Cameron discussed in the Oval Office and over lunch Tuesday before addressing reporters."

that the jokes between Obama and Cameron where nothing more than stagecraft:

"On closer inspection, the forced bonhomie between the two looks more like the declarations of love that elderly married couples give publicly to friends and family after a turbulent spell in their relationship. All [the] while they privately negotiate an amicable divorce... Tuesday's meeting between two old allies might give Obama a welcome respite from national politics. But, one cannot help but wonder whether a visit from a more progressive partner might not be more useful to him domestically. Could it be that Obama is missing Brown?"

Before the meeting that the differences between Gordon Brown and David Cameron would be an advantage:

"The new prime minister, of course, is no Gordon Brown - a dour Scot with no gift for small talk. Cameron is young and charming, and on several previous meetings, he and Obama were very simpatico."

The comparisons continue with looking at how David Cameron's relationship with the US matches up to that of Tony Blair:

"For his part, Cameron hopes to quiet the relentless drumbeat of criticism of BP from Washington, and show constituents that he can manage a relationship with the leader of the free world that improves on former Prime Minister Tony Blair's reputation as America's 'poodle.'
Ìý
"Ahead of his visit, Cameron expressed concern about how the BP oil spill is hurting the company and pension funds invested in the now-troubled oil giant."

David Cameron is not Tony Blair, , but she thinks the jokes about beer and children's comparative tidiness may have repaired recent damage:

"It was not quite the Tony Blair-Bill Clinton love fest of 1997, but President Obama and the newly minted British prime minister, David Cameron, appeared game to do everything they could on Tuesday to take some of the recent chill out of the relationship between their countries."

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On Tech Brief today: A modern day Marco Polo; Swedish net providers embrace the spirit of the sixties; simple and safe passwords and the new darling of the Twitterati.

• Facebook is fighting another battle over its ownership. Web developer Paul Ceglia sued the firm in late June, claiming that an April 2003 contract entitles him to ownership of most of the company. He says he was contracted to develop and design a website in exchange for a $1,000 fee and a 50% stake in the product. The contract, he says, stipulated that he would get an additional 1% interest in the business for every day after 1 January 2004, until it was completed. Facebook had previously dismissed the claim, but the firm is less certain:

A lawyer for Facebook said she was "unsure" whether company founder Mark Zuckerberg signed a contract that purportedly entitles a New York man to 84 percent of the world's biggest social-networking service.

• Passwords continue to be one of the weak points of internet security. , points to a study that found that almost half of a batch of 32 million passwords that were inadvertently leaked in December 2009 were found to be "trivial" and easy to guess. However, Microsoft researchers think they may have a solution:

Instead of enforcing complex passwords, as many organizations do, the new scheme makes sure than no more than a few users can have the same password, which has a similar overall effect on security.

• If you're on Twitter, you can't have missed the chatter about Flipboard, an iPad app that creates a "social magazine" based on various feeds and the links that are being passed around amongst your friends on social networks. . was also one of the first to get her hands on it:

"Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate, personalized format in a mobile tablet touchscreen environment. In this social magazine, there are pull quotes, photos, videos, status updates and even the first paragraphs of content linked out to. There is also the ability to comment and share, as if one were on Twitter or Facebook."

• National Public Radio in the US was one of several sites that a trip described as "a modern-day version of Marco Polo's journey". A team of Italian engineers on are attempting to drive 13,000km (8,000-miles) from Italy to China. The catch? The car has no driver:

Governments have yet to write rules of the road for driverless vehicles, so the team has obtained prior permission from all countries along the route to carry out the experiment. To protect themselves from liability, they are placing one of the technicians in the driver's seat, ready to assume the controls or slam a red shutdown button if necessary.

You can follow the trip .

• Finally, pirates may soon have a safe haven. tells the tales of Sweden's pirate political party - a keen supporter of torrent site Pirate Bay and know for its anti-copyright stance - which plans to launch the world's first "pirate ISP":

"It's clever lateral-thinking approach to a very modern issue, yet reminds us of the spirit of the famous pirate radio stations of the 1960's--which actually shook up the existing legal system, changed the thinking about popular music and helped shape some of today's most highly regarded radio stations."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is preparing to cut up to half its staff, . It says Jeremy Hunt has proposed cuts of between 35 and 50 per cent. The Culture Department has one of the smallest staffs - 590 - and budgets - £2.1bn.

In my blog at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ College of Journalism I ask what did Jeremy Hunt actually say about the TV licence fee?

the sports minister Hugh Robertson is set to announce that TV coverage of the Ashes will stay on Sky, rejecting a recommendation that the cricket series should be shown free-to-air.

Amazon in the US says ebooks are now outselling hardbacks. It has sold 143 digital books for every 100 hardbacks in the last three months and Radio 4's PM programme.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ newspaper review says newspapers analyse the Cameron-Obama 'love-in' at the White House.

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Commentators discuss exiting Afghanistan following an international conference on Afghanistan where a 2014 target date was agreed for Afghans to take over their own security.

[subscription required] that Western policy makers had a stark choice and most are deciding they don't want to be in for the long haul:

"What was once a 40-strong multinational effort born out of international outrage over the attacks of September 11 2001 has become an American-dominated operation with a fast-disappearing supporting cast. The Netherlands and Canada, both substantial troop-contributing nations in the restive southern provinces, are both pulling out in the next 12 months. The new British coalition government is an uneasy mix of those who are steadfast in their commitment and those who are committed to an early exit...
Ìý
"Now is time to decide which course to follow: Change the way things are run in Afghanistan for good, or get out."

The president of the Council on Foreign Relations that their not winning so Afghanistan is not worth it:

"Afghanistan is claiming too many American lives, requiring too much attention, and absorbing too many resources. The sooner we accept that Afghanistan is less a problem to be fixed than a situation to be managed, the better."

that it is possible for the US and UK to exit without admitting defeat:

"Britain and the US will want two things. First, the opportunity to argue that the lives lost and money spent since 2001 have not been wasted, and second, some assurance that al-Qaida will not return. In the UK a new government has scope to change policy, but in the US there will be great sensitivity to any suggestion that the administration has failed to atone for 9/11. Talking to the Taliban is acceptable to US voters, but only if done from a position of strength.
Ìý
"However, it is perfectly reasonable for Nato to declare victory. The aim of the Afghan campaign has always been to defeat al-Qaida and al-Qaida is now barely present. The Taliban insist they have no intention of interfering with the security of any other nation. There seems every reason to put them to the test."

The that no-one at the conference pointed out the compromises involved in leaving Afghanistan:

"Their idea is to trade legitimacy for stability, so as to allow their own troops to go home. The most hard-nosed realists, including some of the diplomats sitting behind their foreign-minister bosses, say that extraordinary compromises will have to be made, particularly on women's rights. Perhaps even the country's territory would have to be traded away: the south handed to the Taliban, the north to a grizzly collection of old warlords, with only a token national government left in Kabul."

The
[subscription required] criticism of the decision should be put in perspective:

"The implications of the new policy, however, are far from subtle. It is inevitable that the shift will be seized upon by our enemies as evidence that we are cutting and running. It should be remembered that if we chose to stay, it would be seized upon as an attempt to impose an empire and suppress its people. We cannot have our strategy dictated by their propaganda."

The Western governments not to let go of control of aid to Afghanistan:

"He heads the most corrupt regime on the planet: a sickening proportion of the £24 billion in aid that has poured in since 2001 has been siphoned off by politicians and officials, much of it - we learned last week - fuelling a property boom in Dubai. Mr Karzai's request for even more money to be channelled through the government should have been given short shrift, for his latest pledge to root out corruption is, quite simply, worthless.
Ìý
"A more creative use of aid - despite our debt crisis, this country is unfathomably increasing its own contribution by 40 per cent - would be to direct some of it to those Pashtun tribal leaders willing to resist the Taliban."

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

The five trade unions at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have threatened a strike over changes to its pension scheme. It could start in September.

Melvyn Bragg has taken the South Bank Show Awards to Sky Arts, who he says are "really starting to punch above their weight" .

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones analyses conflicting figures on the Times 'great paywall experiment'. The paper's former media editor Dan Sabbagh has been told that just 15,000 people have signed up to pay for online access, but 12,500 are paying for the iPhone app.

The the Times has lost 90 per cent of its online traffic.

Should the TV licence fee be cut? And should the National Audit Office be given full access to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ accounts? Steve Hewlett of The Media Show and John Whittingdale, chair of the Culture Media & Sport Committee, .

The former owner of the Daily Telegraph Conrad Black has been granted bail pending an appeal against his fraud conviction reports the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ newspaper review says David Cameron's flagship policy, the "big society", is put under the microscope in several papers.

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Commentators review David Cameron's "Big Society" plans.

Conservative MP and chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Local Democracy [subscription required] of big society in Cumbria:

"It is not necessarily about charities or even the private sector, both of which are capable of manufacturing jargon as impenetrable and procedures as rigid as the most Byzantine bureaucracy. Nor is it about atomised individuals allowed to do whatever they want.
Ìý
"It's about collective action. We have more common land in Cumbria than anywhere in Britain; stronger co-ops and mutualised banks; we support everything from the air ambulance to mountain rescue. These are not undertaken by grand philanthropists; they are about collective endeavour, be it on planning, financing, building, maintaining or supporting. This is what we mean by local democracy."

that voters may not want to be given choice:

"[W]hat ministers have promised time and again over the last couple of weeks is much greater choice in some of the most important aspects of our lives: schools, hospitals, community services. Whenever they describe the sunlit uplands of choice, David Cameron and his men make two linked claims: first, that we are better off shopping around for public services, and second, that the exercising of choice will force headteachers and hospital managers to raise their game. Nor is that solely a Tory belief: Tony Blair (remember him?) used to go on in much the same vein.
Ìý
"Yet the evidence from these studies, and many others, is that those two premises do not stack up - because we're not that skilled at choosing. This doesn't mean that policy-makers should slip into something a little more centrally-planned instead. But it does suggest that ever-proliferating options aren't necessarily helpful or useful."

some ideas aren't new:

"So, back in 2005, Gordon Brown, as the then Chancellor, said he was going to use money in dormant bank accounts and give it to community projects. The Tories attacked it, quite rightly, on the issue of whether it was even legal to seize the funds from people's dormant bank accounts...
Ìý
"And now, we reach today, 2010, and we have, yes that's right, the proposals for a 'Big Society Bank' which is, in no way whatsoever the same thing as a 'Social Investment Bank', which will use money from dormant bank accounts to fund community projects."

that voters won't be impressed with helping stable projects compared to new ones:

"The emphasis on philanthropy is a good one but how well will it go down amongst voters who've been brought up to believe that many core provisions are funded by the state?
Ìý
"And having spent the last decade and a half as a professional fund-raiser I can tell [David Cameron] that the toughest giving proposition is to ask someone to provide support to deal with the consequences of government cut-backs. Donors like to fund the new and innovative not to keep sustain things that already exist."

what happens if the idea doesn't work:

"The risk for Cameron is that his big idea will not work. Quite often the state can deliver where individuals cannot. Last week the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced cuts to cooling systems on the overheated Tubes, saving a few million pounds. Under the Big Society he would no doubt call on travellers to bring their own personal fans as a more communal and cheaper alternative. Perhaps some would for a time, but in the end most projects in which the state has some connection require investment, expertise and co-ordination."

