Microsoft Corp has held talks with media companies to licence TV networks for a new online pay-television subscription service through devices such as its Xbox video game console, two people familiar with the plans told Reuters. … more

The activities of a television streaming website are covered by copyright law despite the fact that it is not itself a broadcaster, the High Court has ruled. … more

The people behind the Opera mobile Web browser have released the results of their State of the Mobile Web survey, which questioned 300,000 users in July and August this year. It makes for fascinating reading. … more

Vodafone is to cut its data-roaming rates for much of Europe in a bid to boost smartphone sales, the operator announced on Monday. … more

In Tanzania, a hospital sends money by text message to women in remote areas so they can pay for bus fare to travel for critically needed surgery. In Afghanistan, the government pays its police officers by text message to skirt corrupt middlemen. In Pakistan, the biggest financial network is not a bank, but a unit of Telenor, the Norwegian mobile phone operator. … more

More than 60% of the world’s population will have access to some form of 4G mobile broadband technology by 2015, according to a new report from ABI Research. … more

Legislation paving the way for the rollout of the National Broadband Network has passed through the parliament. … more

Perth-based Wimax operator Vividwireless has signed Huawei to test the next evolution of superfast mobile broadband in and around Sydney. … more

A Cairo court on Saturday overturned the Egyptian telecoms regulator’s decision to monitor news feeds on mobile phones ahead of elections, Egypt’s official news agency MENA said on Saturday. … more

To provide greater protection for Internet users’ freedom of expression and privacy rights, EFF recommended that the European Commission (EC) should preserve limitations on liability for Internet intermediaries and clarify that Internet intermediaries should not be considered to have “actual knowledge” requiring them to takedown content unless they have received a court order or notification in comments filed recently as part of the EC’s long-awaited public consultation on the workability of the 2000 EU eCommerce Directive. … more