The iPhone 3.1 software update, which was issued yesterday, has caused some handsets to freeze and get stuck in a restore "loop". It means the device is wiped of all content, and cannot be used to make or receive calls. Downgrading to the previous 3.0 operating system is also proving difficult for users. "I've been trying everything I've found on trouble shooting pages and on some searches," writes a user, Batwing, on Apple's support forums. "I'm getting numerical errors after the phone/computer tries to restore to 3.1. (6, 14, etc.) I've reinstalled iTunes, tried restoring on 3 different computers, held down power/home buttons, moving to different USB slots..."

"I've been able to restore back to 3.0, but trying to update to 3.1 gets the iPhone stuck in recovery mode every time," writes ThisIsTheChris. "I tried to upgrade to 3.1 also and now am the proud owner of an expensive doorstop," writes John Gordon Doty. "Does Apple ever test these upgrades? They must, but it sure makes you wonder when so many people have the same problem with the same software."

Disgruntled iPhone owners have also been using Twitter to discuss the issue and find solutions. "Still waiting on restore on my iPhone. 45 minutes and counting. Beware the 3.1 update – make sure you're backed up," warned Grvychk. It is not known how many iPhone users are affected by the software problems, nor what has caused dozens of devices to crash. Apple has not commented on the situation, although it is likely that engineers are already working on resolving the problem. The new iPhone software was unveiled by Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs, who underwent a liver transplant earlier this year and last made a public appearance in October 2008. He also showcased a new iPod nano with built-in video camera, spec bumps to the iPod touch and iPod Classic range, and a new version of iTunes with features such as iTunes LP, which downloads sleevenotes and artist videos whenever a user buys an album, and Genius Mixes, which auto-generates playlists of "songs that go great together".( www.telegraph.co.uk)

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Despite Apple’s well-publicised claims that Macs are safer than their PC-based rivals, security expert Charlie Miller, author of The Mac Hacker’s Handbook, says that "Snow Leopard's more secure than [previous release] Leopard, but it's not as secure as Vista or Windows 7." Mr Miller says that Apple missed an opportunity to make Snow Leopard more secure when it ignored the security developments Microsoft had made three years ago in building Windows Vista. He points to a system called address space layout randomization (ASLR), which "randomly assigns data to memory to make it tougher for attackers to determine the location of critical operating system functions, and thus make it harder for them to craft reliable exploits." Mr Miller says that Leopard’s ASLR was substandard, and Apple have failed to address the issues. He said: "Apple didn't change anything. It's the exact same ASLR as in Leopard, which means it's not very good." He had made the same criticisms when Leopard was originally released. He concedes, however, that Apple have plugged some security holes, notably in QuickTime.

At the moment, says Mr Miller, Mac users are far less likely to get hacked than PC users. However, that is simply due to numbers: there aren’t enough Macs to make it worthwhile for hackers. He says: "It's harder to write exploits [hacks] for Windows than the Mac, but all you see are Windows exploits. "That's because if [the hacker] can hit 90 per cent of the machines out there, that's all he's gonna do. It's not worth him nearly doubling his work just to get that last 10 per cent." However, Snow Leopard has still outshone both Leopard and the previous system Tiger in first-week sales, by a distance. It has sold twice as many copies as Leopard did in its first week, and almost four times as many as Tiger. (www.telegraph.co.uk)

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Eco-friendly vehicles aren't something new today, but Taxius Animalus is a completely different story. This concept car represents an all-electric taxi that has six wheels and was designed to be able to pass through off road terrain. The design is credited to Francis Gomes from Turin, Italy.

The vehicle might be far from being produced for the masses, but its design is definitely worth highlighting. It is worth mentioning that the taxis used today emit a lot of gases everyday and a large portion of those gasses are wasted when taxis wait for passengers or are stuck in traffic jams. Taxius Animalus is not just eco-friendly, it is also capable of transporting people to areas where normal taxis would never pass using its six wheel track resembling that of a tank, informs Tuvie. You can find more information about cars at www.InfoNIAC.com - please check the links at the bottom of the story.

The unnamed analyst told Barron's that he had seen a prototype of the device, and believes it will be available in November following an official September launch. The source said that the wider computer industry had slowed production on their own touch-screen tablet devices to see what kind of gadget Apple produced. Such is Apple's reputation as a trendsetter, that other companies are keen to see how Apple implements the technology before proceeding with their own devices. "It's close enough now to a final design that in Asia, there's no other product in the waiting room or in the bullpen," said the analyst. "There are dozens of [original device makers] making products for Lenovo and other PC makers that are all waiting to see what the Apple product is."

