United States Senators have said it is unlikely that Cyber security legislation will pass this year as the 111th Congress comes to an end.

Recognizing that critical infrastructure of the United States depends on computer and network systems, legislators are debating what powers should be given to the U.S. President to respond to, and handle situations such as cyber attacks.

Countries like the United Kingdom and the United States have expressed concerns that some critical systems (health, transport, defense etc.) could be affected by cyber attacks launched by cyber criminals or rogue states. Lawmakers in the U.S. are looking to pass new legislation that would give the President powers to handle attacks from the Internet or threats of attacks, but say that any legislation is unlikely to pass this year.

"I'm not optimistic of major cyber security legislation passing at this late time." Republican staff director on the Senate Intelligence Committee Louis Tucker said. "Considering the objections to some of the cyber bills out there, comprehensive legislation will probably have to wait until next year."

Facebook has sent out invites to members of the press to attend an event that will focus on Facebook's mobile offerings.

The event is sure to re-spark the immediately-denied rumors that there is a Facebook-branded handset (or handsets) on the horizon. The media event will be held at Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters next Wednesday.

The social networking giant recently revealed that of its 500 million members, approximately 150 million use the website from their mobile phones. It offers native software applications for handsets as well as hosting a mobile-friendly version of its site.

That is likely to be the main focus of the event. A Facebook spokesperson denied rumors back in December that the company was working with device manufacturers on Facebook-branded handsets, saying that building phones is just not what Facebook does.

Thom Dunning, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, has said that GPUs are the future of supercomputing.

Dunning said high-performance computing solutions will continue to move toward graphics processing units for more power. China has just recently claimed to have the fastest supercomputer on the planet, the Tianhe-1A, which uses 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 GPUs and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs.

This GPU-CPU hybrid system is what Dunning expects to be the future in the area.

"What we're really seeing in the efforts in China as well as the ones we have in the U.S. is that GPUs are what the future will look like," Dunning said. "What we're seeing is the beginning of something that's going to be happening all over the world."

He said that the migration to such systems will accelerate when chipmakers can provide combined high-performance CPU and GPU functions on the same chip. "If they start to solve some of these other problems like putting [the GPU and CPU] together on a chip, that's when you'll start to see a lot software rewritten," according to Dunning.

Roku Developer Program Manager, "Patrick", has announced on the company's official forum that PlayOn-compatible channels have been removed and can no longer be added.

Anybody already subscribed to a channel will be able to keep it for now, although it is unclear for how long. Roku has said that neither Roku, or the developer of the channel are affiliated in any way with PlayOn.

Hi everyone,

While we understand that many of you are excited about a PlayOn-compatible Channel and may be using it, it unfortunately presents the possibility of legal exposure for us. As a result, the current PlayOn channels have been removed and are no longer available to add to your Roku player.

Patrick

Apple has responded to a lawsuit brought against it by Motorola earlier this month with its own patent infringement lawsuits.

The Cupertino-based iPhone-maker sued Motorola alleging the company's smartphone line-up and the operating system used by its handsets violate the company's intellectual property. Apple filed the two lawsuits on Friday in the U.S. district court in Wisconsin.

Earlier this month, Motorola filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) claiming that Apple's "i" devices infringe on their patents, as well as some Mac computers in its line-up. The three complaints include 18 patents, all of which relate to "early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas found on many of Apple's core products and associated services, including MobileMe and the App Store."

The patents are related to "wireless communication technologies, such as WCDMA (3G), GPRS, 802.11 and antenna design, and key smartphone technologies including wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization."

YouTube announced this week on its blog that users of the service have clicked the little yellow "subscribe" button over 1 billion times since it was added.

YouTube gave users the option to subscribe to videos from other users by clicking the now-familiar yellow button back in 2006. This week it was revealed that YouTube users have amassed over one billion subscriptions to videos from other YouTube user, with the billionth subscription being to the MachinimaSports channel.

Over 1 billion subscription updates that sent to YouTube users' homepages every week. Fifteen YouTube channels have managed to cross the 1 million subscribers landmark; fred, nigahiga, kassemg, shanedawsonTV, shanedawsonTV2, smosh, universalmusicgroup, machinima, sxephil, mysteryguitarman, davedays, kevjumba, realannoyingorange, raywilliamjohnson, collegehumor and failblog.

YouTube has also now offered a widget you can embed into your own websites or blogs that allows users to subscribe to your channel without having to visit YouTube.com.

You can see more details at: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/

The California State Senator behind a controversial piece of legislation concerning the sale of violent video games to minors has claimed that ESRB guideline ratings are "biased".

San Francisco democrat Leland Yee said that his new piece of legislation was needed because the ESRB age-rating scheme is "rather biased." He told GameSpot that since the games industry itself funds the ESRB, it is natural to assume that the ratings titles receive are biased.

"Clearly, they're not going to legitimately and appropriately place any markings on any video games, because it's in the interest of the video [game] industry to sell as many video games as possible," he said. "You never heard of an AO rating whatsoever, because that would limit your market share." (Have a look here, Senator)

A Google executive has said that Google's quiet acquisition of Android Inc. several years ago was the best deal the company has ever struck since its beginning.

The comments were made by David Lawee, vice president of corporate development at Google, at the 16th annual Stanford Accel Symposium. He said that when the search giant buys up a company, it is up to the entrepreneurs to make it a success under the Google umbrella.

Google bought Android for an estimated $50 million back in 2005. Android Inc. was a wireless software start-up that was founded by Andy Rubin.

"I saw this guy in my building for two years, walking his dog, and I was like, I hope this guy does something," said Lawee. "It's obvious when the deal doesn’t work out, because the people leave. That's the key metric: Is the technology being used? A lot of it depends on the perseverance of the team coming in."

Rubin did stick around with Google to champion the development of the open source Android operating system for mobile handsets. It now is one of the most used operating systems in handsets.

A new documentary has revealed that founders of search giant Google tried to lure Steve Jobs away from Apple to head the "then" emerging company.

Bloomberg's new documentary, Game Changers, reveals that Google's co-founders Larry Paige and Sergey Brin traveled to Apple's Cupertino campus for a meeting with Steve Jobs. The pair tried to lure Jobs to Google to act as chief executive officer but were unable to get him on board.

After interviewing about 13 different candidates, Paige and Brin eventually settled on Eric Schmidt. Whilst Schmidt touts a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the fact that he attended a hippy art festival, Burning Man, in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, apparently gave some weight to his candidacy.

Game Changers is a new documentary that tells the story of Larry Paige and Sergey Brin as they met at Sranford and all to the way to their status in the industry today.

The 48 minute documentary is available here.

After sparking speculation by asking customers whether they would be willing to pay a monthly fee for unlimited streaming last spring, Redbox' owner has now confirmed it is planning a movie streaming service.

During a conference call yesterday, Coinstar CEO Paul Davis confirmed that Redbox does have its own plans in the space. He said that Redbox will be working with a partner to deliver a movie streaming service but did not elaborate on who the company is in negotiations with or what kind of a payment structure would be in mind.

The company will launch the Redbox-branded service in 2011 if all goes well. It will either be an unlimited service for a fee like that offered by Netflix, or it could go the iTunes and Amazon route with a Video on Demand service instead.

Last spring, customers were asked if they would be winning to pay a monthly fee of $4 for unlimited streaming and up to 4 DVD rentals per month.

China claims to have built the world's faster supercomputer, surpassing the Cray XT5 Jaguar supercomputer in the United States.

The Tianhe-1A was unveiled on Thursday and claims a performance record of 2.507 petaflops (flops == floating point operations per second; petaflops == 10¹⁵), beating the Cray XT5 Jaguar's 1.75 petaflops record. The Chinese system will have to wait to be crowned the world's fastest supercomputer until the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany in a couple of weeks, which will compile a list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world.

It is powered by 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 GPUs and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs. The system still requires U.S.-made processors, but the very high-speed interconnect technology and software that runs the system was developed in China. It was designed at the National University of Defense Technology in China and comprises 103 computer racks, consumes 4.04 megawatts of electricity and covers 17,000 square feet.

"Certainly there's some nationalistic pride in having the fastest computer, but it's also a signal that the U.S. is not the dominant force when it comes to supercomputing," said Jack Dongarra, a computing expert at the University of Tennessee.

Asus has released a new software tool that is aimed at legacy systems to make it possible to fully access hard drives with more than 2.2TB of storage space.

Disk Unlocker is a free utility for Asus motherboards that are limited by BIOS as 3TB internal HDDs roll onto the market. The tool cannot create a bootable partition based on the GUID partition table (GPT). Instead, it simply allows users running Windows XP x64, Windows Vista and Windows 7 access the extra space beyond the 2.2GB limit.

To boot from a GPT partitioned drive you would need an Extensive Firmware Interface-capable motherboard. Disk Unlocker, when run, provides a drop-down list of HDDs with more than 2.2TB capacity (but does not list any that already use the GPT format). When a user makes a selection, the tool creates a new virtual drive that gives the user control over the extra storage space.

Bloomberg cites sources close to Fortinent Inc. in a report claiming that International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has approached the network security firm about a possible takeover.

The world's largest provider of computer services approached Fortinet between six and eight weeks ago, according to the sources, and talks now may be at an advanced stage. Fortinent is reportedly working with Morgan Stanley on its strategic options.

The firm provides systems for network security, catering to companies that range from small businesses to large phone carriers. IBM CEO Sam Palmisano had previously said he plans to spend about $20 billion on acquisitions over the next five years.

"IBM's move is part of a bigger trend where technology companies are trying to fill the gaps in their portfolios," said Rajesh Ghai, an analyst at ThinkEquity LLC in San Francisco.

"Fortinet is growing very fast, and IBM is looking at high-growth companies also because the return on cash on a balance sheet is very low."

Fortinent, which has a market value of $2.14 billion, has seen its stock price surge over the past year due to speculation that it could become an acquisition target.

Despite an Dutch-led operating that disconnected 143 command and control servers from the Internet, the Bredolab botnet appears to still be receiving instructions from remaining servers.

Dutch authorities have said that the Bredolab investigation is still on-going, after already taking 143 servers offline and capturing of what authorities described as a computer virus "mastermind" in Armenia. At least two botnet command nodes appear to still be active.

The servers are located in Russia and Romania, and they will deliver FakeAV (Antivirusplus) and spam to infected machines that look them up. A third command node located in Russia was also showing signs of life earlier in the week, but appears to have gone offline permanently.

Security firm FireEye reckons that a second group of bot herders are issuing new instructions to the remaining zombie drones either attempting to make their own botnet or are continuing to use portions of the botnet they had previously rented.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has tapped into the unpopularity of an EU directive that caused major concerns several years ago which would see ISPs in the EU logging user activity.

