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Apple: iPhone and iTunes movie store planned for late 2007

Apple's iPhone and its iTunes movie service are heading to Europe, but probably not for another six months. Apple's Europe VP, Pacal Cagri, told France's Les Echos (subscription required) that iTunes' movie and video-download service will arrive in Europe sometime before the end of the year and that, more importantly, iPhone will launch here in the fourth quarter.

Jobs: consumers don't want to rent music

It may be a few more weeks before Apple brass and music honchos sit down to the negotiating table to address the expiring iTunes licensing deal, but that hasn't stopped Steve Jobs from going public with his bargaining position. He told Reuters this week that he will not give in to record companies' demands to turn iTunes into a subscription service. His reasoning? "People want to own their own music," he says, not rent it.

Wikipedia: now available on CD

Wikipedia, the free and instantly editable online encyclopaedia, has launched a version that is neither free nor editable nor online. The CD-based version will cost $14 (£7) and will contain a selection of about 2,000 articles taken from the website. They will be given a once-over by Wikipedia volunteers to check for bad language and vandalism, but no more editing will be possible once the articles have been committed to CDs.

The idea is that people without web access will now have access to a wealth of information at a fraction of the cost of a more established encyclopaedia. The problem is that it abandons Wikipedia’s great advantages – its dynamism and scope – and consolidates the fundamental unreliability that is its great disadvantage. Once burnt onto a CD, the information and any errors it contains cannot easily be changed.

Wikipedia volunteers have checked the selected articles for bad language, spelling errors and obvious signs of malicious or misguided editing, but they have not verified the information they contain. The result is a deceptively authoritative tone. Without the outbursts of insanity that punctuate the online version and serve as a useful reminder of its strengths and limitations, it’s easy to be seduced by the cool, orderly prose.

Hackers wanted to protect democracy

Calling all hackers. The Philippines government needs your help. In order to ensure its new $452,000 (£225,000) online voting system is ready for the next election, it needs to perform a thorough system penetration test. That's where you come in.

Going glocal

Businesses can no longer be merely global. Now they must aspire to be 'glocal', combining the reach of the multinational corporation with the familiarity of the local family business. The web can help such businesses to establish their brands throughout the world, but to maintain the impression of a local presence in each country, a company has to get its message across in a variety of languages.

Manual translation can be time-consuming and expensive, so many large companies are turning to automated translation services. Most of us will be familiar with websites such as freetranslation.com, which offer rather rickety automated translations between a selection of languages. Businesses require a higher standard of prose, but the quality of automated systems is such that they can now produce a useful first draft.

"Automated, or machine, translation is increasingly becoming critical in enabling the delivery of foreign language content," Mark Lancaster, chief executive of SDL International, which provides translation services for Microsoft and Yahoo!, said during a Q&A with Times Online. "It will, however, never totally replace humans because machine translation will never deliver the high publishable quality required to deliver a company brand."

GTA angers NYC

Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest instalment of the violent crime-based video game, will be set in New York, much to the displeasure of the city's mayor.

"The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers," said Michael Bloomberg’s office, providing much-needed clarification. Staff also pointed out that car theft has fallen during Mayor Bloomberg's tenure.

Chinese website launches gay TV show

A Chinese website due to be launched on Thursday will present what its producer describes as the country’s first show to focus on gay issues, and the first with an openly gay host. The weekly show on Pheonix TV, called Tongxing Xianglian or Connecting Homosexuals, will be hosted by Didier Zheng, and AIDS activist.

China’s gay population has long been subject to persecution, and while the internet has provided a forum for repressed minorities in many other countries, the Chinese Government’s extensive monitoring of chat rooms has discouraged many gay Chinese from breaking cover.

"This community faces a lot of trouble and difficulties," Gang Gang, the producer of the programme, said. "There are many people in China’s gay community, but people don’t have a deep enough understanding about this community."