A website called PleaseRobMe claims to reveal the location of empty homes based on what people post online.
The Dutch developers told BBC News the site was designed to prove a point about the dangers of sharing precise location information on the internet.
She may be embroiled in what could be the year's first big literary scandal, but Helene Hegemann seems relatively relaxed. It's Tuesday afternoon of last week. That morning, the culture pages of all of Germany's major daily newspapers published stories about Hegemann's novel "Axolotl Roadkill," and now hundreds of e-mails have flooded her inbox. "I can't understand what all the fuss is about," Hegemann says.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,678165,00.html
Brand Finance has published its 2010 Global 500 Survey of the world's most valuable brands. Here are the top ten, which include Britain's Vodafone and HSBC.
The US economy is still on target to grow strongly during 2010, but unemployment will remain high, the US Federal Reserve has warned.
In its latest forecast, the Fed said that the economy would expand between 2.8% and 3.5% in 2010, better than its previous estimate of 2.5% to 3.5%.
Yet the unemployment rate is expected to remain between 9.5% and 9.7% in 2010, easing to 8.2% to 8.5% next year.
President Barack Obama earlier admitted many in the US were "struggling".
A leading privacy group has urged US regulators to investigate Google's new social networking service Buzz, one week after its launch.
The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) has made its complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
It says that Buzz - which is part of Google's Gmail service - is "deceptive" and breaks consumer protection law.
The search giant has twice made changes to the service to placate an outcry from users about privacy concerns.
Being happy and staying positive may help ward off heart disease, a study suggests.
US researchers monitored the health of 1,700 people over 10 years, finding the most anxious and depressed were at the highest risk of the disease.
They could not categorically prove happiness was protective, but said people should try to enjoy themselves.
Google is preparing to face opponents in a New York court over long-delayed plans to create the world's biggest digital library.
A judge will hold a fairness hearing to listen to arguments for and against a controversial deal between Google and US authors and publishers.
Critics say the pact would hand the search giant a monopoly over online books sales.