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On Tech Brief today: The spy in your spare room and the Nexus One becomes the Nexus gone.

• Few people give any thought to the blinking router in the corner of the room that speeds their mouse clicks and key presses around the world wide web. Until it threatens to betray them, that is, .

"A presentation due to be shown at the at the end of the month will show that many of the routers used for residential internet connections are vulnerable to attack by hackers. The attacks would allow traffic to be redirected and intercepted, in addition to giving hackers access to victims' local networks."

The presentation is provocatively entitled "How to Hack Millions of Routers" and there is a to which routers are most likely to spill their secrets.

• Farewell then, Nexus One. We hardly knew you. Google has stopped production of its widely trumpeted Nexus One handset that does not reign supreme in the smartphone market.

"The last shipment has arrived at Google HQ, and once those are gone there will be no more Nexus Ones for U.S. consumers."

Those with an unfulfilled craving for the Nexus might still be able to get one via other means, as long as stocks last.

"The handset will still be sold through Vodafone in Europe and some Asian carriers, and developers will still be able to get their hands on one, but it looks like the Droid phones on Verizon will carry the mantle for Google's Android mobile operating system. This is the end of the company's grand experiment with an unlocked consumer handset in the US"

• Better clouds are helping us get at the stars. US space agency Nasa is linking up with more than 25 other companies to create . that this is not a better way to pile up pancakes but an open, in the sense of software, way to swap data centres full of hot, expensive computers for something more serene. Jonathan Bryce from partner Rackspace spells out what it can do.

"With the OpenStack software, any organization will be able to turn physical hardware into massively scalable and extensible cloud environments using the same code currently in production serving tens of thousands of customers and large government projects"

• Finally, the guilty secret that many in the computer world practise at home. Alone. In a darkened room. We'll stop there and let Justin Olivetti take over:

"While I'm not shy about being a gamer, I don't exactly go about broadcasting it, either. For one thing, a lot of people still associate video games with either mindless violence or childish play. For another, it's simply hard to explain the attraction of games to those who have limited or zero experience with them."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

Apple's Steve Jobs has unseated Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, at the top of the . The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Mark Thompson is third, Rupert Murdoch fourth. Twitter founder Evan Williams comes in at fifth.

saying Selina Scott is not alone in being treated badly by the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

[subscription required] that Jeremy Hunt should not cut the licence fee, but replace it with subscription.

that the idea of Jeremy Hunt having a mandate to emasculate the ´óÏó´«Ã½ makes her blood boil:

The that The Times lost two-thirds of its internet readership in the first week it started charging, according to Experian Hitwise.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is introducing performance-related pay on Strictly Come Dancing, .

The first edition of Men's Hour on Radio 5 Live was never tear-jerking but was frank, .

that Men's Hour was 'more bearable than Top Gear'.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Newspaper review says today's papers focus on David Cameron's Big Society.

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As the British Prime Minister David Cameron prepares to meet with US President Barack Obama, commentators discuss the nature of the "special relationship".

that issues over Afghanistan, the Lockerbie bomber's release from jail and BP all prove that the US-UK relationship is still important, just not necessarily special:

"The fact is that these visits do matter, perhaps no longer to assert a 'special' relationship of the sort defined by Winston Churchill in 1945 but a pragmatic partnership of mutual respect and shared interests. To that end, it always helps if the two leaders get on well."

The David Cameron to make sure the early release of the Lockerbie bomber doesn't put him on the back foot in discussions:

The [subscription required] that the timing is right to redefine the special relationship:

"On both Afghanistan and BP, Mr Obama's position is defensive as his political problems pile up. Mr Cameron, therefore, has the opportunity to be exactly what the special relationship demands: a candid friend. The interests of the two nations remain closely aligned. This is not a moment, such as Harold Wilson's repudiation of the Vietnam conflict in 1966, for a breach in relations. But it is a moment for Britain to exert its position as a confident partner to the nation that, for all the rapid emergence of India, will remain its closest ally for the foreseeable future."

says despite planned media coverage in the US, the special relationship doesn't matter in the US:

"At least there were some corny TV images when Tony Blair went to George Bush's ranch in Texas - but Obama doesn't have one of those, and Cameron is not a natural for the buddy role. Mr Cameron has said he doesn't want Britain to be 'slavish' in its dealings with the US. But that doesn't mean that he is any less anxious than his recent predecessors to keep alive the narrative of the special relationship. Like the permanent seat on the UN Security Council, it helps Britain look more important than it is. Still, Cameron muddied the myth a little bit by acknowledging in an eve-of-visit interview with Time magazine that Britain is very much the junior in that partnership."

that the trip is a ritual with all substance lost:

"For the US, the most important relationships are with China, the rising Asian countries, the Hispanic nations to the south, and the EU as a trading bloc. Britain is way down the list. Cameron has described us as the junior partner in the relationship, which is obvious; but it is no longer such an important relationship anyway."
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"What I fear is that the Tories have to burnish their closeness to the US mainly because they cannot acknowledge the reality, which is that we are tied to Europe more strongly than they'd like."

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On Tech Brief today: Murder inside Twitter and a helmet that cares.

• Beware, the posters are watching. Well, some of them. In 27 subway stations in Tokyo. :

"'The camera can distinguish a person's sex and approximate age, even if the person only walks by in front of the display, at least if he or she looks at the screen for a second,'" said a spokesman for the project. If data for different locations is analysed, companies can provide interactive advertisements 'which meet the interest of people who use the station at a certain time,'

• When you were young, your parents were the ones that warned you to be careful when playing outside and took you to the hospital when your exuberance outran your physical prowess. Now you are all grown up, who is going to keep an eye on you? If you are a skier or snowboarder, the :

"The team designed a traditional ski/snowboard helmet lined with sensors that measure acceleration. An accompanying LCD screen displayed colors whenever the helmet experienced an impact. If the impact was mild, the screen would display a green color. If the impact was severe, the screen would display red."

In the event of a bad fall, the helmet could call for first aid and alert rescuers to an injured person's location. Even with light knocks, it could be a boon:

"The helmet could serve as an important innovation because of the complex nature of head injuries. Though many folks knock their heads while skiing or engaging in other sports, not everyone seeks medical attention for these seemingly mild injuries. According to the Northeastern team's research, if seemingly mild head injuries are left untreated, they can actually become more serious than a concussion."

• If a robot were given some of your memories and made to look like you, how convincing would it be? Could you take the day off while the replicant filled in? :

"It can make eye contact, and even recognize faces it knows (to some degree). Using an Internet connection it can get some deeper information to answer questions, and it's likely that it occasionally draws on Bina Rothblatt's data for some of its personality and desires (does the real Bina like to garden?). Yet its conversation skills seem no better than those chatbots that aren't based on real people."

• Micro-blogging site Twitter has given a peep behind the scenes at the string, sealing wax and mice on wheels it uses to keep the service rolling. Lately, it has been looking into ways of speeding up the way it updates its server farms. The solution? .

"It was time for something completely different, something decentralized, something more like.. BitTorrent... running inside of our datacenter to quickly copy files around. Using the file-sharing protocol, we launched a side-project called Murder and after a few days (and especially nights) of nervous full-site tinkering, it turned a 40 minute deploy process into one that lasted just 12 seconds!"

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

Gwyneth Williams, the new controller of Radio 4, as "the ultimate insider" and a safe pair of hands. She's "genuinely first-rate", according to Robert Peston, another candidate for the job, .

The government has delayed its plans for rolling out universal broadband by three years, says the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

The that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ executives spent £10,000 on taxis during the past three months, according to the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s regular declaration of expenses. But says they've cut back in the past year.

, philanthropists and arts sponsors have told the government that private giving cannot replace public spending on the arts.

The , that the Sun has shut down its internet radio show SunTalk, days after its presenter Jon Gaunt lost his legal action against Ofcom.

Potential cost-cutting measures fill the papers, with graduate tax and free bus passes making many headlines, says the ´óÏó´«Ã½ newspaper review.

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• Read Thursday's Media Brief

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On Tech Brief today: Getting tricky with videos of pretty girls and Esperanto for robots.

• One of the attractions of ChatRoulette is its honesty. Under the harsh scrutiny of a webcam there is nowhere to hide. What you see is what you get. . Researchers have found that if they pick the right video (no prizes for guessing that it was of an attractive woman) :

"In a test, they were able to trick users into thinking they were actually chatting with a prerecorded video of a cute woman. They did this by making the video choppy, as if it came from a low-bandwidth network and using text-based chat, instead of audio chat. Only one of the 15 users who chatted with the video asked the researchers to prove that it was of a real, live person. Otherwise, the researchers were regularly able to get people to chat for an hour using this technique."

• Tech Brief is unstinting in its efforts to warn when robots are poised to enslave humanity. That day could have come closer thanks to researchers Christoph Bartneck, Loe Feijs and Omar Mubin from the University of Eindhoven. The trio are developing a common tongue, , :

"Roila combines elements of the most successful natural and artificial languages. The words are composed of phonemes that are shared among most human languages, and a word-creation algorithm ensures the words sound as different from each other as possible."

The trio do not want to cut humans out of the loop entirely as the language is designed to aid human-robot interaction:

"The project's leaders say the proliferation of helper robots will require a more efficient means of communication. The easiest thing would be to talk to robots, but current speech recognition technology is not advanced enough for the robots to understand us very well."

The researchers have generated the word for love but may have inadvertently sealed our doom with other parts of the vocabulary:

"[F]or those wondering whether a robot language would allow our helpers to revolt, it's worth pointing out that Roila vocabulary includes bellicose terms like attack (kisate), army (kalutu), destruction (tofomu) and gun (fekopu)."

• One of the Chinese government's initiatives to police what people do online has hit the buffers - :

"Green Dam has a sordid history given its short lifespan. Last May, the Chinese government quietly ordered PC manufacturers to bundle the software with all computers sold in the country. The goal was to prevent children from seeing porn via a database of blocked sites that could be updated remotely. The software was also capable of performing semantic and image-based evaluation of incoming content."

But, continues , no more funding for the project has been forthcoming raising expectations that the project is about to be canned.

