A significant rise in the global volume of spam in the past two months has security analysts worried that bot nets are increasingly being used by spammers to stymie network defenses erected to curtail bulk email.
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And you thought Kazaa had gone completely kosher. Wrong.
Months after paying $100m to the record labels and movie studios to settle piracy charges, the browbeaten P2P music service has only today come to terms with America's music publishers.
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Sun Microsystems is backing a "milestone" release of NetBeans by expanding a year-old partner program to drive uptake for its tools environment and IDE.
Sun has released NetBeans 5.5, accompanied by five "value added packs" offering tools for developers in testing, enterprise, mobile and web development, which pull in features from Sun's enterprise-class Studio and SeeBeyond products.
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The server and PC markets will get glitzy and awful hot in a couple of weeks when Intel pushes out its four-core chips.
Both Kentsfield for high-end PCs and Clovertown for servers should officially arrive on Nov. 14, although review sites will be freed from their NDAs on Nov 1, sources tell us. The Kentsfield chip will pair two Conroe processors together and ship as the Core 2 Extreme Qx6700. Meanwhile, the Clovertown part marries two dual-core Woodcrest versions of Xeon and will ship as the Xeon 5300.
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So frightening, it merits a unicorn chaser: The Newark Star-Ledger reports that security screeners at Newark airport flunked 20 of 22 security tests operated by undercover federal agents last week. They failed to spot items including concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the international airport's three terminals, according to federal officials. Clearly, the undercover testers failed to include more common explosives such as lip gloss, insulin, or bottled water.
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CNET's Elsa Wenzel shows off Microsoft's new Office Live service. In addition to giving you a free Web site, Microsoft Office Live will soon enable online keyword marketing campaigns for your company while integrating its various Web-based tools with the desktop Office Accounting and, of course, the impending Microsoft Office suite.
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Marshall Kirkpatrick and I spoke with Reddit founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian just a few hours after the announcement of their acquisition by Condé Nast earlier today. A recording of the discussion is now up at TalkCrunch.
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Amarok, the Linux music player, is shipping a new version that integrates with an online store to sell DRM-free music. The store integration is through Magnatune, an online record company whose motto is “we’re not evil.” At the moment Magnatune has a relatively small roster of artists compared to iTunes, but as more artists and consumers alike become fed up with draconian DRM restrictions, Magnatune’s possiblities look good.
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During its monthly meeting Friday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to clarify any regulatory uncertainty that may surround broadband over powerline technology.
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On Tuesday, JotSpot, which provides a hosted service mainly to corporate customers for building wikis, announced that it had been acquired by Google. Executives aren't saying how much Google spent on the 3-year-old company, but they were, not surprisingly, eager to say how well the two company's online offerings dovetail.
"We watched them acquire Writely and launch Google Groups, Google Spreadsheets and Google Apps for Your Domain. It was pretty apparent that Google shared our vision for how groups of people can create, manage and share information online," JotSpot co-founder and CEO Joe Kraus wrote in a blog announcing the deal. JotSpot's product is a platform for building wiki-based applications that in some cases aren't all that different from Google's existing Web applications. For example, the company has an online spreadsheet and calendar that multiple people can edit.
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The software giant is putting private eyes on the track of pirates, according to a report on CNET News.com sister site ZDNet UK.
Microsoft is in the midst of an international clampdown on people who sell counterfeit versions of its software on auction sites. It has launched more than 50 lawsuits in courts all over the world.
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Months after its release and hundreds of bugs, the Volition team has finally released a patch for Saints Row. Is it to little too late?
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Microsoft has made a number of announcements in the last 24 hours that show it is not going to let the oncoming Google Office steal its thunder without a fight. It looks to me like the transformation of Microsoft into a Web 2.0 company is underway at this moment and is happening faster than many people expected. Redmond has announced that it is partnering with PHP commercialization firm Zend, it has released a free, lightweight accounting application integrated with online activities and it will be bringing the first version of Office Live out of beta in two weeks. A new cross vendor ad management service will allow customers to buy AdSense as well as Microsoft ads and there will be a new hosted CRM service. These are huge changes.
