Using a VPN service like ipredator in Sweden to share files with some level of security using BitTorrent or similar methods has become very popular as more tough laws pass to address Internet piracy. However, for those using IPv6 in combination with a PPTP-based VPN, a flaw may have undermined the entire idea of the VPN in the first place.

A security flaw was revealed at the Telecomix Cipher conference that would allow a third party to find the true IP address of a user sharing through a VPN. To make matters worse for some users, there are suggestions that anti-piracy investigators in Sweden at least are aware and may have been exploiting the flaw to identify "anonymous" sharers.

IPv6 is set to replace the IPv4 protocol, but most users using IPv6 arguably have no idea they are, as it is promoted by newer operating systems like Windows 7.

The operators of ipredator are aware of the issue and have said they will contact all users about it. Other privacy-based VPN services may want to do the same thing. Simply turning off IPv6 in Local Area Connection properties on Windows should serve as a workaround for the problem.

Opera has not given detailed information about four out of five security vulnerabilities it recently patched in the latest stable version of the Opera web browser. Of the five security problems that Opera 10.54 fixes, the only one that has been fully disclosed relates to a problem with font handling on Windows, which Microsoft has already patched.

Only the severity status of the remaining four has been disclosed; extremely severe, highly severe, moderately severe, and less severe. Thomas Ford, a spokesman for Opera, said that the company was honoring responsible disclosure practices.

Other browser publishers may not have been able to patch their browsers against related attacks either. Generally, security researchers and software vendors only fully disclose security vulnerabilities when there is a patch publicly available and easily applied.

The Opera 10.54 update also fixes several problems the browser has had with Macs, such as premature shut downs.

Both Intel Corp. and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed motions on Monday to temporarily suspend trial proceedings while the two take time to discuss settlement of a lawsuit brought against the chip-maker for alleged anti-competitive practices.

The government accused Intel of stifling competition in a lawsuit back in December and said it aimed to halt the illegal practices that contributed to Intel keeping its status as the top chip-maker. The FTC said Intel had been trying to stifle competition with illegal tactics dating back to 1999.

Both NVIDIA and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) made similar allegations against Intel in the past, and in November, Intel agreed to pay $1.25 billion to AMD to settle litigation. The motions filed today will give Intel and the FTC until July 22 to discuss a proposed settlement.

No details of any proposed settlement were disclosed by either party today. Intel spokesman Tom Beermann said it was possible that the commission would proceed with the case, should both sides fail to reach an agreement.

The Black Eyed Peas' feel-good track "I Gotta Feeling" is the first song to ever be legally downloaded more than one million times in the United Kingdom. The song was released over a year ago, in June 2009, and spent two weeks at the top of the chart, 33 weeks in top 40.

"It's exhilarating to know we are so connected to our Peabodies," Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie said. "Hopefully the good vibes from that song will continue to brighten people's lives." Official Charts Company managing director Martin Talbot said it was a very significant step for the download market.

Downloads were first counted as part of the singles chart in the UK in April 2005, but only if the track was also available in stores. A year later, digital downloads were counted regardless of whether the singles were sold as a physical product, and Gnarls Barkley's Crazy became the first to top the charts without selling any copies on CD.

"It's been with us for five years but this really marks a coming of age," Talbot commented about the Black Eyed Peas million-milestone in the country. Fast forward four years from Gnarles Barkley's Crazy and now 98 percent of all single sales in the UK are from downloads.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google Inc. is to launch a music download service tied to its search engine later this year, citing sources familiar with Google's negotiations with music companies Additionally, Google will roll out a cloud-based music subscription service in 2011.

The news comes as Google is attempting to get more involved with entertainment content distribution. It is currently moving to add professional content on its YouTube video site and is to roll out a digital bookstore this year.

Google's move into music downloads would further muddy ties with Apple Inc., which has witnessed relations with Google sour increasingly since the unveiling of Google's mobile Android software seen as a direct rival to the iPhone by Apple.

Record companies would probably welcome such a service as they have become increasingly worried about Apple's stranglehold on digital music sale. Apple services accounted for 28% of all music purchased by U.S. consumers in the first quarter, leaving Wal-Mart and Amazon far behind at 12% each.

Verizon Communications is to let customers trial its FiOS Internet and television service for a month, and will not charge any fees if a customer chooses to switch the service off after. The offer also includes the option of paying month-by-month, eliminating a long-term contract, with the assurance that the price would not go up for a year.

The offer might be risky to Verizon, which reportedly spends around $1,350 to install FiOS at a new customer's home. if most customers chose to keep the service however, it could put pressure on cable and satellite rivals to adjust their own terms. Termination fees usually still apply for U.S. wireless providers even if try-out periods are offered to customers.

Larry Hettick, an analyst for Current Analysis, predicts that Verizon will keep a substantially large number of customers who sign up under the new rules. "There's so much tit-for-tat in the cable TV business, anything that changes for one provider may bring pressure on the others," Hettick said.

Verizon's FiOS coverage region has a potential 12 million customers for television services, and 12.6 million for Internet services. The company has been offering FiOS Internet services since 2004, and television services since 2005. In areas where it operates, it has roughly 25 percent market share for TV and 29 percent for Internet.

Microsoft's new slim Xbox 360 console will not display a red ring of death (RROD) as we reported already, but the system does take some measures to protect itself against heat-related damage that the older units don't. It was reported recently that the three blinking red lights had been replaced with a single "red dot of death", but the red dot may not indicate that the console is broken.

Pictures posted on the NeoGaf forums by "Giant Robot" show an Xbox 360 250GB model displaying the red dot of death, and also an on-screen message alerting the user: "The Xbox 360 is shutting down to protect the console from insufficient ventilation. You can turn the console back on after the power light stops flashing."

Source: NeoGaf

Amazon has announced that the Kindle e-reader will now sell for $189, following news that Barnes & Noble reduced the price of its Nook e-reader, released last year, to $199. Both companies are attempting to brush off increasing competition, particularly from Borders Group Inc., which sells e-readers for between $119 and $149.

Other new devices, such as Apple's iPad, are also being touted as solutions for e-book reading, and the Cupertino-based company is only too keen to bite a chunk out of the emerging market. "The Kindle Store includes over 600,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including 109 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases from $9.99," a statement from Amazon reads.

"In addition, over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are available to read on Kindle. Since its release, Kindle has been the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon."

Sales of e-book reading devices in the United States reached 2.2 million in 2009, and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) expects that figure to rise to 5 million for 2010. Digital e-book sales also doubled to $27.4 million in April, compared to a year earlier.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal revealed on Monday that more than 30 U.S. states participated in a conference call over the Google Wi-Fi snooping incident. Google had to admit recently that its Street View cars had intercepted and stored payload data from unencrypted wireless networks in countries all over the world. The data grab was unintentional.

Blumenthal is now to lead a multi-state probe into the situation to determine what laws Google may have broken, and to discover whether U.S. states need to alter procedures in order to avoid such data leaks. "My office will lead a multi-state investigation -- expected to involve a significant number of states -- into Google's deeply disturbing invasion of personal privacy," Blumenthal said in a statement.

"Consumers have a right and a need to know what personal information -- which could include emails, Web browsing and passwords -- Google may have collected, how and why." Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan also revealed last week that she had opened an investigation into whether Google collected personal information from Illinois residents' networks, while Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox requested more information from Google.

Dell Inc. has confirmed that it is in talks with search engine-giant Google Inc. over possibly using the upcoming Chrome operating system in some of its products, according to a top company executive. "We have to have a point of view on the industry and technology direction two years, three years down the road, so we continuously work with Google on this," Amit Midha, Dell's president for Greater China and South Asia told Reuters.

"There are going to be unique innovations coming up in the marketplace in two, three years, with a new form of computing, we want to be on that forefront ... So with Chrome or Android or anything like that we want to be one of the leaders," Midha said

Midha said there were no firm announcements to be made for the time being, but that talks will continue between both companies.

