eBay is being used by record numbers of small shopkeepers and market traders to shift excess stocks.

FriendsReunited has bought an online recruitment firm as a first step towards its 'workmates reunited' web site.

The first episode of the new series of Doctor Who, returning to TV after an absence of 15 years, has been leaked onto the web ahead of it’s official BBC broadcast.

Inventor of the Apple Macintosh computer, Jef Raskin has died aged 61.

Alternative browser, Firefox is claiming almost 5% market share, having experienced over 25,000,000 downloads since its launch.

WriteToThem.com launched to help combat political apathy. Visitors can use the site to contact their local district and county councillors, MP or MEP.

19% of Britons now spend more than 4 hours a day surfing the web.

Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO and world’s wealthiest man, has received an honorary knighthood from the Queen. He cannot use the title "Sir" but is entitled to use the letters KBE after his name.

An EC report ranked the UK third best out of 28 countries for providing public services online - only Sweden and Austria were better.

A survey of wi-fi networks in London, Frankfurt, New York and San Francisco by RSA Security found more than 30% had basic security features switched off.

eBay-style bank Zopa opened for business. Users can become lenders or borrowers and choose their own interest rate.

Jazz composer Maria Schneider was the first artist ever to win a Grammy for an album distributed over the web. The album "Concert in the Garden," was financed through Internet-based music delivery service ArtistShare and hasn’t sold a single copy in a record shop.

In an effort to crack down on “immoral net use” Chinese authorities shut down 12,575 Internet cafes in the closing months of 2004, because they were 'operating illegally'.

Control of the .net domain is up for grabs from 1st July this year. Incumbent Verisign and Denic are favourites to win the contract which effects over 31.9 million domains.

Sony Ericsson has announced it will sell music-playing mobile phones under the Walkman brand.

Google toolbar causes uproar

Google has added a new feature to its downloadable Google toolbar called AutoLink, which it describes as a convenience feature. However, search engine marketers and bloggers across the web are outraged that the toolbar changes content on a web page, without the owner's permission, and are dubbing it "evil".

So what does the toolbar do? Well, adding it to your browser places a Google search box on your browser and enables several other useful features. However, AutoLink adds so-called smart links to a web page. For example, you may find the address of a restaurant, but aren't sure how to get there. Google's AutoLink scans the web page automatically and adds a link to a map web site. On the surface, this sounds like a great feature, until you realise that Google is changing the content of the web site that you are visiting without the site owner's consent.

AutoLink also recognises postcodes, vehicle VIN numbers and ISBNs for books. However, if you were to visit the Barnes & Noble web site to search for a book, once the Google toolbar detected the ISBN, it would add a link to that book on Amazon's web site, which one presumes Barnes & Noble aren't too happy about.

It doesn't take a great leap to realise that, should one of your competitors be using Google Adwords, you might find links to their web site appearing on your own site in the future.

Microsoft tried to introduce a similar feature, called SmartTags, in 2001. This feature automatically underlined words on a web page that linked to Microsoft. SmartTags was withdrawn before it could be introduced into a production version of Explorer, following widespread outrage. Funnily enough, the inventor of this technology is now employed by…Google.

Google is yet to launch this feature officially, but is still taking a lot of flack from web masters which it isn't used to, as Google has - until now - been held in high regard. Whether Google decides to push ahead with AutoLink would appear to be governed by whether it places revenue above reputation.

Reading e-mail is good for business

Well yes, OK, the headline might seem like it's stating the obvious, but we actually mean from a productivity point of view. We're all victims of it, the annoying ping of your e-mail program announcing that "you've got mail!" And the temptation is to break off from what you are doing and read the mail, thereby interrupting the important work you were in the middle of doing.

Well, no, not according to researchers at Surrey University. Far from being the distraction that causes us to work less efficiently, taking that sneaky break to read your new e-mail is apparently good for productivity. Their research has shown that responding to an email in the middle of a tedious or stressful job means that you return to that job with renewed interest and resolve. So next time you suffer that pang of guilt as you break off to read an e-mail, relax, it's good for you and the business.

Spy ware woman convicted

A woman in Florida has been found guilty of violating its wiretapping law by installing spy ware on her husband's computer in order to catch him talking to his lover over the Internet, in a divorce case.

She was charged with illegally obtaining the online chat records because she "intercepted the electronic communication contemporaneously with transmission", according to the judge.

Her defence argued that "the monitoring didn't fall under the law's prohibitions and was akin to reading a stored file on her husband's computer - which would not be treated as wiretapping", but this was rejected. The judge added that "It is illegal and punishable as a crime to intercept electronic communications."

Had enough of Spam? Prepare for Spit

Spam is unfortunately a part of daily online life, but a new form is due to emerge with the introduction of Voice over IP technologies that allow you to make cheap phone calls over the Internet.

The new menace has been given the rather unfortunate name of Spit, or Spam over Internet Telephony. As well as cheaper phone calls, Internet telephony also allows advertising messages to be sent out at extremely low cost and is thus an ideal broadcast channel for spammers to exploit.

Security firms are seeking to develop counter measures because an onslaught of Spit could kill the technology, if people stop using it because their voicemail in-boxes are becoming overflowed with junk voice mail.

Set a web cam to catch a thief

A nineteen year old burglar was handed an 11-month stretch following his successful conviction for burglary, on the strength of web cam evidence.

Having been burgled previously, a software engineer set up his own burglar alarm system using his PC and a web cam. The system recorded extremely clear images of the burglar who delighted police recognised immediately from his previous form.

The system began recording once it had detected movement in the software engineer's empty home. And even though the PC was also stolen, the images had been sent to an e-mail address. When the break-in was discovered, the victim simply gave police his e-mail address to download the film.

The thief denied the crime, but was then shown the images of him caught in the act by the police, who used the evidence to secure his conviction.

Only on the web:

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About:

Esquared is a regular digest of news, opinion and developments within interactive communications which we find interesting and hope you will too. If you want more information about anything that we mention, or have any comments, please call us on 01992 500990 or e-mail esquared@experience-engine.co.uk.