Canadian university researchers have developed software that will let users hop over governments’ Internet firewalls, raising the prospect of unfettered Internet access in countries that have long tried to control how residents use the Web.

The Psiphon program, developed by computer experts at the University of Toronto, allows an Internet user in a country with no online curbs to set up an account for someone in a country that censors Web content, and that person can then surf the Web without restrictions.

“The communities that we’re helping to connect to each other have a legitimate right to exercise their human rights within this governance regime,” said Ron Deibert, director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which studies the interaction between human rights, technology and security issues.

He admitted Psiphon, which is set to launch Friday as a free download, could become a thorn in the side of governments that already monitor, limit and control what people read, watch, listen to and post on the Internet, with varying degrees of sophistication.

“It does conflict with some sovereign states’ values, but there are competing legal norms at work.”

Symantec’s new version of Norton Internet Security for Windows Vista is designed to guard against malicious code that promotes financial crimes such as identity theft. And, as the name implies, Norton AntiVirus for Windows Vista is smaller in scope, protecting computers against virus attacks only. Symantec intends to release final versions of both programs when Microsoft rolls out the consumer version of Vista in January of next year.

This week, Symantec released public betas of Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus for Windows Vista. The betas work on both 32- and 64-bit versions of Vista, itself in beta until Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, formally unveils Vista on Thursday at an invitation-only event in New York.
Microsoft also plans to formally introduce new versions of Office and Exchange, its corporate e-mail solution, at that time.

Symantec’s new betas are meant for consumers, not companies. The Norton Internet Security application is designed to protect end users against a range of online threats, including adware, hacking, phishing, and spyware, as well as virus attacks and worms, which infest a user’s computer, then replicate and spread to other machines.

A new satellite data network will give poorer countries access to essential crop, health, and climate data in real time and at low cost, helping them forecast and prevent natural disasters and health crises.

The project, called GEONETCast, will grant countries around the world access to potentially life-saving data gathered and disseminated by richer nations’ expensive satellite systems.

“We are expanding the scope of available data and creating a data highway in the sky,” Mike Williams, control center chief at Europe’s weather satellite operator EUMETSAT, told Reuters.

The project combines satellites operated by U.S., EU and China-based organizations to create a global network which can be used to beam data in real time from labs on the ground or instruments in the sky to end-users around the world.

GEONETCast will transmit data about disease, drought, natural disasters, air and water quality, and ocean conditions. To receive the data, users need only a receiver and a license fee, costing a total of around $1,500.

The boom in online video has started to reduce the hours people spend watching television, a survey said on Monday.

The ICM poll of 2,070 people for the BBC found that some 43 percent of Britons who watch video from the Internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less traditional TV as a result.

Three quarters of users said they now watched more TV online or on mobiles than they did a year ago.

Online video viewers are still a minority though, with just 9 percent saying they go online regularly to watch clips.

Online and mobile video is far more popular among the young, with 28 percent of those aged 16-24 saying they watched more than once each week. That figure fell to just 4 percent among over 45s.

The success of sites such as YouTube has boosted access to videos for those who want easy ways to find, watch and share them over the Internet.

eBay was the online winner this “Black Friday,” data published on Saturday showed, but overall Internet traffic growth was well below last year’s even as bargain hunters tracked down sought-after toys and electronics on the Web before “Cyber Monday.”

Overall traffic to the Nielsen/Net Ratings Holiday eShopping Index, which tracks more than 120 online retailers, rose 12 percent on the Friday after Thankgiving over the same day last year, according to the online audience measurement firm.

That is significantly below the 29 percent growth in overall traffic to the index from 2004 to 2005 and more in line with 11 percent growth seen from 2003 to 2004.

eBay had the most Web traffic on “Black Friday,” one of retail’s busiest days, with 7.5 million unique visitors, according to the data.

Amazon.com was in second place, with 3.4 million unique visitors, followed by Wal-Mart Stores with 3.2 million. There is no way to determine what percentage of Internet users are actually making Web purchases.