News written by James Delahunty (March, 2011)

Google has kicked a PSX emulator for Android devices out of the Android Market.

Citing its Content Policy, Google pulled the PSX4Droid application from the Android Market. Developer of the application, ZodTTD, suspects that the real reason for the removal of the app is down to Sony, with the launch of the Xperia PLAY, known often as the "PlayStation Phone", imminent.

ZodTTD announced the removal of the application on Twitter, and said he was trying to determine what to do. "Sony's Xperia Play must be coming soon," ZodTTD wrote on Twitter.

"Google just suspended all my legal Sony PSX emulator app ids from Marketplace. They locked me out of their service. Fair enough, but no specific reason. The timing is suspicious with no remedy." Google has provided no specific reason for removing the app.

A similar application on the Android Market, FPse for Android, is still available to buy however. The Xperia Play is expected to go on sale in the U.S. in mid-April, featuring a 4-inch touch screen and slide-out controller. It is powered by a 1GHz ARMv7 processor and runs Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Director promises to push up to 48 or 60fps at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

"When you author and project a movie at 48 or 60, it becomes a different movie. The 3D shows you a window into reality; the higher frame rate takes the glass out of the window. In fact, it is just reality. It is really stunning," Cameron said.

Jon Landau, James Cemeron's production partner, said the higher frame rate will provide for a better audience experience. He said it would remove a strobing effect caused by a "3D artefact".

With the shutter closed for less time, you also get a bright image as a result. This could help with 3D movies, as glasses can reduce the amount of light that a viewer is supposed to see of an image.

Cameron was joined at CinemaCon by George Lucas and Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, as they were "championing the digital 3D movie revolution."

Microsoft-led effort to decapitate Rustock botnet significantly reduces global spam volume.

In a detailed report from Symantec's MessageLabs, it emerges that global spam volumes dropped by one-third in the days following the action taken against the Rustock botnet. Rustock seemingly went quite on March 16, prompting security firms and spam monitors to ask questions about its lack of activity.

Rustock is/was one of the most technically sophisticated botnets known, and it still remains to be seen whether its operators can regain control over the million-strong herd again. It has been active since 2006, quite a lifetime for a botnet.

Microsoft-led action against Rustock, with help from Pfizer and FireEye, led to the seizure of 96 command and control servers mid-March. The hard drives have been handed over for forensic analysis in an attempt to identify the operators.

Following the takedown, global spam volume dropped 33.6 percent by the 17th of the month. In the days following the seizures, 33 billion spam e-mails were sent a day, compared to an average of 52 billion beforehand.

Apple pushes out supplemental update for users of MacBook Air devices.

Apple customers who bought a MacBook Air last year have been complaining about problems using the iTunes software. Using iTunes with the MacBook Air was making the ultra-thin device become unresponsive for some users. It was reported to happen after the Max OS X 10.6.7 update.

The music software would crash on launch after some users of the 13-inch MacBook Air updated the operating system to the latest version.

Apple is recommending that a supplemental update aimed directly at this issue be installed by anybody who got a 13-inch MacBook Air model in late 2010, and that has been updated to Mac OS X 10.6.7.

For more information: Mac OS X v10.6.7 Supplemental Update for 13” MacBook Air (Late 2010)

Microsoft has reportedly started to push out early copies of Windows 8 to OEM partners, according to a report.

WinRumors reports that the Redmond-based giant is distributing build 7971.0.110324-1900, using its Connect external testing system, as the Windows 8 and Server vNext Pre-Release Program. The Milestone 3 build is now available for OEMs, such as HP, to access and test out.

Other Windows 8 details have leaked recently. One feature expected is a system reset feature that makes it much easier for an installation to revert to original OEM factory settings. Windows 8 also will reportedly go into hibernation within a few seconds.

It is expected to feature a full 3D interface that can adapt to user habits. A tile-based user interface, codenamed "Mosh", will also be available if a user should choose it.

Samsung has announced it began mass production of a transparent LCD panel this year.

The 22-inch panels come in black-and-white type and the color type, and feature a contrast ratio of 500:1 with a resolution of 1680x1050 (WSGA+). Samsung's transparent panel boasts a transparency rate of over 20 percent for black-and-white and 15 percent for color type.

Conventional LCD panels that use a back light unit have 5 percent transparency. The transparent LCD panel has a high transparency rate, which enables a person to look right through the panel like glass, and it consumes 90% less electricity compared with a conventional LCD panel using back light unit.

The LCD panel also incorporates HDMI and the USB interface for convenience.

Samsung's press information highlights the possibilities of using the panels in advertising and such uses, hinting that these units won't come cheap for some time.

"Transparent displays will have a wide range of use in all industry areas as an efficient tool for delivering information and communication. With the world's first mass production of the transparent LCD panel, Samsung Electronics plans to lead the global transparent LCD market by developing various applications," said Younghwan Park, a senior vice president of Samsung Electronics LCD Business.

Redmond gets involved in EU anti-trust case against web search giant Google.

Microsoft spent nearly a decade being probed and prodded by the European Union for anti-competitive practices, so one is entitled to raise an eyebrow at Microsoft's filing of a formal complaint with the European Commission, as part of the EC's ongoing investigation into Google's Search practices within the EU.

This is the first time that the software giant has ever taken such as step, according to Brad Smith, senior Vice President & General Counsel at Microsoft Corporation. While commending Google's attempts to "organize the world's information," Smith says that Microsoft is concerned about a broadening pattern of conduct aimed at stopping anyone else from creating a competitive alternative to Google's key businesses.

He has pointed to some recent cases in the United States involving Google. In 2008, the Department of Justice (DOJ) considered a suit against Google for attempting to tie up and set search advertising prices at Yahoo!. Google backed down following the DOJ's intervention. Then last year, the DOJ objected to what it said was Google's efforts to monopolize book content. A federal judge ruled in that case just last week.

Contrary to reports online, the South Korean tech firm did not install spy software on some of its notebooks.

Mohamed Hassan, MSIA, CISSP, CISA and the founder of NetSec Consulting Corp, a firm that specializes in information security consulting services, said he first became aware of spy software installed on a Samsung R525, last month. He claimed he deleted the keylogging software (StarLogger) from the system immediately, using a "licensed commercial security software," that he failed to name.

"After an in-depth analysis of the laptop, my conclusion was that this software was installed by the manufacturer, Samsung," wrote Mr Hassan.

Just a couple of weeks later, after experiencing problems with the "video display driver", he returned the R525 and picked up an R540 instead at a different store. Once again, he was alerted to the same keylogging software as he was with the first notebook and again, deleted it.

"Again, after the initial set up of the laptop, I found the same StarLogger software in the c:windowsSL folder of the new laptop," Hassan claims.

