Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom has been freed on bail in a surprise move, after a New Zealand judge dismissed fears he would flee the country.

Auckland - Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom was freed on bail in a surprise move Wednesday, after a New Zealand judge dismissed fears he would flee the country to escape US online piracy charges.

The 38-year-old German national said he was happy to be released following a month in custody after New Zealand police, cooperating with a major US probe, raided his sprawling “Dotcom Mansion” in Auckland.

Dotcom's lawyer Paul Davison said his client remained determined to fight US allegations that he masterminded “massive worldwide online piracy” through file-sharing webite Megaupload and associated sites.

“My client's proposition is that the case they have presented doesn't have any substantial basis at all and when it is analysed and revealed for what it is, that will be the view that prevails,” he said.

The bail decision is a setback for US authorities, who are seeking to extradite Dotcom and three others arrested in the January 20 raid.

Two previous bail hearings had accepted the prosecution case that the Internet millionaire was an “extreme flight risk” because he had the wealth and possible criminal connections to slip out of the country if he wanted.

But Judge Nevin Dawson said the danger of Dotcom fleeing had diminished because all his funds had been seized and investigators had not uncovered any new bank accounts or assets in his name since his arrest.

“It would seem that he has every reason to stay to be with his family and to fight to keep his significant assets,” Dawson said.

He granted Dotcom bail but barred him from accessing the Internet and booking helicopter flights, ordering him to stay in his Auckland property unless there was a medical emergency.

Dotcom, who allegedly earned $42 million from his Internet business in 2010 alone, declined to comment on his case, aside from saying his treatment by New Zealand police “resembled an audition for American Idol”.

“I'm relieved to go home and see my family, my three little kids and my pregnant wife,” he told reporters.

The US Justice Department and FBI allege Megaupload and related sites netted more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners over $500 million by offering pirated copies of movies, TV shows and other content.

Megaupload was founded in 2005 but shut down last month when its assets were frozen as part of the US probe.

A US application for Dotcom's extradition is expected to be heard on August 20. US authorities have said they will seek the maximum penalty of 20 years in jail if he is brought before a US court.

The three other Megaupload executives arrested with Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, had already been granted bail.

The raid on Dotcom's home netted a 1959 pink Cadillac, numerous other luxury cars and valuable artworks.

Since his arrest, there has been a steady stream of media revelations about his extravagant lifestyle, including claims his mansion had a swimming pool filled with imported spring water and gold toilet roll holders.

The portly millionaire also reportedly had a butler in his mansion whose duties included retrieving stray ping pong balls when Dotcom was playing table tennis.

Prime Minister John Key said this month that since Dotcom's arrival in New Zealand in early 2010, his office had received complaints from the public about loud parties and cars speeding around the mansion, which is in his electorate.

Key said his staff had passed the complaints on to police.

A documentary uploaded online shows Dotcom, surrounded by topless women, spraying champagne on board a superyacht during a “crazy weekend” in Monaco that reportedly cost $10 million.

“Fast cars, hot girls, superyachts and amazing parties. Decadence rules,” said the blurb accompanying the documentary, which Dotcom dedicated to “all my fans”. - Sapa-AFP

Apple promises to pay $15 or give a free case to every US customer who bought one of the popular phones released in June 2010.

San Francisco - Apple has reached a settlement over a class-action lawsuit filed over the antenna problem which dogged the 2010 launch of its iPhone 4, according to a statement published on Monday.

Apple promises to pay $15 (about R120) or give a free case to every US customer who bought one of the popular phones released in June 2010, but immediately faced problems with voice calls, the CNET tech website reported.

The problem was identified as being due to people gripping the smartphone by part of the lower left corner, strangling signal strength through the silver edging designed as part of the antenna system.

"This settlement relates to a small number of customers who indicated that they experienced antenna or reception issues with their iPhone 4, and didn't want to take advantage of a free case from Apple when it was being offered in 2010," Apple told CNET in a written statement.

But Ira Rothken, a lead attorney in the class-action case, said more than 21 million iPhone 4 owners were eligible for the payout, adding that the free case offer lasted for three months.