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An anonymous blog posted on Mark Cuban's Web site accuses Google of paying off large media companies to make YouTube's copyright troubles go away.
The unidentified blogger claims that he or she is a veteran digital-media executive with knowledge of Google's purchase of YouTube.
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Hewlett-Packard announced the SB40c storage blade October 31. It can supplement a blade server's built-in storage with as much as 876GB more capacity. The storage blade starts at $1,599 and will be available November 14.
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British scientists have grown the world's first artificial liver from stem cells in a breakthrough that will one day provide entire organs for transplant.
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DEEP THOUGHT, the supercomputer created by novelist Douglas Adams, got there first, but now the astronomer royal has caught up. Professor Sir Martin Rees is to suggest that “life, the universe and everything” may be no more than a giant computer simulation with humans reduced to bits of software.
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We just received confirmation that Condé Nast, owner of Wired and other magazines/websites, acquired Boston-based Reddit earlier this morning, and will make the announcement later today. The price is not being disclosed.
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"The first UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting is taking place next week in Athens, which aims to 'contribute to a better understanding of how the internet can be used to its full potential.' It is likely that several countries will object to the US monopoly on Internet governance, as they did at the last meeting, where the US cited fears of a loss of freedom of speech as the reason for retaining power. Other topics to be discussed include online security, access for non-English users and spam."
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"CNN reports that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has agreed to send astronauts on one final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. No date was reported for the mission, other than before the shuttle fleet is retired. From the article, 'A rehab mission would keep Hubble working until about 2013. It would add two new camera instruments, upgrade aging batteries and stabilizing equipment, add new guidance sensors and repair a light-separating spectrograph. Without a servicing mission, Hubble will likely deteriorate in 2009 or 2010.'"
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Slasher film fans hold onto your heads, Comcast has created a Web site and video-on-demand channel that caters to fans of horror films.
The site called FearNet.com launched appropriately on Tuesday?Halloween. There's no question the horror genre is hot with Hollywood blockbuster movies such as "Saw III" topping box office sales.
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Google has acquired the wiki service JotSpot [see news story.] Jotspot is one of a few wikis that is easier to write in than the first generation of wikis. Early wikis required you to write your links and formatting in wiki code, which is quite straightforward, but also quite different from standard HTML and from working with a WYSIWYG word processor, like Word or Google Docs. The newer WYSIWYG wikis (WYSIWikis?) make creating a group document almost as easy as working in a word processor.
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The French publishers union, Le Syndicat National de l'Edition (SNE), has joined book publisher Le Martinière Groupe in its copyright suit against Google.
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Apple Computer announced on Tuesday that the second generation of its iPod Shuffle will be available globally on Friday, Nov. 3. The 1-gigabyte screenless iPod, which retails for $79, has been the subject of much fan speculation because of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' claim that it's the world's smallest digital-audio player--it's half a cubic inch in volume.
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"Dutch Government Renewal Minister Atzo Nicolai has banned the use of one type of computer voting machine in national elections next month. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Voting Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic voting to fraud or manipulation. The reason for this ban is the radio signals emitted by the machines which can be used to peek at a voters' choice from several dozen meters away."
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The Best Gaming Video Cards For Your Money
Complex video card specifications and reviews are great if you have the time to do the research, but at the end of the day what a gamer really needs is the best video card for his or her budget.
So if you don't have the time to research the benchmarks, or if you don't feel confident enough in your ability to make the right decision, fear not! We at Tom's Hardware Guide have come to your aid with a simple list of the best gaming cards offered for the money.
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ATHENS, Greece--While many countries block off some Web sites, China has long drawn heightened scrutiny because of the breadth and sophistication of its Internet censorship.
Which is why it came as a surprise on Tuesday when a Chinese government official claimed at a United Nations summit here that no Net censorship existed at all.
The only problem: Few cases of Net censorship are as carefully and publicly documented as the Great Firewall of China. A study by researchers at Harvard Law School found 19,032 Web sites that were inaccessible inside China.