The Chrome operating system is expected to be released by Google later this year, and when it comes to products like netbooks, it represents a direct challenge to Microsoft's Windows line of operating systems.

Apple Inc. has delivered the latest OS update for its iPhone range; iOS 4. The software update boasts 100 new features, but it is not fully compatible with all iPhone models. iOS 4 works with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G. Not all features are compatible with all devices. For example, multitasking is available only with iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

iOS 4 brings Multitasking to the iPhone, running third-party apps (developed for iOS 4) and switching between them simultaneously without killing the performance of the foreground app or draining the handset's battery. Folders let a user organize their app collection into folders by simple drag-and-drop controls. A Unified Inbox shows all messages from all the user's accounts in one source.

Other notable changes are more playlist creation options, 5x digital zoom, iBooks, tapping on a recording video to change focus, viewing photos based on who is in them or where they were taken, home screen wallpaper options, sending apps as gifts to friends and family, a spell checker that works with apps and support for pairing a bluetooth wireless keyboard.

Toshiba has unveiled the libretto W100 notebook which features two 7-inch multi-touch screens in the familiar clamshell design. The little laptop celebrates the marking of 25 years since Toshiba released the first Intel 286-based clamshell laptop. Unlike netbooks or slate devices, the Toshiba laptop provides a full Windows 7 experience that can be expanded across both screens.

It is powered by an Intel Pentium U5400 processor, 2GB DDR3 memory and a 62GB Solid State Drive. It runs full Windows 7 Home Premium, either on one or two screens. The lower screen can be changed into a 6-mode virtual keyboard with haptic response. Additionally, it features a 1 megapixel HD Webcam, 802.11 b/g/n wireless connectivity, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a MicroSD slt, one USB 2.0 port and an 8 cell battery.

According to Gartner research firm, the number of people worldwide using mobile phones to make payments will rise by about 50 percent by the end of the year, with Asian users leading the way. In 2009, there were 70.2 million mobile payment users worldwide. Gartner expects this number to grow to 108.6 million people by the end of 2010.

Mobile phone users that make payments using their handsets will represent about 2.1 percent of all users in 2010. The number of users making mobile payments in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to rise form 2009's 41.8 million to 62.8 million this year.

While the number of such users in North America is expected to rise from just 1.9 million to 3.5 million this year, the numbers are much higher for Eastern Europe, the Middle East and African countries, expected to rise from 16.8 million to 27.1 million.

"We continue to see strong growth in developing markets in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa for mobile payment, while adoption in North America and Western Europe lags behind due to the plentiful choices of payment instruments that consumers have," Gartner research director Sandy Shen said.

A Morgan Stanley analyst has made a startling prediction about Apple's smartphone. Katy Huberty has predicted that about 42 million iPhones will be sold by the end of 2010, and the number could even reach 48 million. Apple recently announced that it sold 600,000 iPhone 4 units (pre-orders) in the first 24 hours of availability.

Huberty believes that more than half of current iPhone owners will upgrade to the new iPhone 4. She points out that the original iPhone isn't eligible for an upgrade to iOS 4 and the iPhone 3G won't be able to use all of its features. Additionally, there are also tiered data plans from AT&T which can drop the overall cost of an iPhone by about $400.

Tripling its user base within 18 months would be a dramatic expansion for the iPhone, but it already has gotten rapid growth before.

Gartner Research reported in early 2009 that the iPhone had more than doubled market share in just one year from 5.4 percent to 10.8 percent. Apple now holds an estimated 28 percent of the smartphone market in the United States.

Google Inc. is integrating a PDF reader with its Chrome browser. The move comes not long after the company revealed it would do the same for the Adobe Flash player, showing growing support from the search giant for Adobe's products.

The company rolled out developer builds of its browser for Windows and Mac that include a PDF reader on Friday. "As we’ve previously mentioned, the traditional browser plug-in model, though powerful, presents challenges in compatibility, performance, and security. To overcome this, we’ve been working with the web community to help define a next generation browser plug-in API," Google engineering director Marc Pawlige said.

"We have begun using this API to improve the experience of viewing and interacting with PDF files in Google Chrome. This mirrors our efforts to optimize the Adobe Flash Player experience in Chrome."

The PDF viewer will not be on by default, and has to be activated by visiting "chrome://plugins", but Google will eventually change the default settings to have the PDF reader active.

Major providers of landline telephone services in the UK will be cutting fees charged to customers who break contracts early following pressure from the telecommunications regulator, Ofcom. The providers will cut "early termination" charges by up to 85 percent.

The one-off fees will reportedly fall from as much as £33 to just £2 in cases. The major providers have made the commitment to the cuts, while Ofcom has warned smaller providers to follow suit, or face the consequences. "We very much welcome the reductions made by BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media which mean that consumers will face much lower charges if they wish to end their contracts early," Ofcom said in a statement.

The regulator has been investigating the fees for 18 months. Customers that ended deals early had to pay charges supposedly based on the money they would have had to pay under the remaining term of the contact, but Ofcom argued that firms weren't taking into account that they would no longer need to bear the cost of supplying service to a household that leaves early.

BT doesn't see it that way. "If a customer leaves within the minimum contract period that they signed up to, they are charged the amount we expected to receive from them, less the costs we save as a result of them leaving early, as this is what we are legally entitled to," said a BT spokesman.

Google announced a new command line tool for some of its services on its Open Source Blog on Friday. GoogleCL is a command-line utility that provides access to various Google services. It streamlines tasks such as posting to a Blogger blog, adding events to Calendar, or editing documents on Google Docs.

GoogleCL is a pure Python application that uses the Python gdata libraries to make Google Data API calls from the command line. An example use of a Google service this way looks like this...

$ google blogger post --blog "My blog" --tags "python, googlecl, development" my_post.html
$ google calendar add "Lunch with Jason tomorrow at noon"
$ google docs edit --title "Shopping list" --editor vim

A trade group representing movie theater operators - amusingly called NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) - ran a full page trade ad on June 16th attacking changes in the theatrical release window of movies as well as pressing studios not to adopt VOD distribution to compete with theaters.

Some cable companies and movie studios have thrown around some ideas to provide video-on-demand (VOD) access to films not long after their theatrical release and well before they land on DVD or Blu-ray. NATO warned studios that such services would undercut the value of a typical movie ticket, saying that a lot of people could view a VOD feature at the same time, with just one payment.

"Collapsing windows muddies the value proposition for the consumer, blurs distinctions between theatrical and ‘straight-to-video’ and undercuts one of the important selling points for theatrical exhibition — the timeliness of the exclusive event," NATO warned.

NATO also tapped the fears among Hollywood execs about the future of services such as Redbox, whose kiosks offer very-low-priced rentals of movies. Most Hollywood studios have enforced 28-day delays for kiosks (after DVD release) due to fears that they could hurt sales of brand new titles.

Swedish police have made three arrests in an Internet piracy case that targeted "scene" warez servers known as "Darkside". The action follows an investigation from anti-piracy outfit Antipiratbyrån. The servers carried huge amounts of data, making them the biggest case so far in Sweden, and possibly even in Europe.

According to Henrik Pontén of Antipiratbyrån, the three arrested maintained servers that housed 130 terabytes of Swedish and international films and other content. Searches were carried out by police in Stockholm and at two locations in Västerås. The servers were found at the locations.

"Dark Side has a huge capacity," Pontén said. "This is the biggest case we know of to date, certainly the biggest in Sweden, but possibly also in Europe." The investigation was handed over to police in February after Antipiratbyrån spent months gathering IP addresses and other usable information.

"Wednesday's police operation was yet another important step to stop organized piracy. This type of action has a direct and dramatic effect on the number of infringements," said Pontén in a statement.

While Apple's battles against iPhone hackers and modders have been well publicized, things have been much quieter on the Android side up until now. Even as hackers found ways to gain root access in devices and port otherwise-unavailable new builds of Android, Google and its hardware partners HTC, Motorola and Samsung, have kept quiet.

