Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

For example: say you're an entertainment executive looking to stop some incredibly popular kind of online information transmission - infringing music copyright, say. Where would you look to find a rich history of this kind of online battle? Why, the Spam Wars, of course. Where else?

Electronic spam has existed in one form or another since 1978. For 30 years, networks have served as battlefield in the fight between those who want your mailbox filled with their adverts and those who want to help you avoid the come-ons.

The war against spam has been a dismal failure: there's far more spam today than ever before, and it grows more sinister by the day. Gary Thuerk's 1978 bulk email advertisement for a new Digital Equipment model (widely held to be the first spam) was merely annoying and gormless. Today, the spam you receive might hijack your computer, turning it into a spyware-riddled zombie that harvests your banking details and passwords and uses its idle resources to send out even more spam. It might encrypt your files and demand anonymous cash transfers before unlocking them. It might be a front for a Spanish Prisoner scammer who will rob you of every cent you and your loved ones have.

And (practically) everyone hates spam. It's not like copyrighted music, where millions of time-rich, cash-poor teenagers and cheapskates are willing to spend their days and nights figuring out how to get more of it in their lives. In the Spam War, the message recipients are enthusiastic supporters of the cause.

Let's have a look at some of the spam war tactics that have been tried and have been found wanting.

Content-based filters

These were pretty effective for a very brief period, but the spammers quickly outmanoeuvred them. The invention of word-salads (randomly cut/pasted statistically normal text harvested from the net), alphabetical substitutions, and other tricksy techniques have trumped the idea that you can fight spam just by prohibiting certain words, phrases or media.

Unintended consequence: It's practically impossible to have an email conversation about Viagra, inheritances, medical conditions related to genitals, and a host of other subjects because of all the "helpful" filters still fighting last year's spam battle, diligently vaporising anyone who uses the forbidden words.

Blacklisting

Anti-spam groups maintain blacklists of "rogue" internet service providers and their IPs - the numbers that identify individual computers. These are ISPs that, due to negligence, malice, error, or a difference of opinion on how to best block bad actors, end up emitting a lot of spam to the rest of the internet. Again, this worked pretty well for a short period, but was quickly overwhelmed by more sophisticated spammers who switched from running rogue email servers to simply hijacking end users' PCs and using them to send spams from millions of IPs.

Unintended consequence: IP blocking becomes a form of collective punishment in which innocent people are punished (blocked from part or all of the internet) because one person did something naughty, and none of the punished had the power to prevent it. A single IP can stand in for thousands or even millions of users.

The blacklists are maintained by groups whose identity is shrouded in secrecy ("to prevent retaliation from criminal spam syndicates") and operate at Star Chambers who convict their targets in secrecy, without the right of appeal or the ability to confront your accuser. Allegations abound that blacklisters have targeted their critics and stuck them in the black holes merely for criticising them, and not because of any spam.

Blocking open servers

Email servers used to to be set up to accept and deliver mail for anyone: all you needed to do to send an email was to contact any known email server and ask it to forward your message for you. This made email sending incredibly easy to set up and run - if your local mailserver croaked, you could just switch to another one. But these servers were
also juicy targets for spammers who abused their hospitality to send millions of spams. A combination of blacklisting and social pressure have all but killed the open server in the wild.

Unintended consequence: It's infinitely harder to send legitimate email, as anyone who has ever logged into a hotel or institutional network and discovered that you can't reach your mailserver any more can attest. And still the spam rolls in: legitimate users lack the motivation and capacity to learn to send mail in a block-ridden environment, whereas spammers have the motivation and capacity in spades.

There have been other failures in the field, and a few successes (my daily spam influx dropped from more than 20,000 to a few hundred when my sysadmin switched on something called greylisting). But these three failures are particularly instructive because they represent the main strategic objectives of the entertainment industry's copyright enforcement plans.

Every legislative and normative proposal recapitulates the worst mistakes of the spamfight: from Viacom's demand that Google automatically detect copyright-infringing videos while they're being uploaded; to the three-accusations-and-you're-offline proposal from the BPI; to the notion in the G8's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement of turning copyright holders into judge, jury and executioner for what content can travel online and who can see it.

The Spam Wars have shown us that great intentions and powerful weapons can have terrible outcomes - outcomes where the innocent are inconvenienced and the guilty merely evolve into more resistant, more deadly organisms.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

For example: say you're an entertainment executive looking to stop some incredibly popular kind of online information transmission - infringing music copyright, say. Where would you look to find a rich history of this kind of online battle? Why, the Spam Wars, of course. Where else?

Electronic spam has existed in one form or another since 1978. For 30 years, networks have served as battlefield in the fight between those who want your mailbox filled with their adverts and those who want to help you avoid the come-ons.

The war against spam has been a dismal failure: there's far more spam today than ever before, and it grows more sinister by the day. Gary Thuerk's 1978 bulk email advertisement for a new Digital Equipment model (widely held to be the first spam) was merely annoying and gormless. Today, the spam you receive might hijack your computer, turning it into a spyware-riddled zombie that harvests your banking details and passwords and uses its idle resources to send out even more spam. It might encrypt your files and demand anonymous cash transfers before unlocking them. It might be a front for a Spanish Prisoner scammer who will rob you of every cent you and your loved ones have.

And (practically) everyone hates spam. It's not like copyrighted music, where millions of time-rich, cash-poor teenagers and cheapskates are willing to spend their days and nights figuring out how to get more of it in their lives. In the Spam War, the message recipients are enthusiastic supporters of the cause.

Let's have a look at some of the spam war tactics that have been tried and have been found wanting.

Content-based filters

These were pretty effective for a very brief period, but the spammers quickly outmanoeuvred them. The invention of word-salads (randomly cut/pasted statistically normal text harvested from the net), alphabetical substitutions, and other tricksy techniques have trumped the idea that you can fight spam just by prohibiting certain words, phrases or media.

Unintended consequence: It's practically impossible to have an email conversation about Viagra, inheritances, medical conditions related to genitals, and a host of other subjects because of all the "helpful" filters still fighting last year's spam battle, diligently vaporising anyone who uses the forbidden words.

Blacklisting

Anti-spam groups maintain blacklists of "rogue" internet service providers and their IPs - the numbers that identify individual computers. These are ISPs that, due to negligence, malice, error, or a difference of opinion on how to best block bad actors, end up emitting a lot of spam to the rest of the internet. Again, this worked pretty well for a short period, but was quickly overwhelmed by more sophisticated spammers who switched from running rogue email servers to simply hijacking end users' PCs and using them to send spams from millions of IPs.

Unintended consequence: IP blocking becomes a form of collective punishment in which innocent people are punished (blocked from part or all of the internet) because one person did something naughty, and none of the punished had the power to prevent it. A single IP can stand in for thousands or even millions of users.

The blacklists are maintained by groups whose identity is shrouded in secrecy ("to prevent retaliation from criminal spam syndicates") and operate at Star Chambers who convict their targets in secrecy, without the right of appeal or the ability to confront your accuser. Allegations abound that blacklisters have targeted their critics and stuck them in the black holes merely for criticising them, and not because of any spam.