The EFF is calling on the European Union's data protection watchdogs to pressure the governing bodies of the EU to repeal the law. The San Francisco-based digital rights activist group says the directive is disproportionate and very unpopular with citizens in any state that attempts to make it law.

Under the Directive, which appeared when the United Kingdom held the EU presidency, ISPs would be required to keep records of when its services were used and by whom. This information is then available for police and other state authorities to analyze in cases of terrorism or serious crime.

The length of time the data is retained for is between six months and two years depending on the preference of the state. "The Data Retention Directive is highly controversial, if not wildly unpopular throughout the European Union," said the EFF's Eva Galperin.

Turkish users are reportedly able to access Google Inc.'s popular video sharing website, YouTube, after videos deemed controversial in the country disappeared from the site.

Turkey had blocked YouTube back in May 2008 over video content that was deemed to be insulting to Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Under the country's penal code, it is an offense to insult the Turkish nation or its institutions.

The ban had been widely criticized since being put in place, with even Turkey's president Abdullah Gul using Twitter to voice his opposition to it publicly.

"We've received reports that some users in Turkey are once again able to access YouTube...We want to be clear that a third party, not YouTube, have apparently removed some of the videos that have caused the blocking of YouTube in Turkey using our automated copyright complaint process," YouTube responded in a statement issued on Saturday.

"We are investigating whether this action is valid in accordance with our copyright policy."

Human rights groups and media watchdogs have urged Turkey to halt its continued Internet censorship practices, with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) saying the European Union-candidate now prevents access to as many as 5,000 websites.

LaCie has demonstrated record speeds in two of its professional storage solutions – LaCie d2 USB 3.0 and LaCie 2big USB 3.0.

LaCie's 2big USB 3.0, now available in 6TB, provides a dramatic 20 percent speed boost by reaching 306MB/s, marking the fastest performance of any 2-bay RAID solution to-date, thanks to the performance of USB 3.0.

"There is no question heavy data users continue to demand higher capacities, and in turn faster transfer speeds," said Erwan Girard, Business Unit Manager for Professional Products.

"Today, LaCie answered this challenge by introducing the largest available capacity and fastest transfer speeds in a single solution, providing users with increased backup efficiency and reduced risk for backup interruption."

The LaCie 2big USB 3.0 6TB and LaCie d2 USB 3.0 3TB will be available, worldwide, at the beginning of November. The 2big USB 3.0 is listed for $349.99 with 2TB capacity, and $579.99 with 4TB capacity. The 6TB option is listed but is not priced yet.

Nepalese telecoms firm Ncell, owned by Swedish company TeliaSonera, has made it possible for climbers of Mount Everest to make calls or surf the Internet using its 3G network.

The company installed eight base stations along the route to the Everst base camp. The highest 3G base station is near the Everest base camp at 17,000 ft. Ncell head Pasi Koistinen said the coverage would reach the summit of Everest but said it has not been tested yet.

Climbers and trekkers in the region have had to rely on voice-only mobile coverage or satellite phones depending on location. Ncell said the new coverage will help thousands of tourists that visit the Everest region ever year.

It will enable climbers to stay in touch with family and trip organizers, and to get weather and safety information updates easily. Since Edmund Hillary first conquered Everest in 1952, approximately 3,000 people have followed in his footsteps.

TeliaSonera has announced it will invest over $100 million in the next year to boost mobile coverage in Nepal, where less than one third of the population have access to telecommunications services.

Mass Effect 2 has won the "Ultimate game of the year" award at the 28th Golden Joystick awards. It also picked up the award for the "RPG of the year".

The winners are voted by UK gamers. The Guinness Book of Records lists the Golden Joystick awards as the most popular video game awards show. For games to qualify for awards this year, they had to have been released between May 2009 and May 2010, with just one exception: the "One to watch" award.

The first Golden Joystick awards in 1982 saw Jatpac winning the first "Ultimate game of the year" award. Since then, other titles to receive the award include Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Awards are handed out for 16 different categories...

• Action game of the year: Assassin's Creed II
• Game On Shooter of the year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Racing game of the year: Forza Motorsport 3
• RPG of the year: Mass Effect 2
• Puzzle game of the year: World of Goo
• Fighting game of the year: Super Street Fighter 4
• Sports game of the year: FIFA 10
• Strategy game of the year: Plants vs. Zombies
• Music game of the year: Guitar Hero 5
• Online game of the year: League of Legends
• Downloadable game of the year: Plants vs. Zombies
• Portable game of the year: Pokemon Heart Gold/ Soul Silver
• Soundtrack of the year: Final Fantasy XIII
• One to watch: Call of Duty: Black Ops
• UK Developer of the year: Jagex
• Ultimate game of the year: Mass Effect 2

Microsoft Corp. beat predictions to report a company record for the first quarter.

The Redmond-based software giant experienced much higher performance particularly of its Windows and Office software products. It announced a 51 percent rise in first quarter profit, with net profit for the three months to September at $5.4 billion.

Revenue for the quarter was reported at $16.2 billion, a company record for the first quarter, and a 25 percent rise over the same period of last year. Microsoft did say however that it had deferred some revenue from Windows sales during the same quarter of last year, and if it had not done so, the net profit would have been reported as 16 percent higher.

Nevertheless, the quarter surprised analysts and investors that have been questioning the company's ability to adapt to major changes in the market. "Microsoft had a very good quarter," said Toan Tran, an analyst at Morningstar.

"Windows is still doing well, Office is doing well, and servers and tools are doing well. The big three businesses are firing on all cylinders as the PC upgrade cycle continues."

Dish Network and New Corp.'s Fox Network have announced a deal that will restore some of Fox's programming to Dish subscribers.

Financial terms of the agreement between the two were not disclosed in the Friday announcement. Subscribers had lost Fox's regional sports networks, National Geographic and FX on October 1 when Dish had refused to enter into a new deal with Fox.

Dish claimed that Fox was demanding a 50 percent increase in programing fees, but insiders at Fox have denied that the fee increase was anything like 50 percent.

"After prolonged negotiations to reach a fair deal, we're pleased to enter into a long-term agreement with Fox and to assure our customers that they can continue to enjoy these channels," Dave Shull, senior vice president of programing at Dish Network, said.

More stations were slated to go off air in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Dallas for Dish subscribers, but the new agreement ensures the local Fox programing will continue to be available.

Facebook has acquired Drop.io, an easy to use, online collaboration and file sharing service that provides users with a single, real time and private way to chat and share images, video, audio, documents and other digital content.

The service was led by Sam Lessin, who attended Harvard University between 2001 and 2005 where he knew Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during the early days of the site. Lessin is now set to take up a new role at Facebook, the world's largest social networking service.

Drop.io left a blog message for all of its users explaining what will now happen...

Here at drop.io, we've had a great three years helping people privately share pictures, video, audio, documents, andmore. It's been a thrill to watch the first, thousandth, millionth, and ten-millionth drop be created.

Today, we're proud to announce that we've struck a deal with Facebook. What this means is that Facebook has bought most of drop.io's technology and assets, and Sam Lessin is moving to Facebook.

In the coming weeks, we'll be winding down the drop.io service. As of this week, people will no longer be able to create new free drops, but you'll be able to download content from existing drops until Dec. 15. Paid user accounts will still be available through Dec. 15 and paid users will be able to continue using the service normally. After Dec. 15, paid accounts will be discontinued as well. Read more...

A Texas man has been given an 18 month prison sentence for selling counterfeit copies of popular software applications through various websites on the Internet.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing of Todd Alan Cook (24), of Wichita Falls, Texas, as well as a $599,771 restitution payment ordered by the Judge. Cook had pleaded guilty of criminal copyright infringement in March.

Between July 2006 and May 2008, Cook, along with his father Robert and another individual operated several websites hosted by Yahoo. They sold large amounts of counterfeit software from the sites, much of it being from Adobe Systems.

The sites they operated included Econo-soft.com and Bargainsoftwaredownload.com, and they used PayPal and Google Checkout to process payments. Federal agents bought software from Cooks' website during 2007. Yahoo had also sent a cease and desist order demanding that the sale of counterfeit software cease.

Despite the warning, a new website was reportedly set up within days. Robert Cook also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement in March, and will be sentenced on December 3rd.

YouTube co-founder and chief executive officer Chad Hurley is to step down from the position at the company as Google annexes more control over the world's most popular video site.

The site was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jewed Karim, who were all early employees at PayPal. In October 2006, Google Inc. moved in with a $1.65 billion buyout of the rapidly-growing service. Since then, both Chen and Karim have already departed YouTube.

For the past two years, YouTube's day to day operations have been handled by Salar Kamangar, one of Google's earliest employees. Hurley, 33, concentrated on the site's design and the relationship between YouTube and its millions of users.

Hurley is set to officially turn over the position of CEO to Salar Kamangar, but he will reportedly remain a YouTube adviser.

A broad coalition of industry-leading IT firms has announced the formation of the Solid State Drive (SSD) Form Factor Working Group.

The group will work to advance the benefits of Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) storage drives through standardization. The working group will focus on enterprise customers who are pushing the storage IO envelope and require high-performance, easy-to-use, cost-effective storage solutions to optimize CPU performance.

Promoter Members of the group include Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, IBM and Intel while Contributor Members include Amphenol, Emulex, Fusion-io, IDT, Marvel Semiconductor, Micron Technology, Molex, PLX, QLogic, STEC, SandForce and Smart Modular Technology.

To help customers, the SSD Form Factor Working Group is dedicated to advancing technology standards in three technology areas...

• A connector specification which will promote interoperability of several storage protocols, supporting SAS/SATA 3.0 as well as PCIe 3. This allows greater user choice and flexibility.
• A form factor which builds upon the current 2.5-inch standard to enable enclosure flexibility while supporting the new connector definition and expanding the power envelope in support of higher performance.
• The support for hot-plug capability to create high-availability and serviceability benefits.

Canadian firm Research In Motion (RIM) has promised India that it will provide a final solution for the lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services by the end of January, according to India.

India is one of several countries in the gulf region that has come to dispute with RIM over the encryption used in some of its communication services. Concerned governments fear it can be used to stir political or social instability and threatened to ban the services if RIM could not provide a solution.

RIM has reached an interim agreement for the lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services and assured the government that it will provide a final solution by the end of January 2011, with talks still ongoing over access to corporate e-mails.

"Accordingly, the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) services will continue to be available," a statement from India's interior ministry said.

