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The European judgment backs a Romanian man who was fired a decade ago over private messages he had sent while at work. Employers must tell staff if their emails and communications are being monitored at work, according to a landmark privacy judgment by the European Court of Human Rights. The Strasbourg court backed a Romanian engineer, Bogdan Barbulescu, who was fired over a decade ago after sending messages to his brother and fiancee using his workplace Yahoo Messenger account. It found the company had infringed Mr Barbulescu's right to privacy by not informing him in advance that it was recording the messages he sent on the account. Some of the messages were described as being "of an intimate nature". Neil Brown, a solicitor at specialist digital law firm Decoded Legal, told Sky News that "in this particular case, the monitoring violated the employee's fundamental rights. "However, the judgment recognises that there are legitimate ...

As luxury handbag brands are targeted by counterfeiters, a New York startup has developed a gadget that can spot the fakes. Luxury handbags are being counterfeited with increasing sophistication - but a startup in New York has developed a gadget that can detect them with better than 98% accuracy. Sophisticated knock-offs can be difficult to spot, even for experts. It takes years of experience to see mistakes in the grain of the leather, or issues with the stitching - and even then there is a lot of guesswork involved. New York startup Entrupy believes it has developed technology that can solve those issues. Using a handheld microscope camera and computer vision software, the company claims its tech can spot fakes for 11 brands, including Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton, with better than 98% accuracy. Second-hand clothes stores use specialist staff to detect counterfeits, but as Entrupy's co-founder Vidyuth Srinivasan told Bloomberg, "for businesses tha...

The technology can precisely locate an endoscope's position through 20cm of human tissue and can detect individual photons. A new camera that can see through the human body has "immense potential" in medical procedures, say researchers. It is designed to track endoscopes - an instrument put into the body to examine things like the digestive system or respiratory tract. The camera can detect the illuminated tip of the endoscope tube through 20cm (8in) of tissue, according to early tests. Until now, tracking the equipment has not been possible without X-rays or other expensive methods. With current methods it can also be very difficult to find out exactly where the endoscope is because the light beams scatter or bounce off tissues and organs. But the new camera can give a precise location because it can detect individual photons and measure the time it takes for light to pass through the body. Image: The camera can precisely track the endosco...

As well as taking the title for US space endurance, the 57-year-old biochemist also set a series of other records 250 miles up. Astronaut Peggy Whitson is back on Earth after more than nine months in orbit - smashing the NASA record for time spent in space. Her latest 288 day mission aboard the International Space Station, took her career total of days in space to 665 days - more than any other American and any other woman worldwide. As well as taking poll position in US space endurance, the biochemist also set a series of other records while in orbit, becoming the world's oldest spacewoman, at age 57, and most experienced female spacewalker, with 10 outings. Ms Whitson, who became an astronaut in 1996, was also the first woman to command the space station. She and two crewmates made a parachute touchdown in Kazakhstan shortly before 2.30am UK time on Sunday. It was back in April, Ms Whitson broke the 534-day US record for total time in space. Only seven ...

he laser camera has started operating in its underground facility stretching 3.4km beneath the German city of Hamburg. An X-ray camera so powerful it can capture images of individual atoms and make movies of chemical reactions has begun operating today. The X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL) can flash 27,000 laser beams per second - each one a billion times brighter than that of conventional X-Ray sources. Scientists from eleven countries will use it to research the molecular composition of viruses and cells, and take three-dimensional images of the universe on a nano-molecular scale. It will drive forward international research by filming chemical reactions and by investigating the processes occurring deep inside of planets. Built in an underground facility stretching 3.4km from the German city of Hamburg to the town of Schenefeld, scientists say XFEL "marks the beginning a new era of research in Europe". XFEL shined  its first laser light back in May ...

The new oversight body IPCO was created after three reports into the UK's surveillance activities following GCHQ disclosures. The first institutional change to the UK's surveillance apparatus since the outcry following the Edward Snowden revelations has taken place. It marks the dawn of a new era of more rigorous oversight which is intended to keep the authorities' stronger investigatory powers in check. Lord Justice Fulford has taken office as the first Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC), amalgamating the three watchdog roles which had previously overseen surveillance powers in the UK. His role was created by the Investigatory Powers Act, also known by the epithet Snoopers' Charter, which became law at the end of last year. The legislation itself was produced as a result of recommendations made in three independent reviews into the UK's surveillance activities following on from the initial Snowden disclosures. The commissioner will be supp...

The gauntlet is thrown down to crack the eight queens puzzle - only one of the Millenium Prize Problems has ever been solved. Researchers at the University of St Andrews are challenging people to claim $1m (£770,000) by finding the solution to a "simple" chess puzzle. Computer programmers would be able to pocket the cash, which is offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute in America, if they found an efficient solution to the famous eight queens puzzle. The puzzle requires a player to place eight chess queens on an 8x8 chessboard so that no two queens are threatening each other. For an 8x8 chessboard, the solution requires that the queens don't share the same row, column, or diagonal - the directions in which chess queens can move. Considered as a mathematical problem, computer scientists have calculated there are 4,426,165,368 possible arrangements of the queens but of these arrangements, only 92 are acceptable solutions. Originally devised in 18...

Apple predicts the device will drive a huge upswing in sales, bringing in $52bn (£40bn) during the fourth quarter of this year. On the 10th anniversary of the smartphone's launch, Apple will release its iPhone 8 at an exclusive event at its "spaceship" campus in California. More than a billion smartphones have been sold since  Steve Jobs presented the first iPhone to the public  on 9 January 2007. The device would redefine the mobile phone and make Apple the most valuable company in the world. The launch event for the iPhone 8 will be held in Cupertino, specifically in Apple's new Steve Jobs Theatre, a subterranean stadium which reportedly seats only 1,000 people. Apple's devices usually go on sale a week after the launch event and the company  predicted it would drive strong sales for the fourth quarter of up to $52bn (£40bn). Leaks to retailers have suggested the phone will go on sale on Friday, 22 September. Speculation regarding what...