• Continuing the theme of official surveillance, . This put in place rules for the use of covert surveillance by official bodies, mainly law enforcement agencies. However, reports The Register, others found more innovative uses for it:

"Ripa powers to monitor citizens' activities could be used not just by police and state security services but also by local authorities to monitor compliance with various laws. Civil liberties campaigners criticised the use of Ripa to monitor residents' compliance with dog fouling or refuse recycling laws."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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• Robert McMillan | IT World | Researchers find privacy flaws in Chatroulette

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

The [subscription required] the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is spending nearly £10 million a year employing highly paid executives on "hidden" contracts that are not included in its £1 billion wage bill. It says they include the iPlayer boss Anthony Rose. It quotes a ´óÏó´«Ã½ spokesman saying:

"These are commercial arrangements with contractors who offer specific skills not available in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ at a salary cost we can afford."

The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s spending on new TV programmes has fallen by 13% in the past five years, according to an Ofcom report. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ says it's partly because of increased efficiency, and savings are put back into programmes. But the licence-payers will be angry.

´óÏó´«Ã½ has confirmed the move of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Breakfast to Salford, with 88 jobs expected to move north. ´óÏó´«Ã½ North director it's especially symbolic - the first ´óÏó´«Ã½ network news programme to come from outside London.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons has offered to meet Selina Scott to discuss her claims of sexism, .

Jonathan Ross has recorded his final TV chat show for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and said he was lucky and grateful to have worked at the Corporation, reports the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ newspaper review says the appointment of General Sir David Richards as the new Chief of the Defence Staff is greeted with universal acclaim in the papers.

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Commentators discuss the Labour leadership contest in the context of revelations about New Labour revealed in Peter Mandelson's memoirs.

The the Labour leadership candidates to learn from "Labour's ghastly soap opera":

"Lord Mandelson recalls a conversation with that party wiseacre, Sir Gerald Kaufman, who tells him: 'Gordon is what he is... we're stuck with him. What you cannot cure, you endure.' But Labour was not stuck with Mr Brown - they put him in office and then kept him there. Nobody in the Cabinet challenged him for the leadership when Mr Blair resigned, and on at least three occasions the opportunity to remove him from Number 10 was ducked. The four former Cabinet members who are now competing for the Labour leadership should look back on this period and consider how they might have behaved in the public interest, rather than their own. They will have plenty of time in opposition to reflect."

what the conflicts exposed by Peter Mandelson's memoirs mean for the contenders for leadership:

"[T]he biggest lesson from this latest version of the soap opera is that running a party from the very top becomes as destructively intense as one in which virtually every member is consulted in advance on what should be in the Budget. Sometimes, a leader and a Chancellor benefit from being compelled to consult more widely before making policy decisions...
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"That does not mean giving control back to a party. Parties are too weak to acquire such assertiveness. But there must be a model for party politics that navigates between two extremes in which mad, bad and dangerous becomes an inevitable epitaph. For now New Labour leaves behind a perceived legacy that is almost as dangerous for the party's next leader as the one that a series of leaders faced after it left power in 1979."

a fake diary entry of Ed Balls' which would deal with Gordon Brown trying to get involved in the campaign:

"Think I have got Gordon off the idea of 'helping' with the campaign. Told him I would be proud to have him sit behind me in the chamber. It dawned on him that he wouldn't be sitting on the front bench. Pretty sure we won't see him in parliament being mocked by the Tories."

that Ed Miliband is the likely winner of the leadership battle:

"David Miliband is running the most professional campaign by far and I hear whispers he may receive a valued endorsement any day soon. However unless he can considerably pull away from his brother, he will surely be reeled in once transfers kick in on all sections of the college - as the Socialist Health Associate figures so clearly demonstrate.
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"Despite not knowing for certain how the big unions will fall, I believe Ed Miliband should be evens at most to be the next Labour leader. He remains the clear value bet."

that none of the five candidates have "the vision thing":

"The scandal of this contest is not that four of the five candidates are former special advisers and ex-cabinet ministers, or that five out of five of them are Oxbridge graduates, but that all five of this quintet of well-educated, well-informed, elite and wonkish candidates have failed to come up with a Big Idea between them. Instead, there are nudges to the left or the right, on this or that issue; shifts in tone or emphasis that give them room for tactical, if not strategic, manoeuvre."

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On Tech Brief today: Sweet smell of success for Old Spice, the two-second love affair and the end of the road for the oldest PC games magazine.

• It's not often that Tech Brief feels particularly fragrant but the web is buzzing today over an ad campaign launched by traditional men's aftershave Old Spice.

Former American football player is appearing in voicing personal replies to tweets sent in the direction of - , and founder Kevin Rose are among those to have received a video answer to their tweets.

A rather breathless :

"It's still early in the year, but I think we might have 'the social media campaign' of 2010. Managing to bridge their ATL activity with one-to-one responses via social media is brilliant, but the fact that the responses are so consistently funny puts this over the top."

• Take That once sang that it only takes a minute to fall in love... unless you're a marketing e-mail in which case you have about two seconds, according to e-mail analyst firm Litmus.

blogged about his findings, based on a trail of four million opened messages, where 51% were deleted within two seconds of being opened. He said:

"In the best email campaigns, 77% of people fully read the message - On average, 0.12% of readers printed the email - In one campaign (a coupon), 4% of people printed the message - On average, 0.63% of readers forwarded the email - In the most viral campaign, 9% of readers forwarded the email"

• to , launched in 1993, which is set to close after the next issue is published on 2 September:

"Farewell, then, to the UK's first PC games mag. Trails were blazed. It Was Important. And now it's gone."

• that the web giant will fund 15 research projects totalling almost $1m into the analysis of digitized texts:

"Shouldn't we be able to characterize Victorian society by quantifying shifts in vocabulary--not just of a few leading writers, but of every book written during the era? Shouldn't it be easy to locate electronic copies of the English and Latin editions of Hobbes' Leviathan, compare them and annotate the differences? Shouldn't a Spanish reader be able to locate every Spanish translation of "The Iliad"? Shouldn't there be an electronic dictionary and grammar for the Yao language? We think so."

•Craig Newmark, founder of social network Craigslist, is campaigning in Washington for a more open US government, . The Obama administration could learn a lot from the success of Craigslist, suggests the Babbage blog:

"Perhaps Mr Obama could tap Mr Newmark's experience more widely, appointing him as the government's own chief customer-service representative: if federal services were all as cheap, simple and useful as craigslist, that really would be a public-sector revolution."

over time have included replica Pope hats, 300 stuffed penguins and a bathroom for rent.

Perhaps not quite the sort of openness the Economist had in mind.

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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• Babbage | The Economist | Mr Newmark goes to Washington

I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

The DJ Jon Gaunt has lost his legal battle with the media regulator Ofcom over a TalkSport broadcast in which he called a local councillor a "Nazi". But the complex ruling was not a total defeat. The the Sun is considering applying to Ofcom for a digital licence for its online radio show SunTalk, hosted by Gaunt.

she has submitted a dossier to the chairman of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, which she believes it will trigger "nothing short of a revolution within Television Centre". It was compiled in conjunction with Age UK, and claims "an obsession with youth" has left women over 50 redundant at the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

The the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has told staff it is considering moving ´óÏó´«Ã½ One's Breakfast programme to its new Northern base in Salford. The staff are angry and think it will be a "gift to ITV" because stars won't want to go there to be interviewed. But if it happens, viewers could really start to notice that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was making more of its programmes in the North.

Is David Cameron the first Prime Minister who really gets the internet? The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Rory Cellan Jones says the PM has an iPad as well as a Blackberry but questions whether his ambitions to take the UK to the top of the broadband league are realistic.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ News website has a new look. Editor Steve Herrman explains what's changed and why.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Newspaper review says the papers have extensive coverage of the killing of three British soldiers and the wounding of four others by a renegade Afghan serviceman. Papers review

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Commentators discuss the NHS reform proposals.

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Ex Tory shadow health minister that Andrew Landsley is right to restore fundholding to GPs:

"It was one of the biggest successes of the Thatcher administration and, although originally suspicious, the medical profession became so enthusiastic that by the time the Conservatives left office in 1997 almost two thirds of GPs were fundholding or applying to be so.Ìý
"It had never been made compulsory but was simply allowed to sell itself.
Quite simply it means that GPs can refuse to use hospitals where procedures or attitudes are unsatisfactory and buy places elsewhere. Hence block appointments with patients waiting around all morning disappeared and did not creep back until Labour took away doctors' power."

that those in her profession may not be the best people to be in control of NHS money:

"At the moment, I attend a commissioning group meeting four times a year. It is dominated by a few individuals who have a strong agenda. Most participants eat their sandwiches in silence, nod off and appear to have little understanding of, or interest in, proceedings. The responsibility involved in commissioning is huge and the training nonexistent. It doesn't appear on the medical school curriculum: I've never been sent on or offered a course and can't read a balance sheet. Why would anyone want me to be responsible for complex budgetary decisions?"

that the reform is just cloaked privatisation:

"Strip away the management speak and David Cameron's naked policy is to privatise health, to wreck universal free care, to recreate the postcode lottery, to celebrate markets over medical need, to champion profit ahead of patients. Dr Cameron and his junior medic Andrew Lansley are, of course, too scared to tell the truth."

that history is repeating itself, but not from the Thatcher years, instead from New Labour:

"Andrew Lansley's White Paper on health, for example, was released yesterday - almost exactly 10 years after Tony Blair's NHS Plan. Rather than being a refutation of the Blair-era health strategy, it looks strikingly like a reprisal. Once again, we see the excellent idea of a full internal market within the NHS. Once again, we are told to look forward to the greatest overhaul since its inception in 1948. And once again, we see a Health Secretary showing almost touching confidence that the NHS bureaucracy will play along and that the Primary Care Trusts will fully co-operate in their own abolition.Ìý
"Ten years ago, Mr Blair and Alan Milburn also believed they could direct reform from Whitehall. But as time went on, they found that they were outmanoeuvred at every level. GPs would simply refuse to inform patients that they had the right to attend a private clinic at the NHS's expense."

that the communication strategy surrounding the announcement of reforms has been lamentable:

"It has widely been reported as the biggest reorganisation since Nye Bevan or somebody. People do not want a reorganised health service, they want a better one. What on earth went wrong?"

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On Tech Brief today: How to use cellphones when there is no coverage, an Apple backup device recall, and a new way of viewing Mars.

• Chances are that you've found yourself completely out of mobile phone range on a number of occasions. Help may be at hand though, as :

"The three-person team, led by Flinders University's Paul Gardner-Stephen... headed into the remote, sparsely populated Arkaroola Sanctuary over the weekend to test their Serval Project with hacked Android phones. Results were promising, with Gardner-Stephen chatting with a colleague on another mobile phone several hundred metres (about a quarter of a mile) away.

"The Serval Project involves fitting phones with open-source software called Distributed Numbering Architecture (DNA) that essentially turns phones' Wi-Fi capability into a mini tower and lets them connect with other phones to form their own network. The software lets people use their existing phone numbers so they can be reached easily."

