The former boss of IT Services at Ofcom UK and a Royal Navy veteran, Jurgen Whitehouse (37), has been jailed for two years and six months by Southwark Crown Court after he defrauded the communications regulator of £522,123 between July 2008 and April 2009.
The allegation was first reported to police on 17th March 2010 by Ofcom’s Financial Controller. Following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police, Whitehouse was arrested on 29th June 2010 and subsequently charged in February this year.
It’s unclear precisely how Whitehouse managed to conduct the fraud, although one …

Smartphone manufacturers have begun building their chargers to a common design, in a development that will make the frustration of a flat battery a rarer feeling.{!}Apple hopes iAd will enable it to collect a large share of the burgeoning mobile advertising market, which is expected to be worth $13.5bn by 2013{!}The new common charger, unveiled in Brussels this week, is based on an EU standard and will be adopted by major smartphone manufacturers by the end of the year.
As well as allowing friends to share and making it easier for …

New mobile phone app allows shoppers to get real-time advice on the ethical status of goods and services.
Shoppers keen to know the ethical status of the goods and services they want to buy can make real-time comparisons using a new mobile phone app that launched today.
The Ethical Company Organisation‘s best-selling Good Shopping Guide has been turned into an app, using its ethical product research which aims to cut through corporate “greenwash”.
The ethical shopping advice will initially be available for use on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad at £2.99. Ten per …

News Corporation’s Rupert Murdoch is extending his media empire once again – this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad called the Daily.
Mr Murdoch told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that he hoped it would be an “indispensable source of news” in the tablet era.
The Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple’s iTunes store.
The paper will initially only be available in the US.
News Corp has hired about 100 journalists to work on it.
The Daily will feature news …

Google has unveiled an operating system for tablet computers aimed at ramping up the competition with Apple’s iPad.
More than 15 million iPads have been sold since Apple launched the gadget in 2010.
The latest version of Google’s Android OS is called Honeycomb and it has been specifically optimised for tablets.
The features include the ability to buy applications from a computer, buy features inside the app, video chat and improved graphics.
“This is a serious investment of years of design and engineering to really nail the experience for a larger screen,” Hugo Barra, …

A new form of computing memory which could lead to faster starting, user-friendly computers has been developed by US researchers.
The device, developed by a team at North Carolina State University, claims to combine the advantages of two commons forms of memory used today.
The “unified” memory device, outlined in the journal IEEE Computer, is still undergoing testing.
But the team believe it could form the basis of PCs that start immediately.
Permanent speed
Currently, computers rely on two distinct forms of memory: volatile and non-volatile.
The type of memory used depends on whether data needs …

The crocodile in “Peter Pan” happily went “tick-tock” after swallowing an alarm clock but a crocodile in Ukraine has been a little less fortunate after swallowing in a mobile phone.
Gena, a 14-year-old crocodile at an aquarium in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, has been refusing food and acting listless after eating a phone dropped by a woman as she tried to photograph him.
Aquarium workers initially did not believe Rimma Golovk when she complained that the crocodile had swallowed her phone.
“But then the phone started ringing and the sound was …

The BBC is to cut about 200 websites as it reduces the amount of money it spends on its online output.
The changes, which will see BBC Online’s budget cut by £34m, will also result in the loss of up to 360 jobs over the next two years.
Among the sites to close are teen site Switch and community sites h2g2 and 606.
The plans are part of the BBC’s cost-cutting measures to make 20% savings as a result of the licence fee settlement.
The BBC says the changes are intended to make its …

Vets had to perform life-saving surgery on a six-month-old puppy after he swallowed his owner’s mobile phone.
Dog-lover Paula Connelly said she had no idea where her mobile had got to until she got a call to say it had been pulled from her pet’s stomach.
Sam, a golden retriever, had also swallowed a small toy doll, which was recovered during the same operation.
Helen Sutton, from Broadleys Veterinary Hospital in Stirling, said he could have died without the surgery.
“The dog came in at the beginning of last week vomiting, but we could …

People who play illegal copies of video games on chipped or modified consoles cost at least £1.45 billion in lost sales in 2010.
The Association of UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE), which speaks for the games industry, says it’s not just money that’s being lost.
It also estimates that it’s resulted in 1,000 fewer jobs in the industry.
One pirate told Newsbeat that games are too expensive and the companies behind them make enough money as it is.
Piracy is traditionally more commonly associated with music or films.
But 25-year-old Martin, from near Scarborough, says that’s …