RIM's enterprise server systems are designed to protect e-mail and other traffic so that only he sponsoring business or organization has the technical capability to grant access to the unencrypted data. India, like other countries, wants access to the data if it should need it as part of a criminal investigation, for example.

Verizon Wireless, the top mobile phone service provider in the United States, will have to pay out another multi-million fine for over-charging customers.

The service provider has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $25 million on top of the $52 million+ it has alreaddy agreed to pay back to customers for overcharging them for services. The additional $25 million fine is the largest in the Federal Communications Commission's history, according to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

Last month, Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc said it would pay refunds to 15 million cellphone customers overcharged for mobile Internet usage.

Verizon said in a statement that the settlement is being made voluntarily and has apologized for the "accidental data charges" experienced by customers.

"People shouldn't find mystery fees when they open their phone bills and they certainly shouldn't have to pay for services they didn't want and didn't use. In these rough economic times, every $1.99 counts," Genachowski said.

Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Toshiba Corp are to form a working group to develop the next generation of chip technology by 2016, according to the Nikkei daily.

The three will invite other players in the industry in a bid to develop chip manufacturing technologies that can more than halve the semiconductor line widths to nearly 10 nanometers by 2016. A nanometer is unit of length in the metric system that equals one-billionth of a meter.

According to the report, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan will put up 5 billion yen toward an initial 10 billion yen in funds for R&D efforts, with the other half coming from members of the consortium itself.

Samsung and Toshiba are the world's largest and second largest makers of NAND-type memory respectively, and will use any resulting manufacturing technology to produce 10-nanometer class NAND flash memory chips, while Intel will use the technology for a new generation of powerful microprocessors.

Google has admitted for the first time that its Street View cars accidentally captured more sensitive information from wireless networks around the world than it previously thought.

The disclosure by the web giant comes just days after the Canadian privacy watchdog accused the company of collecting complete e-mails and passwords from wireless networks in the country while its Street View cars were out capturing the area.

It remains unclear just how many users worldwide have been affected by the security breach, and different states have decided to deal with the situation in different ways. Where it has been allowed to do so, Google has already destroyed the data that it captured, while bodies in other states are still analyzing the data and carrying out investigations.

Regulators in France, Germany, Spain and other countries have ongoing investigations into the matter. "If in fact laws were broken...then there's some serious question of culpability and Google may need to face significant fines," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

In the United States, a collection of more than 30 attorneys general have launched a joint probe into the matter, lead by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. He said that Google's disclosure about the data it collected "validates and heightens our significant concerns."

Dutch authorities announced earlier this week that a computer virus "mastermind" had been arrested in Armenia as part of a move against the spam-spewing Bredolab botnet.

Earlier this week, the High Tech Crime Team of the National Crime Squad in the Netherlands announced that 143 servers hosted by LeaseWeb were taken offline. It identified them as command and control servers for the Bredolab botnet, which at its strongest could infect 3 million computers a month and sent an estimated 3.6 billion spam e-mails a day.

"At the request of the national (Dutch) prosecution service, a 27-year-old Armenian believed to be the brains behind the notorious Bredolab network, was arrested at the Yerevan international airport last night," the prosecution service said in a statement in The Hague.

The Netherlands has no extradition agreement with Armenia, and so the prosecution is currently in discussions to possible put the suspect on trial in Armenia.

Adobe has revealed the discovery of a zero-day vulnerability that affects its Flash player, Reader and Acrobat software.

The vulnerabilities can be used by malicious users to run arbitrary code on a victim's computer, according to the advisory published by Adobe. The company said that the vulnerability affects version 10.1.85.3 and earlier of Flash Player for the Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems.

The authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader 9.4 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows, Mac and Linux is also at risk, while mobile users are also vulnerable as Adobe Flash Player 10.1.95.2 and earlier versions for Android are vulnerable.

Adobe Acrobat 9.4 and previous 9.x versions are also vulnerable for Windows and Mac.

Adobe is working on a fix for the unpatched flaw and expects to provide an update by November 9th, while following with fixes for Adobe Reader and Acrobat during the week of November 15th, which unfortunately gives plenty of time to malware peddlers to attack.

Mozilla released patched updated versions of its popular web browser on Wednesday, addressing a zero-day security flaw that put potentially millions of Internet users at risk.

Morten Kråkvik of the Norwegian security vendor Telenor SOC was credited with the discovery of the flaw on Monday by Mozilla. Within 48 hours of the disclosure, Mozilla had patched the bug. The company has always prided itself on the speed at which it responds to threats, and has claimed that it gets fixes to users of its browser faster than Microsoft or Google.

The bug affected Firefox 3.5 and Firefox 3.6 versions. Firefox 3.6.12 and 3.5.15 were released, while the Firefox 4 beta was not at risk. The update to the Firefox 3.5 browser comes two months after Mozilla said it would stop providing security and other updates for it.

Unfortunately the bug was exploited by code planted into the Nobel Peace Prize website. Visitors to the site were redirected to a Taiwanese attack server that launched a Javascript exploit. If successful, the exploit planted a trojan on the victim's computer, which would in turn retrieve more malware.

Nokia Siemens Networks has announced a technology that could drastically increase the data carrying capacity of standard copper wires.

The company achieved data transmission speeds of 825 megabits per second (Mbps) over 400 meters of bonded copper lines and 750 Mbps over 500 meters. Nokia Siemens Networks used circuits that involve the creation of a virtual - or 'phantom' - channel to supplement the two physical wires that are the standard configuration for copper transmission lines.

"Laying down new optical fiber to the home remains costly, though it is capable of delivering very high speeds and is a definite solution for long-term bandwidth requirements," said Eduard Scheiterer, head of broadband access business line, Nokia Siemens Networks.

"However, the innovative use of technologies such as phantom circuits helps operators provide an efficient last mile connectivity with existing copper wires."

Phantom DSL promises a bandwidth increase of 50-75% over existing bonded copper lines. This prolongs the life of copper networks, delaying the need for fiber rollout and protecting operator's existing capital investments.

Police in several European countries have carried out raids in a case over counterfeit CD and DVD boxsets that stretches back to 2006.

More than 100 police officers in the four countries took action against those involved in the manufacture, supply and sale of unlicensed Masterbox boxsets that have generated millions in revenue for the criminals behind them.

The Masterbox series contained unlicensed music, films and television programmes. Each box set included an MP3 disc featuring up to 60 albums, some of them pre-release titles. Music from artists such as Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson, Green Day and Robbie Williams was found in the Masterbox series, which ran to more than 50 editions.

Copies of Masterbox had a street value of around €40 and were sold informally across the Netherlands. It is estimated that more than 450,000 copies of the various editions were sold, totalling more than €19 million in illegal sales.

Police searched eight business premises and five homes across Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Spain over the last few days.

The High Tech Crime Team of the National Crime Squad in the Netherlands issued a press release today announcing action has been taken to isolate 143 servers from the Internet.

The servers were actively involved with the Bredolab botnet, appearing to be command and control centers. They were hosted by LeaseWeb, one of the largest provider of hosting services in the Netherlands. The provider fully cooperated in the takedown operation.

It is unclear so far whether the botnet has been fully decapitated, but security firms such as TrendLabs are monitoring activity levels of the botnet for clues.

Bredolab originated in Russia and rose to prominence in August 2009. The primary initial trigged for infection was through e-mail but later was delivered using a wide variety of methods, even being dropped as a payload by other known malware.

Dutch Authorities estimate that it was capable of infecting 3 million computers per month at its peak.

Adobe revealed today that the latest version of its Flash player is heading to major smartphone operating systems, enabling a wide range of mobile devices to support Flash-enabled websites.

"Flash Player 10.1 is available on Android and Google TV today, with BlackBerry platform, HP webOS 2.0, future versions of Windows Phone, LiMo, MeeGo, and Symbian OS also expected to support Flash Player 10.1," an Adobe press release stated.

Since there are quite a lot of Flash websites, it has been a frequently requested feature from smartphone users. Adobe has worked to make its software more stable and more efficient particularly for use with smartphones and other portable devices like slates.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs point blank refuses to add Flash to iOS, embracing the open standard HTML 5 solution instead.

A glitch in Apple's iOS 4.1 software that allows anyone access to potentially sensitive information has been revealed by iPhone owners online.

An easy trick allows anyone to bypass the passcode entry screen and gain access to the iPhone App. To do this, the user must select "Emergency Call" at the passcode screen, then input any number. Then hitting "Sent" and the iPhone sleep button in an _almost_ simultaneous succession will give the user full access to the iPhone app.

This means the user will have access to Contacts, Call History, Voicemail and Dialer. A few further tips include hitting "Share Contacts" and the camera button, which will get you access to the Photos app. It is also possible to send an e-mail or MMS with the device.

The loophole does not exist in the iOS 4.2 beta, which suggests that Apple is already aware of the flaw.

Intel Corp has finally opened its first plant in China several years after announcing the $2.5 billion project. The plant, located in the city of Dalian, opened on Tuesday after being announced in 2007.

"For 25 years now, Intel has been investing and innovating in China with China and for China," Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said in a statement. "This manufacturing facility helps deliver on our vision to contribute to sustainable growth in China while giving us better proximity to serve our customers in Asia."

Over the past three years, rumors emerged that Intel would delay or even scrap plans for the plant, but the chipmaker consistently denied that anything was amiss. The opening is a nod to the growing importance of China, which has struggled to build a globally competitive semiconductor industry.

Intel said it has already started doing business with as many as 80 suppliers in Dalian but didn't identify them. The opening of Intel's new plant fulfills Intel's total investment commitment in China to $4.7 billion.

The Lower Merion School District has settled litigation brought against it by the families of two students for allegedly spying on them at home using a webcam built into laptops issued by the district.

The Pennsylvania school district has agreed to a settlement of $610,000. Of that settlement, $175,000 is to be placed in a trust for Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, and $10,000 goes to a second student, Jalil Hassan. who sued later on.

The students' attorney, Mark Haltzman, will get $425,000 in legal fees. "A major impetus behind settling this matter now is the recent agreement by our insurance carrier, Graphic Arts, to cover more than $1.2M of the fees and costs associated with this litigation to date," Lower Merion School Board President David Ebby said in a statement.

The district provided high school students with laptops as part of a technology initiative, but did not alert families that the laptops were equipped with webcams that could be turned on remotely. Robbins, who was 15 at the time, did not know about this until school officials allegedly accused him of "improper behavior in his home," citing a photograph taken from the webcam while he was at home.

Sony has announced that it will not meet the November release date for the Gran Turismo 5 title that has been eagerly awaited by PS3 owners for some time now.