Despite the early success in sales of Nintendo 3DS systems, the Wii-maker says it is unlikely to go with 3D in its next home console.

It is unknown when Nintendo will offer a new home console to the industry. Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime knows that 3D is a very unlikely feature for the console to be equipped with however.

"Glasses-free is a big deal," Fils-Aime said. "We've not said publicly what the next thing for us will be in the home console space, but based on what we've learned on 3D, likely, that won't be it."

Nintendo director and producer Hideki Konno said that Nintendo is resisting developing for 3D simply because of the glasses requirement. "I think at Nintendo, we realize that any sort of goggle-type 3-D technology was not going to work. In order to make 3D technology viable with video games, we thought we needed to have glasses-free 3D."

Nintendo launched the 3DS handheld console last week delivering a form of glasses-free 3D to gamers. It quickly became Nintendo's fastest selling portable system of all time.

Microsoft's new "disc format" that it is looking for beta testers to try out will provide more capacity to game data.

The disc that is being used by the Xbox 360 console will not physically change (this would likely be impossible anyway when trying to keep older consoles working with new discs.) Instead, a dashboard update will allow game developers to use more of a DVD disc's capacity to store game data.

While a dual layer DVD holds around 8GB of data, the game data partition on an Xbox 360 game disc only allows for 6.8GB of data. The rest of used for a video partition present on each disc and other data. By using a dashboard update to enable the system to read from a larger game data partition, developers will get about an extra 1GB of space.

Of course this pales in comparison to the 25GB a single layer Blu-ray disc provides for PS3 game development (or 50GB for dual layer) but it might provide some relief for developers who have questioned the use of the DVD format for the console since its details first emerged.

As games have become rapidly more complex with high resolution textures and countless high-quality audio effects and recordings, more storage capacity has been required. Some Xbox 360 games need multiple discs to store an entire game as it stands. It's unclear if 1GB extra will make that much of a difference to that problem.

Search giant is to be audited for next twenty years following Buzz privacy complaints.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has said Google "violated its own privacy promises" in how it created and ran its Buzz social network. The company has reached an agreement with the FTC to put the Buzz fiasco behind it once and for all.

"Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards," Google said in a blog post. "While we worked quickly to make improvements, regulators unsurprisingly wanted more detail about what went wrong and how we could prevent it from happening again. Today, we've reached an agreement with the FTC to address their concerns."

Google will be required to undergo a privacy review every two years for the next twenty years. GMail users cried foul not long after the launch of Buzz. One particular problem was how Buzz would list other GMail users that you were frequently in contact with.

This feature could be turned off, but was on by default and not clear that it could be turned off. This, no doubt, led to embarrassing situations such as it being publicly displayed that a user was in contact with his/her ex-partner.

Yet more details in Take-Two's activity spell development of Grand Theft Auto V.

Several weeks ago it emerged that Take-Two had registered several domain names that were suspected to be used as parody websites in a new Grand Theft Auto title. The domains were CashForDeadDreams.com, SixFigureTemps.com, StopPayingYourMortgage.net, HammersteinFaust.com and LifeInvader.com.

HammersteinFaust is thought to be a parody of Goldman Sachs and LifeInvader of Facebook.

Now Rockstar Games' parent company Take-Two Interactive is holding auditions for actors to voice several video game characters. The five characters it is looking to fill positions for have a shroud of controversy around them that leans heavily toward GTA characters. They include...

"A liberal young male who believes in a conspiracy made by Republicans to undermine America."

"A young female obsessed with sex parties, always dreaming of being a Hollywood celebrity."

"A white creepy man who thinks that technology is a poison against the wilderness."

"A man-boy love activist who just got released from an Indonesian prison."

"A young, fast-talking boy fighting for the right of young boys to drink alcohol and have sex."

Chinese search giant Biadu has announced the deletion of over three million written works from its online library.

The text works were uploaded by users of its Baidu Wenku, launched in 2009. Not long after its launch, 40 authors signed a letter slamming the service for including their written works, which could be viewed for free, without getting permission.

By the end of November, the online library hosted over 10 million books according to the firm. Authors or copyright holders of the works were required to report the content if found on the service, and it would be deleted within 48 hours.

Additionally, a disclaimer on the site put the responsibility of compensating rights' holders for the use of the written works solely on the uploader. The writers that denounced the service had argued that Baidu should be responsible for this instead.

Negotiations were ongoing between Baidu and authors, but they broke down last week. Now the company has announced that 2.8 million written works were deleted from the service within a three day period.

"It took us three solid days working round-the-clock. I'm told that what remains is all licenced, and that any additional uploads to that section are being carefully vetted," Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo said.

Crytoanalysts have struggled for 12 years on "encrypted notes" found on murder victim.

In June 1999, 41 year old Ricky McCormick's body was found in a field in St Louis, Missouri. On the victim were two notes in his pocket, written as some kind of code, that have so far defeated the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and others who have tried to crack them.

McCormick's family said that this was common for him, as he used to write coded notes since he was a boy and never revealed the secret to decipher them. The FBI believes the contents of the notes might have information about his whereabouts and activities in the days leading up to his murder, and are appealing to the public for help.

It is looking for "left-field" ideas on how McCormick may have encrypted the note that they never thought of, or samples of other notes written using unconventional methods. "We are really good at what we do," said Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) chief Dan Olson, "but we could use some help with this one."

UK Government-backed website pushed by Prime Minister David Cameron found to link users to malware.

StartUp Britain was found to be linking to a page that served fake anti-virus scareware garbage to users. The website, designed to champions the UK's start-up businesses, only launched on Monday. The operators of the website removed the link when they were informed.

"There were some issues with a link on the website at the launch. This issue has been addressed and any links that were not operating as intended have been amended or removed," StartUp Britain told the BBC News website in a statement.

The website featured a link to an article about billionaire Warren Buffet. The page then took users to a fake banking website, which attempted to peddle the malware.

"It went to a third-party site, bankling.com, where users were redirected to a fake anti-virus page given a prompt saying their computer was infected and encouraging them to download a fix," Paul Baccas, a senior threat researcher at Sophos, said.

Leaked Intel roadmap confirms rumors of PCI Express 3.0 support in Ivy Bridge processors.

The integrated PCI Express controller features sixteen PCIe 3 lanes (can be routed to 1 x16 slot, or 2 x 8 slots) and four PCIe 2 lanes. The third-generation PCI Express controller raises the available bandwidth for each lane to 1GB/s from 500MB/s.

Ivy Bridge will be Intel's first processors built on 22nm technology (die shrink of Sandy Bridge architecture.) They feature several improvements over Sandy Bridge, including the PCI Express Gen 3 lanes and also a new DirectX-compatible GPU that can drive three monitors.