Now a website run by Android hacker Conflipper is in HTC's sights. The website, Shipped ROMs, provides ROM dumps of released and unreleased Android devices. HTC has fired off cease and desist letters to the site, alleging that its intellectual property was "illegally obtained by fraudulent means."

HTC even released a statement on the issue to clarify its problem with Shipped ROMs. "While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site's sole purpose [is] to make HTC's content available for download from a source other than HTC," HTC's statement reads.

Google Inc.'s YouTube online video service, and Rumblefish are reportedly set to hold a joint press conference on June 29. The pair are likely to announce a new deal over the use of licensed music on YouTube videos uploaded by users.

An e-mail pitch seen by CNET indicates that Rumblefish chief executive Paul Anthony and a YouTube executive will hold the conference.

Rumblefish is a music-licensing firm that arranges deals with music companies and artists for the use of their music in marketing campaigns or products offered by third parties. YouTube enlisted Rumblefish' services back in 2008 to give video uploaders a legal option for using music in their content.

We hope the press conference means something good for the millions-strong YouTube community.

Graham Cluley of the Sophos security firm has written about a hidden change in Mac OS X 10.6.4 that is not mentioned in its release notes. Specifically, Apple included an update to the malware protection built into Mac OS X to protect against a backdoor Trojan the Cupertino-based Mac-maker identifies as "HellRTS".

Sophos has been tracking the same trojan since April as OSX/Pinhead-B. It is distributed by malicious sources as the iPhoto application. The malware can provide a attacker with full access to an infected Mac, allowing for the taking of screenshots, sending spam, reading the clipboard, accessing files and so on.

"Unfortunately, many Mac users seem oblivious to security threats which can run on their computers. And that isn't helped when Apple issues an anti-malware security update like this by stealth, rather than informing the public what it has done," Cluley wrote.

"You have to wonder whether their keeping quiet about an anti-malware security update like this was for marketing reasons. 'Shh! Don't tell folks that we have to protect against malware on Mac OS X!'"

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 4 earlier this month, one of the features most touted was the device's Retina Display screen. The screen, which uses in-plane switching (IPS) technology is also used with Apple's iPad tablet, and is also made by LG Display.

According to Ashok Kumar, managing director and senior technology analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, supply issues might become a problem for the new iPhone over the coming months. "Low yields on the IPS LCD panel from LG Display have dramatically impacted the production volumes for iPhone 4," Kumar wrote in his research note.

"Our supply chain checks indicate that our earlier monthly shipment estimate of 4 million units have been reset by about half." He said that demand is likely to be chasing supply through September. That is not good news when analysts also anticipate strong demand for the iPhone 4, as users of the older first generation iPhone to iPhone 3GS may opt to upgrade to get full feature support from iOS 4.

"The hope is that the LG transition to Gen 5 LCD capacity by late summer could help alleviate the production bottleneck. Meanwhile there is a non trivial risk in the September quarter whereby demand for the legacy 3GS iPhone drops off faster than production can ramp up for the iPhone 4," Kumar's note concluded.

YouTube is reaching out to San Francisco local media to test a new iteration of the YouTube Direct platform. Launched last November, YouTube Direct is intended to be used by publishers to locate and distribute video captured by amateurs and uploaded to the YouTube site, and it has been used well by bigger named in news such as NPR, or ABC's Good Morning America.

However, local news outlets have not embraced the YouTube Direct platform as a tool for enhancing their news coverage. For this reason, YouTube will reportedly use San Francisco as a sort-of showcase. YouTube staff are currently looking for local contributors in San Francisco to test out the YouTube Direct platform.

"We launched YouTube Direct in November, and it's been a great way for news organizations to easily leverage citizen reporting on YouTube," YouTube's comment on the matter reads, according to CNET. "We're currently experimenting with new ways to make the platform more useful, and we'll have more to announce on that front soon."

Logitech has added a product page to its website for its new Google TV box. The Logitech Revue is an external device that connects to a television via HDMI, and takes full advantage of everything that Google TV will have to offer. As well as supporting Google TV, the Revue has Logitech's Harmony technology built in to provide integration with a home-entertainment system.

Intel, Sony, and Logitech, together with Best Buy, DISH Network and Adobe, joined Google on stage at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco in May, to announce their support for Google TV. With Google TV, consumers will be able to search and watch an expanded universe of content available from a variety of sources including TV providers, the web, their personal content libraries, and mobile applications.

Many Turkish Internet users are very unhappy with the growing level of censorship online, particularly when it comes to the blocking of Google services. Earlier this month, services such as Google Translate, Google Docs and Google Books became inaccessible in Turkey following a request that Turkish ISPs block access to IP addresses associated with YouTube.

On Thursday, an Ankara Public Prosecutor asked Ankara's 1st Criminal Court of Peace to add 44 more IP addresses related to YouTube and Google, and after the court complied, users started complaining that Picasa and Google Maps had become impossible to use with more Google services malfunctioning.

As a response to the actions taken by Tuskish authorities, a group of hackers has been blamed for the inaccessibility of the websites of the Ministry of Transportation, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority and the Telecommunications Communication Presidency.

The group reportedly carried out a 10 hour denial of service attack on the websites of the three departments, all of which are responsible for Internet censorship actions. Such censorship is becoming more common in some countries, with YouTube being a constant target of such action because of user-uploaded content deemed "offensive" or dangerous by governments.

Google is encouraging developers to work on the next incarnation of its now-open sourced VP8 video codec, acquired from On2 technologies last year in a $124.6 million deal and an integral part of Google's WebM project.

"To maintain codec stability while also allowing for quality and performance improvements in VP8, we have added an experimental branch to the VP8 source tree," said Google codec engineering manager Jim Bankoski.

"The WebM community can use this unstable branch to propose changes to VP8 that will produce the best video codec possible, but without the constraints of a frozen bitstream. At some point in the future, when the experimental branch proves significantly better than the stable branch, we will create a new version of the codec."

Mozilla and Opera have officially put their weight behind the WebM royalty-free format, while Microsoft has said Internet Explorer 9 will support WebM once a user installs VP8. Apple's Steve Jobs has hinted that Safari will stick to H.264 video content.

Microsoft Corp. is set to make improvements on the search results its Bing search engine displays for queries relating to music, television shows, movies and games. Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's Online Audience Business, is expected to give specific details at a press conference in West Hollywood California on Tuesday.

Television shows search results for example, will include local programming listings and for some shows, the ability to stream episodes from the search engine interface itself. Music searches will return extensive information about artists, concerts and tracks. A music player will let users play back some music content right from the search results too.

Movie queries will add information about local showtimes and critic reviews, while "specialized tools" to discover new games and other information will be provided for gaming enthusiasts. Some of the new search capabilities involve deals Microsoft has made with other companies.

The improvements are part of an effort by Microsoft to boost competition with Google and other search providers. The company will also be providing similar additional services for other popular areas such as Health, Travel and Shopping in the near future.

President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono put his support behind proposals to censor the Internet in the country following the release of a sex tape featuring several popular celebrities. Nazril Ariel, a rock singer for the band Peterpan, along with Luna Maya and Cut Tari deny uploading the clips but could still face up to 12 years in prison.

Yudhoyono has steered clear of the scandal, dubbed "Peterporn", until he was asked for an opinion about it on Friday. "We have increasingly realized that our nation should not stay naked and be crushed by the information technology frenzy, because there will be many victims," he said.

"Other countries have already have regulations on this... The incident has made us think about the best thing that should be done. Negative impacts on our society should be avoided." Indonesian communications minister Tifatul Sembiring, chief of the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party, called for an Internet blacklist and got lawmakers support recently.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and The TOR Project have developed an add-on for Mozilla's Firefox web browser designed to simplify the use of HTTPS for web users. HTTPS combines the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) with SSL to provide encryption for web browsing.