Leslie Katz says the researchers see enormous potential in their system for helping out in disaster relief, or situations where no telephone network exists:

"By integrating DNA with hardware called 'mesh potatoes' developed by Village Telco, Gardner-Stephen and his team say they will be able to provide telephone access to millions of people who currently lack affordable telephone coverage, as well as help those affected by disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and the like."

• One thing you might hope to have with a back-up gadget is reliability. However, :

"Owners of units whose serial number lies within the range of XX807XXXXXX - XX814XXXXXX can get them repaired or replaced free of charge, by post or in person - though to save your data you'll have to take it to an Apple Store or authorised retailer so that they can retain the data from the hard drive."

Charles Arthur says that the problem came to light in part thanks to a collective effort to track serial numbers for broken Time Capsules, run by Pim van Bochoven:

"Van Bochoven's Time Capsule Memorial Register was launched in October of the same year [2009] to provide a crowdsourced official record of the serial numbers and lifespans of broken devices, which totalled 2,500 doomed devices before he stopped updating the site in February 2010, having reached 2,500 dead devices (plus a number of "prank" submissions from Windows users, whose attempts were evident from the incorrect serial numbers offered - come on, people)."

It's been a difficult time for Apple lately. The recall comes at the same time as news that the respected . The magazine praised the phone for many of its new features, but carried out tests, confirming that the phone does lose reception when held in a particular way. It also offered a low-cost fix:

"We did... find an affordable solution for suffering iPhone 4 users: Cover the antenna gap with a piece of duct tape or another thick, non-conductive material. It may not be pretty, but it works."

• Google has launched a supposedly easy-to-use software package to help novices create applications for phones running its Android operating system. :

"I spent around 90 minutes this morning cranking away on a few test applications in App Inventor, and while I'm very excited about it, this is not going to be a walk in the park for 'ordinary people'. Unless you're looking to make an extremely basic application -- think 'Hello World' -- you're going to have to read through the documentation, and in some cases even the existing tutorials won't be enough. That said, this will be absolutely perfect for the classroom environment for which it's been tested in."

Jason Kincaid's is well worth a read for any budding novice app creators.

• It is sometimes suggested that citizen journalists will be able to fill the void left by local newspapers, which are increasingly closing their doors as a result of advertising money being transferred to the web. Ars Technica has been examining :

"Summing up, the authors paint a fairly grim picture of the state of local news. 'Despite hopes for a thriving genre of citizen journalism as at least a partial replacement for legacy journalism, those hopes have not been realized,' they conclude. 'In content and coverage, CitJ [citizen journalism] lags behind legacy web sites on a variety of dimensions considered indicative of news quality.'"

But John Timmer is not convinced by the conclusions:

"For starters, it appears that fans of traditional media should celebrate the results: legacy sites have identified many of the promising participatory features of citizen journalism, and embraced them. Discussions, content hosting, and online interactivity all feature prominently on the legacy sites now.

"The authors' judgement may also be overly harsh when it comes to citizen journalism. Even if a given site is limited by a lack of features or resources, savvy users can easily recognize the limitations and use the site accordingly, supplementing it with other sources as needed."

Finally, Mars Daily :

"Today, Microsoft Research and NASA are providing an entirely new experience to users of the WorldWide Telescope, which will allow visitors to interact with and explore our solar system like never before. Viewers can now take exclusive interactive tours of the red planet, hear directly from NASA scientists, and view and explore the most complete, highest-resolution coverage of Mars available."

WorldWide Telescope users have a choice of downloading and installing a piece of software to access the detailed images, or going via a web application.

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on. Some content may need a subscription.

More than 20 million people watched the World Cup final at its peak, 18 million on the ´óÏó´«Ã½, according to unofficial overnight figures. The game averaged 15.1 million viewers on ´óÏó´«Ã½1 and 3.3 million on ITV1, report the and .

[subscription required] ITV's World Cup ITV Live website attracted more than 2 million unique users during the tournament. 800,000 downloaded its ad-funded iPhone app.

the about-turn on ´óÏó´«Ã½ 6 Music but fears that Tim Davie, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Director of Audio and Music, is going to ruin Radio 7:

"Oh no! He's about to do away with the very best thing to come out of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s digital venture. ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 7 has an identity all its own.... 4Xtra sounds as if it will offer yet another chance to hear A History of the World in 100 Objects."

"Playboy - with its bunny girls and associations of the swinging sixties - is now archaic."

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Commentators discuss the Church of England's decision to allow women bishops.

The [subscription required] the divide in the Church puts Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a difficult position:

"Either he pursues compromise for the health of the wider communion and Christian unity, at the expense of the logic and principles that he surely recognises. Or he postpones the search for unity by causing offence to traditionalists who seek above all an eventual union with Rome. This is a circle that cannot be squared. Dr Williams's attempt to straddle the divide between radically opposed positions will fail and has damaged his authority. The same is true of Dr Sentamu.
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"It is more in keeping with the Church's principles, and with Dr Williams's own instincts, to right an historic wrong than to cater to the demands of a semi-detached minority."

Bishop of Fulham, Father that he can't accept women bishops and says there will be serious consequences to ignoring the wishes of people like him:

"I think there is a split. The problem we've got that the Church of England promised Parliament that it would make permanent provision for us [those against women bishops] and it is now reneged on that promise and has now saying to us: 'Go away if you won't accept what we want'... It's not a very Christian way for a group to behave. We have serious theological opposition to women bishops...
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"I think that it is inevitable that people are forced out. We have been dispossessed of our own church. Simple as that.... People have to decide whether they knuckle under, whether they go or whether they defy it."

The chairman of the organisation Reform which aims to change the Church of England in accordance with scriptures Reverend Rod Thomas said on ´óÏó´«Ã½ 5Live Drive that his belief that women shouldn't be bishops isn't to do with equality but is instead about theology:

"It goes back to what we think the Bible teaching about how the Church should organise itself and the way the Church organises itself tells everyone else around something very important about God's relationship with his people. So the role of men in the Church is supposed to tell people something very important about God, about his leadership but also about that fact that he leads by self-sacrifice. It tells everyone around something very important. If you muddle up those roles you no longer can demonstrate what the bible wants us to demonstrate."

The media officer of campaign group WATCH (Women and the Church) that the women have always been a problem for the Church, which is inconsistent with teachings:

"In this whole debate no one ever seems to bring into the picture Jesus, on whom Christianity is founded, who crossed the cultural boundaries of his time with regard to women. He loved, talked with, taught and healed them when others would have sent them away. He showed by his actions that he did not need any 'protection' from women any more than we do in our time. It was a woman, after all, he charged with telling his followers that he had risen - mind you she was not believed at first either.
Ìý
"The tragic thing is that this whole debate has been a real stumbling block to the mission of the church, especially for our sisters, daughters and granddaughters, who draw inferences about themselves as the faulty half of creation and say, 'No thanks'."

she used to be against women bishops because she was ignorant. She challenges the reasons people give for being against women bishops:

"Jesus was a man, he appointed twelve disciples who were men, and they laid hands on other men who became Bishops and so it went on... Jesus's twelve disciples were men, yes, but they were also Jewish and circumcised, should we insist on this?"

that women bishops will sink the Church of England as he says they have done in the American Episcopal Church:

"In terms of Average Sunday Attendance and general population growth in those dioceses [run by women], the losses have ranged from 21% (Maine) to 49% in Nevada (former diocese of Jefferts Schori)...
Ìý
"The answer as to what women bishops in The Episcopal Church have achieved is nothing. If they were CEO's of small corporations, they would all have been fired for failure, at the very least, to maintain growth and expand it, that is, show a return (on the plate) for future growth. All these dioceses are contracting with an average parishioner age in the low to mid 60s with the average size congregation now below 70."

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On Tech Brief today: Google Games gets going and how to save water with a soccer pitch.

• Rare is the student who has any cash to spare. Especially when they are called Joel Tenenbaum. The graduate student was ordered to pay $675,000 in damages for illegally sharing 30 songs. He appealed and the judge in the case reviewed it and agreed the total was ""unconstitutionally excessive". . Mr Tenenbaum responds:

"Obviously, it's better news than it could have been. But it's basically equally unpayable to me."

• When Google turned the logo it sucked up hundreds of hours of productivity as folk spent time eating dots and . Now, , social games giant Zynga has been the recipient of a $200m investment by the search firm.

"Zynga will be the cornerstone of a new Google Games to launch later this year, say multiple sources. Not only will Zynga's games give Google Games a solid base of social games to build on, but it will also give Google the beginning of a true social graph as users log into Google to play the games."

• Robots can build cars, clean your floors and now educate your children. , how to keep things tidy and, in the case of a robot called RUBI, languages. The upside is the robot's endless patience and delight in repetition. But it's not all good.

"Like any new kid in class, RUBI took some time to find a niche. Children swarmed the robot when it first joined the classroom: instant popularity. But by the end of the day, a couple of boys had yanked off its arms."

• The NSA is watching. The National Security Agency handles many of the secret cyber activities of the US government. .

"Perfect Citizen will look at large, typically older computer control systems that were often designed without Internet connectivity or security in mind. Many of those systems--which run everything from subway systems to air-traffic control networks--have since been linked to the internet, making them more efficient but also exposing them to cyber attack."

• The success of water pumps disguised as roundabouts has been well documented. Now Atopia Research is taking the idea further by producing .

"The field and stands are permeable and allow water to collect right below the surface into cisterns kept at ground level to be easily accessible to the local community. The football field's bleachers can also be used to house schools, health clinics and local stores. It can be built using local materials that are readily available such as abandoned shipping containers for cisterns to make it an extremely cost-effective model."

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Commentators discuss Peter Mandelson's memoir and what it means for the future of the Labour party.

that Mr Mandelson's book affects the current Labour leadership contest:

"For the fundamental purpose of this book (besides making a huge sum of money for P Mandelson Esq) is to make sure that Gordon Brown gets the personal blame for all the disasters and mistakes of 13 years of Blair government... David Miliband and Andy Burnham are diehard loyalists of Tony Blair, while Ed Balls and Ed Miliband are longstanding courtiers of Gordon Brown. Ìý
"This means Brown and Blair are fighting out a battle for the future of the Labour Party by proxy - hence the urgency of Peter Mandelson's brutal and vindictive assault on Gordon Brown. Mandelson's intention is to ensure that the future of Labour belongs to Tony Blair and his disciples, above all David Miliband."

that if David Miliband wants to win the Labour leadership contest he should use the book to criticise Gordon Brown:

"If David Miliband wants Labour to move on, a frank, uncoded, reflection on the period of Labour brutalism is required. Brown was a disaster for the Labour Party and the country, if Miliband wants a reborn Labour Party he first has to bury Brown in the truth."

that Peter Mandelson is acting out of his own interests and, contrary to what the book says, he is to blame for the extent of Labour's defeat in the last election:

"The man who ensured that Labour would spend five, possibly 10, years out of power now hopes to capitalise on his tales of those torrid years in government. We are told that the book portrays Brown as 'seriously unhinged'. Some gratitude, that. If Mandelson is prepared to betray Brown for money now, perhaps he should have done so for the sake of his party two years ago."

the sections he has read are not anything new:

"And the first 'news' is that in the post-election discussions with Labour in May Nick Clegg demanded Brown's scalp as a price for any coalition deal. But couldn't we have guessed that anyway? [...] There will be other tit-bits in the coming days but it needs to be better than this."

that it is worth reserving judgement:

"Mandelson's bank-swelling memoir, The Third Man, seems to have as its cutting edge another assault on Brown, which is - at least as advertised so far - entirely familiar: the rage against Tony Blair, the contemptuous henchpeople tripping up Peter behind the scenes; the moments of self-realisation and sadness too.Ìý
"It would be wrong to give a verdict on a book not yet available to read, but the advertising and the pre-publication interview suggest this is the theme Mandelson wants to be noticed. His book was preceded by the Campbell diaries, with a similar theme; and will be followed by Blair's own tome, which Mandelson seems to have scooped, and by others by former Labour ministers. One day, no doubt, Brown will have his own say and, if he dares to be fully honest, that may be the most fascinating of them all."