Coupled with the upcoming Panther Point chipset, an Ivy Bridge based system would also support USB 3.0 natively (four USB 3.0 ports, 10 USB 2.0) using a dedicated XHCI controller providing each port full 5Gbps bandwidth. Panther Point will also provide for two SATA 6Gbps ports and four SATA 3Gbps ports.

No time frame has been given for the release of Ivy Bridge processors in the roadmap.

Microsoft is seeking volunteers for a beta of a new Xbox 360 disc format.

"We are conducting an open call for US based participants for a public preview to help us prepare for an updated Xbox 360 disc format," Major Nelson (Larry Hryb) announced today.

The Xbox 360 currently uses the DVD format for its video game titles. Sony opted for Blu-ray for the PS3, which can hold vastly more content than a standard DVD. Some Xbox 360 games comes on multiple discs due to a capacity limit of about 8.5GB on a standard dual-layer DVD.

"This is an important update as we continually strive to improve our products and we could not do so without the help of our great Xbox community," Hryb wrote. "As part of the preview program, you will receive a copy of Halo: Reach along with other possible rewards."

Of course, the announcement is very light on details so its unclear exactly what Microsoft is looking to introduce at this time. The company is seeking thousands of participants, and will give priority to Xbox Live Gold members (though Silver members can apply too.)

If you are interested, check this link.

News Corporation is reportedly in talks with Vevo.com over a possible deal involving MySpace.

News Corp reportedly approached Vevo.com with an offer to buy MySpace outright just weeks ago, but Vevo was not interested. Now, Reuters cites sources in reporting that News Corp is discussing exchanging MySpace for a stake in a new venture.

Possibly the most valueable asset of MySpace is MySpace Music, a collaboration with Universal, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music. Vevo is a joint venture owned by Abu Dhabi Media Co., Universal and Sony Music.

Reuters source indicates that the chances of something coming out of these talks for News Corp. is "very slim." MySpace has been bleeding users at an accelerating rate, and an attempt to relaunch it as a social entertainment hub seems to have mostly failed in its goals.

Web analyst comScore reported last week that MySpace lost about 10 million users in a single month. Specifically, it reports 63 million users of MySpace in February this year, down from 73 million just a month before.

According to reports, hackers have targeted Australia PM Julia Gillard and at least two senior ministers.

According to Sydney's Daily Telegraph, the Australian government was alerted to a security breach by U.S. intelligence that involved the parliamentary computer of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The report claimeds that thousands of e-mails may have been accessed from computers of up to 10 ministers.

Among the computers allegedly breached were those belonging to Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and Defence Minister Stephen Smith.

The newspaper report citing four unnamed government sources as saying Chinese intelligence agencies were among the list of suspects. It is thought that the hack is limited to Australia's lucrative mining industry.

The Australian government would neither confirm or deny the details in the report, with Attorney-General Robert McClelland just stressing that Australian authorities are constantly strengthening security measures.

Kingston has announced a new firmware updaye for SSDNow v100 SSDs due to a bug that could lead to data loss.

The company released a statement to the media today, which reads...

"We have learned that a small percentage of our SSDNow V100 sold in the past has experienced a technical issue on the firmware. Kingston strongly recommends that a firmware update be applied to all SSDNow V100 drives to prevent possible data loss.

The firmware update to fix the technical issue is available via Kingston Technical Support. As with any firmware update, we recommend that you back up your data prior to applying the firmware revision.

Customer satisfaction and producing high quality products is the key to Kingston's success, so we want to make every effort to ensure that our customers are aware of this firmware revision and have the opportunity to patch their V100 drive(s).

The firmware update can be downloaded from our dedicated support page: www.kingston.com/support/ssdnow/v100_firmware.asp

Customers can also contact our customer service hotline at 888.484.9125 for more information.

Affected Part Numbers are:

SV100S2/64GZ, SV100S2D/64GZ, SV100S2N/64GZ
SV100S2/128GZ, SV100S2D/128GZ, SV100S2N/128GZ
SV100S2/256GZ, SV100S2N/256GZ, SV100S2N/256GZ

It is important to note that none of Kingston's other SSDNow products -- with part numbers beginning with SNE, SNM, SS, SNV, SNVP and SVP -- are affected by this potential issue."

Nokia has responded to a setback last Friday in its patent infringement pursuit of Apple by filing a new complaint with the institution.

Once again, the Finnish handset maker accuses Apple of infringing several of its patents with technology used in iPhones, iPads and other Apple products. The new filing relates to seven patents covering multi-tasking operating systems, data synchronization, positioning, call quality and Bluetooth.

"Our latest ITC filing means we now have 46 Nokia patents in suit against Apple, many filed more than 10 years before Apple made its first iPhone," Paul Melin, Nokia's vice president, intellectual property, said in a statement.

Last Friday, an ITC judge found that Apple did not infringe five patents held by Nokia. Unsurprising, Nokia has said it does not agree with the ITC's determination and is waiting the full details of the ruling before it decides how to move forward.

"There is a significant degree of frustration shining through Nokia's announcement ... but more than anything else, Nokia is sending out a strong and unambiguous message that at the end of this epic battle Apple is going to have to send royalty checks to Finland," said Florian Mueller, independent specialist and blogger on patent battles.

Santa Cruz-based Media Rights Technologies has agreed to pay the Beatle's EMI Group label $950,000 to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Using its BlueBeat.com website, the company sold music tracks containing Beatles content for 25 cents each, before they were ever available on iTunes. The site also sold tracks from Radiohead, Coldplay and many other acts without acquiring a license to do so.

Media Rights had originally denied copyright infringement, saying it wasn't offering the original tracks but instead had re-recorded the music and inserted some new artistic effects based on a technique dubbed "psycho-acoustic simulation."

U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton Tucker dismissed the argument. She described it as "obscure and undefined pseudo-scientific language (that) appears to be a long-winded way of describing 'sampling.'" Beatles' tracks first appeared on the iTunes service in November after lengthy negotiations.

Intel Corporation today announced its third generation Solid-State Drive 320 Series.

The SSDs are based on 25-nanometer NAND flash memory, replacing and building on the high-performance Intel X25-M SATA SSD. "Intel designed new quality and reliability features into our SSDs to take advantage of the latest 25nm silicon, so we could deliver cost advantages to our customers," said Pete Hazen, director of marketing for the Intel Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solutions Group.

"Intel's third generation of SSDs adds enhanced data security features, power-loss management and innovative data redundancy features to once again advance SSD technology. Whether it's a consumer or corporate IT looking to upgrade from a hard disk drive, or an enterprise seeking to deploy SSDs in their data centers, the new Intel SSD 320 Series will continue to build on our reputation of high quality and dependability over the life of the SSD."