The touch-screen tablet, dubbed the MacBook touch by Apple fans, is expected to have a 10in touch-screen and be similar in look and feel to a large iPod touch. Experts expect it to cost around $800 (£500), and to be positioned as a home media hub, capable of streaming content and services in much the same way as Apple TV does, and doubling as a games console. Although Apple has refused to comment on the rumour and speculation surrounding the launch of a possible touch-screen tablet, it has hinted that it is exploring new product lines. Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, said on a recent earnings call that Apple was working on something "very innovative". Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of Apple, is said to have been the driving force behind the tablet, despite a recent leave of absence from the company due to ill-health. Analysts believe the machine could even compete directly with Amazon's Kindle ebook reader by allowing users to download books, music and movies directly to the device over the Wi-Fi network. Apple is also said to be working on a new music initiative, code-named Cocktail, that will see all four major record labels – EMI, Sony, Warner Music and Universal – offer interactive booklets, sleeve notes, exclusive cover art and other digital assets with songs and albums purchased through Apple's iTunes Music Store. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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A Boston jury has ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay a total of $US675,000 for willfully infringing 30 songs by downloading and distributing them over the KaZaA peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing network. The figure of $US22,500 per song is closer to the $US222,000 award in the first Jammie Thomas-Rasset trial than the $1.92 million figure from her second trial, but of course they're all ridiculously high penalities. The defendant's case was hamstrung from the start by the judge having ruled out the Fair Use defence to the RIAA firms' claims of copyright infringement and later having directed the jury that it could only return a guilty verdict because the defendant admitted liablity on the witness stand. After three hours of deliberations the jury came up with the stonking fine, which was actually smaller than many had predicted might have been assessed.

Tenenbaum's attorney and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson told Ars Technica, "it's a bankrupting award." He also said things might have gone differently at trial had the defence been allowed to argue Fair Use. Tenenbaum said that he doesn't have the ability to pay the judgment and that he'll be filing for bankruptcy if the award stands. Of course the RIAA is happy. This is the second high profile case that has actually gone to court and it has proven that the way the law stands P2P users can end up paying thousands of times the cost of a $US1 track if they stick it on a P2P site. Judge Gertner has previously said she will hold a post-trial proceeding to determine whether the size of the award violates the US Constitution.

( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

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A third of people in the European Union say they have never used the internet, according to an EU study published today. The report found that 25 per cent of Europeans had never used a computer before, while 40 per cent had no internet access at home. Almost 33 per cent of those with no internet access said they didn't feel they had a need for it, while one in four said they couldn't afford it. The findings were revealed in a report, commissioned and published by the European Union, in to the state of the digital economy in member countries. It concluded that digital products and services could play a significant role in lifting Europe out of the current financial crisis. The study reveals that almost 80 per cent of EU citizens access the internet using a high-speed broadband connection, with young people aged between 16 and 24 the biggest web users, while those aged 65 and over, and the unemployed, were the least active online.

One in three British youngsters aged between 16 and 24 said they would not be willing to pay for online services such as digital music downloads, although 10 per cent said they had paid for such online services in the past. The report, entitled Digital Competitiveness, found that almost three-quarters of all European youngsters in this age group were using what it called "advanced" online services to create and share content over the web, on sites such as YouTube. Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for information society and media, said governments should focus on freeing up the internet for these "super-users". "To release the economic potential of these digital natives, we must make access to digital content an easy and fair game," she said. "These young people are intensive internet users and also highly demanding consumers. "We should seize the opportunity of a new generation of Europeans who will soon be calling the shots in the European marketplace." ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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The latest invention of researchers from Vermont is hedonometer, a device that can estimate the level of happiness. Peter Dodds and Chris Danforth were the ones who developed the software that gather sentences from different blogs and Tweets and then identifies the days that were the happiest and saddest throughout the last several years. According to Peter Dodds, a scientist at the University of Vermont, the goal was to take advantage of the increasing popularity of blogs and Twitter and come up with a tool that would be able to estimate the emotional signal from a group of people. The staring point was the website WeFeelFine.org that examines 2.3 million blogs, searching for sentences that start with the words "I feel" or "I am feeling". The words that followed were then rated on a scale from 1 to 9. Researchers managed to rank 1,034 words, with "triumphant" having the highest score of 8.87 and "hostage" the lowest - 2.20. By gathering 10 million sentences over that last few years, researchers estimated the daily level of happiness, reports Discovery News.

