Google stands by book search deal

Google has defended its online book deal amid reports it is being reviewed by the US justice department, says BBC News.

An investigation is expected to examine whether the book search agreement with authors and publishers violates anti-trust laws.

Google reached a settlement in October to create a $125 million fund to pay authors to have their work digitised. The deal still needs court approval and this week the deadline was extended to September for others to oppose it.

America's cyber security has been described as "broken" by one industry expert and as "childlike" by another.

Tim Mather, chief strategist for security firm RSA, told BBC News: "The approach we have relied on for years has effectively run out of steam." Alan Paller from security research firm SANS Institute said the government's cyber defences were "embarrassing".

The criticism comes as president Barack Obama prepares to release the results of a cyber security review he had ordered.

Yahoo limited co-founder Jerry Yang's 2008 compensation package to his customary $1 salary during his final year as chief executive, a tumultuous reign that unravelled after he rebuffed Microsoft's $47.5 billion bid to buy the Internet company, reports AP.

The company disclosed the pay of Yang and its other top executives in its proxy statement filed yesterday.

The breakdown of Yahoo's top-paid executives in 2008 served as a reminder of the current shake-up at the company as its new leader, Carol Bartz, tries to end a three-year slump that has devastated Yahoo's stock price.

There are rumours that Sony is going to announce details of its new PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming console at the E3 conference in June.

According to Techtree.com, it is rumoured Sony will name the new system the PSP Go!, to supplement its Go! brand of accessories, like Go! View on-demand service or Go!Cam.

Insider sources state Sony will drop the UMD drive and offer PSP Go! in two internal flash storage versions: 8GB and 16GB. No extra analogue stick would be added.

Twitter-quitters outnumber the flock of habitual tweeters on the rapidly growing online communications service, a new study suggests, reports AP.

Most people are not joining the Web site's jumble of conversations for long. More than 60% of Twitter's US users do not return a month later, based on an analysis of traffic trends unveiled this week by Nielsen Online. The lacklustre retention rate of 40% suggests many people do not see the point in spending time on Twitter.

"Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty," David Martin, Nielsen Online's VP of primary research, wrote in a blog.