Could YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen become this generation's version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the famed newspaper reporters who broke the Watergate scandal?

As many as 1 billion people this century could die from tobacco-caused illnesses. With the goal of combating the tobacco use epidemic, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates have announced plans to collaborate to help governments in developing countries trying to implement proven tobacco-control policies. Bloomberg's Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which started in 2005 with a $125 million commitment, supports projects that educate and advocate for changing how tobacco is used and perceived. The Bloomberg Initiative will be extended with a $250 million four-year commitment, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will invest $125 million over the next five years.

The executives in charge of online payment system E-gold have pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.

The city of San Jose, Calif., will be the first to test electric-car charging stations from start-up Coulomb Technologies.

3-D display technology has had an on-again/off-again relationship with the film industry for decades, but has never established itself on the small screen. Modern technology has made 3-D broadcasting a more realistic proposition, but there's currently no standardized method for how such content should be formatted, processed, and displayed. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers intends to tackle this problem, and has given the problem over to the newly formed 3-D Home Display Formats Task Force.

A university can publish details of research detailing the cryptographic cracking of the Oyster travel smartcard, a Dutch court has ruled.

China's government warned Internet sites and mobile content providers to steer clear of broadcasting any video of Olympic events without permission, including the torch relay and opening ceremony, saying that anyone who infringes the rights of the state-owned broadcaster to these events will face severe penalties.

Chip company NXP Semiconductors is to sue Radboud University in an attempt to halt the publication of a paper detailing the cryptographic cracking of the Oyster smartcard, used widely on the London transport network.

Firefox is now officially in the record books for receiving the most downloads from a website with a 24-hour period.