On Thursday, the Virgin Megastore in Manhattan's Times Square, said to be the largest record store in the world, began marking down merchandise in preparation for its eventual closure later this quarter. If the writing wasn't already on the wall for traditional music retailers, it is now.

"This sale will give our loyal shoppers one last chance to browse the world's largest music store," stated Virgin Entertainment Group CEO Simon Wright. "We'll be offering discount prices on items that might be difficult to find in the days to come, and we hope our customers have a lot of fun shopping this final sale."

No matter how cheap those items get, or how hard they might be to find in physical form, they'll still be cheaper and more available via imeem, YouTube, bit torrent and the rest -- which is sort of the point here.

The Times Square location will be survived by five remaining Virgin MegaStores in the United States.

One of Allen Stanford's own lawyers has emerged as the key figure who prompted regulators to start legal action over alleged $9.2 billion fraud against the flamboyant Texan billionaire who sponsored a $1 million-a-man cricket match.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission lodged a civil suit against Mr Stanford and his Stanford Financial Group last night, claiming that it was investigating "a fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles round the world".

The news is a stunning blow for the England and Wales Cricket Board and its chairman, Giles Clarke, who signed a controversial, five-year sponsorship deal worth $100 million (about £70.2 million) with Mr Stanford in a glitzy ceremony at Lord’s last summer.

The SEC's inquiry into the improbably high rates of return on Mr Stanford's investment products had been running since last July, but according to Bloomberg news agency the turning point came last week, when a lawyer for Stanford International Bank (SIB) in Antigua informed the SEC that he wanted to withdraw all the evidence he had given so far.

The attorney's withdrawal is a massive red flag that screams fraud," said Peter Henning, who teaches criminal and securities law at Wayne State University in Detroit.

"If the SEC hadn't turned up the heat by that point, it did then."

Bloomberg said that a source familiar with the case named the lawyer as Thomas Sjoblom , of Proskauer Rose LLP. Mr Sjoblom is an expert in financial fraud who previously spent 20 years working for the SEC before joining Proskauer Rose in 1999.

He has refused to comment, and Brian Bertsch, Mr Stanford's spokesman, was last night referring all questions about the case to the SEC. Mr Stanford has denied any wrongdoing.

Last night, as investors arrived in Antigua to rap on the door of SIB demanding to know the whereabouts of at least $8bn, Mr Stanford’s own whereabouts were not immediately known. A dual US-Antiguan citizen, he reportedly spends fewer than 90 days a year in the United States for tax purposes, and has a number of homes from Antigua to St Croix in the US Virgin Islands and Miami. He was given a Commonwealth knighthood by Antigua.

Details were emerging today of how he has courted US Congressmen with donations and trips to the Caribbean, in an apparent attempt to minimise his tax liabilities. He has also been photographed with President Obama.

Yesterday a judge in Detroit froze Mr Stanford’s estimated $2.2 billion fortune, as well as the assets of two other top executives, and US marshals raided the Houston headquarters and offices in Memphis and Tupelo of the privately-owned parent company, Stanford Financial Group, which says it manages more than $50 billion in assets.

Bank regulators in Panama meanwhile said they had taken over Stanford Bank (Panama) after anxious investors launched a run on the bank.

When Acer recently demoed their 10 inch Aspire One netbooks, many reviewers were pleasantly surprised to discover a netbook that could boast an uptime of nearly 8 hours while under moderate use. That was largely made possible by the battery capacity, which was a six-cell 5800mAh unit. Unfortunately for potential owners of the netbook, the units that reviewers (and some early bird customers) got were “mistakenly” shipped with the larger battery.

Most of the units will actually be delivered with a 4400mAh battery which would in turn have a shorter runtime. Acer claims the smaller unit will still get around 6 hours of battery life, though one review site speculates it’d be lucky to get 5.5 hours, compared to other netbooks with similar sized batteries and specs.

Allen Stanford, the billionaire cricket impresario, has been charged with a “massive ongoing fraud” worth up to $8 billion by the American financial authorities.

Federal agents stormed into the office of the Stanford Financial Group in Houston, Texas, this morning after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Mr Stanford of major fraud in the sale of billions of dollars of financial derivatives.

The SEC - the Wall Street watchdog - filed charges at the Federal District Court in Dallas this morning claiming that Mr Stanford and two colleagues had misrepresented the safety and liquidity of investments in their Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB), which has about 30,000 clients.