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ATHENS, Greece--Delegates to a United Nations summit on Tuesday assailed Google, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Yahoo for cooperating too closely with China, suggesting that new global regulations of free expression might be necessary.
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Apple Computer seems to be suffering from a lot of problems with quality control lately: IPods are riddled with Windows viruses, laptop batteries are bursting into flames, and MacBooks are randomly shutting down.
Every few days, there are fresh reports of battery recalls, mooing MacBooks or iPods that scratch too easily.
But is Apple's reputation for quality really slipping?
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A survey has found that 13 per cent of the UK's biggest companies did not have their websites ready for the launch of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), the first new version of Microsoft's market-leading browser since IE6 launched back in 2001.
IE browsers are used by 80 per cent of internet users, said usability consultancy Etre, which carried out the survey on companies in the FTSE 100 index of leading UK listed companies.
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At long last, the Slingbox now offers free Mac SlingPlayer software. True, it's a beta but I can tell you it looks and sounds great.
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Gateway has launched a trio of dual-core, multi-GPU desktop PCs pitched at gamers and computer enthusiasts - and it's offering to overclock them before shipping the machines to customers.
The FX530 series comprises the FX530XG, FX530XT and FX530XL. The former is based on an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700, while the XT and XL use the Core 2 Extreme X6800. All three use motherboards based on Intel's 975X chipset and ship with at least 2GB of 667MHz DDR 2 SDRAM - 4GB in the case of the XL.
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Hackers have published code that could let an attacker disable the Windows Firewall on certain Windows XP machines.
The code, which was posted on the Internet early Sunday morning, could be used to disable the Windows Firewall on a fully patched Windows XP PC that was running Windows' Internet Connection Service (ICS). This service allows Windows users to essentially turn their PC into a router and share their Internet connection with other computers on the local area network (LAN.) It is typically used by home and small-business users.
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The US defence department has set up a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet.
The Pentagon said the move would boost its ability to counter "inaccurate" news stories and exploit new media.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this year the US was losing the propaganda war to its enemies.
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"MacWorld reports that MySpace is going to start implementing audio fingerprinting to prevent copyrighted material from appearing on their site. The new technology will be used to review all uploads and prevent 'inappropriate' material from ever seeing the light of day."
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Scooba, the floor-scrubbing robot from iRobot, can free you up from the drudgery of mopping. But who knew it's one of the best entertainment gadgets around?
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On Tuesday Prosper.com, a person-to-person lending site that launched in February, will announce a couple of fairly significant milestones: 100,000 members and $20 million in funded loans.
They reached both milestones faster than UK-based competitor Zopa, which was recently named a Busines 2.0 “Disruptor”.
Prosper allows members to request loans of up to $25,000 (the average funded loan is $5,000), and then other members offer to fund the loan at various interest rates. Prosper breaks the loan up into multiple pieces to distribute risk, and then funds from the lenders offering the most attractive interest rates. Over 4,000 loans have been funded since the site launched in February 2006. Prosper earns revenue by taking 1% of the loan amount in fees from the borrower up front, and charging a 0.5% yearly loan maintenance fee to lenders.
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If YouTube is in fact pulling down Comedy Central clips, as reported by the New York Times, then it's not doing a terribly good job.
As of this writing late Monday afternoon, thousands upon thousands of clips from The Daily Show, South Park and The Colbert Report were available on YouTube - Google's overpriced high school AV club. The existence of such clips seems to counter a Times report that YouTube had agreed to follow a Comedy Central request to remove all of its copyrighted material. Of course, the newspaper cited but one source for its story.
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Oracle's move to support the Linux operating system has called more than Red Hat's business fundamentals into question. It has demanded that customers examine just how strong Red Hat's partner ties really are.
The likes of Dell, HP and IBM have enjoyed a very lucrative relationship with Red Hat, selling millions of servers to run RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). (Dell even invested in Red Hat.) Such profits, however, did little to stop the server makers from celebrating Oracle's advance into the Linux OS and support games.
