Plus Old Republic's drooping subscribers and Microsoft's subsidized 360.

Plus Old Republic's drooping subscribers and Microsoft's subsidized 360.

More than $87,000 worth of the virtual currency known as Bitcoin was stolen after online bandits penetrated servers belonging to Bitcoinica, prompting its operators to temporarily shutter the trading platform to contain the damage.

Friday's theft came after hackers accessed Bitcoinica's production servers and depleted its online wallet of 18,547 BTC, as individual Bitcoin units are called, company officials said in a blog post published on Friday. It said the heist affected only a small fraction of Bitcoinica's overall bitcoin deposits and that all withdrawal requests will be honored once the platform reopens.

It was at least the second time in 10 weeks Bitcoinica has been stung by a computer intrusion that has cost it dearly. In early March, a security lapse at cloud services provider Linode allowed hackers to make off with about $210,000 worth of bitcoin after they gained unauthorized access to bitcoin wallets stored by Bitcoinica and seven other customers. Last June, an anonymous person claimed to have lost $500,000 worth of bitcoin to online thieves, but the claims were never independently verified.

Unknown hackers broke into Bitcoinica, a site that trades the virtual currency.

Got a Kindle and an Amazon Prime membership and want to read the Harry Potter books (again)? Starting June 19, people who can answer yes to those questions can read all 7 of J.K. Rowling's volumes for free through Amazon. The British bestselling author agreed to offer one free Kindle version of a Harry Potter title a month through Amazon's lending library (which is only accessible to users with an Amazon Prime membership). Currently, Amazon's e-library is stocked with 145,000 titles, and users can download one of those titles per month to any of Amazon's line of Kindles. Amazon Prime memberships cost $79 per year and includes free shipping on physical orders and online video streaming, so technically the titles aren't totally free. But if you order from Amazon frequently, or watch movies from Amazon's streaming service, the lending library becomes a bonus.

Rowling refused to allow the Harry Potter series to be sold electronically for years; by some reports, that resistance came from the fear that the novels would be pirated more easily. Only this March were readers finally able to access the young adult novels from online e-book stores, so the news that Rowling has permitted Amazon to lend the books out for free electronically represents a significant shift in attitude toward electronic copies.

Many publishers have also resisted plans for a lending library, fearing that readers won't buy more books if they can just grab loaners. But Amazon's most recent license acquisitions—including The Hunger Games and Water for Elephants reveal the company's commitment to its e-library idea, whether big publishers like it or not.