Mr Stanford, who built his own cricket stadium on his adopted home of Antigua, staged a $1 million-a-man cricket tournament featuring the England team last autumn. The Twenty20 tournament was criticised for poor playing conditions, while Mr Stanford was thought to have upset many of the losing England players by seemingly flirting with their wives and girlfriends on the sidelines.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) responded to the accusations in the US by immediately calling off talks over future events with Mr Stanford.

An ECB statement read: “Following allegations made today by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and their decision to apply for a temporary restraining order which was filed in a Dallas /Fort Worth court, the England and Wales Cricket Board and the West Indies Cricket Board have suspended negotiations with Allen Stanford and his financial corporation concerning a new sponsorship deal.”

Stanford Financial Group is now “under the management of a receiver,” according to a sign taped today to the window of the firm’s Houston headquarters, an eyewitness told news agencies.

“We are temporarily closed. The company is still in operation but under the management of a receiver.”

The main product of Mr Stanford's massively successful bank is a certificate of deposit (CD) – a fixed-term investment, usually over three months, six months or for between one and five years – on which a fixed rate of interest is paid.

Watchdogs were thought to be puzzled as to why SIB had continued to pay out above-average rates to customers for so long.

BusinessWeek reported that SIB’s CDs, which require a minimum investment of $50,000, offer a rate of 4.5 per cent on a one-year deposit – compared with an average of just 2 per cent at American banks. It says that a year ago, Mr Stanford was selling five-year CDs offering a yield of 7.03 per cent, while the industry average was just over half that level.

The SEC’s outgoing enforcement chief Linda Chatman Thomsen alleged today that Mr Stanford and his family and friends “perpetrated a massive fraud based on false promises and fabricated historical return data to prey on investors".

In the US, any documents produced by the federal government are in the public domain and not covered by copyright. However, that's not necessarily true in other countries. Australia, for one, has the concept of Crown copyright, where the government retains copyright on its documents. Sometimes that creates ridiculous scenarios, such as last week, when Google was trying to create a map overlay of useful information about the extent of the massive Australian bushfires that killed hundreds. Instead of being able to map all of the fires, the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment denied Google's request to get data needed to plot the fire's location on public lands, citing Crown copyright. Yes, it appears the government blocked this useful resource because of copyright issues.

LOS ANGELES: DreamWorks SKG has a new home, again.

DreamWorks and Walt Disney Studios said Monday that they had reached an agreement under which Disney will distribute approximately six films a year for the boutique studio, which is owned by Steven Spielberg and his partner, Stacey Snider.

The agreement came after a four-month-old distribution deal between DreamWorks and Universal Pictures fell apart last week. That deal had followed the departure of DreamWorks' principals from Paramount Pictures last year, amid disputes about the division of authority and the assignment of credit for DreamWorks films.

Monday's announcement called the Disney deal an "exclusive, long-term distribution arrangement," but provided few details. The first DreamWorks film will be distributed by Disney's Touchstone Pictures label in 2010, the companies said.

In announcing the deal, Robert Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, said: "We are tremendously pleased to join forces with Steven Spielberg, whose artistic vision and commitment to quality filmmaking are legendary."

LUX Travel is a luxury travel brand in Vietnam, has announced plans for its first global marketing and expansion campaign.

The activity is part of plans to modernize the tour operator's branding and ensure a consistent appearance in its marketing both online and offline.

The forthcoming campaign will highlight LUX's bespoke, luxury product offers and services.

Lux Vietnam (www.luxurytravelvietnam.com) targets the Australia and New NZ markets for this summer and a long run and dominates this luxury segment in these keys markets.

“Vietnam remains a new destination for Aussies, Lux aims to be the first tour operator to develop and promote luxury travel to Australians holidaying in Vietnam and Indochina in the lap of luxury” said Pham Ha, Founder and CEO of Luxury Travel Company.

Win one of four seats to Yellowstone workshop in April, 2009! We’ll be escorting four lucky winners to the Yellowstone area April 29 - May 2. Our submission site for this contest is on Flickr, use this address.http://www.flickr.com/groups/anpw/

Each winner will win a cash travel allowance, hotel, food, ground transfers, as well as prizes from our sponsors. It’s free to enter. You get to keep all Copyrights to your images. There’s no catch. Please read the completecontest rules for more information.