The new Firefox extension (HTTPS Everywhere) was inspired by the launch of Google's encrypted search option. The EFF and TOR Project wanted to ensure that every search sent by a browser was encrypted, and that encryption would be enabled for a wide array of other websites including Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, PayPal and more.

"Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use," says the EFF. "For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site. The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by rewriting all requests to these sites to HTTPS."

In the first hint of premium pricing for 3D versions of video games, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello talked about opportunities for additional growth at an executive briefing at E3. "3D may well be one of the next and most important drivers for growth. That's yet to be seen and I don't think it's a 2010 story in any way, shape or form... in a meaningful way," Riccitiello said.

"As we move through 2011, 2012, it's likely to be an opportunity both for additional growth and perhaps premium pricing for titles that better support 3D." Sony showed off 3D content at its E3 press conference this year, handing out 3D glasses to attendees, while Nintendo unveiled the 3DS handheld console.

Microsoft's Neil Thompson recently dismissed 3D, branding it too expensive for mass market adoption for the time being. He was referring to living room 3D gaming (so, PS3) which requires a 3D-capable television and suitable glasses for viewing the content.

An analysis of some of the payload data accidentally sniffed by Google's Street View cars reportedly shows the cars nabbed e-mail account passwords and e-mail contents from unsecured wireless networks. The report comes from the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL).

"It's still too early to say what will happen as a result of this investigation," CNIL told IDG. "However, we can already state that [...] Google did indeed record e-mail access passwords and extracts of the content of email messages."

On May 14, Google confessed that Street View cars operating in 30 countries had accidentally collected payload data from unsecured wireless networks, after previously asserting that they hadn't. Google had been scanning open Wi-Fi networks from the cars, collecting SSIDs and MAC addresses of network hardware. The information is used by Google for applications that rely on location data.

After admitting to the snooping, Google said that only fragments of information were collected and only from unsecured networks. It said its Street View cars were constantly on the move and that Wi-Fi equipment in the cars automatically changed channels about five times per second.

Three rapidly blinking red lights forming three-quarters of a circle on the Xbox 360's "ring of light" is unintentionally one of the most observed features of the Xbox 360 console, at least for units made before 2008. The "red ring of death", RROD/3ROL, represents a general hardware failure, but unlike the E74 error with a single blinking red light, there is no onscreen message to explain whats going on.

Instead users can only retrieve a secondary error code to give a clue to the problem. The problem is so widespread that Microsoft set aside $1 billion to address it, extending the console's warranty to three years for RROD (and E74). Even at that, stories of sending back consoles to Microsoft multiple times over these errors are commonplace.

While the new slim Xbox 360 console is, of course, capable of failure too, it will no longer present three blinking red lights. "Obviously if you look at the success rate of the original 360s, we're very proud of both the way the company stepped up to support the customers that we had as well as the success rate we have with the box today," said Microsoft Game Studios' corporate VP Phil Spencer.

Broadcom has agreed to buy Innovation Research & Technology which specializes in short range communication for a fee of around $47.5 million, the company announced on Thursday. While Innovation makes products for a variety of different wireless products, Broadcom has highlighted Innovation's progress in Near-Field Communications (NFC).

Innovation launched the Topaz-512 this week, which opens the door for content delivery including for example discount coupons that can be be retrieved via smart posters.

Broadcom is staying silent about how it intends to use Innovation's technology. However it is likely that Broadcom intends to integrate NFC with its existing solutions for other wireless technologies, including Bluetooth and 3G.

The lack of NFC-enabled phones has been seen as one of the major factors holding the wireless technology back, but Nokia recently announced that all smartphones it releases from 2011 will include NFC capabilities.

Apple Inc. has pushed out an updated version of its popular iTunes multimedia software ahead of the iPhone 4 launch next week. Top of the list of changes is compatibility with iOS 4 and syncing with iPhone 4. It also introduces book syncing and reading with an iPhone or iPod Touch running iBooks 1.1.

iTunes 9.2 also supports organizing and syncing PDF documents as books and supports the new "Folders" feature of iOS 4 that lets users organize their applications into groups. The update version also promises some improvements such as much faster backups while syncing with an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4, and quicker display of album artwork in the iTunes library.

Changes between iTunes v9.1.1 and iTunes v9.2

• Sync with iPhone 4 to enjoy your favorite music, movies, TV shows, books and more on-the-go
• Sync and read books with iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4 and iBooks 1.1
• Organize and sync PDF documents as books. Read PDFs with iBooks 1.1 on iPad and any iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Organize your apps on your iOS 4 home screens into folders using iTunes
• Faster back-ups while syncing an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Album artwork improvements make artwork appear more quickly when exploring your library

Think back a few months to a fight that took place between Redbox and the major Hollywood studios. Hollywood execs were all hot and bothered about how Redbox kiosk's cheap $1 movie rentals were cannibalizing new DVD and Blu-ray sales, and decided to order their wholesale distributors not to sell to Redbox for a month or more after the initial release.

Redbox launched some legal action in response and decided to buy directly from retailers to stock kiosks as a workaround. However, that came crashing down for Redbox when Wal-Mart and other retailers imposed limits on the number of units of the same film a single customer can buy from them. Long story short, Redbox ended signing deals with Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. that required a 28-day window before Redbox kiosks could offer new titles for rental.

Paramount however decided to actually test whether or not the availability of new titles from rent from Redbox kiosks affects the sales of new DVD or Blu-ray releases. It signed a deal with Redbox in August 2009 which would allow it to stock new releases on the same day as the title comes out on Blu-ray and DVD. Redbox agreed at the time to share rental data with Paramount so that it could evaluate the potential benefits of a longer-term contract.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is inviting everyone who is opposed to the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA), or to provisions of ACTA (or how it is being negotiated) to support a "firm, simple declaration against ACTA." People can sign the declaration which includes 11 demands about ACTA if it is to be implemented, or provides an alternative of abandoning ACTA entirely.

The FSF does not want to seem opposed to the Wellington Declaration however, but a post from Richard Stallman of FSF does point out some details about it that he "cannot put his name to." New Zealand citizens held a public meeting dubbed PublicACTA to criticize a secret meeting of government representatives. The attendees published the Wellington Declaration (which you can sign), calling on the negotiators to reject several injustices suspected to appear in the controversial treaty.

Stallman however points out that while the Wellington Declaration condemns the plan for ACTA to prohibit devices that can break digital restrictions (DRM, digital handcuffs etc.), it goes ahead to suggest instead that a limited prohibition, along the lines of Article 11 of the WIPO Internet Treaty. This would result in government backing being given to certain kinds of digital handcuffs, according to Stallman, and he is concerned that to accept that much without a fight would tempt ACTA negotiators to try for "more."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., has introduced a new high-speed 512GB solid state drive, utilizing high-performance toggle-mode DDR NAND. "The highly advanced features and characteristics of our new SSD were obtained as a direct result of an aggressive push for further development of our NAND flash technology, our SSD controller and our supportive SSD firmware," said Dong-Soo Jun, executive vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Electronics.

"Early introduction of this state-of-the-art toggle DDR solution will enable Samsung to play a major role in securing faster market acceptance of the new wave of high-end SSD technology." The 512GB SSD uses 30 nanometer-class 32-gigabit chips that the company began producing just last November. Combining the toggle-mode DDR structure with the SATA 3.0Gbps interface generates a maximum read speed of 250 MB/s and a 220 MB/s write speed.

Samsung claims this provides three-fold the performance of a traditional hard disk drive, with two 4GB DVD movies being stored in just a minute. The SSD is also developed to be energy-efficient, using a low power controller specifically for toggle-mode DDR and a low-power mode that is activated after the controller analyzes the users' activities that can extend the batter life of a notebook significantly.

Nokia has revealed that all smartphones it releases from 2011 on will feature near-field communication (NFC) technology, a welcomed announced as NFC-backers feared Nokia was backing off on its long-term support plans for NFC. Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive VP for markets, made today's announcement at the Mobey Forum's 10th anniversary meeting in Helsinki.