Blocking open servers

Email servers used to to be set up to accept and deliver mail for anyone: all you needed to do to send an email was to contact any known email server and ask it to forward your message for you. This made email sending incredibly easy to set up and run - if your local mailserver croaked, you could just switch to another one. But these servers were
also juicy targets for spammers who abused their hospitality to send millions of spams. A combination of blacklisting and social pressure have all but killed the open server in the wild.

Unintended consequence: It's infinitely harder to send legitimate email, as anyone who has ever logged into a hotel or institutional network and discovered that you can't reach your mailserver any more can attest. And still the spam rolls in: legitimate users lack the motivation and capacity to learn to send mail in a block-ridden environment, whereas spammers have the motivation and capacity in spades.

There have been other failures in the field, and a few successes (my daily spam influx dropped from more than 20,000 to a few hundred when my sysadmin switched on something called greylisting). But these three failures are particularly instructive because they represent the main strategic objectives of the entertainment industry's copyright enforcement plans.

Every legislative and normative proposal recapitulates the worst mistakes of the spamfight: from Viacom's demand that Google automatically detect copyright-infringing videos while they're being uploaded; to the three-accusations-and-you're-offline proposal from the BPI; to the notion in the G8's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement of turning copyright holders into judge, jury and executioner for what content can travel online and who can see it.

The Spam Wars have shown us that great intentions and powerful weapons can have terrible outcomes - outcomes where the innocent are inconvenienced and the guilty merely evolve into more resistant, more deadly organisms.

The European commission today proposed slashing the cost of sending mobile text messages when travelling within the EU.

"EU citizens should be free to text across borders without being ripped off," Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, said.

The EC said the 2.5bn text messages sent each year by 'roaming' customers cost in excess of 10 times more than domestic messages and proposed capping them.

The European Regulators' Group, including Britain's Ofcom , said the cap should be set at between €0.11 and €0.15 per text compared with the current EU average of €0.29. Domestic text messages can cost as little as €0.034.

Reding said a single text for travellers from Belgium could be as high as €0.80 while British holidaymakers could expect to be charged €0.63 (40p) when roaming in Italy - compared with €0.30 for the French and €0.41 for the Germans.

She imposed price caps last year on roaming calls which have proved popular with consumers but angered mobile operators who are campaigning against her latest plans. But Reding said the operators had failed to respond to her calls for voluntary price cuts.

The EC believes its latest proposals, due to be presented as draft legislation in the autumn, will boost the EU's role as consumer champion among its increasingly disenchanted 500 million citizens after the debacle of the Lisbon treaty.

EC president, José Manuel Barroso, said: "Europe's single market should be allowed to play its part, making sure that no borders reappear on travellers' phone bills." He said the proposals would be a boost to European business as a whole.

Reding also indicated that the EC would propose caps on charges for downloading data via mobile connections to the Internet but gave no details of her plans. She said these would end "bill shocks" when people returned home to find they had been charged as much as €1,000 a month for surfing the net while travelling overseas.

A teenager from New Zealand who was accused of stealing millions of pounds has been let off without a conviction, despite pleading guilty to hacking into computers around the world.

18-year-old Owen Thor Walker, known online as "AKILL", was ordered to pay just £5,500 in costs and damages after a high court hearing in Hamilton, New Zealand, and could even end up working with local police to help them understand online crime.

Lawyers in the case told Associated Press that officers were interested in using Walker's skills for positive purposes, and although Detective Inspector Peter Devoy said that "there is no offer on the table", he admitted that the "option is being kept open".

Walker was arrested in November last year after an investigation involving the New Zealand police, FBI, US Secret Service and Dutch police, and was initially accused of leading a computer hacking ring that had stolen more than £12m from victims around the world.

After a high court hearing, however, police said Walker was in fact employed by the group to write software which they then used to access people's bank accounts. According to police, Walker did not directly take money from people's bank accounts, but the software he wrote was used by other criminals.

Walker pleaded guilty to charges of accessing a computer for dishonest purposes, accessing computer systems without authorisation, interfering with computer systems and possessing software with the intent to commit crime, but Justice Judith Potter dismissed the charges and ordered him to pay damages and costs of $14,000 New Zealand dollars (£5,500).

The case was part of a wider crackdown on the group, which has seen eight people around the world charged or convicted since last year. Arrest warrants have been issued for 13 others.

The group, said police, had built a massive network of more than a million zombie computers - known as a "botnet" - allowing them to steal credit card information, manipulate stock trades and crash the systems of large companies.

A teenager from New Zealand who was accused of stealing millions of pounds has been let off without a conviction, despite pleading guilty to hacking into computers around the world.

18-year-old Owen Thor Walker, known online as "AKILL", was ordered to pay just £5,500 in costs and damages after a high court hearing in Hamilton, New Zealand, and could even end up working with local police to help them understand online crime.

Lawyers in the case told Associated Press that officers were interested in using Walker's skills for positive purposes, and although Detective Inspector Peter Devoy said that "there is no offer on the table", he admitted that the "option is being kept open".

Walker was arrested in November last year after an investigation involving the New Zealand police, FBI, US Secret Service and Dutch police, and was initially accused of leading a computer hacking ring that had stolen more than £12m from victims around the world.

After a high court hearing, however, police said Walker was in fact employed by the group to write software which they then used to access people's bank accounts. According to police, Walker did not directly take money from people's bank accounts, but the software he wrote was used by other criminals.

Walker pleaded guilty to charges of accessing a computer for dishonest purposes, accessing computer systems without authorisation, interfering with computer systems and possessing software with the intent to commit crime, but Justice Judith Potter dismissed the charges and ordered him to pay damages and costs of $14,000 New Zealand dollars (£5,500).

The case was part of a wider crackdown on the group, which has seen eight people around the world charged or convicted since last year. Arrest warrants have been issued for 13 others.

The group, said police, had built a massive network of more than a million zombie computers - known as a "botnet" - allowing them to steal credit card information, manipulate stock trades and crash the systems of large companies.

Google has struck a deal to protect the personal data of millions of YouTube users in the $1bn (£497m) copyright court case brought against the video-sharing website by Viacom.

Under the deal, Google will make user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom in the US legal case.

Earlier this month a judge in New York ordered Google to pass on the personal data of more than 100 million YouTube users - many of them in the UK - to Viacom.

Viacom, the media company that owns TV channels including MTV and Comedy Central and the Paramount film studio, had demanded the information so it could conduct a detailed examination of the viewing habits of millions of YouTube users around the world.

The agreement that Google has struck also applies to other litigants pursuing YouTube user information over copyright claims in a class action that includes the FA Premier League, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation and the Scottish Premier League.

"We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information," Google commented in a post on the official YouTube blog in the US overnight.

"In addition, Viacom and the plaintiffs had originally demanded access to users' private videos, our search technology, and our video identification technology. Our lawyers strongly opposed each of those demands and the court sided with us."

Keeping YouTube user data anonymous had been championed by privacy campaigners in theUK and US.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the initial court order had "threatened to expose deeply private information" and violated the Video Privacy Protection Act.

There were also fears that Viacom might use the personal information to go after individuals for uploading illegal content such as music videos.

Google has now agreed to provide Viacom, and a class action group led by the FA Premier League, with a version of a YouTube viewership database that removes user name and IP data that would identify individual users.

However, the agreement does not address the issue of the viewing and uploading habits of Google and YouTube employees on the video-sharing website.

Viacom and Google still have to work out how to share this data over the coming weeks.

