U.S.: Whoops! Report of spy coins not true

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Reversing itself, the Defense Department says an espionage report it produced that warned about Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters was not true.

The Defense Security Service said it never could substantiate its own published claims about the mysterious coins. It has begun an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page report about espionage concerns.

The service had contended since late June that such coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

"The allegations, however, were found later to be unsubstantiated following an investigation into the matter," the agency said in a statement published on its Web site last week.

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THE FIRST ROAD-READY FUEL CELL MOTORCYCLE

Jump on your bike, start the engine, throw a rev, and hear... silence? No, you haven’t gone deaf – you’ve traded your mighty Harley for the zero-cylinder ENV (yep, envy). Green vehicles are nothing new – the Prius and its kin have been quietly zipping along special commuter lanes for years – but engineers have largely dismissed an environmentally friendly two-wheeler as impractical. That was until Britain’s Intelligent Energy created the ENV, the first road-worthy hydrogen-powered motorcycle. The vehicle runs on a removable fuel cell, emits almost nothing, and will be street legal. The only drag? Top speed, for now, is 50 mph. Production versions go on sale later this year. Head out on the highway on this eco-machine.

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New Generation PC 5.1 Speaker Systems

We're going to be examining three new PC speaker systems with some unique and new functionality: Logitech's Z-5450, Creative's Gigaworks ProGamer 550W, and Altec Lansing's FX5051.



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AT&T Offers Unlimited Mobile-to-Home Calling Plan

NEW YORK (Reuters)—AT&T Inc. said on Friday it will let subscribers who pay at least $110 a month make unlimited calls between their mobile and home phones, as it moves to stop customers from defecting to cable rivals.

The service, dubbed AT&T Unity, is offered as a perk to subscribers who pay for both the $50 a month unlimited local and long-distance calling plan for their home or business and the $59.99 a month unlimited wireless plan.

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Concern over China's missile test

China is facing international criticism over a weapons test it reportedly carried out in space last week.

Japan has expressed concern, as have the US and Australia.

It is thought that the Chinese used a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile to destroy a weather satellite that had been launched in 1999.

Correspondents say this is the first known satellite intercept test for more than 20 years. China's foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny the report.

While the technology is not new, it does underline the growing capabilities of China's armed forces, according to the BBC's Dan Griffiths in Beijing.

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Apple shares slide on forecasts

Shares in iPod maker Apple have fallen, despite rising profits, as investors fretted about the firm's outlook.

Traders said investors were focusing on disappointing computer sales and a warning that profits for the three months to March would miss forecasts.

The drop came despite profits rising 78% in the three months to 30 December on strong iPod music player sales.

Shares in Apple closed down $5.88, or 6.19%, at $88.83 on New York's technology-focused Nasdaq index.

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Pluto probe closing in on Jupiter

The New Horizons space probe, hurtling through our solar system towards Pluto, is about to slingshot around Jupiter.

As it passes by our largest planet, NASA mission managers are planning to test all its systems with a series of detailed observations of Jupiter's ring and moon system and scans of its turbulent atmosphere.

The probe, which NASA expects to reach the Pluto system by 2015, is already the fastest spacecraft in history, and has (almost) reached the giant planet in less time than any craft ever launched. At the end of February, it will use its close pass of Jupiter to gain an additional 9,000mph taking its velocity past 52,000mph.



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Hacked to the TK Maxx

TJX, the multi-national which operates the popular clothing store TK Maxx in the UK, is warning its customers that computer systems involved in processing credit card transactions have been broken into by hackers.

The discount retailer discovered the intrusion, which remains under investigation, in mid-December. The breach involved systems handling debit and credit card transactions as well as cheque purchases and refunds involving its TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and A J Wright stores in the US and Puerto Rico; and its Winners and HomeSense stores in Canada.

How many customer records might have been exposed by the attack or the value of financial losses sustained as a result of the assault is unknown, Reuters reports.

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US court withdraws 'legal child porn' opinion

A US court has withdrawn its controversial recent opinion that viewing child pornography is legal as long as it is not intentionally saved. The judge had said there was ambiguity in the law over what constitutes "knowing possession" of material.

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania has withdrawn the opinion issued in November of last year by Judge Richard Klein. The court has now granted a prosecution request for a hearing of the full court in the case.

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NY GPS thieves tracked and cuffed

Three master criminals who stole 14 GPS units from cars in a New York garage hadn't considered the possibility of a satellite-guided police bust, Tom's Guide reports.

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SCO faces new setback in IBM case

Things have not been going well for SCO of late, and yesterday the provider of Unix products and services faced another body blow when a magistrate judge hearing its copyright case against IBM again ruled in favor of Big Blue, rejecting claims it had destroyed damning evidence.

Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells of the U.S. District Court in Utah denied SCO's motion asking for a finding that IBM flushed code that would have proved SCO IBM injected Unix programming into the Linux OS, according to Groklaw.

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Motorola to cut 3,500 jobs to improve margins

Motorola plans to cut 3,500 jobs in the first half of 2007 to reduce costs and help it return operating margins to the double-digit percentage range, executives said on Friday.

The world's second-biggest maker of mobile phones outlined the plan to cut 5 percent of its 70,000-strong work force after reporting that fourth-quarter profit fell by 50 percent, hurt by a sharp drop in phone prices amid stiff competition.

Executives said the job cuts would affect middle managers.

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'Storm Worm' rages across the globe

"Storm Worm," one of the larger Trojan horse attacks in recent years, is baiting people with timely information about a deadly, real-life storm front, security researchers said Friday.

Over an eight-hour period Thursday, malicious e-mails were sent across the globe to hundreds of thousands of people, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for F-Secure.

People who open the attachment then unknowingly become part of a botnet. A botnet serves as an army of commandeered computers, which are later used by attackers without their owners' knowledge.

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Lobby bill spares political bloggers

The U.S. Senate has rejected a proposal that may have required some political bloggers to register as lobbyists or face prison time.

By a 55-43 vote on Thursday evening, the senators approved an amendment that dropped a controversial section dictating such regulations from a massive piece of federal lobbying legislation.

Seven Democrats joined 48 Republicans voting in favor of the amendment, which was proposed by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah). No Republicans voted against the measure.

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Swedish bank hit by 'biggest ever' online heist

Swedish bank Nordea has told ZDNet UK that it has been stung for between seven and eight million Swedish krona--up to $1.1 million--in what security company McAfee is describing as the "biggest ever" online bank heist.

Over the last 15 months, Nordea customers have been targeted by e-mails containing a tailor-made Trojan, said the bank.

Nordea believes that 250 customers have been affected by the fraud, after falling victim to phishing e-mails containing the Trojan. According to McAfee, Swedish police believe Russian-organized criminals are behind the attacks. Currently, 121 people are suspected of being involved.

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Novell: Skip Vista, use Linux

Novell has begun a new element of a years-long effort to coax people away from Windows and toward Linux. It unveiled a Web site Friday that touts purported advantages that Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 has over Windows Vista.

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TI's wireless chief steps down

Gilles Delfassy, who helped make Texas Instruments the king of cell phone chips, is stepping down.

Delfassy, 51, has headed the company's wireless terminal unit since it was created in 1995. Since then, TI has become the dominant player in semiconductors for handsets. The company's main product is the digital signal processor, which fine tune the digital signals inside a handset and arguably act as the "brain" inside a phone. TI also makes microprocessors and other cell phone chips.

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