Computers will freeze and drop offline with increasing regularity as the web's outdated infrastructure struggles to cope with the surging popularity of bandwidth-hungry video sites, it is claimed. Analysts are warning that the internet will cease to function as an effective tool of communication – becoming merely an "unreliable toy" for casual users – unless networks are upgraded. The Government has made universal broadband the cornerstone of its digital policy, promising that every household will have a connection by 2012. But there are concerns that a failure to commit to new high-speed networks could undermine the long-term future of the economy. Online traffic is already growing at 60 per cent a year, but Ted Ritter of Nemertes Research, a think tank, predicts demand could double in 2009, driven by increased use of video-on-demand websites. More than 180 million television programmes were watched over the internet in the first year of the BBC's iPlayer catch-up service, with rivals 4oD and ITV.com also attracting large audiences. The video-sharing website YouTube, which has helped propel Britain's Got Talent winner Susan Boyle to international fame, reportedly uses as much bandwidth as the entire internet took up in 2000.

"Today people know how home computers slow down when the kids get back from school and start playing games, but by 2012 that traffic jam could last all day long," Mr Ritter said. "For business purposes, such as delivering medical records between hospitals in real time, it's useless." Telecoms companies in Britain are already investing in new fibre-optic cables to replace the existing network of copper lines – BT has pledged to connect 10 million homes to its super-fast service by 2012, and Virgin Media is also rolling out fibre optic broadband. But it is feared that millions of homes particularly in rural areas will be left with a crawling, second-rate service as internet use explodes. Some internet service providers are planning to profit from the predicted congestion by charging websites to fast-track their content, in a move seen as compromising "net neutrality" – the principle that all web content should be transmitted with equal priority. Mr Ritter, who is compiling a report on the future on the web to be published later this year, has warned online surfers to expect "brownouts" – debilitating combinations of screen freezes and slow connections - in the near future. "At best, we see the [economic] slowdown delaying the fractures for maybe a year," he said. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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The latest invention from researchers working at Philips Electronics is a jacket that includes vibration motors and can enable movie viewers to actually feel the movie through a sense of touch. The jacket was developed with the goal of studying the effects of touch on the emotional reaction of the viewer to what the movie characters are feeling. A senior scientist from Philips Electronics, Paul Lemmens, notes that the jacket was not created to make viewers experience the actual punches and other effects that movie characters receive. The idea is to make viewers experience the anxiety along with other emotions via specific signals. One of such signals is sending a shiver up the spine of the person viewing a film. Among other signals there are: the creation of tension in the viewer's limb and a pulse on the chest that engages a rapid heartbeat. According to Lemmens, people often cannot imagine how sensitive humans are to touch, despite the fact that touch is the first sense that fetuses develop inside mother's womb. It is worth mentioning that the scientist will present the company's latest invention at the 2009 World Haptics Conference, which will be help in Salt Lake City. The event will be sponsored by the IEEE. In order to make viewers experience emotional sensations, the jacket features 64 independently controlled actuators. These are allocated across the arms and torso. There are 16 groups of four actuators that are connected along a serial bus. Each of the sixteen groups has a microprocessor. Due to the fact that the actuators draw little current, the haptics jacket can work for up to an hours on two AA batteries, informs the website of the IEEE Spectrum magazine.

If a viewer watches a fight scene, the jacket can generate a pulsing on the chest in order to reproduce the heartbeat of the kungfu master. The speed of on and off cycling of the actuators is 100 per second. To note that it is not for the first time that Philips develops a gadget that can enhance sensation. Last year the company's latest invention was a technology that made it possible for content providers of games, movies, music and websites to create immersive experiences that one can feel in the real world by engaging specially developed amBX devices, such as lighting-effects devices and wind machines that jointly can reproduce the feeling of a gentle breeze or a bomb blast. ( www.infoniac.com )

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Taiwanese card builder Powercolor has announced a new custom liquid cooling system for AMD's HD4890 GPU. The single slot design aimed at gamers has a water block fully covering the the memory and power regulator chips mounted on the card, and is reportedly able to reduce temperatures by up to 20ºC compared to the reference version. The copper-based design features 3/8-inch and 1/2-inch fittings as well as captured O-rings to prevent leakage. Core and memory speeds on the $US400 card can be clocked up to 900MHz and 1000MHz respectively, and you should be able to get your hands on the LCS HD4890 from April 16th. (www.atomicmpc.com.au )