Vanjoki was unable to give specific details about the new smartphone models, but delegates were informed that information would be made available "in due course." Vanjoki said that the handsets will support "all open business models," suggesting that they will support both the Single Wire Protocol (SWP) and other secure element formats such as MicroSD cards, or possibly an embedded security element.

Using NFC technology, users can avail of a proximity payment system to carry out transactions, such as paying for public transport. Besides having the NFC to facilitate wireless communications, the handset would also need a lot of various elements to be stored safely that control the system securely. Operators have lobbied for the SWP standard which would store all of this important data in the SIM and facilitate such features.

Lenovo announced its first 3D laptop on Thursday. The Lenovo IdeaPad Y560d features the TriDef 3D technology solution which includes a 3D screen, 3D glasses and of course software. "Fun is a notebook that brings multimedia to life—and the IdeaPad Y560d does this in a dramatic fashion with a truly unique 3D viewing experience," said Dion Weisler, vice president, business operations, Lenovo.

"While 3D technology has been around for ages, it has not been readily accessible to consumers within the home. Lenovo is helping bridge this gap by delivering consumers a 3D experience on a familiar PC platform that can be viewed and enjoyed when and where they want."

The Y560d features a 15.6-inch 16:9 high-definition screen. The TriDef 3D technology (TriDef Media Player) software can transform a standard movie into a 3D experience (the software does not support transforming Blu-ray or HD DVD content though), while TriDef Photo Transformer can turn standard photos into 3D as well.

The Y560d also features Lenovo's new innovative Enhanced Experience RapidDrive technology which combined traditional HDD and SSD storage solutions to deliver a fast boot of the installed Windows 7 operating system (this functionality is optional). The RapidDrive technology can boost Windows 7 boot by 66 percent and open applications twice as fast.

Toshiba Corp. announced on Thursday that it will launch a 128-gigabyte embedded NAND flash memory module designed for application in a wide range of digital consumer products, including smartphones, tablet PCs and digital video cameras.

The new 128GB embedded device integrates sixteen 64Gbit (8GB) NAND chips manufactured with Toshiba's 32-nanometer process technology. Along with the dedicated controller, the product measures just 17 x 22 x 1.4mm. The module is fully compatible with the latest eMMC standard.

It makes Toshiba the first company to successfully combine 16 64Gbit chips, using applied advanced chip thinning and layering technologies to produce individual chips just 30 micrometers thick.

Toshiba offers a line-up of NAND flash memory packages in densities now ranging from 2GB to 128GB. They integrate a controller to manage basic control functions for NAND applications, and are compatible with JEDEC eMMC Version 4.4 and its features.

Indonesian communications minister Tifatul Sembiring, chief of the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party, is calling for an Internet blacklist to be enforced in the country to "save the young." Sembiring highlights the recent shockwaves through Indonesia caused by the distribution of homemade sex videos involving three popular celebrities in the country.

Sembiring has vowed to draft a new decree with lawmakers after an earlier proposal of a blacklist was shelved due to opposition. "The porn video 'allegedly' consisting of three artists ... has insulted the nation's constitution and Pancasila," he said, referring to the founding national philosophy that enshrines belief in the "one and only God."

"Our teachings have been tainted by the release of these videos," he added. The minister cited a survey conducted in 2007 which claimed 97 percent of Indonesian high school students had watched pornographic content online.

Now Sembiring wants a special task force to maintain a blacklist for the electronic filtering of the web of offensive material. "There will be a team to observe whether a website contains points from the blacklist. The team will assess whether such websites truly contain pornographic material," Sembiring said. "If it does, we'll ask the website to delete the points included in the list, but we won't ban the whole website."

Industry research group NPD revealed earlier this year that U.S. consumers had spent $19.66 billion on games products in 2009, including hardware, software and accessories. This was a significant drop from $21.4 billion take in 2008 for the industry. Of the $19.66 billion, NPD had estimated from its research that $10.5 billion was spent on software.

The NPD stats however only account for the sale of new software titles at retail, and leave out the sale of used games, subscription fees, downloadable content and more. NPD has carried out research that allows it to factor in these sources of revenue and also game rentals and mobile game applications (but not social network games).

With the extra sources of revenue for the wide industry added in, NPD reports that the software take jumps between $4.5 - $4.75 billion for 2009, bringing the total to between $15 - $15.25 billion. "Our expanded estimate of consumer spending reflects the growing number of options to purchase, acquire and interact with video games ranging from GameFly rentals to iPod Touch game apps," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Following a huge victory for record companies over LimeWire, eight music publishers have filed their own lawsuit against the software company, seeking relief and damages for the facilitation of rampant copyright infringement. Many of the publishers are owned by the parent companies of the record labels that won the the case against LimeWire.

David Israelite, chief executive of the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), said that songwriters and publishers were also hurt as well as performers, by the music sharing facilitated by LimeWire software. Publishers are paid royalties for songwriters, while record companies work with the performers.

"The pervasive online infringement facilitated by LimeWire and others like them has consequences for everyone in the music chain," Israelite said in a statement. A U.S. District Court judge in New York ruled that LimeWire is liable for inducing copyright infringement.

Record companies sought a preliminary injunction last week that would freeze the assets of Mike Gorton, chairman of LimeWire, accusing him of attempting to shield LimeWire assets and proceeds from the court. LimeWire is attempting to relaunch itself as a legal music service.

IsoHunt attorney Ira Rothken said the search engine has asked a federal appeals court to block a lower court's injunction that could force the site down. The takedown order was given by a U.S. District Court in May. Judge Stephen Wilson said that IsoHunt is an unlawful avenue to free, copyrighted movies and television shows. Wilson said he would not stay enforcement of the injunction unless ordered to do so by a federal appeals court.

IsoHunt, which gets 30 million unique monthly visitors, asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to block the takedown order. It accuses the District Court's injunction of being too broad. One issue of concern is a mandated removal of "searches" from the site. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sent a list of keywords for the block, which include the number 10, and the word Dracula, for example.

"One person's copyrighted Wizard of Oz is another person's public domain work," Rothken said to Wired. "The motion picture studios do not have a monopoly on names on things. That is where the injunction is violating the First Amendment." Rothken said the MPAA should instead provide URLS or hashes which can positively identify an infringing link.

Microsoft's UK boss Neil Thompson has responded to Sony's E3 press conference by saying that 3D gaming is too expensive for consumers for now. Sony have attendees 3D glasses to view 3D content at the conference while revealing titles that will support 3D for the PS3.

PS3 users will need a 3D television for the effect to work. Thompson feels that the price involved with 3D gaming puts it a while off being mass market.

"If you look at the costs of entry into the living room and when that's going to become mass-market, we think the offering with Kinect and the natural user-interface we're bringing, that's a more compelling proposition for consumers over the coming years than maybe looking at 3D at this point."

Of course, Nintendo also promoted the 3D effect of its new 3DS handheld console, and that doesn't require an investment in 3D glasses, but for living room gaming, maybe Thompson has a point on price for now. As for Microsoft's Kinect, Thompson resisted providing any pricing information to Eurogamer.net.

All mobile handsets in stores in San Francisco may be labeled with information about their radiative output. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance which would make it a reality by a 10-1 majority. Following a 10-day consultation on the issue, the Mayor can sign it into legislation.

The ordinance would require outlets selling phones in the city to provide information on the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) for each handset stocked.

The information can already be retrieved from the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) website. Critics of the board's decision say that the move may indicate to consumers that using mobile phones is a health risk.

The potential of mobile phones to cause harm to users has been the subject of plenty of scientific studies for the past couple of decades. The chief sponsor claims that the ordinance is there to "help people make informed decisions."

Opera has released a beta of the next release of its popular web browser, v10.6. The beta features support for the royalty-free WebM video format being pushed by Google. It also features new HTML 5 offline applications. The company claims that the Javascript engine in the newer version is 75 percent faster than the previous version.

