Technology

While the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project has taken on the aura of a charity – if you believe what you read in the mainstream media – the hard numbers tell a different story. Analysts say the component suppliers that have taken a gamble on the project stand a fair chance of coming out winners.

UPDATED MARCH 27: Nintendo has changed the design of its Wii games console to combat modchips, modchip developers in China have charged. Several design changes can be seen on new Wii motherboards, in photographs that appear to support these claims.

Some sources allege that the changes make it more likely the Wii could be damaged by modchip installation, we have not been able to verify this, however.

An internet connection owned by SCO, the firm at the center of a legal battle over the open source operating system Linux, was used to delete information from SCO's Wikipedia entry last month.

Contributors to online discussion groups have now suggested that the same individual later went on to remove substantial amounts of unfavorable information from the Wikipedia entry, but the evidence they have so far offered to support this view is not strong, and appears to be circumstantial, at best.

Trojan horse software is being used to artificially boost websites' positions on Alexa.com, the leading internet traffic measurement chart, security researchers suspect. The covertly-installed software first installs Alexa's traffic monitoring toolbar on the victim's PC, and then forces the victim's web browser to visit several websites, thereby increasing their ranking in Alexa's statistics, according to FaceTime Security Labs.

The world's first intercity magnetic levitation train line, capable of running at up to 500 kmh (310 mph), will be built in China, authorities have confirmed today. The first section of the line is scheduled to open in 2010, China Central TV news reported.