Although Google has brought in a series of systems to help with the removal of illegal material from YouTube, Viacom argued that it does not go far enough and launched its court action in March last year.

The court cases against Google are unlikely to come to trial before 2009 or 2010.

Last year Facebook was forced into a climbdown over an intrusive marketing product called Beacon, which allowed other websites to tell your friends and family about some of your activities elsewhere on the internet, after a massive user backlash.

YouTube, which was founded in California in 2005, was bought by Google just a year later for $1.65bn and has since become the biggest video sharing website on the web.

It has an estimated 72 million users in the US alone, and its videos are watched more than 2.5 billion times each month.

In the UK, YouTube accounted for almost 50% of the 3.5bn video clips watched by web users in March, according to the latest comScore figures.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

eBay has won a four-year legal battle with Tiffany over the jeweller's complaint that the online website amounted to a "rat's nest" auction of counterfeit watches, bracelets and necklaces.

A judge in New York ruled yesterday that eBay could not be held responsible for policing the contents of its site, and that it was Tiffany's role to draw fake designer jewellery to the auctioneer's attention.

The verdict is a relief to eBay which lost a similar case in Paris two weeks ago when a French court ordered it to pay €38.6m (£30m) in damages to the luxury goods manufacturer LVMH for allowing the sale of fake bags, perfumes and designer clothes.

Internet experts had suggested that a series of verdicts against eBay could threaten the business model of many customer-to-customer websites, although others maintain that a crackdown on online fraud is overdue.

In a written ruling, US district judge Richard Sullivan said: "Tiffany must ultimately bear the burden of protecting its trademark." But he said he was "not unsympathetic" to Tiffany's complaint, and hinted that US law might need a fresh look. "Policymakers may yet decide that the law as it stands is inadequate to protect rights owners in light of the increasing scope of internet commerce and the concomitant rise in potential trademark infringement," he said.

The dispute between eBay and the 170-year-old jewellery boutique dates from June 2004 when Tiffany lost patience with the quantity of silver merchandise available on the internet which claimed to bear its brand.

In court, the jeweller described eBay as a "proverbial rat's nest" of knocked-off goods, and testified that the auctioneer earned $4.1m of revenue from purported Tiffany goods over a four-year period.

eBay did not deny that counterfeit items sometimes appeared on its site, but argued it removed them swiftly whenever they were flagged up.

"Today's decision is a victory for consumers," said eBay in a statement. "The ruling appropriately establishes that protecting brands and trademarks is the primary burden of rights owners."

The outcome was greeted by NetChoice Coalition, a group representing hi-tech companies, which said a Tiffany victory "would have ended up foreclosing an entire category of ecommerce".

The BBC is expected to confirm that former Microsoft executive Erik Huggers is to replace Ashley Highfield as the new BBC director of future media and technology in the next few days.

It is understood that in his new role Huggers will work alongside a BBC FM&T executive charged with strengthening the divisions' editorial strategy and development.

Huggers joined the BBC last year as group controller of future media and technology.

He will be taking charge of a BBC FM&T division with an annual budget of around £400m, overseeing an operation that encompasses the bbc.co.uk website and the iPlayer broadband TV catch-up service.

Before joining the BBC, Huggers worked at Microsoft for nine years, during which he set up MSN in the Netherlands and Belgium, headed business development for Windows Media technologies and oversaw strategy for the firm's entertainment business.

The structure of the future media department's management was criticised in the recent BBC Trust review of bbc.co.uk for being "insufficiently strong" and for strategic weakness in editorial.

Huggers's team will need to take note of the BBC Trust's recommendations for improving bbc.co.uk's search, external links, dialogue and distinctiveness to secure a proposed increase in funding.

MediaGuardian.co.uk understands that the budget freeze, which may not be lifted until November, has caused a significant number of external commissions to be suspended.

One source claimed freelance staff contracts have been suspended until the budget is approved, adding that the BBC would struggle to meet external spend targets this year.

A BBC spokesman declined to comment on the appointment of Highfield's successor.

Highfield took up his new job, as chief executive of Kangaroo, the broadband TV joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, at the start of July.

The BBC spokesman said that the corporation operated a ratio system for external spend regardless of overall budget.

Last year, the FM&T division exceeded its quota to commission 31% of its material externally.

"This year, core spend on bbc.co.uk is comfortably on track to meet the quotas on external spending," the spokesman said.

"As and when new funds are approved by the [BBC] Trust, we will continue to commission external producers at the same rate."

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

YouTube has seen more than its share of poor dance moves, but in the last fortnight a video on the website called Dancing has been watched by nearly six million people, making it the feelgood internet hit of the summer.

The four-and-a-half-minute clip shows Matt Harding, a 31-year-old American, performing a clumsy jig to a haunting piece of world music composed by his friend, Gary Schyman. The lyrics, sung by Palbasha Siddique, are from a Bengali poem by the Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore.

Harding is seen in 42 places around the world, from amid a downpour in Stone Town, Zanzibar, to a Dutch tulip field. But what makes it truly memorable are the joyous locals New Guinea tribesmen, Bollywood dancers, Turks in Ottoman costumes - who groove with him.

The crowds turned up after reading about Harding's arrival in their country on his blog. It is the third global dance video he has made since 2003 and he has developed an internet following. Madrid had the biggest turnout, with 200 people. Others were just in the right place at the right time.

Apple has sold more than 1m of its new iPhone 3G handsets, the consumer electronics giant announced today, just three days since the chaotic launch of the second version of the smartphone.

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs said that the new iPhone 3G has had "a stunning opening weekend".

"It took 74 days to sell the first 1m original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," Jobs added.

However, the surge of demand for the new smartphone caused problems for Apple customers as sales system and upgrades were hit with technical difficulties across Europe and the US.

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets said lower pricing, pent-up demand and expanded distribution had contributed to increased interest, adding that buyers will be frustrated by limited stock and logistical problems caused by launching across 28 mobile operators in 22 countries.

But Apple will still achieve overall worldwide sales of 5.1m iPhone 3Gs for the third quarter of 2008, according to RBC's forecast.

The market analysts dismissed concerns over battery life for the new iPhone, raised by some reviewers, claiming the phone still outperforms comparable handsets such as the LG Voyager and HTC Tilt.

RBC also praised the new Apple Applications store, a feature enthusiastically welcomed by the web development community, saying the simple interface for selling games, location tools and messaging features "is reminiscent of the huge success of the marriage of iPod with iTunes".

Apple is expected to meet its target of launching the new 3G handset in 70 countries, said RBC, and will sell around 14m iPhones in the next year.

Some Apple fans in the US bought new handsets but were unable to use their new phones for several hours because the iTunes store, through which users administer their phone accounts, ground to a halt under the weight of requests.

In the UK, O2, the exclusive mobile retailer for iPhone, saw its web-based retail system collapse on Friday, making it impossible to register and sell new handsets.

The problem persisted into Saturday when stores were unable to sell the new phones, despite adequate stock.

The gadget blog Gizmodo christened the problems the "iPocalypse", while the Information Week columnist Mitch Wagner said Apple had compounded problems through "negligence and failure to anticipate demand".

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Apple has sold more than 1m of its new 3G iPhone handsets, the consumer electronics giant announced today, just three days since the chaotic launch of the second version of the smartphone.