"We believe that the Apple iPhone 4 settlement is fair, adequate, and reasonable," Rothken told CNET.

"We believe that it allows members of the class to choose, and they can get $15 of cash or a bumper, so we believe that type of choice is proportional to the circumstances."

Under the settlement, eligible customers should get an e-mail from Apple some time in April, and will have 120 days to apply for the $15. A website, iPhone4Settlement.com, has been set up but is not yet activated, CNET said.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the settlement, or the statement given to CNET. - Sapa-AFP

A street advert using facial-recognition technology echoes 2002 Tom Cruise thriller Minority Report, in which billboards directly targeted individuals.

London - A street advert which uses facial-recognition technology to tell men from women is to be used for the first time.

The electronic hoarding, to be unveiled on a bus stop in London’s Oxford Street this week, plays a 40-second advertisement – with a different message depending on the gender of who is looking at it.

Only women will be able to view the full message, which is for a charity promoting female education worldwide. Men will just be directed to its website.

The advert echoes 2002 Tom Cruise thriller Minority Report, in which billboards directly targeted individuals.

The system uses a camera to guess gender by measuring the distance between eyes, width of nose, length of jaw-line and cheekbone shape.

A spokesman for the charity, Plan UK, said: “We’re not giving men the choice to see the full ad – so they get a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away.”

Privacy campaigners condemned the advert as “creepy” and experts said it marked a future of personal advertising with “no boundaries”.

“I wouldn’t wear that shirt, dear – you might confuse the bus stop ads” - Daily Mail

Motorola to appeal case, but says ruling will have little impact on sales.

London - Apple has won a legal battle in Germany to protect its rights to the slide-to-unlock device it uses on iPhones.

A similar device in which access to the phone is enabled by dragging a finger across the screen had been introduced by Motorola Mobility.

Motorola said after the hearing that it may appeal but that the ruling would have little impact on sales.

“Today's ruling ... concerns a software feature related to phone unlocking in select Motorola devices sold in Germany,” a spokeswoman said. “Motorola has implemented a new design for the feature. - The Independent

A third man accused of taking part in internet piracy along with Kim Dotcom has been released on bail.

Wellington - A third man accused of taking part in internet piracy along with Kim Dotcom, the millionaire German founder of the file-sharing Megaupload website, was released on bail, media reports said on Wednesday.

Mathias Ortmann, 40, from Germany was released to live with his co-accused Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato at van der Kolk's Auckland home under strict electronic bail conditions.

Batato, 38, a citizen and resident of Germany, was given bail in late January but had to remain in prison until bail conditions were finalized last week.

Van der Kolk, 29, a Dutch citizen and resident of both the Netherlands and New Zealand, was the first to receive bail.

He and his co-accused are allowed no access to the internet as part of the bail conditions.

Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and the other suspects are wanted in the United States on suspicion of copyright piracy. They were arrested last month after police raided the luxury mansion Dotcom was renting north of Auckland.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation wants Dotcom, 38, and the other co-accused to face trial on charges of racketeering, money laundering and copyright infringement.

US authorities alleged Megaupload breached intellectual property laws, costing copyright owners more than 500 million US dollars.

Dotcom, who has New Zealand residency, was denied bail ahead of a deportation hearing due to be held next week. He denied any wrongdoing. - Sapa-dpa

Saturday's scientific and technical awards were reserved for honorees including Douglas Trumbull, recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for work that has “brought credit to the industry.”

Los Angeles - Hosting Oscar organisers' Scientific and Technical Awards on Saturday night, actress Milla Jovovich, a veteran of effects-driven movies like the Resident Evil franchise, confessed she knew little about what actually goes on behind the cameras.

“I'm not an expert in technology. However I will say that as an actor, I certainly benefited from the many innovations you bring to filmmaking,” she told a packed ballroom of technical wizards being honoured by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills.

The annual awards event is typically overshadowed by the Academy Awards, or Oscars, which will be given out on February 26 for the best film, performances, directing, writing and other film work of the year.

Saturday's scientific and technical awards were reserved for honorees including Douglas Trumbull, recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for work that has “brought credit to the industry.”