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Spotify is opening up its application programming interface (API) – the technological framework that provides the foundation for the service – to third-party developers, enabling them to build new software and programs that will bring Spotify’s music-streaming service to other platforms and gadgets. It means that television manufacturers, games console makers and even mobile phone designers could sell devices that allow Spotify users to enjoy their personalised music playlists anywhere around the house, or even when out and about. Currently, Spotify is only available through computers, although some users have set up music-streaming networks to wirelessly “pipe” songs to their home stereo. Sonos, Logitech, Sony and Microsoft are believed to be among the manufacturers working on software and devices that will take advantage of Spotify’s API. “This is the first step towards becoming more of a platform,” said Daniel Ek, Spotify’s co-founder. “There are lots of services that have APIs, but this is different because it lets anyone build a Spotify client.” Spotify has around one million users, and more than 40,000 people are signing up to join the service every day. Last month, Spotify confirmed that around 40 user accounts had been compromised by hackers, potentially exposing personal details to cyber criminals. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Six Days In Fallujah, published by Japanese games giant Konami, is described as a 'survival horror' title for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. Developed in collaboration with a handful of Iraq veteran US Marines - who have lent their videos, photos and diaries to the designers - the controversial action game is due for release next year. A highly-decorated British Army colonel and the father of a lance corporal killed in action in Iraq have criticised the game and called for it to be banned. Tim Collins OBE, a former colonel of the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment whose inspirational eve-of-battle speech made history in 2003, was appalled by the game's setting. He said: "It's much too soon to start making video games about a war that's still going on, and an extremely flippant response to one of the most important events in modern history.

"It's particularly insensitive given what happened in Fallujah, and I will certainly oppose the release of this game." Reg Keys, whose son Thomas was a Red Cap killed by an Iraqi mob in June 2003, added: "Considering the enormous loss of life in the Iraq War, glorifying it in a video game demonstrates very poor judgement and bad taste. "It is particularly crass when you consider what actually happened in Fallujah. "These horrific events should be confined to the annuls of history, not trivialised and rendered for thrill-seekers to play out, over and over again, for ever more. "It's entirely possible that Muslim families will buy the game, and for them it may prove particularly harrowing. "Even worse, it could end up in the hands of a fanatical young Muslim and incite him to consider some form of retaliation or retribution. He could use it to get worked up and want to really 'finish the game'. "I will be calling for this game to be banned, if not worldwide then certainly in the UK." Six Days In Fallujah takes inspiration from the Second Battle of Fallujah - also known as Operation Phantom Fury, which took place between November 7 and December 23 2004.

An estimated 1,500 insurgents were killed - reportedly in white phosphorus attacks - along with 38 US troops during the battle. Six Days In Fallujah is being developed by US-based Atomic Games. The firm's president Peter Tamte said: "For us, the challenge was how to present the horrors of war in a game that is entertaining, but also gives people insight into a historical situation in a way that only a video game can provide. "Our goal is to give people that insight, of what it's like to be a Marine during that event, what it's like to be a civilian in the city, and what it's like to be an insurgent." John Choon, senior brand manager for Six Days In Fallujah at Konami Digital Entertainment, added: "The soldiers wanted to tell their stories through a game because that's what they grew up playing." In 2003, electronics giant Sony was forced to abandon plans to launch an Iraq War video game called Shock and Awe after attracting a barrage of negative publicity. It later admitted the idea had been 'an exercise of regrettable bad judgement'. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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The mimic wrote on the social networking site that he was working on eight new scripts for a new series of his political satire The Thick of It. Just eight episodes have been made of the show since it debuted in 2005 but it has recently spawned a film, In the Loop, which features Malcolm Tucker, the spin doctor character played by Peter Capaldi, comedian Chris Addison and Sopranos star James Gandolfini. News of the new series excited his "followers" but according to The Independent, Iannucci has yet to set up a profile on the site. He is not the first celebrity to fall victim to a "twimpersonation". Last month Coleen Rooney, the wife of Manchester United and England strike Wayne denied confirming she was pregnant on her Twitter account. The columnist and TV presenter was reported to have posted an online message claiming she was "excited" to be expecting her first child. But a representative for her said: "That's definitely not Coleen, it's a fake, she hasn't announced anything." Other celebrities such as US president Barack Obama, rapper 50 Cent and singer Britney Spears reportedly use "ghost tweeters" to write real-time updates for their followers on the site. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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