The Intel SSD 320 Series comes in 40GB, 80GB, 120GB, 160GB and new higher capacity 300GB and 600GB versions, and uses the SATA II interface (3Gbps). The SSD Series produces up to 39,500 input/output operations per second (IOPS) random reads and 23,000 IOPS random writes on its highest-capacity drives.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Google is working on a mobile payments system for Android users.

Consumers would be able to use their smartphones to pay for transactions at retail stores, simply by holding their Android-powered device near a reader at a checkout. The web giant has reportedly teamed with Citigroup and Mastercard on the project.

Paying for products and services using mobile phones is not nearly a new concept, as it has been rolled out in some areas across Europe. Nokia has been pushing for the technology to emerge worldwide, using Near-Field Communication (NFC).

According the WSJ report, Citigroup customers with credit or debit cards will soon be able to download an Android app that works with one model currently on the market (and several coming soon), enabling them to use their phones to make transactions.

Media companies urge UK Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to voluntarily block access to piracy websites.

They are being urged to block access to sites like the Pirate Bay and Newzbin2, as an alternative to media companies targeting end users for copyright infringement. In total, rights holders already have a list of about 100 top priority sites it would like to see blocked by UK ISPs.

In the voluntary system, content owners would have to pass evidence to the ISPs that a certain website is used primarily to aid copyright infringement. ISPs would then take action against the site. However, there are some concerns that are holding ISPs back from committing to any such system.

Firstly, they believe an impartial judge should decide whether a website is aiding illegal activity and should be blocked. Secondly, who would be liable for legal ramifications if a website were incorrectly flagged and blocked off from UK users?

The communications minister, Ed Vaizey, is attempting to push through such a voluntary system as the anti-piracy measures in the Digital Economy Act are fiercely opposed by providers. BT and TalkTalk have reportedly spent more than £1 million in legal fees challenging the act, and it faces a delay of at least 12 months. Both providers have 8.4 million customers in the UK between them.

Encoding.com moves Vid.ly project from private to public beta.

Vid.ly is intended to be a program-universal video URL service for all content creators. The idea is the Vid.ly domain only hosts videos that are guaranteed to play back on all mobile phones and with all web browsers. For content publishers, there is chaos in the video ecosystem with the growing number of devices and lack of standardization across platforms.

With Vid.ly, all videos are pre-transcoded to all popular web and mobile formats, so that when an end user requests a video, Vid.ly detects his device and serves the correct and optimized video. Publishers can embed the HTML5 code provided by Vid.ly directly into their web pages or Flash players, or can share the provided short URL via SMS, Facebook, Twitter or other social media outlets.

"We've seen a tremendous response to the Vid.ly private beta. It's clear that Vid.ly elegantly solves a complex problem for video content producers," said Jeff Malkin, President of Encoding.com.

"We have incorporated suggestions and feedback from our private beta participants and have fine-tuned the service. Now, using the cloud-based scalability of Vid.ly's 'engine,' Encoding.com, we are able to easily expand the service for an open beta and will soon announce the commercial release of Vid.ly Pro."

A report by Ofsted in the UK has said that some of Britains design and technology classes are lagging behind.

It said that too many teachers in England are failing to keep pace with rapid technology innovation around the world. Teachers are making too little use of modern technology in their classes according to the report, which was constructed from inspections of 89 primaries, 89 secondaries (high school) and two special needs schools.

The report wasn't all that bad, marking D&T success in 60 percent of primary schools and 50 percent of secondary schools as good or outstanding. In the best environments, the teaching was challenging with interesting tasks that are relevant for the pupils. In such cases, the students could benefit from up-to-date information and communication technology.

Unfortunately, in a quarter of primary schools and the other half of secondary schools, there wasn't enough opportunities for the students to develop knowledge of electronics, computer aided design and other high-priority areas. That being said, no school was found to have an "unsatisfactory" level of its teaching in the curriculum.

Reports suggest that Motorola Mobility is working on a web-based operating system for mobile devices.

A report by InformationWeek cites a source close to the company in claiming that Motorola Mobility has amassed experienced mobile and web engineers to work on a new web-based operating system platform. The company could use it as an alternative to Google's Android operating system in its products.

Motorola has hired ex-employees from Apple and Adobe. Gilles Drieu, VP of software engineering at Motorola Mobility, formerly of Apple, joined Motorola five months after leaving Apple. He has worked with WhatWG and W3C, and is reportedly a good candidate for heading up the OS project.

Motorola Mobility has not denied that it is working on an operating system, but did reaffirm its support for Android. "Motorola Mobility is committed to Android as an operating system," a company spokesperson told InformationWeek.

"Google is shooting itself in the foot," the source said, citing concerns about Android fragmentation and product differentiation.

China's search heavyweight is said to be testing a new web browser internally.

Baidu has confirmed that it is testing a web browser internally, designed for use with desktop PCs. Spokesman Kaiser Kuo said that the browser "dovetails" with Baidu's "box-computing" technology. Baidu emoployees are currently testing the new software.

This could put Baidu in direct competition with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google's Chrome browser.

Baidu shares rose to their highest level on the Nasdaq on Friday since trading began back in 2005. In the past year, the stock has surged 40 percent. Google's scale back of operations in China in a dispute over a cyber attack on its services has helped Baidu to continue capturing search share from the U.S. company.

There has also been talk about Baidu being involved in the development of a mobile operating system that would directly compete with Android and iOS. The company has been asked about such rumors, and neither confirmed or denied them.

IHS iSuppli shows how Intel kept itself right on top of the processor market in 2010, much to the pain of rival AMD.

Both companies are the top two manufacturers of microprocessors in the world, but the gap between their market share is sobering for anyone looking to take on Intel. Intel claimed 81 percent of sales during 2010, representing a small increase of 0.4 percent over 2009.

AMD on the other hand claimed 11.4 percent of the market, a decline of 0.9 percent over the previous year. Focusing on just the fourth quarter, there was a 12.2 percent drop for AMD in Q4 2010 compared to the same time period a year earlier.

The overall revenue in the market for microprocessors jumped 25 percent in 2010, weighing in at about $40 billion.

It will be interesting to see how the market changes over the coming years as analysts expect millions of tablet devices (and other portable technology) to ship. iSuppli expects that by 2015, 240 million such units will ship. The tablet market reached 17.4 million in 2010, mostly driven by Apple.

Popular digital music service Spotify will soon broadcast its first live gig for its users.

The first ever live gig broadcast by Spotify will be from Koko in London, featuring a headline DJ set by Elly Jackson from La Roux, with other acts including Pony Pony Run Run, The Naked and Famous and Delphic. The event is part of the Nissan Juke "Behind the Hit" campaign.

The show is set for April 5 at Camden's Koko. "Giving our users access to great live music in their own home is the next step in the Spotify experience," said Jonathan Foster, General Manager, Europe, Spotify.