Times Internet (Indiatimes.com) in association with Israel-based Unicell Advance Cellular Solutions has launched Active Search, a multimedia search engine that enables mobile phone users to search and download multimedia content like wallpapers, ringtones, games and animation and also read the latest news and gossip about their favourite film stars, cricketers and celebrities.

According to Times Internet, Active Search can be accessed either by typing the URL ActiveSearch.mobi on the WAP browser or by sending an SMS [Active SearchKeyword] to 58888. The service is available across all operators on SMS as well as GPRS.

Active Search does not require fixed keywords or codes. Users can use normal text messages to search content. The tool analyzes the keyword, understands it, and then generates the best possible result from premium content, mobile content and web. Another important feature of Active Search is that it will only display results that are mobile specific and can be accessed from the mobile phone.

“This is also an excellent platform for third-party content providers, advertisers, and affiliates to promote their services directly to the end users,” Times Internet has said. “Each time the user types a search keyword, the screen will show a contextual advertisement for a few seconds, till the search results are generated. This is a business opportunity for content providers, advertisers, and affiliates to promote their services or products.”

It was a great day for India at Melbourne Park. First Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza won their quarterfinals without much trouble. They beat their Canadian opponents Alexandria Wozniak and Danial Nestor to move into the mixed doubles semi-final of the Australian Open. Bhupathi and Sania, who were broken twice in the first set, came back to draw level with three break of serve before wrapping up the match in one hour and 15 minutes. They next play Czech pair Iveta Benesova and Lukas Dlouhy, who received a walkover from French Alize Cornet and Brazilian Marcelo Melo. Then Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy also made their way into the men's doubles semi-final.

They were comfotable 6-1, 7-6 winners over Simone Bolelli and Andreas Seppi of Italy in the quarterfinals. Paes-Dlouhy defeated Bolelli and Seppi in an hour at Melbourne Park. They won the first set breaking the Italians twice. The second set saw no break of serve from either pair before Paes and Dlouhy prevailed over the tie-break to win in little over an hour. They will now play against the winners of the all-American quarter final between second-seeded brothers Bob and Mike Bryan and Mardy Fish and John Isner. In the boys singles, Yuki Bhambhri stamped his authority over Marcan, breaking him seven times to win the pre-quarterfinals in 78 minutes. He next plays German Richard Becker, who overcame a stiff challenge from Japanese Yasutaka Uchiyama to beat him 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-3.

Robinho, the Manchester City footballer, was arrested by police in relation to allegations that an 18-year-old woman was raped in a nightclub. The 25-year-old Brazilian forward, who is Britain’s most expensive player, was quizzed after a university student told police she had been attacked in the VIP area of the Space club in Leeds in the early hours of January 14. Chris Nathaniel, Robinho’s spokesman, confirmed that the footballer met the police yesterday “as pre-arranged as part of a criminal investigation”. Mr Nathaniel told The Sun: “He strenuously denies any allegation of wrong-doing or criminality and is happy to co-operate with the police if required further.” Robinho, who earns a reported wage of £160,000 a week, is expected to play for Manchester City against Newcastle tonight.

The club refused to comment. Robinho signed from Real Madrid for £32.5 million, a British record, in September last year, as City's new Middle Eastern owners set out their desire to make the club real contenders for the Premier league title. Despite a series of goals which have underlined his status as one of the world's most talented players, Robinho has not managed to shift City from mid-table. The club failed last week to sign his Brazil teammate Kaka for £100 million as the Milan forward opted for Champions League football over wages of £500,000 a week. Since then Robinho has had to deny being unsettled in Manchester after media reports linking him with Chelsea, a club he had expressed interest in joining over the summer.

Last week he left a City training camp in Tenerife without permission to fly back to Brazil, citing "family reasons" - believed to mean celebrations for his 25th birthday. He faces a fine of £320,000 for the misdemeanour. City manager Mark Hughes has insisted: "Robinho will be treated in exactly the same manner as any other player at Manchester City. Everybody knows that. There is no special case here."

This week's edition of the BBC World Service's Digital Planet is all about the Geographic web. The programme includes an interview with Marcello Quintella, a geo project manager at Google’s Brazilian Headquarters. In the programme Gareth talks about some of the latest geographical features available on your mobile phone, including Google Maps and Street View.

Also on the programme is a section on geocaching (GPS treasure hunts), You can listen to the podcast of the programme here. Because this is a special all about the geographic web there is also a Google Map of listeners. Digital Planet wants to know where their listeners are, so they have created this Google Map, to which you can add your location.