"We sincerely apologize to GT fans for the delay, however, creator Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital want to make certain they are creating the perfect racing experience, and we are confident that this ambitious game will exceed expectations when it launches," the official PlayStation blog reads.

However, the blog did say that despite not meeting the November 2 release date, the title "will" be released this coming holiday season.

A report compiled by Microsoft Corp. says there are 2.2 million personal computers in the United States that have been infected and are counted as part of botnets. Brazil has the second highest level of infections at 550,000, while 14.6 out of every 1,000 in South Korea are part of botnets.

Microsoft's 240-page report takes an in-depth analysis of botnets, and is intended to alert people and organizations to the growth and danger of malicious botnets. "Most people have this idea of a virus and how it used to announce itself," said Cliff Evans, head of security and identity at Microsoft UK. "Few people know about botnets."

Botnets are used to spew spam around the world, carrying out DDoS attacks on web services and sending phishing e-mails. Personal and private information can also be hoarded from infected machines and uploaded to locations for bot herders to retrieve and sell on in underground markets online.

Google has had to push back some hardware acceleration features for the Chrome web browser. It had promised some of the features to be included in version 8 of the Chrome browser. The Mountain View-based web giant said it had to pull back on planned hardware acceleration APIs for CSS rendering, large layers and opacity fixes in version 8.

The hardware acceleration functionality will now be pushed to version 9. Given the speed at which Google pushes out new iterations of its browser in several channels, it is still likely that the code will be included in a build before the end of the year.

Microsoft, on the other hand, was awarded a patent for GPU-accelerated video encoding technology today, and it's Internet Explorer 9 web browser puts a huge emphasis on hardware acceleration to push up performance for web applications and multimedia content.

Microsoft Corp. has been awarded a patent for a GPU-accelerated video encoding system. The Redmond-based giant applied for the patent titled "Accelerated video encoding using a graphics processing unit," back in October 2004 and now six years later it has been granted the patent.

The Microsoft patent outlines a concept where the graphics unit is utilized to perform motion estimation on videos, as well as other vital aspects of encoding. It covers all bases of GPU-accelerated video encoding, giving Microsoft control of a major new technology that is already used in prosumer applications on the market.

After the release of Windows Vista and DirectX 10, NVIDIA and AMD released GPUs with support for general purpose GPU computing (GPGPU). NVIDIA released the GeFore 8800GTX card with underlying CUDA architecture, while AMD's ATI unit loaded GPU acceleration technology into its HD 2000, 3000 and 4000 cards.

Sony has made several moves to combat piracy on the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console following the release of PSJailBreak and other solutions based on the same trick. Firstly, it closed the USB exploit with firmware 3.42. Later on, another firmware change included a whitelist of USB devices, which also caused some controller incompatibilities.

Now some game titles are also reportedly prepared to tackle attempted piracy. Medal of Honor is one confirmed example. While there are copies of the game available to download online, only newer firmware can be used to play it. Instead of just being a case of refusing to boot on lower firmware, it is reported that only newer firmware can actually decrypt the content due to the use of a new crypto key.

Other new titles like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West do still work using the hack however. Other soon to be released titles will probably require the latest firmware be installed first too as Sony and publishers will look to impact piracy on the platform for the busy holiday season.

Intel Corporation yesterday reported that third-quarter revenue exceeded $11 billion for the first time, up 18 percent year-over-year to $11.1 billion. The company reported operating income of $4.1 billion, net income of $3.0 billion and EPS of 52 cents.

The company predicted a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter too, fueling hopes that the sector could end 2010 on a strong note. Intel's forecast for a December quarter gross margin of 67 percent affirmed hopes that the loss in personal computer sales could be made up with spending on servers or data centers.

The world's largest chipmaker forecast revenue of $11.0 billion to $11.8 billion in the final three months of 2010, in line with analysts' expectations of $11.32 billion.

"We'll see the consumer market growing but likely a little less than you'd normally expect. I attribute that to consumers pulling back a little bit based on economic uncertainty," Intel Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told Reuters.

In the long term, Wall Street investors are still concerned about the competition from tablets and other portable devices that generally use ARM architecture microprocessors.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced today the industry's first production of a 3-bit-cell (3bit), 64 gigabit NAND flash using 20 nanometer-class process technology. The highly advanced new chip can be used in high-density flash solutions such as USB flash drives (UFDs) and Secure Digital (SD) memory cards.

"Samsung has repeatedly provided the market with leading-edge NAND flash solutions, including the introduction of 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND flash last November," said Seijin Kim, vice president, Flash Memory Planning/Enabling, Samsung Electronics.

"By now entering into full production of 20nm-class 64Gb 3-bit devices, we expect to accelerate adoption of our high-performance NAND solutions that use Toggle DDR technology, for applications that also require high-density NAND."

Samsung's 20nm-class, 64Gb 3-bit NAND has a 60 percent higher productivity level than 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND. The device also offers improved performance by applying Toggle DDR (Double Data Rate) 1.0 specifications, compared to those of SDR (Single Data Rate) based 30nm-class NAND chips.

A plan by the French government to subsidize the cost of music subscription services to cut the amount of illegal music file sharing in the country has gotten a nod of approval from the European Commission. The commission must ensure that programs such as this do not damage competition in the marketplace.

Under the scheme, French residents can buy a card to access a music subscription service. The card is worth 50 euros of "credit", but the government will pay half the cost. The scheme is aimed at 12-to-25 year olds. It is expected to cost about €25 million a year, and will run for two years.

"We welcome initiatives ... to increase the availability of music online at a lower price for consumers and through legal distribution channels," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement. "The scheme will contribute to preserving pluralism and cultural diversity in the online music industry," the EU body said.

Websites that benefit from the subsidy must cut the price, extend the length of the subscription and contribute to the cost of advertising the card system. The benefit for each site will be capped at €5 million.

The head of Britain's electronic spying agency has warned that Britain is vulnerable to cyber attacks from hostile states or criminals that could adversely affect critical infrastructure. Iain Lobban, Director of British intelligence gathering facility GCHQ, said in a speech that targets such as power grids and emergency services are increasingly vulnerable due to the rapid growth of the Internet and technology.

"The threat is a real and credible one," he told an audience in London at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "We already provide expert advice and incident response to the operators of critical services. We must continue to strengthen these capabilities and be swifter in our response, aiming to match the speed at which cyber events happen."

Of the millions of malicious e-mails that target computer users all of the world, about 1,000 are directly targeted at government systems, according to Lobban. Britain's critical national infrastructure that could be vulnerable include its mass communication services, financial services, health and transport. Lobban also warns about cyber threats that could damage the British economy.

Sony Corp. has unveiled a line of Internet-connected televisions that use Google TV software. The company is hoping to achieve success in fusing together television and web content in the living room, while past attempts have failed to gain demand.

Sony's Internet TVs use Google TV (based on the Android platform), run the Google Chrome web browser and include an Intel Atom processor. The models also feature Dual View, allowing users to watch television while tweeting about what they're watching, checking their fantasy football scores, or finding related content on the web.

The TVs come with pre-installed applications from CNBC, Napster, NBA, Netflix, Pandora, Twitter, and YouTube. An intuitive hand-held RF QWERTY keypad remote incorporating an optical mouse makes it easy to navigate content, type in search terms, and control the TV's user interface.

Ben Heck has done it again, and this time to an Xbox 360 slim console. Ben's work is generally great, but this project of his is absolutely beautiful, and you can see from user comments on his website that most people agree.

From Ben's Site:

You knew this was coming – the Xbox 360 Slim Portable. Big differences compared to my older models:

• About 1.5″ inches narrower left and right, 1″ narrower front to back.
• Internal power supply.
• Uses stock Xbox 360 Slim fan so it’s much quieter than my older 3 fan models.
• Touch sensitive power and eject buttons of the Slim have been preserved.

Not so big differences:

• Pushbutton control audio amplification.
• Gateway 1775W 17″ widescreen LCD display @ 1280×720.
• Fan grate design copied from PS3 Laptop design.
• PVC plastic routed case.

The construction of this unit is being covered over the first 6 episodes of The Ben Heck Show so be sure and check it out to learn how I put this thing together. This is the actual unit that is up for grabs as part of their contest, so one lucky winner will take this puppy home!

Despite quite a clear disapproval to the plans, Australia's prime minister Julia Gillard has renewed her backing for a web filter. The proposed filter would block selected content such as depictions of drug use, child sex abuse and bestiality. Gillard says her backing is driven by a "moral question."

Generally when government tries to interfere with the Internet in any way at all, there are concerns raised from ISP's and privacy and personal liberty proponents, but the reaction to Australia's plan goes well past that. Even the U.S. State Department has voice concerns about the plan, and web giants Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are united in their opposition.

The problem they have with the plan is it sets a precedent for censorship. User groups have formed on social networking sites, slamming the government for pushing censorship over Australians and likening the filter to the firewalls used by Iran and China.

"My fundamental outlook is this: it is unlawful for me as an adult to go to a cinema and watch certain sorts of content, it's unlawful and we believe it to be wrong," Gillard said in a press club address. "If we accept that then it seems to me that the moral question is not changed by the medium that the images come through."

Apparently the spat between Eminem's publisher, Eight Mile Style, and both record company Universal and online music store iTunes has not been fully settled.

The Detroit News has reported that the publisher has filed for the U.S. District Court judge in Detroit to enforce the settlement reached in the lawsuit against both Universal and iTunes.

Essentially, Eight Mile Style wants Universal and iTunes to hand over $2.2 million (what proportion each must pay is unknown) which includes legal fees.

In 2007, Eight Mile Style filed a lawsuit against Apple for selling 93 downloads of Eminem tracks without paying appropriate compensation, and against Aftermath Records (owned by Universal) for illegally negotiating the deal.

The case went to trial last year but after five days in federal court a deal was reached for an undisclosed sum to settle the case.

Redbox, the popular DVD rental kiosk service, will add games to thousands of its kiosks throughout the United States over the coming weeks. The move follows a successful limited trial which started with a limited number of locations back in July.

Redbox claims to have already rented over 1 billion DVDs at $1 each - a price that has sent shivers throughout the films industry with many believing it undervalues a DVD.

The company will provide rentals of Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii games for $2 each, but they must be returned within 24 hours to avoid incurring a fine. The service is due in the coming weeks, according to Xbox360Digest. You can check game availability at local kiosks here then.

BNI Video, a start-up backed by Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc, and Cisco Systems Inc, launched on Tuesday, offering software that can help satellite and cable providers attempt to keep up with rapidly changing viewer behavior and demands.