The DJ set will include a track "Helly" by Ben Daniels, a winner of Nissan Juke's Behind the Hit competition.

"The aim of the 'Behind the Hit' competition was to find an uplifting song that sets the mood when you're driving for a night out. We feel we've done that with Helly and look forward to the first public hearing at Koko and through Spotify," said Andy Jackson, online marketing manager for Nissan GB.

The NPD Group reported earlier this week that P2P piracy in the United States declined significantly in 2010.

The market research firm said that the rate of users sharing pirated content on P2P networks dropped to 9 percent during 2010, down from 16 percent reported in 2007. This is a dramatic reversal in the trend of increasing Internet piracy over the last few years.

NPD argues that online piracy is not a fundamental problem for the media industries, because the rates are so low. That opinion clashes violently with the declaration in the IFPI's Digital Media 2010 report that the industry will struggle for its very survival unless piracy is dealt with. However, it mirrors a tone from Warner Music which estimated in a presentation to the FCC that only 13 percent of American's piracy music.

The record label said the actions are harmful, but admitted that pirates do spend money on content too and tend to "drive discovery for others."

The decline in P2P use is strongly linked to the shut down of LimeWire in late 2010. "Limewire was so popular for music file trading, and for so long, that its closure has had a powerful and immediate effect on the number of people downloading music files from peer-to-peer services and curtailed the amount being swapped," said Russ Crupnick, NPD analyst.

Rome Research Lab completed construction of, and is using, a "supercomputer" composed of off-the-shelf PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles.

The lab linked together 1,716 PS3 consoles and exploited the OtherOS functionality (I guess they didn't update then) to build what they are describing as one of the world's fastest and cheapest supercomputers. They claim it is in the top 40 most powerful supercomputers.

Dubbed, The Condor, the system is intended to provide analysts with new levels of detail from pictures gathered from spy planes. It is part of military developments aiming to achieve constant and detailed surveillance over a wide area.

The Condor will enable 24-hour real-time surveillance of a roughly 15 mile-wide area, allowing video processed from radar signals to be viewed in real-time or played back. Such a system can help to investigate the moments before an event such as an explosion or an ambush on military units.

"You can literally rewind or predict forward (in the future), based on the information you have," Mark Barnell, director of high-performance computing at the Rome research lab, said.

The project was started when Richard W. Linderman, then senior scientist at Rome's Air Force research lab, bought a PS3 and played around with OtherOS at home. Out of curiosity, he told his research team to attempt linking eight of the Sony console's together, and was impressed with the result. So then he decided to get 336 and see how that would work out.

Users of the popular Spotify music service were hit by malware on Thursday.

Only users of the ad-supported version of Spotify were affected, while Premium users were not reporting any problems. The malware attacked through advertisements that were displayed, attempting to take advantage of a Java-based exploit to deliver a Trojan to vulnerable Windows installations.

Spotify responded to the problem promptly. "We're currently investigating and have pulled all third party display ads that could have caused the problem until we locate the specific advert," the company said.

The malicious third party adverts were probably region-specific, and so the threat is unlikely to have been very widespread and should easily be dealt with. Avast Anti-Virus and AVG are capable of detecting the exploit if attempted.

Game-maker wants same treatment as heavyweight microblogging site in San Francisco.

Zynga, a game developer potentially worth around $10 billion, is seeking to gain tax breaks in order to keep its headquarters in San Francisco. It said it is optimistic and encouraged by talks that have been ongoing with local government.

The developer, which is responsible for the Farmville game that gained worldwide popularity through Facebook, has threatened to leave the city unless it is treated the same as microblogging giant Twitter, which has already received tax exemptions.

The company only moved into the premises, which has space for about 2,000 emloyees, last September. A spokesperson said the firm is in serious discussions with local government over its tax requests, but did not give any specific details on where the situation is right now.

Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play, the world's first PlayStation-certified smartphone, will hit UK networks on April 1, but O2 is opting out for now.

O2's device testing team rigorously tests each handset the network operator offers to the consumer. When they find problems, they work with the vendors to see how to resolve them and usually this is done easily. Bugs appear in every form of software and we all know full well that mobile phones are definitely not immune to that fact.

Unfortunately, the team has found problems with the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY. "We've been testing the phone non-stop for weeks and have found some bugs in the software that, if they're not fixed, means customers won’t have a great experience," a blog post from Stuart Hibberd, head of O2's testing team, reads.

"We've been working with Sony Ericsson to get these bugs ironed out, but haven't been able to get them fixed in time for us to be able to launch the phone on April 1st as we originally planned."

While its bad news for folks hoping to use the device on the O2 network, you cannot deny it is impressive that the operator would take this step, especially when you consider that they managed to get themselves an exclusive white version of the handset for the market.

A firm in China is accused of planting malware on new phones.

NetQin, a Chinese security firm, has found itself denying that it has conspired to plant malicious software on users' handsets in order to entice them to buy its security software that is capable of removing it. The situation came to light after a report by 3.15 Gala, a Chinese consumer rights programme broadcast on state television.

Applications are often installed on phones in China by dealers who are modifying the phones firmware to work in the country. One such application for Symbian handsets is Feiliu, which attempts too download and install components from the Internet when a connection becomes available.

The software is designed to remove security software installed on a phone, and is also causes the phone to run slow and unstable. Here's where NetQuin comes in, with a solution that can remove the annoyance from a handset and all just for 2 Yuan a go.

Where things start to smell bad is the fact that NetQin is the second largest investor in the firm that developed the Feiliu software in the first place. Not suspicious enough? What if co-founders of both firms worked on their PhDs together? Well, they did.

Reports suggests Apple may snub Spring iOS 5 unveiling.

The company so far has announced new major updates of the iOS mobile operating system for Apple devices in Spring, following up with a launch in the summer. For this reason, a lot of onlookers expected Apple to cram some iOS 5 goodies into the iPad 2 announcement event, but that didn't happen.

Now TechCrunch is citing two sources that say Apple is pushing back iOS to the Fall, and that it will be a major revamp of the operating system. It could also be previewed at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), but it will not be released then.

Interestingly, sources suggest that the new iOS iteration will be built around the cloud, and will lead to several new cloud-based services launched by Apple that could include a music locker, for example. Another service would be based on location and focuses on finding family and friends.

Highly-anticipated game is set back yet again by developer.

Duke Nukem Forever was given new release dates earlier this week. The title will launch on June 10 internationally and in North America on June 14th. Back in January, 2K Games and Gearbox Software turned heads by announcing a May 3 release date for the game.

