Digital television is spreading faster in Britain than in France, Canada, the US, Germany and Japan, according to research.

The Royal National Institute for Deaf people showcases its technological expertise in developing and testing new devices.

Plug-in vehicle based on Chinese Noble car is expected to cost $19,000.

Government to pay venture capitalists to establish Entrepreneur-In-Residence programs at five new National Labs.

Seattle-based startup raises $8.5M to ramp production of its advanced electrode materials.

San Diego company expects Series D round to expand sales beyond Europe and U.S. and further develop fuel cell system.

Government group collaborating with Tata Motors to develop zero-emission buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

Sling Media goes up against YouTube and Hulu to grab eyeballs for online video.

Microsoft has announced it will offer a free anti-virus and security software suite and will discontinue its OneCare service.

Shows like EastEnders and Heroes will be shown online at the same time as they are broadcast on TV from next week.

Companies waste money and energy letting obsolete machines keep running.

How Dungeons and Dragons is breaking out online

Newly-released documents reveal Dr Who's origins

Things didn't go quite according to plan for astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper during her spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Tuesday.

The iPhone is more than a smart phone for some users -- it's a portable entertainment system. It's also become a gold mine for entrepreneurs like Steve Demeter, developer of the popular puzzle game "Trism," which earned him $250,000 in two months.

Being in space is like being Superman every day, says Clay Anderson, a NASA astronaut from Omaha, Nebraska. But floating around in zero-G can have some serious consequences for the human body, NASA's experts have learned.

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily

The Nadsaq Composite today plunged 199.61, or 9.14 percent, to 1983.73, as investors fled equities amid a growing sense of crisis in the financial sector. Stocks started off sharply lower this morning; the slide accelerated after the House rejected a proposed $700 billion buyout of the financial sector.

The Nasdaq’s slide is the 8th largest ever in terms of points, and the third biggest ever on a percentage basis. The index has been tracked since 1971.

The only two days which were worse on a percentage basis include the 11.4 percent slide by the index on Black Monday, October 19, 1987, and the 9.7 percent drop on April 14, 2000.

While selling was widespread, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite suffered the worst decline today of the major indexes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 748 points, or 6.7 percent, to 10,394.92, the worst day ever for the index in terms of points. The S&P 500 dropped 102.7 points, or 8.5 percent, to 1,110.27.

Read the rest of this post

Oh, look: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars has “reignited” the violent videogame debate. What a surprise. Last time GTA and its publisher Rockstar Games sparked this kind of outrage it was for “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” and the infamous “Hot Coffee mod” — a patch that unlocked an explicit, but anatomically improbable, sex scene between the game’s protagonists.

This time the outcry is over the Nintendo DS-bound Chinatown Wars and its drug-dealing minigame, which offers players the chance to try their hand at a little narcotics trafficing. “We wanted to have a drug-dealing mini-game in lots of the GTA games,” said Rockstar vice president Dan Houser. “We played with it a little in ‘Vice City Stories,’ because it worked really well juxtaposed with the main story. It works well with what GTA is, with driving around the map, and it gives you another thing to think about — another layer or piece of the puzzle to keep you motivated.”

And another layer to add to the GTA marketing campaign which clearly thrives on controversy.

Longtime Microsoft exec Yusuf Mehdi (pictured here) is taking over a big part of Microsoft’s online services portfolio–including marketing, online audience business development and product management for MSN and the search properties.

But Microsoft (MSFT) has yet to name an overall digital head for these online properties, which has been promised by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer since the departure of Kevin Johnson in late July.

Mehdi is essentially getting a part of the portfolio of Microsoft SVP Bill Veghte, who will now be primarily focused on Windows and Windows Live business groups.

Mehdi was previously the SVP for strategic partnerships under Johnson.

He is now part of a troika that includes Brian McAndrews, the SVP for the advertiser and publisher solutions group, and Satya Nadella, the SVP who heads engineering for Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising platform group. (Both are pictured here, left to right.)

Who will lead this three-headed beast is still unknown–both Mehdi and McAndrews have been considered the top internal candidates to lead the online properties group, which has been struggling for direction after Microsoft’s failed takeover of Yahoo (YHOO).

Yahoo’s shares have plummeted in recent days, as Wall Street has been hard hit, closing at just below $17 a share today, with a market cap of almost half of what Microsoft’s initial offer was early this year.

To stir things up and catch archrival Google (GOOG), Ballmer has reportedly been trying to recruit a superstar exec from outside the company, including Silicon Valley, to no avail.