Trumbull has been at the forefront of visual effects for decades, working on classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and more recently, The Tree Of Life, a contender in this year's best film race.

He spoke to the audience about rapidly changing technology in cinema and challenges facing the industry as attendance dips.

“I think we can make movies that make people say, 'I'm going to go out to a movie tonight because it's so cool, it's so big, it's so grand and it's so spectacular and there's so much showmanship,” said Trumbull. “I think we can bring movies to new heights.”

Other scientific and technical winners included the late John D. Lowry, inventor of the Lowry technique that is used to enhance image quality. Lowry died in his sleep only three weeks ago on January 21. Upon accepting the honour in his absence, his widow kissed the plaque then held it to the heavens.

Honorees also included achievements in lens development, high-speed digital camera systems, camera stabilisation rigs and high-resolution stock used in archival preservation.

Visual effects guru Jonathan Erland was awarded the John A. Bonner Medal for a lifetime of dedication to the academy. With a career spanning over 50 years, Erland joined legendary effects house Industrial Light & Magic in the 1970s and worked on such classics as “Star Wars.”

The academy's science and technical awards chairman, Erland holds a patent for the Blue-Max flux projector, a travelling matte process, and was instrumental in establishing visual effects as a separate branch of the Academy.

“The real task before us is to manage the present so that motion pictures stay relevant to the academy's mission and the ideals we espouse,” declared Erland. “When all motion pictures are excellent, then, perhaps, we can talk about a new vision for this body. - Reuters

Are hardbound textbooks going the way of slide rules and typewriters in US schools?

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Washington -

Are hardbound textbooks going the way of slide rules and typewriters in U.S schools?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski on Wednesday challenged schools and companies to get digital textbooks in students' hands within five years. The Obama administration's push comes two weeks after Apple announced it would start to sell electronic versions of a few standard high-school books for use on its iPad tablet.

Digital books are viewed as a way to provide interactive learning, potentially save money and get updated material faster to students.

Digital learning environments have been embraced in five states. But many schools lack the broadband capacity or the computers or tablets to adopt the technology, and finding the money to go completely digital is difficult for many schools in tough economic times.

Tied to Wednesday's announcement at a digital town hall was the government's release of a 67-page “playbook” to schools that promotes the use of digital textbooks and offers guidance. The administration hopes that dollars spent on traditional textbooks can instead go toward making digital learning more feasible.

Going digital improves the learning process, and it is being rolled out at a faster pace in other countries such as South Korea, Genachowski said in an interview. Genachowski said he is hopeful it can be cost effective in the long run, especially as the price of digital tablets drops.

“When a student reads a textbook and gets to something they don't know, they are stuck,” Genachowski said. “Working with the same material on a digital textbook, when they get to something they don't know, the device can let them explore, it can show them what a word means, how to solve a math problem that they couldn't figure out how to solve.”

Students can use the textbooks for video explanations to help with homework, they can interact with molecules, and they can manipulate a digital globe to see stories and data about countries, said Karen Cator, director of the Education Department's office of education technology.

“We're not talking about the print based textbook now being digital. We're talking about a much more robust and interactive and engaging environment to support learning,” Cator said.

About $8 billion is spent annually in the U.S. on textbooks for children in kindergarten through 12th grade, said Jay Diskey, the executive director of the school division of the Association of American Publishers. Diskey said textbook companies have been working on the technology for the past five years to eight years to transform the industry, but that in many cases, schools simply aren't ready.

“It's not only the future, it's the now. The industry has embraced this, but the difficulty does lie in the fact that schools are not yet fully equipped with the hardware. We hope that they get there soon,” Diskey said. - Sapa-AP

The FBI has released a file on Steve Jobs which paints an occasionally unflattering portrait of the late Apple founder.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday released a 191-page file on Steve Jobs which paints an occasionally unflattering portrait of the late Apple founder.

The report was compiled during a 1991 background investigation of Jobs by the FBI after former president George Bush recommended his appointment to the President's Export Council.

It consists of interviews with co-workers, friends, family members and neighbours of Jobs, who died on October 5 of pancreatic cancer.

The names of the persons interviewed by the FBI have been redacted from the file released following a Freedom of Information Act request by The Wall Street Journal although their places of employment are frequently identified.