The delay is certainly not that long, but considering the title was first announced all the way back in 1997 and has become something of a running joke (Duke Nukem Whenever, Duke Nukem Fornever, Duke Nukem IfEver etc.) in the business over the past decade, yet another delay is just not what gamers want to hear anymore.

2K Games finally lost patience with original studio 3D Realms in 2009, suing it and linking up with Gearbox Software instead to develop the title. After Gearbox' major success with Borderlands, the developer used the cash to buy up all Duke Nukem Forever assets and Intellectual Property last year.

The title will be available as both a standard edition, and a "Balls of Steel Collectors Edition", available for PC and on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 console platforms when it launches.

A federal judge has given a boost to rights' holders looking to sue thousands of file sharers in the United States for copyright infringement.

Efforts to sue thousands of people who downloaded and shared movies illegally on the web were challenged by several groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Public Citizen. The group has objected to new litigation campaigns that lump thousands of alleged pirated together.

They believe that the mass jointing of multiple defendants violated federal rules of procedure, and that the plaintiffs had inadequately established jurisdiction. Also, they contend that the First Amendment to the US Constitution protected the defendant's right to anonymity.

U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell dismissed all three arguments, contending that the mass-joining of defendants benefits the plaintiffs and the defendants alike.

"Given the administrative burden of simply obtaining sufficient identifying information to properly name and serve alleged infringers, it is highly unlikely that the plaintiffs could protect their copyrights in a cost-effective manner. Indeed, Time Warner urges the Court to sever the defendants for this very reason. Time Warner asserts that, if joinder were disallowed, its burden of complying with subpoenas would be diminished because the plaintiffs would not be able to proceed against all of the putative defendants individually At this procedural juncture, the plaintiffs have met the requirements of permissive joinder under Rule 20(a)(2). The putative defendants are not prejudiced but likely benefited by joinder, and severance would debilitate the plaintiffs’ efforts to protect their copyrighted materials and seek redress from the putative defendants who have allegedly engaged in infringing activity."

Sony has revealed that PSN services will be taken over by Sony Network Entertainment America.

The switch will be made on April 1, and the impact of the change on end users should be minimal. Gamers digital wallets and funds will be transfered over to SNEA. Users will be required to accept a new Terms of Service and User Agreement with SNEA.

Failing to accept the new terms will result in the closure of accounts and funds being refunded to the user.

The switch of online services from Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) to SNEA has been expected for some time now as SNEA already manages the online operations of other Sony products such as Bravia, Blu-ray Players and Dash.

Research In Motion (RIM) has announced it acquired startup tinyHippos without disclosing specifics of the deal.

The Ontario-based developer created a cross-platform mobile application development tool called Ripple. Tyler Lessard of RiM said that tinyHippos was bought by the Blackberry-maker due to its "extensive experience in web and mobile widget/web development."

RIM will launch its Playbook tablet computer next month, warning earlier this week that its earnings were likely to slip due to the financial cost of pushing out the Playbook.

The Canadian firm said it will offer support for Android applications on the tablet. This could enable it to run over 200,000 third-party apps that are available for the Android platform today. It enters a market dominated by Apple and at the same time as many other competing "iPad killers" are due to drop.

Malte Spitz, a German Green party politician, has shown the level of tacking a mobile provider can do as you carry around your phone.

He went through a process to find out exactly what his provider, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts over a period of time that he had his phone constantly. Between August 31, 2009 and February 28th, 2010, the operator had saved his longitude and latitude coordinates over 35,000 times.

Privacy experts claim that Spitz actions provide a rare glimpse into how phone companies can track and keep data on us without us ever consenting or having a clue it is happening at all.

Technically, an operator's network needs to know your location all the time. The nearest network equipment to your location is sought every few seconds for optimal call routing purposes, and an operator also needs to track location in cases for billing purposes.

Spitz information however was not gathered and saved from these normal updates, however. "We are all walking around with little tags, and our tag has a phone number associated with it, who we called and what we do with the phone," said Sarah E. Williams, an expert on graphic information at Columbia University's architecture school.

Microsoft has denied that it blocked HTTPS access to Hotmail for several countries.

Instead, the Redmond-based software giant said a mystery bug caused the problems. The issue has since been resolved but Microsoft admits it is still investigating exactly what caused the bug in the first place.

Users in certain countries were unable to switch on the safer HTTPS version of Hotmail. Some questions were raised when it was revealed that Syrian users were getting an error message attempting to do so, due to ongoing political unrest in the country.

"Your Windows Live ID can't use HTTPS automatically because this feature is not available for your account type," a message to users read. Hotmail users who has already opted for HTTPS were not affected in any way.

"We do not intentionally limit support by region or geography and this issue was not restricted to any specific region of the world. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers that this may have caused," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

The Bahams, Caymen Islands and Fiji were also affected, according to Microsoft.

AMD has publicly called out competitor NVIDIA over a performance claim made by the graphics chip-maker.

Dave Erskine, Senior Public Relations Manager for Graphics Desktop at AMD, wrote on a company blog about how it prides itself on achieving excellence in its products and the integrity of its messageing. As an example, he used the flag-ship AMD Radeon HD 6990, describing how the company came to claim it was the World's Fastest Graphics Card.

"We had designed it to be a game-changer and we hit the bull's eye. The result: The AMD Radeon HD 6990 achieved the highest default single graphics card score of X3303 using the industry standard 3DMark11 benchmark," Erskine wrote.

"And when we launched it, we issued a press release in which we proudly called it the 'World's Fastest Graphics Card' and fully disclosed the basis upon which we made that claim."

Earlier this week, NVIDIA issued its own press release, announcing the GTX 590 graphics chip. They also claimed in the press information that the GTX 590 was the World's Fastest Graphics Card. Erskine said that the folks at AMD combed through all the available information, looking for anything that could substantiate NVIDIA's claim.

Acer's stab at the market for tablet PCs is hitting Europe on April 8 this year.

It will launch its first two Iconia Tab models, which are the Windows 7-equipped W500 and the Android-equipped A500, each with a base price of £449. Each packs a 10.1-inch 1280x800 LED-backlit touchscreen.

The W500 runs on AMD's Brazos technology, featuring a 1GHz C-50 APU with Radeon HD 6250 graphics, 2GB of memory and a 32GB solid-state disk drive. It also features an SD card reader, HDMI-output, G-sensor and built-in 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. The system runs Microsoft's Windows 7 Home Premium operating system.

The A500 runs on NVIDIA's Tegra 2 technology. It features 1GB of RAM and 32GB of flash storage. It features a read 5 megapixel camera and front 2 megapixel camera. It features 3G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a micsoSD card slot, HDMI-output and two USB ports. It runs the Android 3.0 (Honecomb) operating system.

The W500 can also come with 3G at an additional cost and also can be bundled with a keyboard dock which also includes Ethernet and dual USB 2.0 connectors.