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs said that the new 3G iPhone has had "a stunning opening weekend".

"It took 74 days to sell the first 1m original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," Jobs added.

However, the surge of demand for the new smartphone caused problems for Apple customers as sales system and upgrades were hit with technical difficulties across Europe and the US.

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets said lower pricing, pent-up demand and expanded distribution had contributed to increased interest, adding that buyers will be frustrated by limited stock and logistical problems caused by launching across 28 mobile operators in 22 countries.

But Apple will still achieve overall worldwide sales of 5.1m 3G iPhones for the third quarter of 2008, according to RBC's forecast.

The market analysts dismissed concerns over battery life for the new 3G iPhone, raised by some reviewers, claiming the phone still outperforms comparable handsets such as the LG Voyager and HTC Tilt.

RBC also praised the new Apple Applications store, a feature enthusiastically welcomed by the web development community, saying the simple interface for selling games, location tools and messaging features "is reminiscent of the huge success of the marriage of iPod with iTunes".

Apple is expected to meet its target of launching the new 3G handset in 70 countries, said RBC, and will sell around 14m iPhones in the next year.

Some Apple fans in the US bought new handsets but were unable to use their new phones for several hours because the iTunes store, through which users administer their phone accounts, ground to a halt under the weight of requests.

In the UK, O2, the exclusive mobile retailer for iPhone, saw its web-based retail system collapse on Friday, making it impossible to register and sell new handsets.

The problem persisted into Saturday when stores were unable to sell the new phones, despite adequate stock.

The gadget blog Gizmodo christened the problems the "iPocalypse", while the Information Week columnist Mitch Wagner said Apple had compounded problems through "negligence and failure to anticipate demand".

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

This week's special guest is Steve Miller, who's been looking at the often fractious relationship between scientists and journalists. He wanted to find out whether the stereotype - that scientists are unhappy with the way their research is presented in newspapers and on TV - was actually true.

Award-winning novelist Ian McEwan mused on creativity at an event organised by the Medical Research Council last week and we were there, pod-recorders in hand, to ask him: do talented artists and scientists have different kinds of creativity?

Listen to the full interview with McEwan in Science Extra, which also features poet Ruth Padel waxing lyrical about Charles Darwin.

We also hear from Andrew Hodges of the University of Oxford about the life of expert mathematician, codebreaker and father of computing, Alan Turing. Last week Hodges gave a lecture at Bletchley Park - where Turing helped crack the Nazis' Enigma Code during the Second World War - about the mathematician's legacy.

In the Newsjam, Nell Boase and James Randerson pick over tales of men's biological clocks, evidence for water on the moon, some more bad news for coral reefs and a woman who has given birth to her grandchild.

Oh, and we're playing a bit of "spot-the-fake-story" too.

This week's special guest is Steve Miller, who's been looking at the often fractious relationship between scientists and journalists. He wanted to find out whether the stereotype - that scientists are unhappy with the way their research is presented in newspapers and on TV - was actually true.

Award-winning novelist Ian McEwan mused on creativity at an event organised by the Medical Research Council last week and we were there, pod-recorders in hand, to ask him: do talented artists and scientists have different kinds of creativity?

Listen out for an instalment of Science Extra later today for more McEwan and also a sneak preview of some works-in-progress by poet Ruth Padel, who is writing about Charles Darwin.

We also hear from Andrew Hodges of the University of Oxford about the life of expert mathematician, codebreaker and father of computing, Alan Turing. Last week Hodges gave a lecture at Bletchley Park - where Turing helped crack the Nazis' Enigma Code during the Second World War - about the mathematician's legacy.

In the Newsjam, Nell Boase and James Randerson pick over tales of men's biological clocks, evidence for water on the moon, some more bad news for coral reefs and a woman who has given birth to her grandchild.

Oh, and we're playing a bit of "spot-the-fake-story" too.

In 1997, the name Slashdot was cool, because most people really weren't familiar with the idea of web addresses: we'd tell them to go to "slash slash slash-dot dot org" and their eyes would glaze over. The /. site was pretty cool, too. It was billed as "News for Nerds" and the net had a very high proportion of nerds back then.

What it didn't have was a plethora of blogs where someone could post a short story with a link so that thousands of people could pile in and discuss it. But at the time, I thought of Slashdot more as a replacement for Usenet newsgroup discussions than a precursor of blogging.

Either way, Slashdot soon became so popular that it gave rise to "the Slashdot effect". Slashdotters would see a new user-submitted story and click the link, and the target site would promptly collapse under the sheer weight of visitors. Sites that carried stories about Linux and open source, and geeky science news, usually hadn't been set up to handle huge spikes in traffic.

Naturally, many people tried to exploit the Slashdot effect, including me. There was no quicker way to get noticed.

Unfortunately, one of the downsides of nerdy sites is that they attract loads of nerds. These are the people who don't have girlfriends or proper jobs; who live on pizza in their parents' basement, and rarely see the sun; who have an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars but no common sense. It's a running gag on Slashdot that everyone is like that, even though they're not.

Slashdot's standard nerd hypocrisy is another running gag. Everyone knows that anything related to Apple/Linux/open source is innovative and cool, whereas if Microsoft had done exactly the same thing, it would be evil and monopolistic. Double standards rule.

But unlike Usenet, Slashdot has an innovative and cool Karma system to bury a lot of the rubbish. Comments are labelled (flamebait, troll, redundant, insightful, interesting, informative, funny etc) and rated, and Slashdotters can vote them up or down. The perceptive comments should therefore get voted up to +4 or +5 while the stupid ones are voted down to -1. If you browse Slashdot with a threshold set at +3, you can read the best and ignore the rest.

The good stuff on Slashdot is still very good, but perhaps the site is past its best. Although it has expanded beyond the nerd ghetto into politics and YRO (Your Rights Online), the site has been superseded by newcomers such as Digg and Reddit, Techmeme and Tailrank and other sources of news links. Slashdot's responses to this competition - which include Idle and Firehose - don't seem to have the same sort of momentum.

Any site that has signed up more than a million members and has several million visitors a month is clearly getting lots of things right. It's still the primary place for nerds to discuss news. However, as the internet grows, the proportion of nerds declines, and so does Slashdot's relative importance.

Channel 4 for is launching a careers guidance project tonight with the help of Mighty Boosh and The Thick of It writer Roger Drew.

The Insiders, based on the real-life diaries of six professionals including a doctor, police officer and actress, is designed to offer teenagers an insight into their work, but with a comedy spin.

Channel 4 is offering a warts-and-all take on the six jobs, which also include a fashion assistant, musician and a teacher, by commissioning Drew to adapt the contributors' stories.

Matt Locke, the Channel 4 commissioner for new media education, said the project will be most useful to sixth form-age youngsters.

"Lots of teens get career information but they want to know the struggles and the daily grind of jobs," Locke added.

"The comedy angle is for people who haven't already made up their minds, and is not trying to replace the hundreds of sites out there where they can find career information."

Last year, Channel 4 shifted much of its £6m annual education budget away from TV to digital media projects to try to reach more of its target 14- to 19-year-old audience.

The first instalment of The Insiders will go live from 6pm tonight on the show's MySpace page and www.insiderjob.co.uk, with blog posts, video and games related to each of the characters' stories.