The start-up's software will aid in offering functions like search and social networking to subscribers of pay-TV services. It has raised $16 million in financing so far, backed by Charles River Ventures and Castile Ventures.

Cable providers are responding to demands from a new generation of TV viewers, who watch television content on their smartphones, tablet computers and other devices, but have a clear appetite for more features to be available while viewing the video. The TV giants also require the technology to deliver video in a wide variety of formats and to many devices that are now used to commonly view programming.

BNI Video's products will cover a broad range of devices. Viewers have more choice now than ever for tuning in, and spend a lot more time using social networks and other services. BNI will enable pay-TV providers to add those features for subscribers as well as bulked up services for their gadgets.

Wedbush's Michael Pachter revealed in a note he sent to investors that Bungie's Halo: Reach will have pushed U.S. games industry sales figures back into positive territory following three straight months of dismal results.

Pachter predicts that U.S. games software sales for September will hit $665 million, representing a 2.4 percent increase over September 2009. The increase would be larger if it wasn't for a decline in the music games genre. Last year, Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band: The Beatles helped to boost the genre, while Pachter predicts this time around, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock only sold 100,000 units.

Overall, Pachter expected rhythm genre sales to be down more than $100 million for the month, from $116 million to just $15 million.

He expects FIFA 11 and Dead Rising 2 to be among the best selling titles for the month, while he expects sales of Sony's PlayStation Move to be "modest" at best.

Apple Inc. has been awarded a trademark for the catchphrase, "There's an App for That", which is widely used in campaigns for Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and iPad products. The company filed for the trademark in December 2009, citing its first commercial use in January 2009.

The trademark applies to "retail store services featuring computer software provided via the Internet and other computer and electronic communication networks; retail store services featuring computer software for use on handheld mobile digital electronic devices and other consumer electronics."

It was filed in the Advertising, Business and Retail Services, Computer and Software Services and Scientific Services categories. The phrase has become quite popular and has been parodied on occasion. It refers to the growing focus on the App Store, used by millions of Apple product users to find apps for specific purposes among hundreds of thousands of others.

The 'App Store' format is being emulated by other players in the mobile space, hoping to keep up with Apple in functionality and usability.

The High Court in Dublin has ruled that there is no precedent in Irish law to force Internet Service Providers (ISP) to identify and disconnect subscribers accused to sharing music and other content illegally over the Internet. UPC, one of the largest ISPs in Ireland, is not now required to take part in the same three strikes program that Ireland's largest ISP, Eircom, is currently using.

UPC would have been required to first send an informal warning to customers accused of sharing music illegally. Then it would have to send more stern threats of disconnection, followed by a seven day disconnection. After this stage, a customer could be disconnected for up to a year if the activity continued.

While the High Court decision is based on Irish law, it was pointed out by the court that this could mean Irish law does not comply with European law agreed by EU member states including Ireland itself. Whether this means the Irish government will step in to provide legislation for the issue or not remains to be seen.

Mr. Justice Peter Charleton made the ruling. He had previously condemned the impact Internet piracy has on the industry when the Eircom case was in the media, saying at the time that piracy "not only undermines the record companies' business but ruins the ability of a generation of creative people in Ireland, and elsewhere, to establish a viable living."

It seems that Foxconn cannot keep itself out of the news and for all of the wrong reasons. After several highly-publicized suicides by Foxconn workers, a new leaked report shows that not much has actually changed at Foxconn. The Beijing-based Global Times reported on a study conducted by 60 teachers and students from 20 Universities in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Fourteen investigators were able to enter the company and experience life inside Foxconn for themselves. According to the report, at least 16.4 percent of Foxconn employees have been subject to "some kind of corporal violence," like that seen in a recently released video of employees being assaulted by Foxconn security.

More than 38 percent claimed that their privacy has been invaded and 54.6 percent felt indignant toward management. Foxconn had announced a 30 percent pay rise for its employees following a number of suicides, but the report states that raises only amounted to 9.1 percent and that workers were also deprived of, "many of their welfare terms like subsidies, bonuses and so on."

The report focuses a lot on interns working for Foxconn. While interns are only allowed to work eight hours per day, some plants had them on ten hour shifts and night shifts. By having no contracts with interns, Foxconn doesn't have to pay "social welfare" costs for them, which means if they are injured at work due to a lack of supervision, the interns will have to pay their own medical expenses.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced the industry's fastest and most power-efficient, 10K RPM, 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Enterprise hard drive, the Hitachi Ultrastar C10K600. The C10K600 is a 2.5-inch drive family that offers capacities of 300GB, 450GB and 600GB, rivaling 3.5-inch drives that also offer 10,000 RPM.

The Ultrastar C10K600 drive also sets a new standard for energy-efficiency with an operating power specification that is at least 22 percent lower than the competition, according to Hitachi.

"The Ultrastar C10K600 is closely aligned with customer requirements for increased performance, improved server/storage density, greater power efficiency and lower total cost of ownership," said Brendan Collins, vice president of Product Marketing, Hitachi GST.

"We are proud to establish new power and performance benchmarks with our latest Ultrastar drives, while delivering to customers the proven quality and reliability they have come to expect from Hitachi."

The new Ultrastar C10K600 drive family offers optional Bulk Data Encryption for hard-drive-level data security. These self-encrypting models are designed to the Trusted Computing Group's Enterprise A Security Subsystem Class encryption specification and allow customers to reduce costs associated with drive retirement and extend drive life by enabling swift and secure repurposing of drives.

TDK has shown off prototype 1TB optical discs at CEATEC in Japan. The company managed to create the 1-terabyte disc by cramming together 16 layers, each holding 32GB. TDK succeeded in forming 16 layers by developing a disc material with a high light transmittance.

"The material has already been used for part of a Blu-ray disc," the company said. "So, it does not have a problem of, for example, durability."

The disc uses the same numerical aperture as Blu-ray Disc (0.85), which TDK says means many existing technologies for the Blu-ray Disc format can be applied. It takes the same time to read one layer of the TDK disc as it does to read a Blu-ray layer.

There is one problem however, and it lies with the thickneess of the disc. "According to the specifications of the Blu-ray Disc, the thickness of a recording layer has to be 100μm or less," TDK said. "But the recording layer of the new disc is 260μm in thickness. And it causes the aberration of an optical lens."

Microsoft is reportedly planning to shut its Massive Inc. in-game advertisement unit before the end of the month, four years after acquiring the company for between $200 million and $400 million. Insiders told MediaWeek that the general manager JJ Richards was currently seeking another job, while members of its tech and sales team were being assigned to other projects for Microsoft.

According to the sources, Microsoft has even approached rival in-game ad vendor Double Fusion, seeking a high 6 digit or low 7 digit figure. When Microsoft had acquired Massive in 2006, things were looking good for the firm. So good, in fact, that then-Massive-CEO Mitch Davis predicted the in-game ad market to hit $2 billion this year, which it never has approached.

Microsoft's Xbox Live service has also grown rapidly since then, hosting over 25 million users, and it is considered a more attractive advertising target for brands. Also, Microsoft doesn't have to share revenue from Xbox Live advertising with publishers as it would have to for in-game ads.

Hitachi-LG Data Storage has shown off a prototype storage device that can backup unused files to Blu-ray cartridges. Each prototype cartridge can store up to 1TB of data. Each contains discs that use the new BDXL format, standardized earlier this year. BDXL discs offer 128GB of storage on a write-once disc and 100GB on a rewritable disc.

The prototype device is packed with four hard disk drives providing storage with two additional slots capable of holding 8 discs. Each disc contains multiple recording layers. The device runs automatic back-ups where it transfers little used data from the hard disks to the cartridges.

The cartridges are loaded with RFID chips which can be scanned with a handheld scanner, allowing users to quickly find out what a cartridge contains.

The prototype was shown off at CEATEC in Japan and the company hopes to put it on the market in 2011.

IBM will continue to develop the Cell chip technology and hardware to supply for future gaming consoles, a company executive has said. Jai Menon, CTO of IBM's Systems and Technology Group, said that the company is working with Sony and Nintendo. "We want to stay in the business, we intend to stay in the business," he said.

Cell made its first appearance in the PlayStation 3 console, launched in 2006. The chip includes processor cores based on IBM's Power architecture. Neither the Xbox 360 or Wii consoles use the Cell processor, but they do use IBM processors.

"I think you'll see Cell integrated into our future Power road map. That's the way to think about it as opposed to a separate line -- it'll just get integrated into the next line of things that we do," Menon said. "But certainly, we're working with all of the game folks to provide our capabilities into those next-generation machines."

Menon also said that IBM would be providing hardware for cloud-based gaming services. Such services require giant servers with a lot of processing power. "Some of this consumer stuff is also a cloud play. There are giant servers out there that provide some of the gaming capability. Some of that will come through cloud-based offerings as well," he said.

Graham Cluley, a security expert at Sophos, has written about an Internet rumor that predicts a virus will spread across the Internet on October 10, 2010. More specific rumors say it will happen at exactly 10:10am. Of course, it sounds utterly ridiculous but the fact is these rumors do incite panic for some reason.

Cluley also had to debunk similar rumors back in 2003, when many believed a virus would start infecting computers on March 3rd, 2003. These dates are specific because of how they look: 10/10/10 and 03/03/03. "It's just the kind of scare that people love to murmur about, and share with their online friends, but I'm afraid it has no basis in fact," Cluley writes.

"The truth is that there is malicious software which triggers every day of the year - so worrying about one particular date or time is actually counter-productive, as it implies that you should take less care on other dates. The 10/10/10 rumour, just like the 03/03/03 one, is utter codswallop."

"And yes, I know that 101010 is binary for decimal 42 (the alleged answer to "Life, The Universe and Everything" if you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). But it's still not any reason to worry any more than normal!"

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States is looking for ways to tackle "bill shock" for mobile phone customers. The trade association representing carriers insists that customers are already well informed about their calling and data plans. However, the FCC conducted a survey in which it found 17 percent of respondents experienced sudden bill increases even though they hadn't changed their plans.

CTIA, the trade group that represents mobile carriers, questions the survey and insists that there are no need to any new regulations. The FCC could, for example, force carriers to alert users via SMS or some other way when they are approaching their monthly call minutes limit or data limits. CTIA insists that carriers already carry out such measures to warn customers, and there is no need to mandate any more.

"Wireless carriers and app developers are constantly providing additional methods for alerting customers regarding their usage to avoid unexpected charges," CTIA said in a September document describing discussions with the FCC. "The FCC should not prescribe -- and ultimately limit -- carriers' ability to provide effective consumer account management tools."