It wasn't a surprise when then found that the happiest days are the weekends and holidays. In general the happiest days of the last several years were the election day and the inauguration of US President Barack Obama. You can find more information about the happiest day and the like her at www.InfoNIAC.com - please check the links at the bottom of the article. Using their latest invention, researchers found that during these two days people most often wrote sentences that contained the words "proud" and "pride". The software showed that the saddest days were the anniversaries of 9-11 and the death of pop star Michael Jackson. Scientists applied their latest invention to Tweets to be able to estimate the level of happiness besides the United States (90 percent of all analyzed blogs were from the States). But there are some drawbacks in the software. If someone posts a message that says "I am not happy", it will identify it as a happy statement. Besides, the majority of users who write on blogs and Tweet are younger than the overall population. (www.infoniac.com )

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The Marines had already banned the use of social media on military networks but issued a more detailed order this week defining which sites were out of bounds and noting possible exceptions to the rule, a Marine Corps spokesman, Lieutenant Craig Thomas said. "These Internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries," the Marine Corps said in an order posted on its website. "The very nature of SNS (social networking sites) creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts opsec (operational security), comsec (communications security)... at an elevated risk of compromise," the order said.

Those marines whose assignments may require access to social media could apply for a waiver, it said. Marines working in criminal investigations, press relations and recruiting have a need to use social media to carry out their duties and would likely be granted access, Mr Thomas said. But he said "social networking sites have always been banned in the Marine Corps." The Defence Department meanwhile confirmed it was carrying out a formal review of its policies on the use of social networking sites. In a July 31 memo, the deputy secretary of defence, William Lynn, said he had asked the Pentagon's chief information officer to draw up policy options examining the threats and benefits of so-called Web 2.0 capabilities. The memo acknowledges how social networking sites have proved valuable for recruitment, press relations and sharing information with allies and among military families.

"However, as with any Internet-based capabilities, there are implementation challenges and operational risks that must be understood and mitigated," the memo said. The policy review comes as other branches of the armed services have embraced social media with enthusiasm, seeing the sites as a means of reaching a wider audience and spreading information within the military. The US Army has set up a new office for online social media but the military has struggled to balance security concerns with demands to modernise its communications. Security rules have been blamed for stifling blogging by soldiers from the battlefront, even as some senior commanders write blogs or maintain a Facebook page. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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A Chinese website got its paws on two upcoming Intel LGA-1156 parts - the Core i5 750 and Core i7 870. PConline says that the Core i5 750 part features clock speeds in the range of 2.66GHz and 3.2GHz using Turbo Boost and no Hyper-Threading. The higher-end Core i7 870 will run at 2.93GHz with a top speed of 3.46GHz for individual cores and supports Hyper-Threading technology for up to eight threads. Looking at the test results, it seems that despite being limited to dual-channel memory and the old DMI interconnect instead of QPI, the Core i7 870 outperforms the existing Core i7 920. The Turbo Boost feature increases the frequency of the Core i7 870 to 3.2GHz. The Core i5 750 appears to be power-efficient but still manages to sit between the Core i7 920 and Core 2 Quad Q9550 in terms of performance. If the results are true, both chips will outclass Phenom II X4 955 and have AMD crying in its beer. A word of caution on the tests. Intel has not even announced the existence of these chips yet and they might be prototypes which will never see the light of day. ( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

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The service allows personal notes written prior to their death to be sent to loved ones in the future. Important documents such as wills and insurance details can also be accessed through the service. Organisers insist The Last Messages Club is in no way ghoulish but eases the stress and trauma associated with the death of a loved one. A member can write up to 100 emails that can be released once they die at times of their choosing, such as when a relative or loved one marries or has a child. The Last Messages Club works by giving each member a secure and private vault. They are then able to create messages to be sent specifically to their chosen recipient. These messages can range from a final love letter, guidance for someone left behind, a list of instructions, details on life insurance and other financial information. Photos, videos and documents can also be attached. Simon Gilligan, 63, from Littleport near Ely, Cambridgeshire, has signed up to the scheme and has written messages to be sent to his wife, children and friends after his death. The technical adviser said: "It's strange really as it makes you confront your own mortality in a sense. "I thought at first that maybe it was a bit ghoulish but on consideration I think it's a great idea as it would be nice for loved ones to receive messages from me when I'm no longer here. "The messages are personal but most of them are humorous. It also makes you think about smaller details like making sure you remind someone to cancel your bus pass."

