Today's other technology stories in brief

Sales of 'Halo 3' at record high

Microsoft's marketing investment in the Halo 3 game for the Xbox 360 console has paid off, with more than $300 million (€212.3 million) in first-week sales. Xbox 360 sales have more than doubled and 2.7 million gamers have played Halo 3 online, making it the fastest-selling computer game ever and one of the biggest entertainment launches of all time.

Most tourists booked online

Last year, 55 per cent of tourists who came to Ireland planned their holiday online and by 2010, Tourism Ireland believes 75 per cent of holidays to Ireland will be booked online. The tourism agency will hold an e-marketing symposium in the Dublin Airport Crowne Plaza Hotel for people working in the industry on October 23rd.

Yahoo, eBay to tackle phishing

Internet giant Yahoo has teamed up with eBay and its PayPal payments unit to block fake e-mails to users purporting to be from eBay and PayPal, hoping to spur on an industry that has been slow to fight phishing attacks.

Ebay and PayPal have upgraded their computer systems to support an emerging technology standard, DomainKeys, invented by Yahoo that checks that e-mail senders are who they say they are. The upgrade will be made available to Yahoo Mail users worldwide over the next several weeks, the company said.

Ebay and PayPal are among the brands most targeted by phishers seeking to trick consumers into divulging information such as credit card or password data to commit financial fraud. - (Reuters)

Online banking fraud in UK falls

UK payments association Apacs reports that online banking fraud losses in the UK dropped 67 per cent to £7.5 million (€10.8 million) in the first six months of this year, with the drop attributed to better safeguards and an unusually high level of online banking fraud in the first few months of 2006. Total card fraud losses increased 26 per cent to £263.6 million in the first half of 2007, compared to a year ago. - (Reuters)