The v10.6 release is the next major version for Linux and BSD users also after Opera decided to skip 10.5 releases on either of those platforms. Opera pushed out v10.5 of the browser in time for Microsoft's distribution of the web browser selection screen that allows users to download and install a browser of their choice as part of a settlement agreement with the European Union.

The new WebM video format is being pushed by Google as a royalty-free alternative to H.264, which is only royalty free to use until the end of 2015, according to MPEG LA. A WebM video file consists of VP8 video (Google acquired the VP8 technology in its $106.5 million deal with On2 Technologies last year) and OGG Vorbis audio packed in a Matroska (MKV) container.

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) has announced that it will release an "all-in-one" surround sound system for the PlayStation 3 (SP3) console. The surround sound system consists of just one central speaker, with the subwoofer built in.

The system will be released in fall 2010 in North America, Europe (and other PAL territories) and Japan for US$199, €199 and 19,800 yen, respectively.

The system uses Sony's S-Force PRO Front Surround Sound, generates rich realistic surround sound over just one front speaker. Bringing in SCE's expertise in both entertainment and technology acquired from developing games, four sound fields of the speaker system have been designed with the help of SCE's expert game sound designers, to optimize the cinematic experience of all forms of entertainment.

The system features two audio inputs; an optic audio input for connecting the PlayStation 3 and an analogue input for other sources, including Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP).

Google Inc. uploaded a video to YouTube yesterday explaining what Google TV hopes to bring to the living room. The video is only 2:21 long and is very easy to understand. It contains little on the technical side and just focuses on the features that Google TV aims to bring to the living room.

The video shows how Google TV can be used to search and view television channels and programming, browse the web on your television, play games, browse photos and more.

Business groups in the United States on Tuesday criticized the Chinese government over policy proposals that they say will discriminate against U.S. and other international companies in the market. The companies represented work with software, clean energy and computer technology, but one proposal in China would encourage government agencies to deal with companies that have produced technology in the country.

The proposal is part of a bunch of policies dubbed "indigenous innovation" that are meant to encourage more technological development in the country. Jeremie Waterman, a senior director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, testified before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).

He argued that the policies are being proposed to provide advantages to domestic companies and products, to "force technology transfer if foreign players choose to participate." In April, China allowed foreign companies to compete for government business following pressure from Washington.

Not everyone agrees that the Chinese proposals will be bad for U.S. or other foreign companies however. Lee Branstetter, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, points out that none of the policies are even in place yet and may not turn out to be as harmful to U.S. companies as they think.

While Sony is showing off 3D features of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console today at E3, NVIDIA with support of many big names in the PC industry is trying to push the "3D PC" to consumers. Using the popularity of movies like Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, and the selection of PC games that be displayed in 3D with right hardware, NVIDIA argues that a 3D PC offers the broadest solution for enjoying 3D entertainment at home.

What is a 3D PC? A 3D PC is technically a PC or a notebook on the market that meet the following minimum requirements...

• Includes a pair of 3D active-shutter glasses.
• A 120Hz 3D-capable display in the form of a desktop LCD monitor, a 3D projector, a 3D TV, or a notebook PC with an integrated 3D-capable LCD.
• A discrete graphics processor that is capable of delivering high definition imagery to the 3D display

A few days ago, we reported about a controversial disclosure of an exploitable vulnerability that affects Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Google engineer Tavis Ormandy had alerted Microsoft of the problem and then just five days later published an advisory detailing the bug, even though no patch had been distributed by Microsoft for the problem.

Ormandy was heavily criticized for not waiting until the Redmond software giant had pushed out an update for the bug, which affects the Windows Help and Support Center. His affiliation with Google also fueled some speculation of his motivation for publishing the advisory early. However, Ormandy has consistently defended himself, indicating this is probably the only way to ensure that Microsoft will release a patch.

The flaw was disclosed only last Thursday, but anti-virus provider Sophos has already found that the vulnerability is being targeted by criminal hackers. The bug could potentially allow an attacker to execute code on a victims computer using specially crafted webpages or crafted links in e-mail messages.

Sony revealed details on Tuesday about a premium subscription service package for the PlayStation Network, called PlayStation Plus. The company also revealed that there are now 50 million PSN accounts in 58 different countries, making the PS3 the most connected games console in the world.

Users of PSN will be able to pay a fee for access to exclusive content and functionality. Sony stressed however that the existing elements of PSN would remain free, including multi-player gaming.

Three months subscription will cost £17.99 while a full year subscription costs $49.99. For the fee, a user will be able to include full access to certain PS3 downloadable content and PSN titles, such as the PSone archives and Minis, and be able to play them for as long as the PlayStation Plus membership is valid. Some games will only be playable for a certain amount of time on a trial basis before needing to be purchased.

An extra feature that PlayStation Plus provides is the ability to schedule the PS3 console to switch on and automatically retrieve demos, patches or updates at certain times.

At the Sony E3 Press Conference, the launch date and price information for the awaited Move motion control system were revealed. PlayStation Move will launch in Europe on September 15, in North America on September 19 and in Japan on September 21.

The controller itself will cost $49.99, whereas the navigation controller is sold separately for $29.99. A bundle including the PlayStation Move controller, the Sports Champions game and the PlayStation Eye will cost $99. Those three items will also be sold in a bundle with a PS3 for $399.99 (the bundle does not include the navigation controller).

About 20 Move compatible games are promised by the end of March 2011. At the conference, the first games that were shown controlled by Move were Sorcery and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11.

Before those games were even demoed though, we did learn that Killzone 3 (due out in February 2011 for PS3) and a SOCOM 4 title will be controllable with Move too.

Nintendo showed off its anticipated 3DS handheld console at its E3 Press Conference today. Identified by Reggie Fils-Aime - President and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America - as probably one of the best features of 3DS: no glasses required, as he doubted gaming on big screen TVs while glasses are still required to get the effect.

"It's the glasses," he said, with a certain disgust in his tone, also talking about the cost of 3D now. Nintendo then gave the audience a history lesson of "3D" before a prolonged unveiling of the Nintendo 3DS itself by Nintendo President and CEO, Satoru Iwata.

He first drew attention to the 3.5-inch widescreen on top, which will show the 3D content and then the slider on the side of the handheld to control the depth of the 3D effect. The bottom screen is only for touch, as Nintendo found that smudges on the screen from touching ruined the 3D effect easily.

A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) official has said both the case of Google's accidental WiFi snooping and the hack which exposed information of over 100,000 iPad users on an AT&T website are "worrisome in their own way." Google recently admitted to accidentally sniffing Internet traffic on unencrypted wireless networks while its Street View cars were snapping pictures in more than 30 countries.

"Whether intentional or not, collecting information sent over WiFi networks clearly infringes on consumer privacy," Joe Gurin, the FCC's chief of consumer and governmental affairs, wrong in a blog post. He went on to remind readers of the risks of using open networks.

Recently AT&T also has admitted that a group called Goatse Security was able to (rather easily) extract the e-mail addresses and cellular ID numbers of more than 114,000 iPad owners by exploiting a web application on the AT&T site. Among the affected users were celebrities and government officials, such as White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

"The iPad incident appears to be a classic security breach – the kind that could happen, and has happened, to many companies – and is exactly the kind of incident that has led the FCC to focus on cyber security," Gurin wrote.

Google Inc. is working with the U.S. State Department, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Commerce Department and European officials to help build a case arguing that censorship acts as a trade barrier, according to Robert Boorstin, Google's director of corporate and policy communications. The company shut its Chinese-language search engine this year because of a cyber attack and concerns about censorship.

The U.S. has been mulling such a WTO case as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promoted Internet freedom as a basic human right in modern times. In the European Union, Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, has described the Chinese firewall as a trade barrier as long as it served to block communication for Internet users.