Geoff Reiss, founder of The Last Messages Club, said: "No one likes to think about their impending 'demise', but it is much better to be fully-prepared, so that there is less stress on your loved ones after you pass away." People can sign up to a silver option costing £45 or a gold package costing £190. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Latest figures from the internet data firm StatCounter suggest that Bing had a 9.41 per cent share of the US search market in July, up from 8.23 per cent in June. Google, meanwhile, saw its share dip slightly, from 78.48 per cent in June to 77.54 per cent in July. Microsoft has recently signed a search deal with Yahoo! that will see Bing power all of Yahoo!'s search services. Microsoft and Yahoo! enjoy a combined 20.36 per cent share of the search market, said StatCounter, putting them in a much stronger position to challenge Google's dominance working as a team rather than as competitors. "Bing continues to make slow but steady progress but the combined Yahoo! figures suggest that the deal announced last week will have to demonstrate major future synergies if it is to make any dent in Google's dominance," said a spokesperson for StatCounter. Google's global share of the search market fell slightly last month, slipping from 89.8 per cent in June to 89.23 per cent in July. Microsoft has embarked on a $100 million advertising campaign to spread the word about its revamped search engine, which launched in May. Yahoo!'s chief executive, Carol Bartz, admitted this week that Yahoo! didn't invest heavily enough in search. The 10-year deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft should help to address that problem, she said. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Recently a Japanese company presented a robotic suit, developed to help people who suffer from strike-induce paralysis or those who had spinal cord injuries. Cyberdyne Corporation called its latest invention HAL, which stands for Hybrid Assistive Limb. According to the company the suit was designed to "upgrade the existing physical capabilities of the human body". The device weights 23 kilograms and includes robotic limbs along with a backpack that features the battery and computer system. Cyberdyne's latest invention is attached to the body and managed by thought. The technology works as follows: whenever an individual tries to make a move, the brain sends nerve signals to the muscles. The robotic suit then identifies these weak signals from the surface of the human skin with the help of a sensor that is attached on the wearer's skin. Then the signal is transmitted to HAL's power unit, signaling the unit to start moving in harmony with the limb of the wearer.

At the moment the latest invention from Cyberdyne can be hired for Y220,000 a month. The company claims that the device has various applications. For example it can help a person to perform every day tasks like walking, climbing up and down stairs and even lifting heavy objects. On a full charge the suit will function for about 5 hours. In addition, the wearer will not feel the heaviness of the suit due to the fact that HAL supports its own weight, Cyberdyne says. It is worth mentioning that a similar exoskeleton was developed by Honda and you can read about it her at www.InfoNIAC.com - check the links at the bottom of the article. Cyberdyne's founder and CEO, Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai, initially developed the suit for mountain climbing. The company says that its latest invention can function in extremely cold conditions and at a height of 4,000 meters above sea level. ( www.infoniac.com )

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A law requiring computer manufacturers to include a program called Green Dam on every PC was "delayed" just hours before it was due to come into effect. Green Dam filters the internet and blocks access both to pornography and to politically sensitive content. Researchers also discovered that it is capable of sending reports about an individual's web use back to the authorities. China retreated in the face of angry and sustained criticism not only from internet users but also from computer manufacturers and trade bodies. In addition, a US company called Solid Oak has filed a lawsuit against the makers of Green Dam, charging them with having stolen the software that makes up the program. "China will delay the mandatory installation of the software on new computers," said Xinhua, the government newswire. "The pre-installation was delayed as some computer producers said such massive installation demanded extra time," it added. There was no statement on how long the delay would last, and some observers speculated that the government will not make Green Dam compulsory. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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The developers of a new supercomputer, dubbed Jaguar, claim that it is the most powerful machine built to do scientific researches on climate change, supernovas, as well as the composition of water. The supercomputer was installed at the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS), part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee. Jaguar can reach an operating performance of 1.64 petaflops, which means that every second the machine is able to carry out over a million billion mathematical operations.