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Ten people who admitted to spying for Moscow in the US have arrived in Russia after being part of the Here is some reaction from US media:

whether the United States could have performed better in negotiations with Russia:

"Given that the Russians haven't identified any bumbling American sleeper agents in Russia, at least as far as we know, one wonders what a better deal might have looked like. Would the Russians be willing to part with vast quantities of weapons grade plutonium? Or a best-and-the-brightest assortment of gifted ballet dancers and hockey players and computer programmers and avant-garde novelists?

"When we consider the extraordinary success of the hundreds of thousands of Russian emigres who've settled in the US since the legendary Senator Scoop Jackson came to the rescue of so-called Soviet refuseniks, you could say that we've already gotten the better end of the deal. But is it wrong to expect a little bit more? If nothing else, a bigger concession would convey due respect for the excellence of the FBI's counterintelligence team."

As the spy swap wraps up, the US and Russia seem to have both avoided the topic of the 11th suspect:

"Both sides also seem to have skirted the 11th alleged Russian spy named in the US indictment. He disappeared last week in Cyprus after authorities there granted him bail, and no public mention of his fate has been made amid the swap negotiations. On Thursday, Gennady Gudkov, deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's security committee, said the most important part of the deal was damage control, not details."

"And those mistakes were pretty embarrassing - like speaking with a thick Russian accent while pretending to be Irish and accepting bags of money from undercover agents of the FBI, according to the affidavit. Many more of their gaffes would surely have been revealed if their case had gone to trial, and that is something Washington as well as Moscow seemed keen to avoid."

his attention on the initial arrests of the Russian prisoners:

"On the one hand, it is most gratifying to spring four men from the hell of the Russian jails and hard labor camps. On the other, there is the grotesque inequity of the 'swap': full-fledged, deep cover 'moles' for Russian prisoners who almost certainly were victims of political repression. The main - if not, indeed, the sole - goal of their arrests (all in the first five years of Putin's presidency) was to signal the end of the post-Soviet freedom of contacts with foreigners: henceforth everyone in the "sensitive" areas of work needed to clear such contacts with their superiors, just as in the Soviet days."

that President Obama may face harsh criticism from the right for what unfolded during negotiations with the Russians:

"The flipside for Obama is that, by agreeing to a spy swap, he will give opposition Republicans an opening for further criticism that the Democratic president has been too soft on Russia and weak on national security."

we may be getting the bad end of the deal with Russia:

"We are sending them 10 Russians accused of living under false identities and actively trying to get information about American defense, industry and government. We are getting in return Russian citizens who were found - some a generation ago - to have had contact with the CIA or suspected CIA front organizations."

agrees:

"It could be argued that the arrangement favored Moscow, since it was spared further embarrassment over the exploits of the 10 while washing its hands of an inconvenient prisoner: Igor Sutyagin, an arms control researcher who in 2004 was jailed on charges of passing information to the CIA."

has an optimistic outlook as the story wraps up:

"Whatever, it has been great beach reading. It'll be a terrific movie. Let's call it 'The Cul De Sac Capers'. It's so juicy the nervous producers and executives won't even emasculate the script. To those who would argue 'You can't make this stuff up', I would say 'Sure you can'. It's not that 'Truth is stranger than fiction', what's really strange is that we believe a word of it."

On Tech Brief today: A novel use for old plastic bottles, Garmin's sat-nav fightback against Google, and the end of the line for Facebook's virtual gift shop.

• , according to Buzz Beast:

"The company is called Bionic Yarn, and the brand name is a perfect representation of what the company stands for. Bionic Yarn has durability, strength, and a refined quality. It is available in either yarn or fabric form with primary applications in backpacks, luggage, handbags, active/outdoor apparel, work wear, casual apparel / denim, footwear, and home / outdoor furnishings."

The yarns are neither easy to make, nor entirely recycled, instead mixing more traditional materials with plastic bottle leftovers:

"The Bionic yarn constructing is achieved by covering a PETE (recycled plastic) corespun yarn in a helix formation with two surface filament layers in opposite directions. This creates a counterforce on each component and there by binds them together, having an effect similar to a 'Chinese finger trap.' This in turn creates an extremely durable fabric. The alternate fibres used in the core and the helix of bionic hlx yarn are nylon, high tenacity polyester, lycra, and cotton."

• Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, . After Mr Buffett suggested that he should be paying YouTube for the pleasure, they announced a special new type of account via the YouTube blog:

"The 'Oracle of Omaha' also suggested that YouTube should be charging him 'a lot of money' based on the enjoyment he gets from YouTube. We agree and are happy to announce a new subscription offering: YouTube Pro. Pro will be offered for a limited time at the low price of $100 million/year. We don't expect to sell many, but if Mr. Buffett wants to make sure he's paying his fair share, we take cash, credit and, for him, personal check."

The blog also offered a big *Wink* to its readers, to be sure they knew it was only a joke!

• When Google announced turn-by-turn satellite navigation for its Android-enabled smartphones, some observers predicted the possible demise of sat-nav companies like Garmin and TomTom. The Guardian Technology Blog points out that :

"Using Google Maps on an O2 Pay As You Go tariff, the company set out to see how much a summer tour of France would cost with only an Android phone for company... A return Calais-to-Paris (185 miles) trip by car notched up £74 of data roaming charges, using 12-13 megabytes of data."

Though O2 says that the figures Garmin provided overstated the actual cost of data-roaming:

"An O2 spokesperson, unavailable when contacted before publishing, told us: 'Those figures are incorrect. O2 charges £3 per MB, so 12-13 MB would cost £39 at most. Once you reach £40 per month, O2 stops charging you until you reach 50 MB. We then offer you the high user bolt-on, which gives you up to 200 MB for £120.'"

• Finally for today, . CNet takes up the story:

"The social network announced Thursday that its Gift Shop--the feature it launched in 2007 that allows users to send personalized items to friends on the network--will close on August 1 to allow the company to focus on improving other features. Gifts that users receive before that date will continue to appear on their pages, and users will still be able to use third-party applications to send and receive greeting cards and other items."

Facebook said in a blog post that it was giving up the gift shop to focus on more commonly used features on its site. But the financial impact is difficult to discern, as Steven Musil explains:

"As a privately held company, Facebook isn't required to publish financial performance information, so it's unknown how this feature may have financially benefited the site. But many expected the virtual-goods feature to be a cash cow for Facebook as gifts generally cost $1 (or 10 credits) to send. However large that revenue, it probably can't hold a cupcake's candle to the $835 million in revenue social games like Farmville are expected to generate this year."

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On Tech Brief today: The movie that won't be advertising on Facebook, the hack that revealed thousands of Pirate Bay filesharers' details, and how to make art with Chatroulette

• Orkut is a Google-owned social network that lags well behind Facebook in most countries. That is, except Brazil and India, where Orkut has always been significantly more popular. Change is in the air though, because :

"In May, 2010, Facebook attracted 18 million unique visitors in India, compared to Orkut's 19.7 million (comScore). In the past year, Facebook grew 177 percent from 6.5 million Indian visitors, compared to 35 percent growth for Orkut. When the June numbers come out, Facebook may very well surpass Orkut in that country. Indeed, Google's own Trends for websites shows Facebook edging out Orkut in India last month."

Erick Schonfeld points out that Orkut can rest easy in Brazil for the moment, where it still has 29 million visitors a month, compared to Facebook's eight million.

• Meanwhile, no Facebook visitors in any country will be seeing adverts for the upcoming film The Social Network, which tells one version of the story of the rise of the site. As All Things Digital explains, :

"Maybe not so much. 'Facebook's advertising guidelines don't allow ads to reference the company unless Facebook has cooperated with the object of the ad,' said Steve Elzer, SVP of Media Relations for Sony (SNE) movie unit Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, in response to a BoomTown query. 'So, we won't be advertising there given these parameters.'"

Kara Swisher explains that advertising policy or not, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is also not a fan of the film:

"No wonder the privacy-challenged Facebook is not having any of it, especially since Zuckerberg publicly expressed distaste for the film in a recent onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference. He also told me in a conversation there that he dreads its release, because of inaccuracies in the book it was based on."

The Social Network is due out this autumn.

• Filesharers beware - , according to Krebs on Security:

"An Argentinian hacker named Ch Russo said he and two of his associates discovered multiple SQL injection vulnerabilities that let them into the user database for the site. Armed with this access, the hackers had the ability to create, delete, modify or view all user information, including the number and name of file trackers or torrents uploaded by users."

Brian Krebs says the hacker and his associates realised that anti-piracy groups would love to get their hands on the data:

"Russo maintains that at no time did he or his associates alter or delete information in The Pirate Bay database. But he acknowledges that they did briefly consider how much this access and information would be worth to anti-piracy companies employed by entertainment industry lobbying groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), each of which has assiduously sought to sink The Pirate Bay on grounds that the network facilitates copyright infringement."

• ZDNet reports that the mobile phone company , which was reviewed by Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin shortly before it was formally announced in April:

"Murtazin, the editor-in-chief of Mobile-Review.com, 'has been very public about his possession of unauthorised Nokia property', the Finnish handset manufacturer said in a statement. 'We have asked Mr. Murtazin for the return of all Nokia property in his possession. As he has declined to reply, we asked the Russian authorities to assist us.'"

It's a case that has echoes of Apple's approach to recovering the prototype of the iPhone 4 which fell into the hands of tech blog Gizmodo earlier this year. Nokia is adamant though that it is not taking this stand because Mr Murtazin was critical of the phone in his review. And David Meyer points out that Mr Murtazin has a different perspective on the story compared to the phone maker:

"In a series of tweets, Murtazin appeared to dispute Nokia's account of events, suggesting that he had indeed replied to the company's communications and arguing that Nokia had no evidence to back up their claims. 'Actually i know a lot about internal life of companies, so drama could be good :),' he said in one of the most recent tweets."