Locke said around a third of the budget was spent on commissioning, casting and writing the project, a third on technical production and a third on marketing online through sites including Holy Moly and Monkeyslum.

Just as Channel 4's TV education shows have no associated advertising, there are no ads on the online projects other than the standard adverts run on MySpace, although Locke added that ads could be introduced next year.

He said he expected several hundred thousand users for The Insiders online.

Locke is hoping around 9% will become "friends" of the project and a further 1% will become intensive users.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

· This article was amended on Tuesday July 15 2008. The headline of this article has been changed from "Mighty Boosh's Roger Drew writes for Channel 4 careers project" to "Channel 4 launches careers guidance project". The first paragraph of this story now also acknowledges that Roger Drew wrote for The Thick of It.

Channel 4 for is launching a careers guidance project tonight with the help of Mighty Boosh and The Thick of It writer Roger Drew.

The Insiders, based on the real-life diaries of six professionals including a doctor, police officer and actress, is designed to offer teenagers an insight into their work, but with a comedy spin.

Channel 4 is offering a warts-and-all take on the six jobs, which also include a fashion assistant, musician and a teacher, by commissioning Drew to adapt the contributors' stories.

Matt Locke, the Channel 4 commissioner for new media education, said the project will be most useful to sixth form-age youngsters.

"Lots of teens get career information but they want to know the struggles and the daily grind of jobs," Locke added.

"The comedy angle is for people who haven't already made up their minds, and is not trying to replace the hundreds of sites out there where they can find career information."

Last year, Channel 4 shifted much of its £6m annual education budget away from TV to digital media projects to try to reach more of its target 14- to 19-year-old audience.

The first instalment of The Insiders will go live from 6pm tonight on the show's MySpace page and www.insiderjob.co.uk, with blog posts, video and games related to each of the characters' stories.

Locke said around a third of the budget was spent on commissioning, casting and writing the project, a third on technical production and a third on marketing online through sites including Holy Moly and Monkeyslum.

Just as Channel 4's TV education shows have no associated advertising, there are no ads on the online projects other than the standard adverts run on MySpace, although Locke added that ads could be introduced next year.

He said he expected several hundred thousand users for The Insiders online.

Locke is hoping around 9% will become "friends" of the project and a further 1% will become intensive users.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Channel 4 for is launching a careers guidance project tonight with the help of Mighty Boosh writer Roger Drew.

The Insiders, based on the real-life diaries of six professionals including a doctor, police officer and actress, is designed to offer teenagers an insight into their work, but with a comedy spin.

Channel 4 is offering a warts-and-all take on the six jobs, which also include a fashion assistant, musician and a teacher, by commissioning Drew to adapt the contributors' stories.

Matt Locke, the Channel 4 commissioner for new media education, said the project will be most useful to sixth form-age youngsters.

"Lots of teens get career information but they want to know the struggles and the daily grind of jobs," Locke added.

"The comedy angle is for people who haven't already made up their minds, and is not trying to replace the hundreds of sites out there where they can find career information."

Last year, Channel 4 shifted much of its £6m annual education budget away from TV to digital media projects to try to reach more of its target 14- to 19-year-old audience.

The first instalment of The Insiders will go live from 6pm tonight on the show's MySpace page and www.insiderjob.co.uk, with blog posts, video and games related to each of the characters' stories.

Locke said around a third of the budget was spent on commissioning, casting and writing the project, a third on technical production and a third on marketing online through sites including Holy Moly and Monkeyslum.

Just as Channel 4's TV education shows have no associated advertising, there are no ads on the online projects other than the standard adverts run on MySpace, although Locke added that ads could be introduced next year.

He said he expected several hundred thousand users for The Insiders online.

Locke is hoping around 9% will become "friends" of the project and a further 1% will become intensive users.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Channel 4 has recruited Mighty Boosh writer Roger Drew to fictionalise the professional lives of a doctor, police officer and actress as part of a careers guidance project.

The Insiders, based on the real-life diaries of six professionals, is designed to offer teenagers an insight into their work, but with a comedy spin.

Channel 4 is offering a warts-and-all take on the six jobs, which also include a fashion assistant, musician and a teacher, by commissioning Drew to adapt the contributors' stories.

Matt Locke, Channel 4's commissioner for new media education, said the project will be most useful to sixth form-age youngsters.

"Lots of teens get career information but they want to know the struggles and the daily grind of jobs," Locke added.

"The comedy angle is for people who haven't already made up their minds, and is not trying to replace the hundreds of sites out there where they can find career information."

Last year, Channel 4 shifted much of its £6m annual education budget away from TV to digital media projects to try to reach more of its target 14- to 19-year-old audience.

The first instalment of The Insiders will go live from 6pm tonight on the show's MySpace page and www.insiderjob.co.uk, with blog posts, video and games related to each of the characters' stories.

Locke said around a third of the budget was spent on commissioning, casting and writing the project, a third on technical production and a third on marketing online through sites including Holy Moly and Monkeyslum.

Just as Channel 4's TV education shows have no associated advertising, there are no ads on the online projects other than the standard adverts run on MySpace, although Locke added that ads could be introduced next year.

He said he expected several hundred thousand users for The Insiders online.

Locke is hoping around 9% will become "friends" of the project and a further 1% will become intensive users.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Yahoo rejected a joint takeover proposal from Microsoft and dissident investor Carl Icahn this weekend, saying the proposal to oust its board and break up the company's assets was "opportunistic" and "ludicrous".

The joint offer, made late on Friday, involved selling Yahoo's search business to Microsoft for $1bn (£504m), as well as a guaranteed payment of $2.3bn every year for five years.

Microsoft would also buy $3.9bn in Yahoo shares and $2.8bn of the company's debt, with some payout to shareholders.

Icahn said a condition of the deal would be the complete removal of the Yahoo board, including the co-founder and current chief executive, Jerry Yang, claiming they were "willing to watch the ship go down rather than sell the company".

Yahoo said Icahn and his proposed board would not be suited to leading the firm because he has virtually no working knowledge of Yahoo and that breaking up the company would preclude any more lucrative and less risky deal for the whole business.

"This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo's stockholders in mind," said Yahoo's chairman, Roy Bostock, in a statement on Saturday.

"Clearly, Microsoft, having failed to advance in search, is aligning with the short-term objectives of Mr Icahn to coerce Yahoo into selling its core strategic search assets on terms that are highly advantageous to Microsoft, but disadvantageous to Yahoo stockholders," Bostock added.

"It is ludicrous to think that our board could accept such a proposal. While this type of erratic and unpredictable behaviour is consistent with what we have come to expect from Microsoft, we will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our stockholders," he said.

Bostock also said that an additional proposal to spin off Yahoo's Asian assets to return cash to shareholders could be conducted by the company on its own and was one option being considered by the board.

Yahoo conceded that the offer had some financial benefits, but reiterated that it would be prepared to sell the company as a whole to Microsoft for at least $33 per share.

Icahn, who bought $2.5bn in Yahoo shares after the Microsoft offer in February, has been steadily increasing pressure on the current executive ahead of the annual shareholder meeting on August 1.

The stand-off is now likely to end in a proxy battle at the meeting, with shareholders asked to decide whether to support the current management or vote in Icahn's proposed alternative executive board.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

It may cause some dispute at the next family dinner, but James Murdoch has overtaken his father, Rupert, for the first time in this year's MediaGuardian 100 power list.

