Tokyo drift

A Japanese policeman has been fired after he was held responsible for accidentally leaking confidential information via peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software installed on his work PC.

But global roaming still some way off

Hackers have succeeded in (partially) unlocking the iPhone so Apple's much-hyped device can be used on at least one network other than AT&T.

Outsold PS3 3:1

Nintendo has sold more than 3m Wii games consoles in Japan, local games magazine publisher Enterbrain has claimed. Earlier this week, it said Sony had shipped 1.01m PlayStation 3s in the country.

It takes a little control

The best way to get reliable performance out of a wide area network (WAN) is to install your own high-speed gigabit fibre optic cables between all the locations in your organisation. This could provide seemingly unlimited bandwidth for your employees to use the applications they like and not have to think twice about the volume of content they send around the network.

Deathly Hallows - Buy It Now!

Here's a Friday morning poser for you: a US book distributor accidently sends you a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pretty well a week before the official launch of what's expected to be the fastest-selling book of all time. What do you do?

'Your cleavage is distracting me'

A German bus driver demonstrated exemplary concern for his passengers' safety when he ordered a 20-year-old sales clerk to shift her mammary assets or vacate the vehicle, Bild reports.

Nintendo has pulled its new Wii console game Mario Party 8 from UK shops just days after its release and during a massive TV advertising campaign for the title.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Sports leagues are amazing in their ability to try to over protect the content that should be delivering them additional fans. We've recently covered Major League Baseball's continued attempt to convince judges that it can own facts, while various soccer leagues have been suing YouTube for helping attract more fans to the sport. The National Football League is stepping out to its own levels of ridiculousness lately as well. In the past, we've covered the NFL's demand that news organizations only use official video footage of games (wondering if they'll ban cameraphones as well) and also its anger over churches showing the Super Bowl on a big screen without paying up. Then, of course, the NFL has been overly aggressive in bullying anyone who uses the name of the Super Bowl for anything, and recently tried to trademark "the Big Game" as well, after many advertisers started using that phrase to avoid running afoul of NFL lawyers over the Super Bowl. The NFL also abused the DMCA in demanding a law professor take down a clip on YouTube that was clearly fair use and which (amusingly) was being used to show how the NFL asserted certain rights it didn't actually have.

The latest is that the NFL has now expanded its rule for media companies. Not only must they only use officially provided NFL footage rather than their own cameras, they can only display 45-seconds of game time or players on their own websites -- and if they use any footage at all, it needs to contain a link back to the NFL site. While it's true that the NFL can set conditions for providing media outlets access to a game, they simply cannot dictate how a media organization reports the news. The restrictions say that media organizations can show as much of their own reporters standing in front of a camera as long as (yes, it gets this ridiculous) no NFL players are seen in the background. If the media interviews a player (or players) on its own, it can't include more than 45 total seconds of video coverage. The NFL admits that it's only doing this because it thinks it will get more money from having more people visit its own sites that will host more video clips. This is incredibly short-sighted, of course. The goal of the NFL should be to keep getting more fans, and then there are plenty of ways to make money off those fans without dictating how and where they can see video clips. In the meantime, it's about time that news organizations stood up to the NFL and said that they're going to report the news however they see fit, without restrictions from the league. They might also want to point out that the NFL doesn't get to decide what's "fair use" for their videos. News reporting is a fair use exception, so news organizations should be free to make use of whatever amount of the video they feel is appropriate for reporting on a story, without artificially made up limitations from the league. And, for video created by the organizations themselves, the media should be able to use as much of it as they want.