"Google believes very strongly, as do other companies, that censorship is a trade barrier," Boorstin said during a discussion hosted by the Media Access Project. He said the company wants to demonstrate that censorship means fewer search pages, and that limits the capacity for a company like Google to go to the Chinese and be on a level playing field with services like Baidu.

Google Inc.'s YouTube video sharing service is to test offering a news feed this summer. On YouTube's official blog, a post highlights some of the latest videos on YouTube that relate to news, or make the news, such as videos showing violent attacks in Kyrgyzstan and oil washing up on a beach in the Gulf Coast.

"Videos uploaded to YouTube by both amateur reporters and professional journalists move through the media ecosystem with a sophistication and speed greater than ever before," the blog reads. "But with 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, how can people more easily find the latest breaking news videos on our site? And how can media organizations better leverage this content to expand the scope of their reporting and keep us all better informed?"

Working with the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, a YouTube News Feed will track news as it breaks on YouTube. The news feed will provide a stream of breaking news with a focus on strong visuals and non-traditional sources.

The news feed back be found on the CitizenTube website, which is YouTube's news and politics blog. It has only briefly been used by the company to track news, such as the Iranian election protests in 2009 and for Los Angeles wildfires.

Game retailer GameStop is listing Microsoft's Kinect for Xbox 360 peripheral for $149.99. The Kinect was dated for a November 4, 2010 release date today at the Microsoft E3 Press Conference, but Microsoft said it will not set an official price for the product at E3 this year. The GameStop website allows users to pre-order the item now, limited to one per household.

"Official pricing has not been announced by the publisher. This is an estimate only and subject to change," the product page reads. "If the price decreases between the time you place your preorder and the release date, you'll receive the lowest price."

The site also lists Xbox 360 bundles that include the Kinect. A bundle with an Arcade console and Kinect is $299.99 and an Elite console with Kinect is $399.99, but there is no sign of the slim Xbox 360 on the site yet.

Also news of a second slim Xbox 360 model emerged later in the day. The second console which is currently in the works will cost $199.99 and will replace the Arcade unit, while along with the Elite console, is to be discontinued.

News Corp announced that it has made a deal with e-reader company Skiff, which facilitates the distribution of newspaper and magazine content to e-reader devices. Skiff also has its own unreleased e-reader hardware, but the News Corp deal does not include it.

Instead, News Corp is only interested in the software distribution platform. The aquisition empowers News Corp to disttibute its own content to e-reader devices, and also to smartphones, tablets and similar gadgets, as it continues its quest into paid online content.

Chairman Rupert Murdoch has been vocal about charging for online content, hoping that the subscription model adopted by the Wall Street Journal works with more of the company's outlets. To aid with this goal, News Corp announced an investment in Journalism Online on Monday.

Journalism Online helps companies to charge for content in a variety of ways, including subscription models and processing micropayments for article views.

Google Inc.'s video sharing website, YouTube, and the prestigious Guggenheim Museums have partnered to search for creative online videos. The pair have launched a competition, announced on Monday, which will allow anybody to submit a video through a channel set up for it.

The competition is called "YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video", and it will select 20 videos from the community to presented at the Guggenheim in New York on October 21. "Creative online video is one of the most compelling and innovative opportunities for personal expression today," said Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation director Richard Armstrong.

"'YouTube Play' demonstrates this is within the reach of anyone who uses a computer and has access to the Internet." The 20 chosen videos will also be projected at museums n Berlin, Bilbao and Venice. Entrants must submit a video up to 10 minutes and a written statement to YouTube.com/play.

A jury of top artists, filmmakers, designers and musicians will select the 20 winning videos from 200 finalists. Entrants can submit creative videos with art, animation, graphics, narrative or non-narrative videos and entirely new art forms, on any subject of their choosing.

An internal memo from U.S. retailer Target has revealed that the price of non-slim Xbox 360 models is to be cut by $50 on Tuesday. Microsoft unveiled a new slimmer Xbox 360 console with a 250GB HDD and internal 802.11n WiFi for $299, the same price point as the Xbox 360 Elite console that comes with a 120GB HDD.

The Target memo about the price cuts reads...

Due to an announcement made Monday 6/14, the following Xbox Game Consoles will be Price Cut by $50 effective Tuesday 6/15:
207/21/2 (Xbox 360 ARCADE CORE HARDWARE): $199.99 to $149.99
207/21/4 (Xbox 360 ELITE CONSOLE): $299.99 to $249.99
207/21/7 (NFC Xbox 360 COD MODRN WRFE2 LTD ED): $399.99 to $349.99
207/21/8 (Xbox 360 FINAL FANTASY XIII BND): $399.99 to $349.99
207/21/9 (TC SPLINTER CELL BUNDLE): $399.99 to $349.99
Source: Kotaku

At Microsoft's E3 Press Conference today, it was revealed that a deal with ESPN will bring live sports and on-demand content to Xbox Live. The exclusive deal with Microsoft will bring 3,500 live and on-demand sports events including college football, college basketball, Major League Baseball, NBA basketball, soccer and more. Giving a demonstration of the Xbox Live ESPN features was Josh Elliot and Trey Wingo of SportsCenter,

They showed how ESPN on Xbox Live can take advantage of the new Kinect motion sensing system when it is launched in November. While watching a game, it was demoed how telling the Xbox 360 which side you want to join (in the demonstration, "Xbox: Join USC") displays how many people are cheering for each side.

Saying "Xbox: Replay" replayed a touchdown from the game, while real-time polls and trivia will also be displayed to enhance the experience. ESPN.com content can be accessed to bring up highlights, game scores, statistics and other information that is available.

Most of the 3,500 sports events that will be delivered through Xbox Live from ESPN will be available in High-definition. One of the most welcome parts about the ESPN deal is it will bring content to Xbox Live Gold members at no extra charge.

Microsoft revealed at its E3 Press Conference today that the Kinect motion-control system will be launched on November 4, 2010 in North America. The company demoed using the controller-free user interface for Xbox Live content, including using sound as well as motion as controls. No price details were given yet.

The Xbox console can recognize and sign in a user that simply waves at it. An additional wave launches the Kinect Menu. The Kinect Menu is populated by Kinect Adventures, Netflix, Zune, Facebook, Friends, Avatar Editor and Last.FM.

Using hand controls, a user can select a movie to watch on the Xbox 360, and also use his/her hands to drag a bar to seek through the video content. Simply saying "Xbox: Pause", will pause the video, while "Xbox: Play" will resume it. "Xbox: Stop", will exit the video and go back to the menu.

Microsoft Corp. unveiled a new slim Xbox 360 console at the E3 press conference which also saw the launch date for Kinect and other goodies revealed. The new Xbox 360 console comes with a 250GB hard disk drive and built in wireless capabilities, including 802.11n support, the "fastest WiFi in any console."

The new Xbox 360 console does not come with a new price tag (remains at $299), and for the lucky audience who watched the event, Microsoft generously gave away one free to each. The console ships today and will be available later this week in stores.

You do not need the new Xbox 360 console to use "Kinect for Xbox 360" as has been speculated, and the add-on will launch in every country that the Xbox 360 console is currently sold in.

Among other announcements made alongside the launch of the new slimmer Xbox 360, it was also revealed that all add-ons and map packs for Call Of Duty will become available first on Xbox 360 up until 2012. An exclusive deal between Microsoft and ESPN to bring 3,500 live sports events (mostly in HD) to Xbox Live was also announced, including NBA, MLB and soccer content.

Everyone from home viewers, to people who have traveled to watch their team in South Africa and even many of the footballers themselves have voiced their absolute hatred for the beehive-like buzzing that is being broadcast throughout the world due to rampant use of Vuvuzelas during the World Cup matches. The noise is so loud that professional players have complained they cannot even communicate with each other on the pitch.

While there has been some talk of banning the evil instruments from the stadiums altogether, some of us just cannot wait that long. If you are watching the World Cup through your computer, or if it is possible for you to route the audio through a computer/laptop/htpc, then you might be able to get rid of that annoyance nice and quickly with the help of some information online.