Google has pushed out an update for its Chrome browser addressing some serious bugs.

The Chrome stable and beta channels have been updated to 10.0.648.204 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame. The update addresses some performance and stability issues in the browser, and includes six security fixes. Additionally, support for the password manager has been added on Linux.

Security fixes include..

• [72517] High CVE-2011-1291: Buffer error in base string handling.
• [73216] High CVE-2011-1292: Use-after-free in the frame loader.
• [73595] High CVE-2011-1293: Use-after-free in HTMLCollection.
• [74562] High CVE-2011-1294: Stale pointer in CSS handling.
• [74991] High CVE-2011-1295: DOM tree corruption with broken node parentage.
• [75170] High CVE-2011-1296: Stale pointer in SVG text handling.

AMD manager has gone into damage control over comments he made about the DirectX API in a recent interview with Bit-Tech.

Richard Huddy, manager of AMD's GPU division, commented that developers wanted the DirectX API to "go away", saying developers had made such admissions in conversations. He hinted that DirectX and other APIs get in the way of creating some amazing computer graphics.

However, in a newer interview with CRN, Huddy seemed to be backing off the stance and even claimed the comments shouldn't be taken literally. "The [Bit-tech] interview started off being about OpenGL, and the way APIs are developed," Huddy said.

"Obviously there's pressure from Microsoft on hardware vendors to develop DirectX in a variety of ways. We spend a great deal of time getting feedback from game developers in the early phase of our hardware development, for products that are two or three years away from going to market."

Nokia has moved to quash fears that it may be preparing to drop Symbian-based phones much too quickly.

The Finnish mobile phone giant said it will continue to sell handsets that run Symbian software for a long time after it has started to move devices that run Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 software. The company is expected to begin phasing out Symbian over the coming few years as it rolls out WP7 handsets.

"We will be selling (Symbian) devices long after Windows Phone devices from Nokia have already started to appear," Purnima Kochikar, head of developer relations at Nokia, said in a letter to devs. Symbian phones have lost market share due to competition from iOS and Android models, but it is still strongly profitable for Nokia.

Kochikar said that coming Symbian models will focus on strong integration of services, and that they will use faster processors than their predecessors. They will brought up to GHz+ levels, which is where Nokia's competitors are already at. Both Nokia's N8 and E7 use 680 MHz processors.

If analyst comScore is right about the latest trends for the recently revamped MySpace, then News Corp. has more to cry about.

The industry analyst say its figures show MySpace lost an incredible 10 million users between January and February of this year. Specifically, it reports 63 million users of MySpace in February this year, down from 73 million just a month before.

Compared to last year, comScore says MySpace has lost a massive 50 million users, down from close to 110 million in February 2010. The social networking site has attempted to rebrand itself as an entertainment hub focused on music.

At one time it was considered the number 1 social networking site across the world, but saw its popularity eaten up by Facebook, which now touts over 600 million users. MySpace has recently announced it will slash half of its staff, and reports suggest that News Corp. is looking to sell the service asap.

Having bought it for a princely sum of $330 million back in 2005, News Corp could expect to get as little as $50 million now for MySpace.

It has been reported that Facebook currently kicks about 20,000 underage kids from its service every day.

The minimum age requirement for using the social networking site is 13 years old. Even though Facebook has no way to check up on the actual age of a member, it still manages to remove 20,000 accounts per day of users that appear to have lied about their age to join.

Facebook's chief privacy adviser Mozelle Thompson admits that Facebook's system for identifying and removing accounts held by underage users is "not perfect," but nevertheless, the company is at least doing something to try to uphold the age rule.

The figure sounds like a lot, but it is nothing in comparison to the 600 million and growing users of Facebook. A Pew study that found half of 12 year old's in the United States use social networking sites must also be taken into consideration.

U.S. Senator Al Franken has addressed the issue already, and co-signed a letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Franken argues that it should be impossible for underage and teen users of Faacebook to inadvertently share their phone number, home address or other sensitive information publicly where it could be misused.

Apple has been praised by several groups for responding to an online petition to remove an "anti-gay" application from its App Store.

The app, launched by Exodus International, promoted the idea of "curing gay people." In response, a Truth Wins Out petition setup on Change.org received 146,000 signatures from people who wanted to see the application removed from the App Store.

Apple responded by removing the application, prompting praise from several groups. "Apple made a wise and responsible decision to dump an offensive app that demonized gay and lesbian people," said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. "The real winners today are LGBT youth who are safer and less at risk for receiving Exodus' malice and misinformation."

Gary Remafedi, a researcher from the University of Minnesota, had also previously requested that Apple take action against the application, which he said grossly distorted his work to back up its claims.

The American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, and American Counseling Association have all rejected "ex-gay" therapy, saying that it can result in serious harm to the mental health of participants.

A U.S. Judge's decision to compel Twitter to hand over data of three users linked to the Wikileaks website has been appealed by rights' groups in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are challenging the ruling, made earlier this month, which compels Twitter to hand over data on American, Icelandic and Dutch twitter users somehow linked to the controversial website.

"Except in very rare circumstances, the government should not be permitted to obtain information about individuals' private Internet communications in secret," said ACLU staff attorney Aden Fine. "If the ruling is allowed to stand, our client might never know how many other companies have been ordered to turn over information about her, and she may never be able to challenge the invasive requests."

Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan rejected claims that seeking the Twitter information violated freedom of speech and privacy, on the basis that the three individuals had already made their Twitter posts and their associations public knowledge voluntarily. She also stressed that the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution protected people against "unreasonable" searches by authorities.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix is close to a deal with Miramax that could be worth over $100 million over five years.

The outlet cites a source close to the companies in reporting that both are close to an agreement that will see Netflix streaming a considerable number of titles from Miramax's extensive library to its subscribers over the Internet.

In an earlier report, WSJ valued the deal at about $50 million over five years, but then changed the figure to "far north of" $100 million over five years.

Netflix has seen its streaming service grow to become a huge part of its business, while its mail-based DVD rental service is still in wide use. If the deal with Miramax goes through, it will reportedly result in more than 700 titles becoming available for Netflix customers.

A U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) panel has said it will review a January decision made against Eastman Kodak Co in a patent dispute.

In January, an ITC judge ruled that Research in Motion, and Apple Inc., had not infringed on Kodak patents. Kodak brought the case to the ITC, which has the power to halt imports of products into the United States, as it seeks royalties for patented technology it says is used in Apple and RIM products.

If victorious, it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties for Kodak. The complaint was filed with ITC in January 2010, and a final decision is expected in May of this year.

Both LG and Samsung have settled in similar disputes with Kodak, agreeing to pay $400 million and $550 million respectively to license Kodak's technology.

