Software produced by the GB Group is helping both the police and the UK government to track people's last known address more efficiency, the company claims.

The Accelerator IQ uses a number of databases to cross-reference address to provide the most current and up-to-date information, GB Group states.

It also adds that it has been used in some recent high-profile police cases, such as the conviction of Steve Wright who was convicted of the murder of five women in Ipswich.

A group of students from Austria have caused a bit of a storm in the IT world by hacking into their iPhones and downloading music-playing software onto them.

Now, the trio are becoming a bit of a sensation with fellow music lovers after loading up their handiwork onto file sharing website YouTube.

Microsoft has revealed that it is gearing up to release a new version of its Internet Explorer system.

A blog posted on the company's website said that IE 8 would be released as a beta in the coming months.

"A beta version of Internet Explorer 8 will be released in the first half of 2008," the developer wrote.

One challenge that is believed to have delayed the release of IE 8 is making sure that websites which were designed for earlier versions of the software will still function.

Open source software developer Mozilla Foundation has launched a new subsidiary, Mozilla Messaging, which will focus on the development of Thunderbird 3 for the non-profit organization.

Thunderbird is the foundation's free, open source email client, currently used by millions of users all over the world.

It is hoped that the latest iteration of the application will deliver noticeable improvements over its predecessors, including an integrated calendar, better search functionality and enhancements to the user experience.

Mozilla has released a beta version of its new Firefox 3 web browser.

Reports suggest that the third beta of the popular open-source web browser contains around 1,300 changes that should result in a more stable and faster performing system for users.