While most desktop computers have one, two or a maximum of four cores, the Jaguar supercomputer can boast 181,000 processing cores. A supercomputer that is more powerful than Jaguar belongs to the US Nuclear Security Administration, having an operating performance of 1.7-petaflops. It's called Roadrunner and it can be found at the Los Alamos National Laboratory located in New Mexico. The Jaguar supercomputer was for the first time unveiled in 2008. It took several months to test its performance before directors at Oak Ridge decided to task the machine with its first research projects. The first 21 projects are dedicated to problems linked with the environment. Three projects feature climate models. One of these models reproduces the global atmosphere down to grids of 14km instead of the more common 55 or 100km squares. As for other projects on the environment, they will model flames inside diesel engines, which will help in cutting fuel consumption and creation of biofuels from waste plant material.

Other issues for the supercomputer will include the study of 3-dimensional structures of SN 1987A, the closest exploding star in almost 400 years and the precise arrangement of molecules in liquid water, which, despite the fact that is very important for life, still remains a mystery.

"This is a very programmable platform with a boatload of memory - three times the amount of memory relative to the next closest system - and is turning out to be very stable and reliable," says Douglas Kothe, director of the NCCS. According to the National Center for Computational Sciences, after July the Jaguar supercomputer will begin working on climate issues. It will be offered to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for one or several months. ( www.infoniac.com )

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The problem appears to particularly affect the white handsets of Apple’s new turbocharged device, which is twice as fast as its predecessor, the iPhone 3G, and boasts an improved camera and the ability to record video. Dozens of users have reported overheating issues, with some iPhone owners unable to pick up the device because the handset gets so hot to the touch. Owners of the white iPhone 3GS say the casing turns pink with the heat. Some users have said the device has been too hot to put to their ear while making a phone call, and others have said they were worried it could explode. The overheating seems to occur when owners are using the iPhone’s mapping software, which uses the handset’s built-in GPS technology to pinpoint their location and provide directions.

On Apple’s support forums, iPhone owners have been complaining about the problems. “My iPhone 3GS back get somewhat warm when playing a few mins of games. Is this normal?,” asks one user, Dreamcast DC. “I am having the same issue,” reports Ron Lift. “I am definitely experiencing issues with the iPhone running warm and quick battery life lost,” writes Tom Goldstein in another discussion thread. “The phone seems to warm up almost immediately if I am doing anything that pulls data over the network. It doesn’t get burning hot, but very noticeably warm.”

“I was on a call for 20 minutes and it was so uncomfortably hot I had to put it on speaker,” reports Alan Ziegler. Several other users have also complained that the iPhone 3GS, which is supposed to boast a longer battery life than the iPhone 3G, in fact loses its charge quicker than its predecessor. Some gadget experts believe faulty batteries could be the cause of overheating and poor battery life. “My guess is there’s going to be a whole lot of batteries affected because these [iPhones] are from very large production runs,” said Aaron Vronko of Rapid Repair, which fixes iPods and iPhones. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Google has now released an early version of Chrome for Mac and Linux users. However, it’s not quite ready for consumers yet and is more aimed for web developers to play with and improve. A Google spokesperson said: “This week we released an early version of Chrome for the Macintosh and Linux operating systems for developers. The software isn't ready for consumers yet, but we're working hard on getting Chrome ready for them as quickly as possible, and the feedback we get from developers will help us on the way.” If consumers do use the early Chrome version, they are unlikely to be able to play videos on such sites as YouTube and should expect websites to crash more frequently. Since the initial burst of publicity, Google Chrome has failed to provide serious competition to rival browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox. Chrome is used by just 1.4 per cent of internet users compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, used by 66 per cent of users, according to Net Applications market share statistics. Mozilla’s Firefox comes in second place, as the browser choice of 22 per cent of web users and Apple’s Safari program comes in third, with 8 per cent. Google will expect these numbers to rise once Chrome is compatible for several operating systems. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Recently General Motors presented its brand new battery-powered two-wheel vehicle, dubbed Project P.U.M.A. and developed in cooperation with Segway. It was developed with the goal of making it easier for people to move through agglomerated city streets. The name of the vehicle is an abbreviation of Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility. In fact the vehicle is an enclosed scooter that can achieve a maximum speed of around 35mph, for a maximum distance of approximately 35 miles on a single charge. The technology behind the new GM vehicle is used by Segway, a scooter company, for its personal vehicle, which was initially designed by Dean Kamen. It allows P.U.M.A. to use only two wheels when moving. The vehicle features training wheels that are very useful when stopping. Both, GM and Segway look forward to find partners among cities and/or colleges, to establish P.U.M.A. travel lanes. These will be used to carry out tests of the ecofriendly vehicle. In addition, the on-board wireless communicator will be able to operate the vehicle by itself while the driver relaxes or does other tasks.