"As a customer with first hand experience of Oracle's outstanding support organization, Dell will use Oracle to support Linux operating systems internally," said Michael Dell, the Chairman of Dell, in a statement, adding that customers can immediately pick up Oracle's Unbreakable Linux from his server store.
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The app is called Monolingual. Essentially what it does is remove all of the language packs that you will never use (Swahili anyone?) off your Mac and clear out the hard drive space. When I ran it on my MacBook Pro it saved 2.2 GB of space and from what I have read this is about average.
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MySpace.com on Monday said it had licensed a new technology to stop users from posting unauthorized copyrighted music on the social networking website and oust frequent violators of its policy.
The move comes amid pressure from major studios and record labels against popular online sites like MySpace and YouTube, which they accuse of infringing the copyrights of their artists' music and videos.
MySpace, one of the most popular sites on the internet, licensed technology from privately-held Gracenote allowing it to review music recordings uploaded by community members to their profiles.
The technology compares those filed with Gracenote's database of copyrighted material and can block uploads without proper rights. Terms of the licensing agreement were not disclosed.
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www.digitalnoir.com Dry-loop DSL is a new service being rolled out by telcos across the USA. It's a DSL line without phone-service, and in an era of mobile phones and VoIP, that sounds like a good idea. Land-line? What land-line
Of course, it's not that easy -- the phone companies don't want you to ditch dino-phone service, so you need a good HOWTO before you embark on your dry-loop odyssey. The Eat Our Brains group-blog has a great post on how to game the system:
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Microsoft on Monday said it shipped a new version of Windows Media Player, a week after the company had initially hoped to debut the new jukebox player.
The software maker posted the free download of Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP after months of testing the new program, which includes built-in support for Urge, a subscription music service co-developed with MTV.
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Microsoft plans to file more than 50 lawsuits worldwide against online merchants who allegedly peddle counterfeit software on popular auction sites, the software giant said Monday.
The actions include 15 lawsuits in the U.S., 10 in Germany, 10 in the Netherlands, six in France, and five in the United Kingdom, Microsoft said. Additional cases are being filed in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Korea and Poland, the company said.
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In a field dominated by Google, some smaller search Web sites are hoping to lure people by offering them money or charitable donations to search.
Start-up Zotspot is set to officially launch on Tuesday a site that pays people to search, and pays them even more based on how many other people they refer to the site.
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Liquid Computing, an Ottawa-based start-up, has begun selling its high-end servers based on Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processor.
The systems, called LiquidIQ, have room for as many as 80 Opteron chips in a 45.5-inch-tall rack-mountable chassis, and as many as 12 chassis can be linked together with a single high-speed communication network. They're geared initially for high-performance computing markets, where the company promises faster performance than conventional clusters of x86 servers, but eventually the company hopes ordinary commercial buyers will be interested.
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While the launch of Brightcove has garnered no shortage of attention today, it wasn’t the only important video news of the day. Google’s first “Sponsored Video” had its debut as well. Titled The Domino Effect, it’s Diet Coke and Mentos part II from the guys in white lab coats - EepyBird. Sponsored of course by Coca Cola and Mentos. The original video the pair made was much more entertaining and brought them a reported $35,000 via the Revver revenue sharing system.
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"After several months of silence it was more or less accepted that Microsoft wasn't going to do anything about the firmware hacks that allow Xbox 360s to play backups. Rather surprising, considering the 'inventor' of the hack confirmed in March already that the mods are easily detectable, and the reports that piracy is running rampant in countries like China. It appears that Microsoft is finally taking action against them though, although they may be hitting the wrong persons."
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"Gizmag just wrote about "Instant FM Music," a USB dongle that plugs into your computer's USB Port and records FM and Web Radio stations. You can record the playlist, tag the songs for easy playback, all without that nasty DRM."
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"Wired recently conducted an interview with Pete Ashdown, the tech-minded ISP owner who is hoping for a major upset in the race for Utah's Senate seat against long-time incumbent Orin Hatch. Ashdown hopes to help pave the way for better decision-making on the Hill regarding technology. Hatch is among the more conservative politicians on the issues of 'digital privacy' and 'fair use,' while one of Ashdown's main objectives is to reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
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