Top 5 stories: Broadband speeds up, pirate jailed, Mars rover updates and more

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Broadband speeds up

Average broadband speeds are gradually increasing while internet service providers (ISPs) are finally making their advertising claims more realistic, according to an Ofcom report.

The regulator's latest report shows the average speed a household gets is now 9Mbits/sec, up from 7.6Mbits/sec in November and 3.6Mbits/sec in November 2008.

British man jailed for running pirate site

A 38-year-old British man who made over £35,000 a month from a website linking to pirated films and TV shows has been jailed for four years.

Anton Vickerman set up Surfthechannel.com in 2007; at the website's height it attracted 400,000 users a day, putting it in the top 500 websites in the world.

Operating system update on Mars

Nasa's Mars rover Curiosity has been getting a much-needed operating system upgrade that will allow it to drive around the planet and use its robotic arm.

The upgrade took place between the 10 and 13 of August, with a new version of the operating system being beamed to the distant explorer.

Poor PC sales could lead to price-cuts

The release of Windows 8 could be make or break for computer manufacturers as sales continue to fall.

In the UK sales of computers were down 7.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2012 compared with the same period last year.

Samsung, Dell and Lenovo building Windows 8 tablets

Microsoft has announced the five manufacturers that will build Windows RT tablets for the launch of Windows 8.

Samsung, Dell and Lenovo join Asus and Microsoft to complete the line-up of big name manufacturers prepping new devices for the launch of Windows 8. All the devices will run Windows RT, a version of Windows 8 designed to work tablet-like devices such as Microsoft's Surface.

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