Webroot is warning about a change that a Trojan makes to Firefox files that change the way the browser handles password information entered in forms on websites. Trojan-PWS-Nslog is found to modify a file used by Firefox (nsLoginManagerPrompter.js) in such a way that the browser simply saves all entered passwords and does not prompt a user anymore on whether or not it should.

Computer security firms generally advise against saving passwords in a web browser because they can so easily be retrieved either by a person physically using the browser or by malware installed on the computer. The keylogging Trojan, which copies itself as Kernel.exe to the system32 directory, creates a new user account on the machine in the background (Maestro).

It then retrieves information from the registry and saved passwords from Internet Explorer and Firefox. It attempts to send the stolen information to a server once per minute. The server is now actually offline, but the changes the malware makes to the Firefox browser file are not fixed by removal tools. Instead a user will have to re-install the Firefox browser to write a new copy of the file.

That's not the only interesting thing found with this trojan however. Embedded inside is an interesting string of text you wouldn't expect to see included with malware: "SaLiLoG keylogger server made by Salar Zeynali - Salixem@Gmail.com."

Tech vendors are hoping for a stronger year-end as economic woes continue to impact the industry. There are signs that U.S. consumers are spending more, despite unemployment remaining high. Analysts expect consumers to spend more on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs, but will likely demand deep discounts.

Retailers are expected to see their best Christmas in four years and companies that are less exposed to the booming wireless device market are expected not to fare as well as others. "A lot depends on what happens in the economy, but some segments are pretty good," Micron Technology Inc President Mark Durcan told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

"At least for Micron, we have very strong demand in the smartphone space and pretty good demand in enterprise and networking."

The market for tablet PCs has exploded following Apple's release of the iPad device in April. Samsung and Dell have launched competing products and dozens more are in the pipeline. However, many of those devices likely will not be out in time for Christmas.

Another week, another Apple rumor. Once again, a report is suggesting that Apple Inc. is moving closer to offering a music subscription service to customers. The service would grant access to a large catalog of music content for a monthly fee.

The iPod maker is reportedly in talks with the major record labels, mulling over the finer details of the concept.

The New York Post is the source of the latest report on the issue. According to the Post, Apple's iTunes boss Eddie Cue recently has discussed with the record companies how they could implement the plan, with a source saying there would be a tiered pricing range.

The monthly fee would work out at around $10-15 depending on how much music would be included and how long customers would sign up for the service.

The video game industry is confident of a strong holiday season performance following strong sales of top video games recently released. New titles from popular franchises are boosting confidence in holiday sales. After Halo Reach made $200 million in its first day on sale, Electronic Arts' FIFA 11 went on to become the fastest-selling sports game ever.

U.S. games industry figures for September are due out next week from NPD, which will help to give a clearer picture. Arvind Bhatia, a Sterne Agee analyst, expects the numbers to be better than August's dismal 10 percent hardware and software sales drop.

"It's a tough economy, but the overall picture for video games is starting to look a little bit better," Bhatia said. Activision also revealed this week that its online RPG, World of Warcraft, has 12 million subscribers which is the most it has ever had at any given time.

"When you look at how the industry looks today, we are seeing the top products doing really well," said Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Activision's Blizzard Entertainment.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has decried the use of pirated software by Chinese firms. "One of the things that has improved a lot around the world is business piracy, and yet when we look at China today business piracy is more extreme than consumer piracy," he told a business forum in Madrid.

"We are working hard with the support of the Chinese government to improve the situation but it is a real problem," he added. According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), approximately 79 percent of Chinese firms are running pirated software on their computers, while it estimates the value of pirated software in the country at $7.58 billion.

Microsoft generates less revenue in China than it does in India or South Korea, despite China's GDP being twice that of the other two economies combined. Chief executives of several major software firms, including Microsoft, met with lawmakers and officials from the Obama administration to push them to step up pressure on China to crack down on piracy.

Acer plans to adopt dual operating systems on its dual-core netbooks, according to a report from DigiTimes. The Taiwanese firm is planning to load both Microsoft Windows and Google's Android operating system to its netbooks so users can decide which to boot.

Including Android offers users a rapid boot and the ability to quickly and easily handle common tasks such as browsing the Internet or checking e-mail. Including Windows will allow users to run larger more resource hungry applications for more complex tasks.

Acer recently unveiled its new Aspire One AOD255 netbook which includes an Intel Atom N550 dual core processor.

Acet Taiwan president Scott Lin said the company expects to ship 40 million notebooks in 2010, along with 10 million netbooks. Lin said that figures from Gartner showed that netbooks will not be replaced by tablet PCs, and that global netbook shipments would reach 36 million units in 2010 and 50 million in 2014.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will not carry out a suspension of several BlackBerry services in a row over national security issues. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority issued a statement earlier on Friday announcing that Blackberry services were not compliant with the regulator's framework.

"The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has confirmed that Blackberry services are now compliant with the UAE's telecommunications regulatory framework.

Therefore, the TRA has confirmed today that all Blackberry services in the UAE will continue to operate as normal and no suspension of service will occur on October 11, 2010.

The TRA would like to acknowledge the positive engagement and collaboration of Research In Motion (RIM) in reaching this regulatory compliant outcome."

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Amazon.com is planning to open an applications store for the Android mobile platform. Such a store would mimic Apple's App Store for iPhones and iPads. Google's Android Marketplace currently has about 80,000 applications, compared to 270,000 available in the Apple Store.

An Amazon spokesman told Reuters in an e-mail reply that the company has not made any such announcement yet, while Google declined comment completely, reminding the news outlet that it does not comment on rumor or speculation.

According to the WSJ, Amazon will offer developers 70 percent of the revenue from any sales, which is the same Apple offers app developers for its own platforms.

Android is being used in mobile devices such as Motorola's Droid and Samsung's Galaxy S, and is quickly gaining popularity in the smartphone market.

Adobe stock jumped on Thursday following reports in the media that Microsoft has identified it as an acquisition target. The New York Times reported that Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in San Francisco recently to talk about Apple's dominance in smartphones.

According to the report, which cited employees and consultants familiar with the situation, the two discussed several options to deal with the situation, one of which would see Microsoft acquiring Adobe. Adobe stock rose 17 percent to a high of $30 before settling back to close up 11.5 percent at $28.69 on the Nasdaq.

A Microsoft acquisition of Adobe would cost $15 billion or more based on Adobe's current market value. It would provide Microsoft with control of Adobe's flash player, used all over the web for video and graphics. Wall Street analysts see it as a possible way for Microsoft to integrate graphics and video capabilities into software it develops for phones and tablet computers.

"It's certainly possible," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran of a potential deal. "It may be a case of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and both Microsoft and Adobe have a common enemy in Apple. The Flash platform in Microsoft's hands might be an interesting competitive weapon against Apple."

A 33 year old man has been handed a suspended sentence for operating a P2P hub using DirectConnect in Finland. The man received a four month suspended sentence after he was found to be the operator of a DirectConnect hub where he was also sharing a considerable amount of music.

His computers and equipment were originally seized in June 2007 and were found to contain a significant amount of "infringing music" files. He later restarted the hub with new computers, which were seized yet again in October 2007. Records showed that up to 2,000 people were using his hub to share about 80 terabytes of content.

The 33 year old must now pay €307,450 in compensation to rights' holders in addition to the four months suspended sentence. The decision was made yesterday by a Finnish District Court.

"Imprisonment is the right penalty for this type of deliberate, planned and very harmful conduct in which the administrator facilitates widespread unauthorised file-sharing," said Antti Kotilainen of CIAPC.

According to data released by research firm Net Applications, users of Microsoft's Windows operating systems still predominately use Windows XP. The data showed that XP had a market share of about 60.03 percent, down from 60.89 percent the previous month. Windows 7 gained 1.25 points to 17.10 percent while Windows Vista dropped from 14.00 percent to 13.00 percent.

Of all machines running Microsoft's Windows operating system software, approximately 66 percent were still running Windows XP, down from 76 percent before Windows 7 launched. During September, Windows Vista had a share of 14.66 percent among will Windows users, down quite a bit from its peak at 20.35 percent. Windows 7 has a 19 percent share among all Windows users.

The results are not very surprising, but it does show that the overall decline in Windows market share (albeit slight) is not being made up by the growth of Windows 7. It also shows that computer users are probably reluctant to invest in a new computer to support Windows 7 if their XP machine works just fine, or even if they could upgrade, are unwilling to risk running into compatibility and other issues.

UK communications regulator Ofcom is now requiring BT to provide competitors with access to its fibre network. Ofcom believes the move will promote the take-up of high-speed broadband services throughout the UK. BT also has to give rivals access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles to build their own fibre networks. The regulator will allow BT to set its own prices for access to its networks.

The British government wants all homes in the UK to have basic 2Mbps Internet access available at least by 2015, while all European Union member states are looking to make basic broadband service available to all citizens by 2013, and then 30Mbps services by 2020.

"In areas where BT invests in fibre, the remedies will enable other providers to offer competing services, based on BT's facilities," it said. "Elsewhere, access to BT's ducts and poles should encourage investment by other providers, enabling the provision of superfast services and increasing competition."

BT is the largest provider of broadband Internet access in the UK. TalkTalk, which comes in second place and will be one of the first ISPs to sell high speed broadband connections that rely on BT lines, welcomed the new regulations but said there is still "room to improve" the deal.

A 19 year old man from Liverpool in England has been jailed for 16 weeks after refusing to give police a password required to access his computer. Oliver Drage was arrested in May last year by police "tackling child sexual exploitation," but police officers have not been able to break encryption to examine the contents of his hard drives.

The police require a 50 character key to decrypt the content. Drage was conviced of failing to disclose an encryption key in September, and was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison on Monday at the Preston Crown Court. He was formally asked to disclose the required key but failed to do so, which is an offense under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

"Drage was previously of good character so the immediate custodial sentence handed down by the judge in this case shows just how seriously the courts take this kind of offence," said Det Sgt Neil Fowler, of Lancashire police.

"Computer systems are constantly advancing and the legislation used here was specifically brought in to deal with those who are using the internet to commit crime. It sends a robust message out to those intent on trying to mask their online criminal activities that they will be taken before the courts with the ultimate sanction, as in this case, being a custodial sentence."

Shares of Samsung Electronics took a hit as South Korean consumer electronics giant estimated its July-September operating profit and sales to come below market consensus. The world's biggest maker of LCDs expects to see an end to its run of record breaking quarters as a stumbling world economy hits demand for computers and televisions.

"LCD and TV performance appears to be worse than expected and the downward pressure on earnings will only grow as chip prices are also falling and TV makers increase price cuts," said Chung Young-woo, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.