It is worth mentioning that GM entered a partnership with Segway 18 months ago. In their new creation GM is responsible for making the electronic wireless systems that will allow a safe, autonomous operation and Segway develops the self-balancing, electric, two-wheel chassis. The vehicle is powered by lithium-ion batteries. The presentation took place in New York but the companies hope P.U.M.A. will be widely used in densely populated cities worldwide, including the cities of India and China. ( www.infoniac.com )

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A loudspeaker, which is less than 0.25mm thick, is the latest invention in technology presented by engineers from University of Warwick. The device is flexible and can be easily hung up a wall in an apartment or, due to its specific technique of producing sound, it can be used as a way of making clear public announcements in different places, such as, for example passenger terminals. Besides being extremely lightweight, this latest technological invention does not require huge investments. Slim and flexible, such speakers can be installed in ceiling tiles or inside vehicles. Warwick Audio Technologies, is a spin-out company that says its device generates planar directional sound waves in public places. These waves project further than sound produced by usual speakers. Engineers dubbed their latest invention Flat, Flexible Loudspeaker (FFL). According to the company's CEO, Steve Couchman, the revolutionary speaker could completely replace the conventional speakers that are nowadays used in homes, cars and public places such as passenger terminals and shopping centers.

The flexible speaker works by transforming an electric signal into sound. In conventional speakers the signal is used to produce a varying magnetic field that vibrates a mechanical cone, thus making the sound. However, the technology behind the flexible speaker connects thin, conducting and insulating, materials that create a flexible laminate. When an electrical signal excites the laminate, it vibrates, so generating sound. Commenting on the use of the company's latest invention, Mr. Couchman said: "The sound produced by FFLs can be directed straight at its intended audience." He mentioned that the sound is not distorted like in the case of conventional speakers, making the announcement in public places more comprehensible, reported PhysOrg.com. Dr Duncan Billson and Professor David Hutchins created the Flat, Flexible Loudspeaker. Both graduated the University of Warwick. In their early tests they used two sheets of tinfoil along with an insulating layer of baking paper to generate sound. Now the device features a new design and was developed using improved technologies, making it a perfect commercial product. ( www.infoniac.com )

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The payments system, which is in its early stages, will allow users to purchase Facebook "credits", then use those credits to buy virtual goods from the third-party applications that run on the site, or from Facebook itself. Facebook, which has over 300 million registered users, hopes that by offering a site-wide currency it could become a "shopping portal" by encouraging commerce on the website and make money by taking a percentage of every transaction. Though the payments system is being tested on just three applications at the moment, it is expected to be rolled out more widely in the coming weeks. Joe Sullivan, Facebook's lead counsel for product, said: "Facebook is and will continue to be a free service. These payments terms only govern any purchases you may make on the site.

"We drafted new terms in order to simplify all of our payments-related terms by bringing them together in one place and to give us the flexibility to try new features. Currently, payments are available for all users in two ways on the site. One is through the Facebook Gift Shop, where you can purchase credits to buy gifts for your friends. The second is to purchase advertising through the online Facebook Ads system. You also may see credits appear in other ways on the site." Users are increasingly spending real money buying virtual goods and credits on the applications that run on Facebook's platform. Bruce Cundiff, director of payments research and consulting at Javelin Strategy and Research, said the payments platform could position Facebook to become a significant e-commerce player. "Potentially you're looking at Facebook as a shopping portal and a source for music downloads," he told the Financial Times. Recent estimates suggest that Facebook's platform developers – like Zynga – are expected to make more than $500m this year, which is potentially more than Facebook itself. Experts such as Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner Research, say that revenue from its payments system could soon represent one-third of Facebook's income. "Social networking sites have suffered with monetising [their services], but this leverages [the fact that] users are there on Facebook," he said. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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