For the first time since the list was introduced in 2001, James has leapfrogged the News Corp chairman after taking over as chief executive of the company's European and Asian operations, while retaining a role as chairman of BSkyB.

The list, which measures economic, cultural and political influence and is decided by a panel of industry experts, was topped by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in recognition of the all-pervasive impact of Google on the media.

Last year, they were replaced in the list by Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, but they returned to the top spot this year in recognition of their higher-profile role at the Silicon Valley search giant.

The 2007 list was a shakeup of the established order, with several high-profile new media players storming the top 10 and many established names dropping out.

That process has continued this year, with more players who have taken advantage of the opportunities for global distribution and instant interaction in the digital age represented. Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer also make the top 10.

Elisabeth, chief executive of independent production giant Shine, was the third Murdoch to make the list and one of the biggest climbers after buying Life on Mars producer Kudos and Reveille, the makers of Ugly Betty, in an acquisition spree.

James bypassed his father, whom he is expected to succeed one day as head of the sprawling News Corp empire, partly because Rupert has been more focused on the US since buying the Wall Street Journal publisher, Dow Jones. The list is based on influence on the UK's media scene, where James now oversees the News International newspaper empire.

The Daily Mail's Paul Dacre is the best-placed newspaper editor, while BBC Fiction chief Jane Tranter is a new entry at 10, making her the second most important person at the BBC, according to the panel, after director general Mark Thompson.

In the video for their most recent single, Pork and Beans, US rockers Weezer decided to get some of YouTube's most memorable - and sometimes downright odd - stars to sing along to the track. The video, which was itself a YouTube hit, was also a testament to the site's extra-ordinary star-making ability. And while some people have become famous for posting video rants about Britney Spears, or re-enacting scenes from Star Wars, others are making their names by sharing their skills with a worldwide audience. On the site you can find home-made tutorials on everything from crochet, gardening, learning Korean and the foxtrot, to more controversial skills such as picking locks. If one of your favourite gurus isn't offering the specific advice that you'd like, then you can request it through the comment streams, or by sending a personal message. Most of those who share their expertise want little in return except for a few nice comments. Here, we talk to 10 of the most innovative YouTube advice gurus ...

Lauren Luke, 26, South Shields

youtube.com/panacea81
Most popular video: How to create Leona Lewis's look in the video for Bleeding Love

"I was actually shocked - I thought people knew how to put on makeup!" says Lauren Luke, the UK's most successful YouTube guru. For the past year, Luke has been posting beauty videos on the site, aiming to make two tutorials a week, using an old Canon Powershot camera which is "dropping to bits". She is most proud of her Leona Lewis-inspired makeup tutorial, which has had more than 1.5m views since it was uploaded six months ago; at their busiest, each of Luke's videos attracts up to 300 comments a day, while Luke herself receives around 100 emails. The comments can be "absolutely horrible", she says, "where you want to jump off a cliff". But it's not always like this. "This morning there was a fan mail sent with a mascara. I get things like that which just completely counteract the crap."

The home-made videos have certainly got Luke, a mother of one, noticed. Since January, she has been working with cosmetics brand Barry M, hosting makeup tutorials on its website. "They said they had watched my videos and were fans of mine and would I come down to London to meet them for a bit of a talk. I decided I was just going to go for it," she says, "because I don't get many opportunities like that."

Francisco Bujan, 42

youtube.com/vitalcoaching
Most popular video: How to flirt with girls - for men only

Francisco Bujan, who describes himself as a citizen of Europe, offers a more esoteric form of advice via his YouTube page. To date, the professional life coach has posted 275 videos, offering viewers help with the emotional side of their lives. "My main subjects are dating, break-ups, staying healthy, personal power and spiritual development," says Bujan, whose most-watched videos are "How to flirt with girls - for men only!" and "How to get a guy to fall in love with you". Bujan has been posting videos for the past two years and says that "You are the designer of your life" is the best piece of guidance he has given "because, once you get that, you realise how much power you have to create". This means that, as well as posting videos on topics such as "Learn to say yes" and "Learn to say no", Bujan doles out information on using Sanskrit in your everyday life and why raw food is good for you.

The appeal of posting videos, he says, is that "it's fast - very fast! There is no delay like with publishing a book for instance. You wake up, have an idea - within 30 minutes it's recorded and posted." For those thinking of doing the same, he has some sage advice: film indoors. "Recording outdoors is always more challenging - I end up half-naked in the freezing cold wind."

Clare Dowling, 29, Huddersfield

youtube.com/claredowling
Most popular video: How to play No Woman No Cry on the guitar

"I first heard of YouTube in 2006," says Dowling, "when a friend showed us some videos and explained we could upload our own music for free." Soon after, Dowling - a carer by day, a musician by night - uploaded videos of her band, The Moot, playing home-recorded versions of their songs. She quickly found that not only did people want to listen to the two-piece reggae and ska band, they also wanted to sound like them, so in April this year, Dowling began creating online guitar lessons. Using her own renditions of classic reggae songs, she demonstrates strumming styles, ska rhythms and teaches viewers how to play full songs. "I make them at home," she says, "so a dog might bark or the phone might ring. I just put up with it as the viewers don't seem to mind - in fact, they often comment on the dogs."

Rob Barrett, 42, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA

youtube.com/cookingfordads
Most popular video: How to make game day party snacks, part one

Rob Barrett has been cooking since the day he asked his mother for some biscuits and she gave him a cookbook and told him to work it out for himself. Now he is the brains behind the man-friendly online food show Cooking for Dads, which, thanks to sponsorship from a local food market, has slightly higher production values than many other YouTube "how tos".

Despite having its own theme tune, title sequence and slick location filming, though, things don't always run smoothly. "We have super-low Minnesota temperatures, which make my mouth freeze," he says, "and sometimes my kids come home in the middle of shooting, like in the party appetisers episode. In the cheesy chicken episode, which was the first one I shot, the interruptions got so bad that we decided to make it a game and see if people could find all the mistakes." Barrett also once posted a video stating that he had been banned from YouTube after putting out a recipe for "yellow snow" and making his children eat it. "It was obviously a joke and I tried very hard to show that," says Barrett, "but no one got it."

John Steventon, 33, Glasgow

youtube.com/DJRecess
Most popular video: How to beatmatch

When he started learning how to DJ in the mid-90s, John Steventon says, "There was nothing at all to read, or to go to, to see what to do, so I stumbled my way through it for ages." He watched professionals such as Sasha and Paul Oakenfold at clubs, and slowly began to learn the skill, sharing his new-found knowledge with thousands of people across the world via his own website. In 2006 he wrote DJing for Dummies, and began using YouTube to market the book. Steventon's approach to filming is simple: "I just set up a tripod and try to keep the cats out of the way." His most popular video is one that describes a quick and easy way to beatmatch. "It has opened a lot of people's eyes to how to do it and also attracted a lot of rather vicious emails because I'm giving away the secrets of DJing. I've been called a ginger sheep-shagger," says Steventon, even though, as he notes, "I neither have those feelings for sheep or am ginger."