• Wrapping things up for today, beware users of Chatroulette, the popular site which lets you talk at random with a stranger via webcam. Notwithstanding the well-known risk with the site of finding a chat partner in some state of undress, :

"Instead of being connected to another human being, the Chatroulette user on the other end of this program would just see themselves upside down, which references the mythical character Narcissus seeing his reflection in a body of water. Between February and May, several thousand people were captured for this art project. We don't know whether these people have given their permission for the use of their likeness; still, the results are interesting."

The short films have been edited and gathered together into a lively montage, which illustrates the users' response to their moment of recognition.

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Commentators look at the significance of the Supreme Court ruling that two gay men from Iran and Cameroon have the right to asylum in the UK.

that the judgement highlights the difference between the need to be discreet about homosexuality because of social pressures and to avoid persecution:

"Lord Hope begins by pointing out that the refugee convention was not drafted with sexuality in mind. That it has become such an important issue today is attributed in part to the rise of religiously motivated ideologies - Christian, Muslim or otherwise - in certain countries.
Ìý
"But this understates the point. It is only because of the progress gay rights have made in the west during the last 50 years that the law can now clearly see it as an issue of fundamental human rights. It is only by the distance we have travelled as a society that we are now obliged to offer protection to those who would face prison, rape, torture or death for their sexual identity."

that the ruling goes against a recent trend against immigration and asylum:

"What increasingly came to characterise the administration was an openly professed illiberalism, presumably designed to suggest a hard-headed modernity.
Ìý
"Nowhere was this more evident than with asylum policy, where ministers seemed unable to make the imaginative leap necessary for sympathy with those fleeing persecution. The results of which - the deportation of children, the humiliating restraining techniques, and the overcrowded detention centres- continue to make front pages.
Ìý
"These were moral lines which no party of the left should have crossed- yet again and again they were crossed. Again and again, morality and compassion were forgotten in a mad rush to outflank those on the far-right.
Ìý
"The case of these two men is the apotheosis of this".

The about the implication the ruling has on the number of people in Britain:

"For at this time when our public services are strained beyond endurance, it means Britain must now, in a dramatic reversal of policy, give a home to all gay asylum-seekers who are prevented from displaying their sexuality openly in their home countries. Where are we to draw the line? This is all about numbers and a small island's ability to absorb an ever-increasing population."

[subscription required] that the risk this ruling brings of an increase in fraudulent asylum claims is worth it:

"Issues of immigration and asylum strike at the heart of who we are as a nation. For every generous impulse to extend a welcome to the oppressed or disadvantaged, there is a miser's urge to protect that $35,200 a head. It's an entirely understandable impulse; sitting in the UK, looking out at a troubled, violent, poverty-stricken world, it is incredibly tempting to put up the gates and, Gollum-like, hug our riches close...
Ìý
"There cannot, however, be a limit on the acceptance of those facing persecution. And if, in our noble quest to accept the genuinely persecuted, we find ourselves letting in the fraudulent, so be it. There are times when the principle outweighs the consequences. It's not just the money that maketh the country. Britain must throw open its liberal arms and give men and women persecuted for their sexuality a great big gay hug."

that the ruling against homophobia in Cameroon should mean that the country doesn't get aid from the UK either:

"[W]hy does Britain give that country £6.8m a year in foreign aid? In fact why do we give money to so many countries that persecute people for their sexuality? The DfID map shows that British taxpayers give money to some of the most rabidly anti-gay states in the world... If they want our money, they can start embracing our values."

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On Tech Brief today: Twitter unveils its latest money-making strategy, NASA lets you fly to the moon (almost), and a chance to contribute to a film by Ridley Scott

• Ever since the microblogging site Twitter rose through the internet's popularity rankings, observers have pondered how the site will ever make any money. It recently started allowing advertisers to sponsor "Promoted Trends" and "Promoted Tweets", and , as The Guardian explains:

"After what seems like a lifetime, the company has now officially announced EarlyBird, which aims to inform users of special promotions that are unique to Twitter and the account. Selected advertisers will pay to distribute offers to the thousands of users present on the network, although none of these has yet been named. The offers will be time sensitive, so fast action will be needed to catch that particular worm."

Users will have to follow the account themselves, rather than being automatically signed up. But Sebastian Payne thinks that is unlikely to be an obstacle to success:

"The opportunity for EarlyBird to go viral is huge, with offers potentially spreading around like internet like wildfire - if they are deemed worthy enough. As I type, the account has 9,545 followers, something that will need to multiply infinitely for the scheme to be successful. Thanks to the joys of trends and retweeting, this seems likely. Assuming the followers flood in, Twitter will be closer to long-term sustainability."

• Open-source web browser firm . Mashable reckons it's a major upgrade:

"It not only includes a redesign of the user interface (tabs are now on top except for the Mac version), but a wave of additional features, including enhanced HTML5 support, hardware-accelerated HD video, WebSockets and enhanced add-on support via Jetpack."

Firefox has been losing market share to Google's Chrome in recent months, so it will be interesting to see whether the latest version reverses that trend. Whilst you can download and start to use the software now, Ben Parr points out that it is still likely to be unstable:

"This is an early beta of the browser -- it will crash and frustrate you, which is exactly what Mozilla is hoping to catch now before its final release."

• Have you ever harboured dreams of being a film-maker? If so, , to be directed by a major film-maker, and screened at next year's Sundance Film Festival. The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy takes up the story:

"Producer/director Ridley Scott, director Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland" ) and YouTube are teaming up to create and produce a user content-driven documentary to debut at next year's fest. Entitled "Life in a Day," the film experiment asks users to upload short video snapshops and intimate moments from their lives -- specifically from July 24 -- to a designated channel on YouTube."

It's a fascinating idea, and as Michelle Kung points out, it is impossible to know what the final film will look like:

"Macdonald, who brainstormed the concept for 'Life in a Day' after meeting with Ridley Scott's production company Scott Free, says the vagaries of the project are what he finds the most intriguing. 'I'm excited by the lack of control,' he says. 'I'm laying out the ground rules [for the project] as much as possible, but am just going to have to wait and see... Everything depends on how much people will contribute. I don't know if I'm more afraid of getting too much content or too little.'"

• NASA is trying its hand at science fiction, by collaborating on . Kotaku explains the idea:

"The player in Moonbase Alpha takes on the role of an astronaut returning from a jaunt on the surface, just in time to witness a meteorite disable the base's life support systems. You and your team (the game features online multiplayer) have to coordinate your efforts in order to get the life support systems up and running, or just give up and let everyone die a horrible death."

Mike Fahey explains that this is just the precursor to a fully-fledged massively multiplayer online role-playing game from NASA, which was announced last February.

• Finally, for today, CNN reports that :

"Lucasfilm Ltd. has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hong Kong-based Wicked Lasers, threatening legal action if it doesn't change its Pro Arctic Laser series or stop selling it altogether. 'It is apparent from the design of the Pro Arctic Laser that it was intended to resemble the hilts of our lightsaber swords, which are protected by copyright ... ,' said the letter, dated last month and provided to CNN by Wicked Lasers."

Doug Gross reports that the CEO of Wicked Lasers, Steve Liu, claims never to have compared his products to the Jedi weapon used in the Star Wars films. And Lucasfilm appears to acknowledge that in the letter itself:

"The cease-and-desist letter doesn't accuse Wicked of using the term 'lightsaber' in its marketing ... But it notes coverage from technology blogs that have frequently made that comparison ... 'These references make it clear that the public is being led to believe that the Pro Arctic Laser is an official lightsaber device and/or copied from our design,' the Lucasfilm letter said."

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Commentators from the US, Israel and the Middle East look at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington to meet US President Barack Obama

that the Israeli Prime Minister's visit was more about thawing the relationship with US President Barack Obama than it was about making concrete decisions:

"Netanyahu's US visit is primarily about fence-mending after a rocky start to his relationship with Obama. The president said he was committed to Israel's security and pledged to 'back that up, not just with words but with actions.'"

points out that the two leaders have focused mainly on what they saw eye-to-eye on:

"Where there was agreement, such as on Iran's nuclear ambitions or the promise of Mid-East peace, Obama and Netanyahu emphasised it. Where tensions remain, such as on Israeli settlements or the attack on the aid flotilla, there was little public mention."

also points out that the issues that caused tension between the two countries were hardly mentioned:

"Not addressed in their joint statements were continued tensions over the expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem - viewed as a major roadblock to progress in the peace negotiations."

Meanwhile, in Israel's Haaretz newspaper:

"Professional cynics should have no doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama had an 'excellent' meeting at the White House on Tuesday. After all, Obama used the adjective three times, seemingly compensating for the previous episode of the unfolding Israel-US soap opera, in which Obama snubbed the prime minister."

In The Jerusalem Post compared to Mr Netanyahu's last visit in March:

"Gone at Tuesday's press conference were the harsh demands on Israel that Obama unveiled at that first press conference, when he said starkly and baldly that 'settlements have to be stopped.' With that single utterance he distanced any chance of direct negotiations for months because of a Palestinian belief that they didn't need to negotiate with Netanyahu, because Obama would do their work for them."

, Nadav Eyal examines why President Obama has changed tactics. As he put it:

"Obama's harsh approach brought about the weakening of the US position as the closet friend of Israel... The administration understood that the campaign of pressures on Netanyahu had brought the maximum possible results at this stage and that its continuation could weaken the stability in the region. It is impossible to expect Netanyahu to pay a political price and continue the freeze without being able to show a significant political achievement..."

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the editorial of the privately-owned says there was nothing new in the meeting:

"The statement made by US President Barack Obama following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu... raises many questions, especially since Israel has not given lately any indications that it wants peace or even ready to make the effort to launch serious negotiations succeed... We, unfortunately, do not see anything new in the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu... apart from the ongoing US backtracking on the pledge made by President Obama after his election to end the occupation, establish a Palestinian state and achieve peace."

Charle Kamlah, writing in the , chose the title "The need to market the illusion of negotiations" for his commentary:

"The Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin [Benjamin] Netanyahu is in Washington attempting to push the indirect talks between his state and the Palestinian authority to direct talks. He attempts to imply there is something new that requests such a transformation while the truth is the complete opposite. The results of indirect talks so far are zero or even less."

While the newspaper says that US Israeli relations can never really go wrong:

"What has happened in the White House was a political awards' ceremony for Netanyahu in recognition of the 'black list' of commodities banned from entering Gaza he has announced before reaching the USA... The USA-Israeli relations never go sour for any reason even if Israel refuses a US project. The relationship between the two countries is strategic and not subject to emergency incidents."

In the Gulf, an editorial in Qatar's al-Rayah newspaper concludes that President Obama's position on the Palestinian issue is not favouring the Palestinians.