The FBI also interviewed Jobs for the background check. He said he had not used any illegal drugs during the past five years but he had experimented with marijuana, hashish and LSD between 1970-74 while in high school and college.

The report notes that Jobs had been involved in several lawsuits as chief executive of Apple but had never been arrested and was not a member of the communist party.

Jobs, who had left Apple at the time and was head of NeXT Computer, was described by those interviewed as “strongwilled, stubborn, hardworking and driven,” the report said, even a “genius.”

“They further stated, however that Jobs possesses integrity as long as he gets his way,” the report said.

“Several individuals questioned Mr. Jobs' honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,” it said.

“Appointee is very truthful and straightforwards with people and usually says exactly what he is thinking,” it said.

The report also delved into Jobs's relationship with his former girlfriend and their daughter.

“In the past, Mr. Jobs was not supportive of (the mother of his child born out of wedlock) and their daughter: however, recently has become more supportive,” it said.

Jobs, in a recent authorised biography by Walter Isaacson, acknowledged both his drug use and that he had not initially been close to his daughter.

One woman interviewed by the FBI said Job's personal life was “lacking due to his narcissism and shallowness” but he has “far reaching vision.”

“She also stated that his success at Apple... also caused him at times to lose sight of honesty and integrity and even caused him to distort the truth at times to get his way,” the report said.

Another person said Jobs “had undergone a change in philosophy by participating in eastern and/or Indian mysticism and religion.

“This change apparently influenced the Appointee's personal life for the better,” the FBI said. “The Appointee lives more of a spartanlike and at times even monastic existence.”

Along with the background check file, the FBI released the report of its investigation into a February 1985 bomb threat against Apple in which an unidentified caller demanded $1 million.

No bombs were ever found and no money changed hands. - AFP

Brazil wants to stop Twitter users from alerting drivers to police roadblocks, radar traps and drunk-driving checkpoints.

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Sao Paulo - A request for an injunction to stop Twitter users from alerting drivers to police roadblocks, radar traps and drunk-driving checkpoints could make Brazil the first country to take Twitter up on its plan to censor content at governments' requests.

Twitter unveiled plans last month that would allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

“As far as we know this is the first time that a country has attempted to take Twitter up on their country-by-country take down,” Eva Galperin of the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Galperin, who described the foundation as “a digital liberties organization,” predicted governments will be taking similar opportunities to censor Twitter traffic.

“Twitter has given these countries the tool and now Brazil has chosen to use it,” she said.

Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues Alves, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office, said the injunction request was filed on Monday. He said a judge was expected to announce in the next few days whether he will issue the order against Twitter users.

The attorney general's office said in a statement that tweeted alerts about police operations jeopardize efforts to reduce traffic accidents and curb auto thefts and the transportation of drugs and weapons.

According to the statement, traffic accidents throughout Brazil kill 55,000 people each year and cost the country 24.6 billion reals, or about $14.3 billion.

If the judge rules in favor of the injunction, anyone who violates it could be hit with a daily fine of 500,000 reals ($291,000), the statement said.

San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. said in an email that it had “nothing to share on this issue.”

Under Twitter's new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there at a government's request. But it adds that censored tweets will still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter has said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives.

It said it has no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal. - Sapa-AP

Google is reportedly planning to mirror Apple’s winning hardware-software formula with an Android-powered entertainment system.

Los Angeles - Google will mirror Apple’s winning hardware-software formula with an Android-powered entertainment system that wirelessly streams content through homes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The Journal cited unnamed sources as saying Google will take the unprecedented step of stamping its own brand on the home-entertainment system, which was expected to debut this year.

Google, which announced in August it is buying US smartphone maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5-billion in cash, told reporters it would not comment on “rumour and speculation”.

The California-based technology firm has openly shared a vision of its open-source Android software being used to power a wide array of devices aside from smartphones and tablets.

Google also operates an Internet music service along with video-sharing website YouTube, both of which have potential to provide digital content to home entertainment systems.

Apple has proven the money-making power of combining devices, software and digital entertainment material in its iPad, iPhone, and iPod devices. - AFP