Congratulations go to Havok, the Irish technology company, that won the middleware category at the annual Game Developer Front Line Awards. It's the third year in a row for a company whose work will be familiar to anybody who's played Halo Reach, Assassins Creed Brotherhood and Bioshock 2. It is also involved in a jaw-dropping 130 games that are currently in development.

Computer viruses miss 'easy targets'

Computers are less susceptible to viruses and other threats than many users might think, according to a consumer watchdog.

A study by Which? Computing found that not one of five computers connected to the internet for four weeks became infected, despite figures suggesting an estimated 60,000 new malware threats occurred daily.

Each machine was used to visit a list of 22 "reputable" websites, ranging from Amazon.com to Tesco.com, for an hour a day. The consumer group said it did not overload the PCs with security software.

Tablet computers set to outsell laptops

Tablet computers, which are set to flood the consumer market this year, will outsell laptops in the US by 2015, according to a new report.

Forrester Research said its previous forecasts had been too conservative following the launch of Apple's iPad last year, and now believed 82 million Americans would be using tablet devices in four years' time.

Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said there would still be more laptop users in 2015, but tablet sales would be stronger in the next four years and prices would fall.