Apple to ditch Macworld gathering

In a surprise move, Apple said it is to abandon its annual tech gathering Macworld after this January's event.

Meanwhile news that the keynote address will not be given by ceo Steve Jobs has reignited speculation about his health following cancer four years ago.

Concern was raised earlier in the year when Mr Jobs appeared at the firm's developer conference looking gaunt.



Apple spokesman Steve Dowling refused to discuss the issue and said shows like Macworld were no longer relevant.

"Apple is steadily scaling back on trade shows and in recent years is reaching more people in more ways than ever before," Mr Dowling told BBC News.

"Every week 3.5 million people visit our retail stores. And like many companies, trade shows are a minor part of how Apple reaches its customers."

Mr Dowling also said that as the company had scaled back on such shows, it had ramped up "stand-alone launch events like the September iPod launch seen by millions of people on the internet".

IDG which runs the show put a brave face on things.

"We are on track for a terrific show with strong attendance numbers and nearly 500 exhibitors showcasing their products," Paul Kent, general manager of Macworld Expo told the BBC.

"The conference and expo has thrived for 25 years due to the strong support of tens of thousands of members of the Mac community worldwide. We are committed to serving their interests," he said.

Hallelujah set for chart trinity

Jeff Buckley's version of the song Hallelujah is set to shoot up the singles chart after X Factor winner Alexandra Burke released her own cover.

According to midweek sales Buckley's version, from the 1994 album Grace, is set to be number three, but Burke's single will debut at number one.

Burke, 20, has already broken the record for the fastest-selling download single in Europe.



The original Leonard Cohen version of the song is currently at number 34.

If Buckley's cover climbs any higher, this could mean two versions of the same song sitting at number one and number two in the Christmas charts.

"I don't think this has ever happened in UK charts history, and certainly not for Christmas," HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said.

However, there has been one occasion when four versions of the same song have entered the UK top 40 - but you have to go back to 1955.

On 20 June, 1955 Al Hibbler, The Les Baxter Orchestra, Jimmy Young and Liberace all scored a hit with Unchained Melody, with Young's version topping the chart.

Actor Hugh Jackman to host Oscars

Australian actor Hugh Jackman will be the host of the 2009 Academy Awards, organisers have announced.

The 40-year-old star has not hosted the event before, although he presented the award for best original score in 2007.

Best known for playing Wolverine in the X-Men films, the actor can currently be seen in Baz Luhrmann's epic Australia.

Jackman

Jackman, whose other film credits include Van Helsing and The Prestige, was recently named People magazine's "sexiest man alive".

His presenter experience includes three years as host of the Tony Awards between 2003 and 2005.

He also took home an award in 2004 for his role in Broadway musical The Boy from Oz.

He has also trod the boards in London, playing the lead role in a National Theatre revival of Oklahoma! in the late 1990s.

Early reports had linked British comedian Ricky Gervais to the post, filled in previous years by Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and the late Bob Hope.

Gervais, though, subsequently distanced himself from the role, saying he feared he might not get the "freedom" he would need.

US Government shuts down 'scareware' sellers

The US government has moved to shut down sellers of fake security software.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has won a restraining order that stops several sellers of "scareware" from continuing to trade.

Millions of people are thought to have been caught out by the software which, once installed, issues false alerts about viruses and illegal porn.

The FTC is pursuing further legal action to win a permanent ban on those peddling the scareware.





Court papers submitted by the FTC show that the peddlers of the fake security software tricked websites into advertising their products.

The companies behind the fake security software won customers via adverts on many popular websites.

Anyone clicking on an advert was taken to the webpages run by the fake security firms which then ran a "scan" looking for security problems.

Mobile internet usage on the rise

Mobile internet use is growing while the number of people going online via a PC is slowing, analyst firm Nielsen Online has found.

Some 7.3m people accessed the net via their mobile phones, during the second and third quarters of 2008.
This is an increase of 25% compared to a growth of just 3% for the PC-based net audience - now more than 35m.
It also found that the mobile net audience was younger and searched for different things.


While Google remains the most popular site for those logging on via the desktop, on mobile internet BBC News is the most visited site, with nearly a quarter of mobile internet consumers using it.

Other popular sites include BBC Weather and Sky Sports.

"This highlights the advantage of mobile when it comes to immediacy: people often need fast, instant access to weather or sports news and mobile can obviously satisfy this," said Kent Ferguson, asenior analyst with Nielsen Online.

"The fact that weather, sports, news and e-mail sites make up the majority of leading mobile sites shows that mobile internet is mainly about functionality and need at the moment as opposed to the more entertainment and e-commerce-focused makeup of the leading PC-based sites," he added.

China: Roses album is 'venomous'

China has dismissed the new Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, as a "venomous attack" on the nation.

An article in the Global Times, published by the ruling communist party, says the album, launched this week, "turns its spear point on China".



The title track of the album, which has not been released in China because of the sensitive material, refers to the banned Falun Gong spiritual group.

The album's official website has also been blocked in China.

Chinese Democracy is the band's first album since their covers collection The Spaghetti Incident?

Ninety per cent of the young people who seek treatment for compulsive computer gaming are not addicted.
So says Keith Bakker the founder and head of Europe's first and only clinic to treat gaming addicts.
The Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam, has treated hundreds of young gamers since the clinic opened in 2006.
But the clinic is changing its treatment as it realises that compulsive gaming is a social rather than a psychological problem.




Using traditional abstinence-based treatment models the clinic has had very high success rate treating people who also show other addictive behaviours such as drug taking and excessive drinking.

But Mr Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers. For the other 90% who may spend four hours a day or more playing games such as World of Warcraft, he no longer thinks addiction counselling is the way to treat these people.

"These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies," he says.

"But the more we work with these kids these less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers - this is a social problem."
In response to this realisation the clinic has changes its treatment programme for gamers to focus more on developing activity-based social and communications skills to help them rejoin society.
Social ties
"This gaming problem is a result of the society we live in today," Mr Bakker told BBC News. "Eighty per cent of the young people we see have been bullied at school and feel isolated. Many of the symptoms they have can be solved by going back to good old fashioned communication."