Iris Jay, 31, San Bernardino, California, USA

youtube.com/ilovegerardo
Most popular video: How to create a pin-up hairstyle

Office director by day, vintage glamour girl and YouTube legend come the evening, Iris Jay began posting videos online after wowing her friends with her 50s housewife hairdo at a fancy dress party. "Everyone at the party was asking me how I did my hair," says Jay, "and when I stopped to explain, I noticed they were actually paying attention to my detailed description." Jay borrowed her husband's Playstation EyeToy camera and made a video to post on YouTube for the benefit of her friends.

Within two days her video had had more than a thousand views, and there were enthusiastic requests for her to post more. Although she is not a professional hairdresser, her hair twisting and twirling tutorials - which include advice on creating Rosie the Riveter looks and feathered 70s styles - have a huge fanbase. The most popular pin-up hair tutorial has drawn 693,000 views since it was posted last September, while other YouTube users have even posted thank you videos dedicated to Jay and her styling techniques.

Steve Majes, 37, Oulton, Suffolk

youtube.com/thetrickytwister
Most popular video: How to make a balloon dog

"When I do balloons, a lot of people show an interest in making them and ask me how to do it," says magician Steve Majes. "I don't have a lot of time to spend with people if I'm doing a show so I thought I'd put these videos on YouTube and then direct them that way." The most popular video made by the former Butlins Redcoat is the one in which he makes a balloon dog. "It is kind of a classic," says Majes. "Once you can make a dog, then really you can make anything." Majes' videos also teach viewers how to make a whole menagerie of other animals, including swans, elephants, giraffes and teddy bears. While most of the responses are positive, some are less so. "You get the odd teenage response - people comparing balloons to phallic symbols," says Majes, "but you're always going to get that, and I tend to delete those very quickly."

Walt Ribeiro, 24, Philadelphia, USA

youtube.com/waltribeiro
Most popular video: How to read music

Thanks to the videos he started posting on YouTube in June last year, musician Walt Ribeiro is now employed to teach online music lessons for Ustream.TV. As well as fronting these live lessons, he continues to add new videos to YouTube almost daily, explaining arpeggios, power chords and how to read music. "I started doing it because there were no videos on teaching music theory," says Ribeiro, "and if there were, they weren't any good." Making sure he responds to every email and every question he is asked via the website, Ribeiro takes a zen-like approach to sharing his knowledge online: "I feel if you know something, you should pay it forward - in the hope that, one day, someone is able to teach someone else in the way it was given to me." As well as helping people across the world get to grips with music, Ribeiro has also helped people in love. "A boy wanted to play guitar for a girl he liked but he didn't know a certain chord. He sent me this email about how no one would help him, so I made a video for him showing how to play it. He wrote back: it had led to his first kiss."

Barry Taylor, 21, Hertfordshire

youtube.com/sortedstudents
Most popular video: How to make a citrus cocktail

Alongside seven of his former schoolmates, Barry Taylor is attempting to put together the ultimate student guide to cooking. Having written a book - Sorted: A Recipe For Student Survival - the friends decided to jump head first into the world of viral marketing, using videos to "capture the banter between the group and the fun involved in actually making the food". So as well as an all-singing, all-dancing website, they've got a YouTube channel featuring them whizzing up chocolate cherry pots, Portuguese soup, banana smoothies, and, most importantly, boozy drinks, all inspired by the chef in their ranks who once trained with Jean-Christophe Novelli. All the videos were filmed during a long lads' weekend away in Cornwall, including the dance-based clip for their citrus cocktail. "It was pretty full on - we were drinking throughout the day to help us along and at one in the morning we stopped and slept for a few hours and then we carried on the next day." Alongside the recipe videos, the Sorted gang also offer Tips and Tricks videos, with advice including: "Make the most of your first year, because you only need 40%."

Gavin Walsh, 27, London

youtube.com/gavinwalsh1
Most popular video: How to do a deadlift

Gavin Walsh discovered YouTube while at university, watching its quirky clips as a form of procrastination. But over the past six months he has been using the website more productively: to supplement his work as a personal trainer. "I think people are starting to realise you can actually use it as part of your business, to help your clients try to improve and also to market yourself." Filming clips in the gym in the afternoon and putting them on YouTube in the evening, Walsh experienced a few hiccups when starting out, including stumbling over his words, "but after a while you have an internal script in your head and you know what to say". The clips were initially posted for the benefit of his clients, but now his videos are watched by people who have never even met him, as well as other personal trainers, who have got in touch to discuss how he does certain exercises. His favourite video is the one of him doing a tricky press up on two Swiss Balls. Why? "Well," he laughs, "it's more showing off than anything else".

If the stickers dotted around coffee shops are to be believed, the UK is one big Wi-Fi hotspot. But unfortunately, a hotspot is often not a free spot. While it's nice to believe we're living in a free wireless internet utopia, in fact you'll probably have to pay for your web surfing along with your skinny mocha. Combine that with the fact hotspots are location-dependent, and getting online no longer seems quite so easy.

Signing up for a dedicated mobile broadband service removes some of the guesswork involved in attempting to access the internet out and about; you still have to pay, but you're not at the mercy of temperamental Wi-Fi zones. All of the major mobile phone companies now offer the service: a USB receiver plugs into your computer, utilising the 3G network to access the internet. Speeds vary according to your provider and the strength of the signal in any given area.

Like mobile phone tariffs, monthly subscription rates depend on different criteria such as contract length and download speeds. But the most important numbers to look out for are the download limits imposed by providers. Usually these are around two or three gigabytes, so if you're looking to watch TV programmes or download music and videos it's best to go for the higher tariffs. It's wise to sort it out: going over your monthly allowance can prove costly - as can using mobile broadband overseas. Both are best avoided.

It would be the most audacious and technologically challenging space mission since the Apollo programme landed Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin on the moon in 1969. An international team of scientists has put together detailed plans for a mission to bring back samples of rock, and possibly microscopic life, from the surface of Mars.

To be successful the mission, which is proposed for launch between 2018 and 2023 and could cost up to $8bn, would require expertise and funding from both Nasa and the European Space Agency, as well as other national space agencies. "This is going to be extremely expensive and no one space agency can afford it," said Professor Monica Grady, at the Open University, who co-chaired the expert panel that wrote the mission proposal.

She said it was a vital next step before a possible crewed mission to the Red Planet. "If you can't bring a rock back you are not going to be able to bring people back. There's a real feeling that bringing samples back from Mars is absolutely essential if we are going to continue our Martian exploration programme."

Sending people to Mars will probably not be possible before 2050, but if a crewed mission were ever to go ahead scientists and engineers would need to demonstrate that it is possible to land a craft on the surface of Mars and bring it back to Earth safely. There have been seven successful landings on the Red Planet since the US spacecraft Mariner 4 flew past Mars for the first time in 1965, but no lander has ever taken off from the surface again or brought anything back to Earth.

The mission proposal is the result of an eight-month study by 31 scientists from around the world.

Grady and her colleagues presented it to delegates at a conference of the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG) in Paris last week. The group is made up of delegates from national space agencies and puts together plans for future missions. The heads of both Nasa and the ESA have received copies and the two agencies will decide in November whether to fund the mission's next planning stage. To hit the proposed timescale, technology development for the mission will need to begin by 2011.