"Usual uptick in seasonal year-end demand will be smaller this time and an earnings recovery is unlikely until early next year."

Samsung has kept its No. 1 slot in television sales, ahead of Sony and Panasonic, and has also performed strongly over chip rival Micron. It is the most valuable technology firm in Asia, worth approximately $116 billion. Shares in Samsung after the dull news spread around closed 2.9 percent lower.

SandForce, a pioneer of SSD (Solid State Drive) Processors, has announced a new line of controllers for enterprise-class drives that could dramatically improve performance and data security. It's new SF-2000 family of solid-state drive processors feature a 6 Gigabit-per-second SATA host interface, industry applauded DuraClass Technology, an unprecedented 60,000 sustained random read/write IOPS (Input-output Operations Per Second) and sustained sequential read/write performance of 500 Megabytes per second.

"The market for SSDs is poised to experience rapid growth over the next few years," said Jeff Janukowicz, research manager for solid state drives at IDC. "Solutions, such as the SandForce SF-2000 Family of SSD Processors, that enable increased performance and higher reliability in a flexible design will enable SSD vendors to meet the demands of this fast paced market."

Some features of the SF-2000 SSD Processors include:

• Support for advanced 30nm- and 20nm-class Flash with Asynch/ONFi2/Toggle interfaces with data rates up to 166 Mega Transfers per second
• Enhanced dual-ported SAS bridge support, including non-512-byte sector sizes, e.g., 520, 524, 528, 4K, etc., with Data Integrity Field (DIF) for true Enterprise-class SAS drive behavior and performance
• TCG Enterprise security with selectable multi-banded 256/128-bit AES encryption with line-rate double encryption for data written to the drive
• Advanced ECC engine correcting up to 55 bits per 512-byte sector to assure high data integrity and support for future generations of Flash memory
• Power and performance throttling options to support green computing initiatives
• Industrial temperature support (-40 to +85 degrees Celsius)

Ubisoft's North American boss Laurent Detoc has said that he wants Ubisoft to be the largest third-party publisher of software made for the Kinect motion control system for the Xbox 360 console. He claimed that the Kinect system was comparable in consumer appeal to Apple's iPad.

"I think that today is a pretty good testament that Kinect is going to do pretty well, because today is an event only about Kinect. That's a statement about how we think it's going to do," he said at a Kinect event in San Francisco. "It's our intent to be the biggest third party publisher on that machine."

Showing his confidence in Kinect to succeed, Detoc made a comparison to Apple's iPad. "It's cool. It's a piece of technology. Why do people buy iPads? I have an iPad. My wife has an iPad. Why? You've gotta have it," he said.

When asked about Kinect's high RRP, he seemed unconcerned. "It's not such a big investment compared to how good it is, and how many units they want to sell at the beginning. Ask me a year for now how I feel about the pricing for Christmas 2011, based on the install base they have," he said.

TiVo Inc. has said that the U.S. Patent office has reaffirmed the validity of a TiVo patent at the center of a legal case that has been ongoing since 2004. TiVo shares rose 10 percent following the boost from the patent office in its legal battle with Dish Network and EchoStar.

"Today's decision further validates our (intellectual property) and brings us closer to ending EchoStar's ongoing infringement," the company said.

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said in September that the legal battle between TiVo and EchoStar was likely to be resolved around February or March next year.

TiVo accused EchoStar of violating TiVo patents with its Dish Network system. The patent in question covered TiVo's "Time Warp" software that allows a viewer to record one TV program while watching another. To date, EchoStar has already paid $104 million in damages to TiVo.

Facebook has added a new "groups" functionality that allows users to form discreet groups of people to share information and communicate within. It also has introduced new features aimed at giving users more control over the information they add to the site, and who can access it.

"The changes today are about giving people more control over how they share in a lot of different contexts," Mark Zuckerberg told BBC News. "One of the things we have heard is that people just want to share information with smaller groups of people. It will enable people to share things that they wouldn't have wanted to share with all of their friends."

"There are some things you are comfortable saying to all your friends at once but a lot of things you only want to share with your close co-workers or your family and there just hasn't been a great way to do that until now."

A list feature on Facebook already allowed users to create subset of friends, but Zuckerberg said that only about 5 percent of its half a billion users tried it. "Groups will change behaviour," Augie Ray a senior analysts with research firm Forrester told BBC News.

Western Digital has upgraded its My Passport Essential portable hard drives, My Passport Essential SE portable hard drives and My Book Essential external hard drives with USB 3.0 connectivity. All three drives come in a variety of available capacities, and a 3TB My Book Essential external drive is now available.

The drives are all still fully compatible with USB 2.0. When connected via USB 3.0 (or SuperSpeed USB), users can transfer data at up to 5Gbps. WD's press release states that a two-hour High-definition movie could be transfered through USB 3.0 to one of the drives in about three minutes, compared to thirteen minutes for USB 2.0.

My Passport Essential

Hewlett-Packard Senior Vice President Eric Cador has told an industry conference that the company will begin shipping smartphones loaded with the webOS software it acquired from its $1.2 billion Palm buyout earlier this year. "You will see us coming early next year with new phones," he said.

HP bought Palm in order to fast-track its venture into the smartphones market, and had recognized the importance of getting the rights to the popular software immediately. "More importantly we acquired webOS," Cador told the conference in Barcelona.

Going by revenue, Hewlett-Packard is the world's largest technology company, but it would risk falling behind if it didn't target the highly profitable smartphone market. Palm's intellectual property has provided it with its own weaponry to fight against rivals like Apple, which dominates the market.

According to research from The Guardian, London-based law firm ACS:Law keeps about 40 percent of the copyright infringement fines paid as settlements by alleged pirates. Out of a typical letter demanding a £300 settlement from an Internet user accused of sharing files illegally, ACS:Law would expect to pocket about $120, while the rights holder of the content in question could expect between £60 and £90.

About 10 percent of the settlement fee is paid to the company that retrieved the IP address of the alleged copyright infringer. Internet service providers can expect as much as 15 percent of the fee to cover the costs of retrieving and sending subscribers personal information following a court order.

Germany-based record label, Zooland Records, which owns the copyright to Cascada's Evacuate the Dancefloor single (often the track alleged to have been shared illegally in ACS:law complaints), would not give a comment to The Guardian, with a spokesman saying the company was instructed not to talk about or ACS:Law by bosses.

Other reports have shown that ACS:Law can expect to pocket even more of the sums paid by those accused of downloading and sharing adult entertainment content illegally. Last week's data leak implicated 5,000 UK broadband users as having downloaded or uploaded pornography.

At an industry conference in Barcelona on Wednesday, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chief executive Dirk Meyer revealed that the company is not officially up for sale. "AMD is not for sale, but we are happy to listen to any proposal which is in the interest to our shareholders," Meyer said.

The comments came in response to a question about Oracle's plans to increase its interests in the space. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said that the company is keen to make acquisitions and that a microchip company would be an ideal buy.

AMD is the world's second largest manufacturer of x86 architecture-based microprocessors, behind Intel Corp. The company is likely to encounter increasing opposition from ARM microprocessors that are predominant in tablets, smartphones and other portable devices.

"I don't really view ARM as a threat," Meyer said. He said he still sees major growth opportunities in the industry. AMD has been hurt by weak demand for new personal computers in recent times, but Meyer said the company was working to reclaim market share it has lost to Intel in the area with a new line of "Fusion" chips, combining graphics and computing power.

Intel Corp. is developing a tool that will aid in the conversion of applications written for ARM microprocessor architecture into applications that can be run using Intel chips. The tool would serve to help port iPhone and other ARM-based applications to smartphones, tablets and other devices running Intel Atom and other processors.

Since most smartphones and tablets currently available run on ARM-based processors, developers have churned out thousands upon thousands of applications for the architecture. Intel is hoping to push its Atom line of processors into more portable devices, despite entering the space quite late.

"Getting people excited to develop to Intel platforms is absolutely critical to us," said Doug Fisher, VP of Intel's Software and Services group. Making it easy for developers to port ARM-based applications to Intel architecture could dramatically increase the software available for Intel devices quickly, and thus push up demand.

"We'll get [applications on] AppUp, then Meego and I imagine Windows," Fisher said. "It's basically taking the existing applications, finding the ones that are most relevant to end users, and ensuring they get pulled over."

BT is seeking a moratorium on requests for personal information of alleged pirates that subscribe to its Internet services. The telecommunications giant's move comes after thousands of customers from its PlusNet services, along with those of other ISPs, had their personal information leaked online from London law firm ACS:Law.

BT wants a temporary halt on all new and existing applications for subscriber information until a test case can be heard. The test case was originally scheduled to be heard today, but was adjourned until January 11, 2011. "This will be a test case for ISPs," a legal representative of BT told BBC News.

The case involves law firm Gallant Macmillan, representing record label Ministry of Sound. The law firm is seeking a court order to obtain the personal information of PlusNet, BSkyB and Be Internet subscribers. BT lawyers requested the adjournment, saying the firm wanted details of the security system that would be used to store information that is handed over.

Just last week, BT was criticized after the personal details of 500 customers were sent to ACS:Law in an unencrypted document, possibly putting BT in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Samsung Electronics America Inc. has unveiled the new SyncMaster P2770FH monitor which offers an unprecedented 1 ms response time to eliminate motion blur and ghosting effects. "The new P2770FH is a prime example of Samsung's leadership in display engineering, and creative professionals and computer gamers seeking the best possible viewing experience will immediately appreciate its benefits," said Young Bae, director of display marketing at Samsung Enterprise Business Division.

"With the fastest response time among the product line, the P2770FH offers industry-leading quality for premium visual performance in everyday personal and professional use."

Some key specs of the SyncMaster P2770FH:

• Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 1ms response time
• 70,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
• Viewing angle: 170°/160°
• Input:
  • HDMI
  • Standard VGA
  • DVI-I
• Audio:
  • Audio Out
  • Optical Audio Out
• Dimensions: 26 x 19 x 9.6 inches
• Weight: 6.7 lbs.

Acer America has debuted its new Aspire One AOD255, featuring a dual-core processor in an ultra-thin design for enhanced mobile performance. Featuring the latest Intel dual-core technology for netbooks, the Acer Aspire One AOD255 includes the new Intel Atom N550 processor. A cheaper AOD255 model features a single core Intel Atom N450 processor.

"We have enhanced our best-selling Aspire One netbook line with the improved performance and better power efficiency to improve the mobile computing experience for consumers" said Pete Dailey, senior product marketing manager for netbooks. "With the new Aspire One AOD255, users are able to multitask, explore the Internet, connect with friends, and enjoy entertainment applications, without worrying about battery life or being tethered to an electrical outlet."