"We can say there is some sort of change in the positions of the Obama administration regarding the Palestinian issue and it is not at all in favour of Palestinians. The trigger for this change is the mid-term elections of the US Congress at the end of this year. Obama cannot risk the Jewish votes and money. The change has left Palestinians and Arabs with no political cover."

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• Ben Feller | Huffington Post | Obama%20Meets%20With%20Netanyahu,%20Says%20U.S.-Israeli%20Bond%20Is%20%27Unbreakable%27
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Commentators look at the Prime Minister David Cameron's announcement of an inquiry into allegations that UK security services were complicit in the torture of terror suspects.

that David Cameron is to be congratulated for delivering on a promise to carry out this inquiry which he first made in opposition:

"Ever since the formation of the coalition Government, the intelligence services have been in a running battle at Whitehall to force him and Foreign Secretary William Hague to change their minds, and it is immeasurably to the Prime Minister's credit that he has stood firm. Better still, he has awarded the inquiry strong powers to call for documents and demand to see witnesses. It will be a judge-led inquiry, which holds out the prospect that the investigation will be independent and rigorous."

the inquiry comes with risks:

"Mr Cameron insists that MI5 and MI6 must not be diverted from this essential task - and yet there is a danger that this inquiry, scheduled to last a year, will have just that effect. We have other concerns, too. The Prime Minister said yesterday that the agencies are "paralysed by paperwork" through having to defend themselves in a dozen court cases - both criminal and civil. Since these need to be completed before the judge-led inquiry can properly get under way, the Government proposes to expedite the civil cases by offering compensation to some of those who were detained overseas."

the move, which is not being copied in America:

"The rule of law may have been suspended by Bush and retroactively legitimized by Obama - but it is alive and well in Britain, where Tories have the courage the Obama Democrats lack."

about the pressures put on those involved in the inquiry:

"This appears to put pressure on people like Binyam Mohamed to agree to mediation (between whom? between the US and him, mediated by David Cameron's selected mediator?) if he wants to see a more generalized inquiry move forward. And of course, that generalized inquiry would be led by the British government's hand-picked judge - Sir Peter Gibson - and the promises to complete access to the relevant documentation would be nothing more than promises until Mohamed agrees to settle."

the limitations of the inquiry:

"It will not summon witnesses from foreign countries, such as current or former CIA officers. And it will not be able to compel any individuals to give evidence. Last night, Whitehall officials said that former Labour ministers, including Tony Blair, will not be asked to give evidence, even though the treatment of British citizens and residents under investigation happened on their watch."

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On Tech Brief today: RIP the net, Iranian robots and more tablets on offer.

• It seems the world is going tablet crazy. LG is the latest firm to reveal that it is working on an Android-based tablet which should be available later this year.

The mobile phone manufacturer joins Dell and Samsung in jumping on the iPad bandwagon and that it will be bigger and better, or should that be thinner and better, than its rivals?

"It will deliver vastly superior performance than other similar devices currently on the market while still managing to be thinner and lighter than competing devices."

Watch this space.

• Google thinks there is room on the internet for another Facebook, which is perhaps unsurprising given the growing speculation that it is about to launch a rival, which the rumour mill has already named Google Me.

Talking didn't devote many column inches to the rumours but neither did he shoot them down in flames, so of course his few words on the matter have been picked up around the web.

"Facebook is an absolute phenomenon but there are other social networks which are successful too. We've got Orkut, which is fantastically successful in India and Brazil... I think what we'll see is the internet becoming more of a social place, as well as people being social within the context of social networks."

• Iran has once again proved itself to be on the cutting-edge of tech with the unveiling of its very own walking, if not talking, robot.

Surena 2 is a new version of a robot built by students at Tehran University two years ago. has already been enjoying a bit of celeb status.

"Surena 2 was unveiled by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week, its purpose unknown. Named after a famous Persian warrior, the robot stands 4.7 feet tall, and can walk about slowly carrying its own weight of 99 pounds. Gulf News reports the robot will get vision and speech modules later on down the road."

• It sometimes seems that BT can do nothing right. The telecom firm has been roundly criticised about its tardiness to roll out fibre-optic networks and now that it is (sort of) it seems people don't like the look of it.

Residents in Brighton have complained about the "monster cabinets" which BT needs to install to house the cables for the super-fast broadband update.

"[T]he impact that these monster cabinets could have, both within and outside conservation areas, if they are simply installed wherever Openreach finds most convenient."

• And finally, Tech Brief has to report the sad demise of the internet. Yep it's all over for the net, at least as far as pop icon Prince is concerned.

Prince has been no fan of the internet, filing lawsuits against YouTube, eBay and Pirate Bay for allowing users to download his music for free.

Now Mashable reports an interview

"The Internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they can't get it."

Worse still, the internet is not even cool, according to the diminutive popstar.

"The internet's like MTV. At one time, MTV was hip, and suddenly it became outdated."

And to mark his protest against all things webby, Prince has shut down his official website. It may be the beginning of the end although whether for the web or Prince's music career Tech Brief is undecided.

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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Commentators discuss Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's announcement that there will be a referendum on alternative voting in 2011.

that this wasn't universally welcomed in the House:

"MPs hated the plans. They always hate change. They sprang up from all sides of the house to tell him how his ideas would never work. They were particularly peeved about the decision to hold the big referendum in May next year, on the same day as the local elections and the Welsh and Scottish elections. This would make for 'differential turnout' since people who didn't have local elections would be unlikely to bother walking to the polling station just to vote for or against AV voting. This would mean very unfair voting, since a single crofter in the Highlands would have the same influence as half a dozen lazy Londoners, since there are no local elections in the capital next year."

that vote could "cripple the Tories for a generation":

"Introduction of the AV system would mean that people's second preferences count towards electing their MPs as well as their first. The number-crunchers argue fiercely about what impact this will have on the composition of future governments. The most likely is that more Lib Dems will be elected to the Commons, which is of course why Nick Clegg supports it. This, in turn, will make it much harder for either of the two big parties in future to gain absolute majorities. Coalitions, which in the past have been rarer in British history than decent kings, will probably become the norm."

that the Tories aren't worried:

"No government knowingly announces constitutional reforms of which it will be a victim. This one has not done so either. Cameron can live with the referendum. The big project for him and Osborne is the economy and the reform of public services in which they hope their so-called big society replaces the state. I doubt if either will be too disturbed by a relatively minor change in the voting system while Lib Dems support their ideological crusade."

that electoral reform isn't necessarily good for the Lib Dems:

"Tories who remain concerned about the effect of AV on their seats have been reassured today by the party whips that it is the Lib Dems who are more vulnerable. Besides which, the party calculates that the effect of the boundary review, which will give a greater say to suburban voters who traditionally vote Tory, will negate the impact of AV, and possibly put them in net positive territory.
Ìý
"Nick Clegg will be selling his announcement to the Commons today as the great triumph of the Lib Dems in the coalition. But with potential Tory rebels looking markedly more relaxed in recent days perhaps it is the Lib Dems who should be the more nervous coalition partner right now."

that if AV is not voted in, it doesn't mean the end of the coalition:

"A split might happen but I'm far from convinced that a referendum defeat would be terminal.
Ìý
"Firstly the referendum is on an issue that isn't LD party policy. AV does not produce a proportional system and I, for instance, will probably be in the NO camp.
Ìý
"Secondly would the yellows really want to precipitate a general election which, surely, would lead to fewer LD MPs being elected. Those 15% YouGov ratings could be acting as a sort of glue."

Ex-Labour Deputy Prime Minister that the referendum is using £80m that could be better used elsewhere:

"Now on the very day plans for more than 700 new state schools were axed, Clegg championed AV, a form of voting he once described as a 'miserable little compromise.'
Ìý
"And on this occasion, I agree with Nick. That's exactly what it is - cover for the biggest gerrymandering of seats that I have ever seen in my 40 years in politics"

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On Tech Brief today: Nokia fights back, net benefits and letters of condolence for Microsoft's Kin.

• Recently we reported on government plans to conduct a review of 820 of its websites. A report by the Central Office of Information has revealed that the government spent £94m on website development in 2009 - 2010. Now, to find out how the figures were spent.

Some of the figures are in thousands, while others have the right number of zeros, while others in the comment field look as if they are for internal use. Some sites are missing data altogether. So it's entirely possible this may be revised and updated before the next release. Nevertheless, we've worked out the totals for each area - so you can see how the sites compare.

• Nokia has announced a fightback. Despite being the world's largest mobile phone maker, it has been in its battle with the new kids on the block: Google, Apple and RIM. Now, the firm's new head of mobile solutions - Anssi Vanjoki - has announced a "fightback". :

Unfortunately for Nokia, both Apple and Google are winning the publicity battle when it comes to holding the title of intellectual leader in the wireless industry. While the two Silicon Valley companies rack up sales, Nokia is still months out from new hardware and software releases.

• There has been a resurgence in the debate about whether or not the net is a, ahem, "" to society, or a . Pew Research has now offered some figures to add to the debate. In the , the outfit surveyed 895 big thinkers, or "technology stakeholders and critics". Overall, the research suggests that the net is a force for good. In amongst the evidence, a couple of comments stood out to Tech Brief: Engineer Mike Gale is definitely enthusiastic about the nets benefits, for some:

"Will relations improve? Hell yes, for the smart people who figure out what the technology can and can't do for them!"

Fred Hapgood, is clearly one of those smart people, who already has it figured out:

"The development of holographic displays and the bandwidth necessary to carry them will allow us to spend more time in more contexts with our friends."

• Last week we reported that Microsoft had pulled the plug on its Kin mobile phones, just three months after their launch. For those, still in a state of shock, there is . Daniel Wolfe is one of the many eloquent - and clearly upset - contributors to the site:

"Oh Kin, you were like the 7 year old borrito I found under my brothers bed.... I didn't know you were there, but I'm so happy to know your gone."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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• Simon Rogers | Guardian Data blog | How much do government websites cost?
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Commentators discuss the possibility of government departments cutting their budgets by 40%.

that cuts of 25% would be "small beer":

"The national debt has doubled in ten years and will double in the next five, and quadruple by 2040. Debt interest alone on that amount would absorb a third of government spending... Money you couldn't then spend on public services. The choice is not make cuts or carry on, but make cuts now or even bigger cuts in the future."

that the story isn't even true:

"The 'story' leaked to all newspapers yesterday about breathtakingly deep reductions in departmental budgets was a piece of shameless spin. It was a Treasury exercise to make a point - imagine how bad it could be - before settling on a lower figure. The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, admitted as much yesterday, when he said that he didn't expect any departments to see a 40% cut."

The that one area where it should be easy to cut budgets is policing:

"A start has actually been made. It was reported last month that Prince Andrew's daughters, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, have lost their 24-hour police protection, saving the taxpayer £500,000 a year. Why stop there? There must be a number of Royals and politicians enjoying police protection who are sufficiently obscure that it would be far-fetched to describe them as potential terrorist targets. As for
Mr Blair, perhaps he could make a contribution towards the cost of his bodyguards, particularly when so much of his travelling relates not to official duties, but to his own money-making activities."

