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Google slashes Gmail calling charges

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb news editor.
Johannesburg, 03 Aug 2011

Google slashes Gmail calling charges

Google has expanded the scope of Gmail's phone calling feature, reducing the cost of international phone calls and making the feature available in 38 languages, reports Mashable.

The product, which is powered by Google Voice, will be rolling out across the world in the next few days. A green phone icon will appear in a user's Gmail account once the voice calling feature is available in his or her country.

In addition to the international rollout, phone calls will be getting cheaper for calls to more than 150 locations around the world.

Cyber crime costs rise 56%

In a yearly study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and funded by Hewlett-Packard, the median cost of dealing with prevention and the repercussions of cyber crime rose from $3.8 million a year in 2010 to $5.9 million a year in 2011, reveals Digital Trends.

Over the 50 companies in the study, the range of costs varied from $1.5 million to $36.5 million per organisation.

The majority of money spent on cyber crime by organisations is put into detection of attacks as well as recovery efforts.

HTC drags Apple to court

Smartphone maker HTC is taking rival Apple to court in the UK, only weeks after losing a preliminary ruling over two patent violations in the US, writes The Register.

The latest case was filed at the High Court on 29 July, according to reports on Bloomberg, but the exact nature of the litigation in HTC Europe versus Apple was not specified.

Simmering relations between the bitter rivals bubbled over in recent times, kick-started in March by Apple's lawsuit against HTC citing 20 patent violations and followed up by a second case last month.

UK drops Web site blocking bid

Plans to block Web sites that host copyright infringing material are to be dumped by the UK government, reports the BBC.

Business secretary Vince Cable announced the change following a review of the policy by telecoms regulator Ofcom.

Web site blocking was one of the key provisions contained in the Digital Economy Act. Internet service providers had objected to the idea that copyright owners could compel them to cut-off some sites.

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