Basically, if you can filter out sound at 233, 466, 932 and 1864 Hz you will have killed 95 percent (estimated from my own experience) of the noise and can save your liver from the copious amounts of pain killers you need to get rid of the headache after the game.

Filter in Windows

Microsoft has reportedly confirmed that the Project Natal motion sensing system for the Xbox 360 console, first announced at last year's E3 event, will retail as "Kinect". The new name surfaced online on Sunday night with most sites pointing back to a USA Today article that was taken offline but it has since been confirmed.

In addition to the new name for the motion sensing system that Microsoft has asserted will be as fundamental to the Xbox brand as Xbox Live, a short list of Kinect games was also revealed. Kinectimals is a title that will allow the player to train and play with 20 different feline members of the animal kingdom, including lines and tigers.

Kinect Sports is basically an answer for the popular Wii Sports titles with boxing, bowling, beach volleyball, track and field and soccer activities included. Joyride is a kart-style racer title where the player grips an imaginary steering wheel while using his/her feet for accelerating and braking.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States has launched a probe into an incident that led to the exposure of personal information of AT&T Inc. customers. Among the affected customers were White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and the mayor or New York City Michael Bloomberg.

A group calling itself Goatse Security was able to get information on over 100,000 AT&T iPad subscribers by exploiting a major bug on a script at an AT&T website. The group simply needed to insert an ICC-ID as part of a HTTP request to the vulnerable script which then returned the e-mail address associated with the specific iPad device.

AT&T has stressed that only e-mail address data was actually retrieved by the group and nothing more sensitive was at risk. Still, a collection of 114,000 active e-mail addresses has value by itself without even including the personal e-mail addresses of celebrities or government officials that were revealed.

"The FBI is aware of these possible computer intrusions and has opened an investigation to address the potential cyber threat," FBI spokesman Jason Pack said. Apple's iPad, which launched in April this year, has already sold over 2 million units.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has revealed that it will investigate a patent infringement complaint made against Apple Inc. by Taiwan-based HTC Corp. The ITC is an independent, bi-partisan U.S. federal agency that has powers to protect U.S. industries from unfair trade practices. Its powers include the ability to block imports from foreign sources.

HTC Corp. is seeking an injunction on imports of Asian-manufactured iPhones, iPods and iPads into the United States, alleging that the Apple products infringe five patents held by HTC. The ITC announced on Friday that it has decided to investigate certain portable electronics devices and software related to the complaint.

Apple Inc. sued HTC Corp. for alleged patent infringement in March. The Cupertino-based iPod-maker filed a lawsuit in a US District Court in the state of Delaware against HTC, alleging infringement of 20 Apple patents related to user interface, hardware and architecture associated with its popular iPhone products. It also filed a complaint with the ITC at the time.

President of Turkey Abdullah Gul has used his Twitter account to voice his disapproval for some web blocking practices carried out in the country. Google services such as YouTube are subject to blocks because of content posted by users and deemed offensive by Turkish authorities.

Turkey blocked YouTube in 2008 after videos surfaced describing Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, as a homosexual and an alcoholic. The country has been scrutinized by human rights watchdogs who urge it to reform restrictive Internet laws unexpected of a country seeking membership of the European Union.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) revealed earlier this year that Turkey is blocking some 3,700 Internet sites for arbitrary and political reasons. Turkey, however, maintains that websites are blocked for offenses that include child pornography, encouraging suicide or insults against Kemal Ataturk.

"I know there are lots of complaints about bans on YouTube and Google," President Gul said in a tweet. "I am definitely against them being closed down. I have ordered responsible institutions for a solution. I asked for a change in regulations on merit."

A Google engineer has been targeted with harsh criticism from security researchers everywhere for releasing code to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft operating systems.

Tavis Ormandy has been criticized for releasing code to exploit an unpatched hole in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Critics take issue with Ormandy releasing the code needed to exploit the vulnerability five days after he alerted Microsoft of the problem. Generally, software vendors are alerted to the problem and once a patch is prepared and is available for end users to download and install - and only then - is the vulnerability in all its details made public.

Microsoft Corp. is not known for fixing such issues quickly, and doesn't often release such updates outside of its normal "Patch Tuesday" schedule. Ormandy, according to his own writing afterward, didn't seem convinced that Microsoft would actually fix the problem unless there was exploit code freely available in the wild as motivation to do so.

Adobe announced the release of Flash Player 10.1 on Thursday for Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems (as well as promising a release for Android later this month). The anticipated Flash update is geared toward improving performance, power management and video abilities, as well as adding some new features. It's also important to note that Flash Player 10.1 fixes a whole host of security issues affecting the previous version.

Video improvements in Flash Player 10.1

Sticking with AfterDawn roots, we should mention what Flash Player 10.1 means for video before anything else. For Windows users (for now), Flash Player 10.1 introduces hardware-based (GPU) acceleration of H.264 video content, offloading the task from the CPU which could greatly improve playback.

The addition of HTTP Dynamic Streaming expands the delivery options for high quality live and on-demand media with full adaptive bitrate functionality. This new option enables media publishers to leverage standard HTTP networking infrastructure to help increase capacity, reach, and quality of service for video delivery using standards-based MP4 fragments.

Firefox 4, the upcoming major new release of the Firefox web browser, will feature WebM support following the resolution of a licensing issue. The VP8-based video format was introduced at Google's I/O developer conference, and only last week the Internet search giant added WebM support to its own Chrome web browsing software.

Google acquired the VP8 technology in its $106.5 million deal with On2 Technologies last year, and revealed at the time it would use its new codec technology to make the Web experience better for all users. It serves as an alternative to H.264, which for the moment can be used royalty-free. However, the MPEG LA consortium has said that it will only remain royalty-free until December 31, 2015.

With support added to the Chrome browser and Microsoft adding WebM to its upcoming Internet Explorer 9 release (when a user installed the VP8 codec), Mozilla's dedication to it serves as another milestone and WebM is now available in the Firefox nightly builds.

Steve Jobs moved on from discussing the Apple App Store to the company's iPhone products. According to Jobs, iPhone now has 28 percent of US smartphone market, behind RIM at 35 percent. In terms of mobile web browsing, the iPhone commands a 58 percent market share.

Joking that some attendees have "already seen this," Jobs moved on to introduce iPhone 4, saying it has 100 new features. The iPhone 4 is 9.3mm thick, about 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS was. It includes a micro-SIM tray, a new camera on the back with an LED flash and new front-facing camera. It also adds a second mic on the top for noise cancellation purposes.

The new 5 megapixel camera features 5x digital zoom and adds 720p HD video capture at 30 frames per second. Apple also will be releasing an iPhone version of its iMovie video editing software that will make it possible for users to record and edit video. It will be available for $5.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs arrived at WWDC 2010 in San Francisco today to a standing ovation from a typically large crowd. The first thing Jobs touted was the success of the company's iPad tablet. So far, over 8,500 native iPad applications are available and iPad owners have downloaded over 35 million so far. Each iPad has an average of 17 apps.

The iPad has proven successful in the ebooks area too, with 5 million books downloaded in the first 65 days from iBookstore. Jobs said that Apple now has a 22 percent market share of the eBooks business. A new iBooks app also will allow the viewing of PDF documents with notes and bookmark abilities.

Onto the App Store, we learned that 15,000 apps are submitted every week, with 95 percent being approved within 7 days. The figure includes updates to existing applications. Apps that make false promises, use private APIs or have stability problems account for the majority of all App rejections.

For Netflix users, a Netflix app for the iPhone was demo'd and will be available this summer. The app, naturally, supports streaming movies to the iPhone (any video available through Netflix Watch Instantly). Zynga CEO Mark Pincus revealed that the popular FarmVille game will be coming to the iPhone later this month. Touting over 70 million active monthly users, Zynga said players will even be able to purchase iPhone-exclusive items, such as a Snow Leopard.