Labour that the cuts are not to do with the state of the economy but with right-wing ideology:

"It is rather as though Thatcher's children - aka Cameron, Osborne and Clegg - have a psychological drive not only to obtain parental approval, but a desire to achieve more than that parent - just as George W Bush seemed to feel he had to emulate his father's invasion of Iraq and then take that invasion one stage further to regime-change and beyond...
Ìý
"So the debt is not as bad as suggested, the scale of the debt interest needing to be paid each year is not as serious as we have been told, and the UK's vulnerability in terms of refinancing and of overseas debt holdings is far less than the Coalition Government would have us believe. So it's not the economy, but ideology. And Tory ideology at that."

that the coalition government should keep its confidence about the cuts despite protest from the left:

"You don't have to agree with the Daily Mail to understand that some people who get incapacity benefit don't deserve it, and some who could work don't; or that housing benefit has become a racket paying millions to private landlords. Labour cannot be allowed to get away with the idea that it stands as the defender of an outraged majority, victims of an ideologically extreme government.
Ìý
"The left is beginning to smell like sour yoghurt, a long moan against the world as it is and how the last government left it."

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On Tech Brief today: Piracy in parliament, rise of the robots and coding kids.

• Swedish politicians exercised about the sharing of copyrighted material may soon be able to pop down the corridor and let their feelings be known. plans to site the machines hosting notorious file-sharing site .

"The Swedish Constitution is often ignored, but it contains an interesting detail. It says that MPs can not be sued or prosecuted for something that is done as part of their political mandate. In practice, this implies total immunity for any political action taken within this working environment."

The only stumbling block is that the party has to win seats in September's elections before the cunning plan can be put into effect.

• , but rival :

"We're officially adding a new piece of software to the list of default common applications we expect employees to use, and that's the Mozilla Firefox browser."

The switch means that any of the 400,000 IBM employees not using the software will be encouraged to switch.

• The day robots realise they no longer need people could be the day they turn on us and establish an entirely different kind of tin-pot dictatorship. that the US Air Force's trials of robot-to-robot mid-air refuelling will only bring that day hurrying closer:

"We need hardly add, no doubt, that this plan to strip the last vestiges of dependence on human assistance from the robotic aerial combat legions of America - there are parallel efforts to allow unmanned ground servicing - in other words to free the killer droids completely from any need to permit humanity's continued existence - comes from rogue Pentagon tech bureau DARPA."

• . Remember them? College students developing an open alternative to Facebook? During their summer break? They got lots of cash to do it? Well, they want you to know what they have been doing with that time and all that money. . For those not paying attention, Diaspora is based around "seeds" which hold information about their owners.

"Everyone on your friends list is pushed a copy of your messages. Additionally, if any of your friends comment on your post, the comment is sent back to the post's owner, and back down to all of your other friends. These seed are on the internet (in different places, too) and are speedy and lightweight. This allows us to create a real time feed of all of your friends' updates."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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On Tech Brief today: the London Underground live data service is knocked out by demand from live map and similar services, Apple comes under more pressure over its new iPhone, and Internet Explorer climbs back up the popularity charts.

• Visitors to the , which should show the location of all London trains in real time, and which we mentioned on Tech Brief last week are being greeted with a message that the Transport for London feed is not currently working, so the map does not have any trains to show. The London DataStore blog :

"Owing to overwhelming demand by apps that use the service, the London Underground feed has had to be temporarily suspended. We hope to restore the service as soon as possible but this may take some days. We will keep everyone informed of progress..."

Depending on your perspective, it's either a massive sign of success for open data, or a signal that the London data store has not got powerful enough computers.

• Another day, another dig at Apple over its iPhone that can sometimes lose reception when you hold it a certain way. After Nokia published a blog entry earlier this week with suggestions on how to hold its phones (all of which, it said, do not deteriorate your phone signal), The Register points out that :

"In the advert -- underneath a photo of Motorola's upcoming Droid X, complete with the obligatory comely lass -- is a paragraph of advertising copy extolling the Android phone's features. One part of that exaltation is this sentence: 'And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls.'"

• More seriously for Apple perhaps, though, is the news that :

"The lawsuit accuses Apple of Defect in Design, Manufacture and Assembly, as well as Breach of Express Warranty. It also makes several claims against both Apple and AT&T, including General Negligence, Deceptive Trade Practices, Intentional Misrepresentation, Negligent Misrepresentation and Fraud by Concealment."

Stan Schroeder reckons it's difficult to predict which way any such case might go:

"Due to the complexity of the issue, and the fact that some other phones exhibit a similar behavior, it's hard to guess what the outcome of this lawsuit will be. However, it might spur Apple to start working on this problem quickly -- before it escalates into something far more serious."

• Microsoft had begun to get used to the fact that its Internet Explorer browser, whilst still the world's favourite, was steadily falling down the popularity charts. That was until last month, when as CNet points out, according to analytics company Net Applications, :

"The change in fortunes was significant enough that Microsoft couldn't resist crowing about IE's progress in a blog post Thursday. 'We certainly don't judge our business on just two months of data, but the direction here is encouraging,' said Ryan Gavin, senior director of business and marketing for Internet Explorer ... Some of IE8's gains probably can be ascribed to the growing use of Windows 7, which ships with that browser and is showing some signs of finally being a successor to Windows XP that people actually are embracing."

• To round things off for today, a brief mention of bringing together, we hope, the best that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Tech team has to offer, with 's Clark Boyd. It's not a ´óÏó´«Ã½ programme, but we at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ are taking part. Hope that's clear.

"For a while now, I've wanted to start a monthly round-up of interesting tech stories. I finally managed to strong-arm ´óÏó´«Ã½ Technology Reporter Jonathan Fildes into helping me out. He went the extra mile by giving me the perfect podcast opening: 'Crikey, have we rambled enough now, Clark?'"

So, have I rambled on enough yet? I think so.

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to on , tag them bbctechbrief on or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

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I'm the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Trust is speeding up curbs on the pay of the corporation's top stars and managers. Its chairman Sir Michael Lyons says he's changed his mind after talking to licence payers - he now wants the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to name the performers who receive the most . He's also to speed up a 25% cut in its senior management paybill.

Top ´óÏó´«Ã½ executives have volunteered to forego a month's pay .

and BT Vision is now offering Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 for the first time, after a competition ruling. But Sky has put up its price overnight, which means BT will find it harder to make a profit on the channels.

that the latest name to be linked to a bid for the Five TV channel is the founder of Endemol, John de Mol.

In the who else is bidding for Five - and does it really matter who buys it?

The newspapers focus on the contrasting Wimbledon fortunes of Roger Federer and Andy Murray, says the .

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Commentators discuss Justice Secretary Ken Clarke's proposal to change the prison system.

[registration required] that prison works and that he welcomes Ken Clarke's changes, but urges rehabilitation:

"During my seven months in jail I learnt a great deal about the thoughts and motivations of prisoners. Going to jail is not seen as a particular problem - for many youngsters it is part of the pattern of estate life.
Ìý
"But while they don't fear jail, they do relish the chance to go straight. This is the crucial characteristic recognised in Ken Clarke's bold new strategy for reducing reoffending. Throughout my sentence I spent two to three hours a day reading and writing letters for fellow inmates who struggled with literacy and communication problems - an experience that leads me to be highly supportive of the Justice Secretary's new approach. It is rooted in the practical 'rehabilitation revolution' promised in opposition policy statements.
Ìý
"It makes good sense at the sharp end in terms of preventing crime and from the Treasury's perspective of cutting public spending. But delivering the strategy will require from ministers a remorseless attention to detail and a continuous exercise of political will to overcome the many obstacles."

Mike Pinblatt who is a prison officer at Risely prison in Cheshire told Shelagh Fogarty on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 5 live Breakfast phone-in that the proposal to divert funding to voluntary organisations is fundamentally flawed:

"These prisoners have already been through these voluntary organisations and probation orders and community service orders and they've failed

And prison is usually the last resort, so why do we throw money at these voluntary organisations when they've failed already?"

that Mr Clarke's suggestion that prison is a costly and ineffective way of dealing with criminals wasn't mentioned in the election campaign:

"Though it speaks of the importance of rehabilitating ex-prisoners (and which decent person wouldn't be in favour of that?).
Ìý
"It does not suggest that putting criminals in prison is wrong. On the contrary, it criticises 'early release' practised by the Labour Government to ease pressure on prisons, and promises that, if elected, the Tories would 'redevelop the prison estate and increase capacity as necessary'.
Ìý
"I presume Mr Clarke did not read his party's manifesto on which he fought the election, just as he once admitted - to his shame - that he had not read the 1992 Maastricht Treaty which created the European Union and paved the way for the euro."

[subscription required] that "[s]uddenly the age of austerity is looking like the age of enlightenment":

"We might have expected a belt-tightening Tory-led government to get back to basics, scrapping innovation in favour of the core functions of the state. But the search for savings is prompting a reappraisal of how the state works, and no cows are sacred...
Ìý
"Previous governments' failure to reform prisons is apparent in the atmosphere inside them. Walk through a prison in England at almost any time of day or night and what will you see? Not a lot. For most of the 24 hours, from teatime till breakfast and over lunch, prisoners are banged up in their cells: lying on their beds, watching telly, hatching plans to buy or sell this or that the next moment they see each other.
Ìý
"The main thing to fear from jail is boredom and the sense of wasting time. The majority of prolific criminals, the ones who commit most of the crime, live lives of such chaos and danger that boredom is actually attractive - "going for a lie-down", they call it when they get sent to jail - and they feel their lives are wasted anyway. They are searching for containment, and for safety; for crack addicts, perhaps just somewhere they can get clean.
Ìý
"This is not to say we shouldn't send serious criminals into custody. But we urgently need to make prisons places of activity and hard work, re-programming offenders to think and act differently next time they're out."

Conservative MEP an element of local decision-making should be put into dealing with criminals:

"One of two things would then happen. Either Kentish crooks (and crooks of Kent) would flood across the county border in such numbers that the people of Surrey elected a tougher sheriff. Or the people of Kent would get sick of funding the requisite number of prison places. At which point, their sheriff might decide on more imaginative solutions. He might, for example, decree that shoplifters should stand outside Bluewater with a placard saying 'Shoplifter'. I don't know what people would choose: that's the essence of localism. But I do know one thing: best practice would quickly spread, as people found cheapest and most effective ways to cut crime."

that the prisons should remain undemocratic:

"The point is that there is much more to a prison's success story than the trickle-down impact of a sentencing guideline. While there is endless talk about sentencing, the next stage - the bit where the sentence is served - is possibly the least politicised area of public spending. There are literally no votes in it. This has resulted in some fine institutions. Clarke says prisons are more expensive than Eton: many are also better. The government has more to learn from the prison service about governing than it has to tell it about imprisonment."

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