The AOD255 features a 10.1-inch CrystalBite LED-backlit display that saves 22.2 percent power compared with other netbook displays. An integrated Intel graphics chipset drives the display, while the netbook features 802.11 b/g/n fast WiFi connectivity.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has begun to quietly sell personal computers that contain microprocessors based on the code-named Zosma design from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), featuring TurboCore technology.

The quad-core chips are the first from AMD to feature the TurboCore technology, which can speed up two of the four cores by about 300-500MHz for single thread performance.

The HP Pavilion Slimline s5660f and HP Pavilion Elite HPE-400z feature the AMD Phenom II X4 840T and AMD Phenom II X4 960T respectively, according to CPU-World.

The chips are compatible with AM3 motherboards, featuring 2MB of L2 cache and 6MB of L3 cache. Each feature dual-channel DDR3 memory controllers.

Lenovo has made steps to offer consumers high graphics performance while attempting to maximize battery life by packing NVIDIA Optimus technology into its ThinkPad T410, T410s and T510 laptops. The company has also announced that sales of ThinkPad laptops will surpass 60 million units this month.

NVIDIA Optimus technology automatically switches between high performance graphics and energy saving graphics options based on what the user needs at the time, letting ThinkPad laptops with Optimus achieve up to 33 percent longer battery life over discrete only mode, adding up to 1 hour extra battery life per charge.

"New technologies like NVIDIA Optimus are making ThinkPads even smarter," said Rene Haas, general manager, Notebook Products, NVIDIA. "Never before has there been a solution that so effectively eliminates the tradeoffs between riveting graphics performance and long battery life. Visual content is the most popular and important form of data today, and we've built the NVIDIA NVS 3100M graphics processor to be the perfect processor for the task."

According to market researcher StatCounter, Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser has dropped below 50 percent market share for the first time in many years. The figures showed that Internet Explorer's share had fallen to 49.87 percent in September, compared to 51.4 percent in August and 58.4 percent a year ago.

Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox browser followed IE with 31.5 percent of the market, up from 30.09 percent. Google's Chrome browser increased its share to 11.54 percent, which is more than three times its share from September 2009. "This is certainly a milestone in the Internet browser wars," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter.

"Just two years ago IE dominated the worldwide market with 67%." The firm suspects that a deal between Microsoft and the European Union to reach a settlement in an anti-trust lawsuit which saw Microsoft's Update service push out a "Browser Choice" application to millions of Windows users may have been the blow that knocked Internet Explorer below 50 percent.

Speaking to an audience at the London School of Economics, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told students and journalists to expect to see Slate gadgets running Windows software by Christmas, but did not reveal whether any would be on sale by then, or from whom. "You'll see new slates with Windows on them. You'll see them this Christmas," he said. The Redmond-based software giant has been very slow to respond to Apple's iPad tablet.

"Certainly we have done work around the tablet as both a productivity device and a consumption device," Ballmer said. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Ballmer had shown off one Hewlett-Packard tablet running Windows software, but very little has been heard about the device since HP agreed to buy Palm. It said later that it will develop a crop of new devices running Palm software, but will also offer Windows devices.

PandaLabs, the research arm of Panda Security, has warned that malware peddlers are sending out fake iTunes receipts via e-mail to lure users to download harmful software. The receipt looks authentic but is designed to make a user concerned about the total of the bill so they will click a "report a problem" link.

Clicking the link connects to a .RU site where a user will be asked to download a file. "After clicking the link, the victim is asked to download a fake PDF reader," PandaLabs said. "Once installation is complete, the user is redirected to an infected Web page containing the Zeus Trojan, which is specifically designed to steal personal data. This phishing attack was uncovered shortly after a similar phishing attack targeting LinkedIn users appeared last week, which appears to have originated in Russia."

Pic Source: PandaLabs

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has written to both Comcast Corp. and NBC Universal to request more information about a proposed deal that would see Comcast acquiring a controlling sake in the large media company.

The letter to Comcast questions the cable operator's distribution agreements for popular cable channels that it already owns, such as E! Entertainment, the Golf Channel and Versus. It also is asking for details about Comcast's channel line-ups and for information on how it decides on programming to carry.

The letter to NBC Universal requests information about existing agreements with satellite, cable and phone companies to carry some NBC channels including Oxygen and local NBC and Telemundo stations.

Comcast is seeking approval from the FCC and the Justice Department to acquire a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal, which has sparked some fears among competitors and public interest groups. The deal would hand Comcast control over the NBC and Telemundo networks, as well as some cable channels including CNBC, Bravo and Oxygen.

Have you ever hated having to update your PS3 firmware yourself? Is the task of downloading the free update or retrieving it from a game disc just too much manual labor for you to handle? If so, then Best Buy comes to the rescue as usual. Fresh from being called out for offering $40 "optimization" services for new PCs from its stores, Best Buy's geek squad has now found a way to profit from free firmware updates.

A Best Buy store in New York will add $30 to the purchase price of a new 120GB PlayStation 3 (PS3) console to update it to the latest firmware. It boasts that the update will enable the console to play _all_ Blu-ray movies and PS3 games. It will eliminate bugs and glitches and make the system run smoother too. Use Facebook? Well the update even improves that, while adding Power Save settings, a Photo Gallery and Video Editor, PlayStation Plus and improves System Settings.

South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., is showing its progress in the future of WiMAX technology at CEATEC in Tokyo, Japan. With UQ Communications, Samsung is demonstrating WiMAX 2, based on IEEE 802.16m, that can achieve speed of 330Mbps. Using the WiMAX 2 system and device, Samsung and UQ are showing Full-HD 3D videos and 16 Full-HD videos on 4 LFD TVs simultaneously.

"It is expected that the demands for Wireless Broadband will exponentially grow. In this regard, the recognition of real worth of Mobile WiMAX, a true 4G technology, will increase not only in Japan but also around the world," said Akio Nozaka, President of UQ Communications. "Through this demonstration at CEATEC, we aim to show the excellences of new world by Mobile WiMAX, in cooperation with Samsung."

WiMAX 2 standards are expected to be finalized by November 2010. Samsung is seeking to take the lead in its rapid commercialization and deployment and show itself to be a leading system and device provider for Mobile WiMAX. Samsung plans to introduce the first commercial solutions of WiMAX 2 in the end of 2011.

Rumors suggest that Western Digital has overcome some technical hurdles and will be able to deliver 3TB hard drives to retail soon. According to Tech Arp, Western Digital will be updating its Caviar Black, Caviar Blue and Caviar Green lines, adding models with 3TB capacity. The drives are reportedly being prepared for retail after WD solved some compatibility problems with 32-bit Windows.

Tech Arp's source claims that the launch will happen sometime in mid-October. Seagate launched a 3TB external FreeAgent hdd during the summer, but has not followed up with a discrete drive yet. Due to 32-bit addressing in 32-bit operating systems, problems arise attempting to use an internal hard drive with more than 2TB storage capacity.

WD's new 3TB drives will use larger 4KB storage sectors as part of the Advanced Format Sector Disk technology, and most systems should be able to use the 3TB models for storage. UEFI will be required instead of a standard BIOS however to boot from a hard drive with over 2TB capacity.

The basic input/output system (BIOS) used in most shipped commercial PCs is way past its use-by date according to many within the industry. As computer technology improves, some problems can arise due to the continued use of BIOS, such as drive size limits. For this reason, the industry is moving increasing toward the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).

"Conventional Bios is up there with some of the physical pieces of the chip set that have been kicking around the PC since 1979," said Mark Doran, head of the UEFI Forum. He said that creators of the original BIOS only expected its lifetime to extend to about 250,000 machines. "They are as amazed as anyone else that now it is still alive and well in a lot of systems. It was never really designed to be extensible over time."

Brian Richardson, head of the technical marketing team at BIOS software developer AMI, said that BIOS is starting to hamper development as 64-bit computing becomes more common. "Drive size limits that were inherent to the original PC design - two terabytes - are going to become an issue pretty soon for those that use their PC a lot for pictures and video," Richardson said.

Toshiba has used the CEATEC 2010 event in Japan to show off its first commercially available 3D televisions that do not require a viewer to wear 3D glasses. The 12-inch and 20-inch televisions will be available in Japan in December, aimed at early adopters. Additionally, Toshiba also showed off a laptop prototype featuring a 12-inch 3D display that doesn't require glasses for the effect.

The technology uses an internal imaging system that provides nine different perspectives (parallaxes) of each single 2D frame which the viewer's brain superimposes to create a 3-dimensional impression of the image. Toshiba engineers developed a powerful engine and an algorithm to extrapolate these perspectives out of the 2D frame and used a perpendicular lenticular sheet, an array of lenses, that enable the viewer's brain to superimpose the perspectives.

The screens reportedly offer a wide viewing area in front of the display and allows for eye movement and head movement without disrupting the 3D image. Viewers can switch between 2D and 3D easily. "With its new 3D TVs without glasses Toshiba once again aims to offer the highest possible picture quality" says Sascha Lange, Head of Marketing, Visual Products, Toshiba Europe.

Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced today that Spotify is now available for Windows phones 6.X. The announcement was made at an event at Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology. The popular legal music streaming service had previously promised to add more devices to Spotify mobile, and has worked with Microsoft to port to Windows phones over the past few months.

The full list of features for Windows Phone includes:

• Search, browse and play millions of tracks
• Stream over WiFi or 2.5/3G - All your existing playlists are available
• Offline playlists - Play your music without an internet connection
• On-the-fly sync - Every track you add to a playlist appears on mobile and computer
• What's New tab
• Wirelessly sync your local files to your phone
• Starred tracks - tag all your favourites into a special list

Spotify on Windows Phone demo

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook Inc. and Skype SA are in talks to share communication services through both services. The partnership would allow Facebook users to sign into Skype using their Facebook Connect accounts, allowing them to use the text, voice and video communication services offered by the Internet telephone leader.

The integrated functionality, expected to be announced within weeks, would appear in the Skype 5.0 update. Skype claims to have 560 million registered users, of which 124 million use at least once a month. Facebook touts 500 million registered users. A partnership between the two heavyweights would increase pressure on Google Inc., which has been struggling to respond to the rise of Facebook.

Google has taken aim at Internet telephone services with Google Voice and voice communication through GMail. It has attempted to lure users to new social services such as Buzz, but has generally failed to hurt the competition so far. According to comScore Inc., U.S. Internet users spent 41.1 billion minutes on Facebook during August 2010, surpassing the 39.8 billion minutes spent using Google services.