Professor Colin Pillinger, at the Open University, who led Britain's unsuccessful Beagle II mission to Mars in 2003, said returning samples from the Red Planet would allow scientists to carry out much more sophisticated analyses on the rocks and permit a more detailed search for simple Martian life forms. "Everybody knows this is what you have got to do if you want to really get to the bottom of Mars," he said. But he said avoiding contamination would be extremely difficult.

"There's a big caveat when you start playing with Mars, and that's planetary protection. You have to be very careful not to bring anything back that might be harmful to Earth," he said. "Your mission has to be guaranteed, and I really mean guaranteed, to get into the Earth's atmosphere without damaging itself."

If Martian microbes do exist they must be extremely hardy, having survived the planet's freezing, desiccating surface and bombardment with UV radiation, so if the returning spacecraft blew up on re-entry scientists could not be sure that Martian life forms on board would be destroyed in the blast. It would also be impossible to know what they would do to life on Earth. Although samples have been returned successfully from space by robotic vehicles, the first attempt to bring samples from beyond the moon ended disastrously. The Genesis probe, which carried particles collected from the solar wind, crash landed in the Utah desert in September 2004.

The mission would involve the launch of two separate craft from Earth - a "lander composite" and an "orbiter composite". Both would make the trip to Mars, where the lander would touch down on the surface. It would then release a rover which would collect a variety of rock samples totalling around half a kilogram.

It would bring these back to the lander, where the rocks, plus a sample of Martian atmosphere, would be encased in a sealed pod within the so-called Mars Ascent Vehicle - part of the lander composite. This would then blast off from the surface and dock with the orbiter before transferring its precious cargo. The orbiter would then return to Earth, enter the atmosphere and land. At this point, scientists would rush in and transfer the samples to a top-level biosecurity lab, where they would be analysed for any possible signs of life.

Scientists have long fantasised about the possibility of bringing back rocks from the Red Planet. But the backing of IMEWG is a significant boost for the current plan.

They have also been emboldened by the success of several recent missions to Mars, including Nasa's Phoenix lander, which touched down in May. If the mission is to get off the ground, though, it will need strong political backing both in Europe and from the incoming US president, said Pillinger.

Martian chronicles: Previous missions

After a string of failures in the early 1960s by both the Soviet Union and the US, Mariner 4 in July 1965 became the first spacecraft to fly past Mars and send back images.

Following other successful flybys, Nasa orbited Mars in November 1971 for the first time with Mariner 9. The orbiter mapped 80% of the planet's surface by taking 7,329 images.

The Soviet Mars 3 mission was the first to successfully land on the planet in December 1971. It was severely damaged in a Martian dust storm, though, and sent back just 20 seconds of data.

Nasa's two Viking missions, which arrived at the Red Planet in 1976, landed successfully and transmitted more than 50,000 images. Nasa's Mars Pathfinder mission, pictured, which touched down in July 1997, was the first successful rover to probe the planet.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express mission reached Mars in December 2003 and is still operational. But its cargo, the British-led Beagle II lander, crashed on Christmas Day 2003 and failed to send back any data.

Nasa's successful Spirit and Opportunity rovers arrived on Mars in January 2004 and are still operating. The latest lander, Nasa's Phoenix mission, touched down in May this year.

Europe's mobile phone companies are braced for a clash with EU regulators this week as telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding calls for the cost of sending texts when abroad to be more than halved. The EU is also set to announce a clampdown on mobile ringtone services that offer "free" downloads to snare teenagers into signing expensive monthly contracts.

The EU's consumer protection chief Meglena Kuneva has looked at more than 500 such services across the EU as part of an investigation into possible breaches of consumer protection legislation. She is understood to want national regulators to take legal action against ringtone providers that do not make it plain to consumers they are signing up for a paid subscription service. She wants anyone selling subscription services - which cost consumers several pounds a day - to be barred from using the term "free" on promotional texts and adverts.

The Office of Fair Trading and the UK's premium-rate content regulator, PhonepayPlus, have been involved in the inquiry and on Thursday - the same day as Kuneva's announcement - PhonepayPlus will unveil its proposals for a wide-ranging shakeup of an industry that across Europe is worth more than €500m (£400m) a year. PhonepayPlus said recently that it has seen complaints about such services double over the first three months of this year.

The hidden charges behind ringtones hit the headlines in the UK three years ago when parents complained that their children had unknowingly signed up for subscription services when they downloaded the popular Crazy Frog ringtone.

PhonepayPlus's new proposals, however, include not just ringtones but cover the advertising and promotion of other forms of mobile content such as games and are designed to make it very clear to consumers what they are paying and what they will get when they sign up.

Reding, meanwhile, has become increasingly annoyed with the mobile phone industry's failure to reduce the cost of using a mobile phone overseas. She has already clamped down on the cost of making calls abroad and will tomorrow set her sights on text roaming prices.

The commission reckons that the average consumer is charged about €0.30 (24p) to send a text from abroad and Reding wants that slashed to €0.12. She will also call for reductions in the cost of using the internet abroad through a mobile phone, known as "data roaming", which has become a particularly contentious subject recently because of the introduction of the iPhone.

The average cost of downloading 1MB of data in the EU is €5.24 (£4). The commission is understood to be considering calling for the price that the mobile phone companies charge each other - known as the wholesale price - for that amount of data to be slashed to €0.35.

Europe's mobile phone companies are braced for a clash with EU regulators this week as telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding calls for the cost of sending texts when abroad to be more than halved. The EU is also set to announce a clampdown on mobile ringtone services that offer "free" downloads to snare teenagers into signing expensive monthly contracts.

The EU's consumer protection chief Meglena Kuneva has looked at more than 500 such services across the EU as part of an investigation into possible breaches of consumer protection legislation. She is understood to want national regulators to take legal action against ringtone providers that do not make it plain to consumers they are signing up for a paid subscription service. She wants anyone selling subscription services - which cost consumers several pounds a day - to be barred from using the term "free" on promotional texts and adverts.

The Office of Fair Trading and the UK's premium-rate content regulator, PhonepayPlus, have been involved in the inquiry and on Thursday - the same day as Kuneva's announcement - PhonepayPlus will unveil its proposals for a wide-ranging shakeup of an industry that across Europe is worth more than €500m (£400m) a year. PhonepayPlus said recently that it has seen complaints about such services double over the first three months of this year.

The hidden charges behind ringtones hit the headlines in the UK three years ago when parents complained that their children had unknowingly signed up for subscription services when they downloaded the popular Crazy Frog ringtone.

PhonepayPlus's new proposals, however, include not just ringtones but cover the advertising and promotion of other forms of mobile content such as games and are designed to make it very clear to consumers what they are paying and what they will get when they sign up.

Reding, meanwhile, has become increasingly annoyed with the mobile phone industry's failure to reduce the cost of using a mobile phone overseas. She has already clamped down on the cost of making calls abroad and will tomorrow set her sights on text roaming prices.

The commission reckons that the average consumer is charged about €0.30 (24p) to send a text from abroad and Reding wants that slashed to €0.12. She will also call for reductions in the cost of using the internet abroad through a mobile phone, known as "data roaming", which has become a particularly contentious subject recently because of the introduction of the iPhone.

The average cost of downloading 1MB of data in the EU is €5.24 (£4). The commission is understood to be considering calling for the price that the mobile phone companies charge each other - known as the wholesale price - for that amount of data to be slashed to €0.35.