However, Kodak has struggled to get by in the modern world of affordable digital cameras and smartphones, with analysts considering its extensive patent portfolio as its most valuable asset.

The U.S. State Department is developing and pushing new technology to help democracy activists and other protesters around the world to get around blocks and censorship.

One of the new technologies it is pushing is a panic button app made for mobile phones. In the recent slew of protests throughout the middle east, mobile phones have played a big part in driving the protests. However, mobile phones have been confiscated and data including messages and address books have been mined for information on others involved.

Using the "panic button" would securely erase all of that information on a phone, and also send out a warning to everyone else to be careful.

Since the U.S. Government asked Twitter to delay a scheduled update to allow Iranian users continue to use the site during the 2009 election protests, the administration has realized the usefulness of Internet and other services for activists. However, it has also noted how many oppressive governments can, and do, implement blocks and censorship to make it hard for people to communicate or get certain information.

The state department has been working with technology firms to develop circumvention technology intended for use to get around state firewalls easily and on methods for activists to protect their communications and information from snooping.

Apple has addressed some bugs in its gadgets with the release of iOS 4.3.1.

The update is available for users of iPhone 4 (although CDMA just yet), iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (3rd, 4th gen), iPad and iPad 2. Apple supplied the following information about what the iOS 4.3.1 update changes over the recently released iOS 4.3...

• Fixes an occasional graphics glitch on iPod touch (4th generation)
• Resolves bugs related to activating and connection to some cellular networks
• Fixes image flicker when using Apple Digital AV adapter with some TVs
• Resolves an issue authenticating with some enterprise web services

Google Inc.'s YouTube video-sharing service has added tools to assist in the creation of video content.

The tools aim to help users who do not have a video camera or any video creation/editing experience. A beta of www.youtube.com/create lets users work with three video creation tools that simplify the process.

"More than 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and with the motto of 'Broadcast Yourself', it's hard to believe that anyone is left out of the YouTube experience," the YouTube blog states. "But the truth is, sites like YouTube do largely leave out people who don't have a video camera."

GoAnimate and Xtranormal allows users to create animated videos easily, and quickly, without requiring any experience with animation at all. Users can produce animated videos that feature a text storylike. Stupeflix on the other hand, lets users upload their own photos, clips maps and music to make video slideshows and presentations.

The tools are free to use through the youtube.com/create beta, though some tools offer premium options on their own websites.

The controllers of the recently dismantled Rustock botnet are being sought by investigators.

At its peak, the Rustock botnet could push out over 30 billion spam messages every single day. It consisted of over 1 million hijacked computers around the world, and appears to have been controlled by only a small team of about three individuals.

"It does not look like there were more than a couple of people running it to me," said Alex Lanstein, a senior engineer at security firm FireEye. Computers were hijacked when their users visited crafted malicious websites. Updates were pushed out regularly using custom written encryption. Updates were disguised to look like genuine discussion forum messages to evade detection by security firms scouring the web.

The servers found to be used to control the botnet were located in middle-America, not usually where you would expect to find them. Hosting costs would have ran up to $10,000 per month, but the operators are believed to have made many times that amount pushing out spam for fake pharmaceuticals.

Work done by Microsoft, FireEye and Pfizer culminated in the seizure of 96 command and control servers on March 16. Since the action, global spam levels dropped significant and continue to remain low. The operators of the botnet do not appear to have attempted to regain control over it either.

Apple has been given a victory in its patent war with Nokia after a trade panel ruled the iPhone-maker did not violate Nokia patents.

Nokia had accused Apple of violating no less than five patents held by the Finnish phone giant in several of its products. The ITC complaint was filed by Nokia in December 2009, and is just one action taken in an on-going patent feud between both tech firms.

Judge James Gildea of the ITC said Apple did not violate the patents in question, and now the commission must decide to uphold or throw out his decision. It will be probed by the commission in August this year.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) has the power to halt imports of products into the U.S. that are found to be violating patents, which makes it an attractive institution for firms caught in a patent dispute. Generally, separate lawsuits are filed in district courts that seek compensation for the alleged infringement.

Nokia is losing ground in the smartphone market to Apple, and to firms that produce smartphones that run the Android operating system.

The Weinstein Company is moving into the video games business.

The firm announced on Friday that it launched TWC Games, which it says will develop video games for consoles, mobile phones and for social network use. It will work with Beefy Media, a video games production company, on titles in the future.

"The video game marketplace is changing at such a rapid rate. With all of the digital platforms, there are so many opportunities to broaden our audience with compelling, high quality, cost-efficient, video game entertainment," Bob Weinstein, TWC games co-chairman, said.

"We plan to combine our extensive video game developer relationships with the impressive catalog of properties to create and produce content made by gamers for gamers," said Beefy Media President Adam Boyes.

GameStop Corp. turned some heads by forecasting stronger-than-expected profits for 2011.

The news is welcomed by the games industry which has been waiting for a rebound amidst falling sales. The company, which posted higher profit than expected, said it expects sales to be flat to 3 percent higher in 2011. The results pushed up the share price of some firms in the business, such as Electronic Arts.

"That positive commentary from GameStop helped publishers today," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

GameStop also called attention to strong demand for Nintendo's new 3DS handheld, launching this weekend. Reservations for the product have exceeded supply, said GameStop President Tony Bartel. "We've literally had to go back to Nintendo and get more product."

The world's largest video games retailer hopes the 3DS will boost sales in the global video games industry, estimated at around $60.4 billion.

Google Inc. will make developers wait for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) to be available as open source code, it has announced.

The web giant said that Honeycomb is not yet ready to be customized for use for Smartphones and other gadgets, after developing it for use with tablet computers. Honeycomb is already in use with Motorola Mobility's Xoom tablet since February.

Google's announcement might be greeted with skepticism by some developers, as Google's policy for Android has been to allow developers to freely modify the operating system software as they see fit.

"While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones," a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. "We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready."

No timeframe was given for the Honeycomb source being opened to developers. Android is the most used smartphone operating system in the world.

The finger of blame is being pointed at Iran in what's being called a state-driven attack on Internet security.

Attackers managed to trick a HTTPS/TLS Certificate Authority into issuing fraudulent certificates. The improperly issued certs covered high-value domains including google.com, login.yahoo.com and addons.mozilla.org. One cert was for "global trustee" which could have enabled the impersonation of any domain on the web.

The CA involved, Comodo, said that one fraudulent login.yahoo.com cert was briefly deployed on an Iranian server. The attack on Comodo came primarily from IP addresses from Iran.

The system attacked acts as a guarantee of identity for some of the world's most popular web services. The certificate acts as a digital passport which is checked by the web browser in use. Most browsers have since been updated to detect the use of the bogus certificates to protect users. An obtained fraudulent certificate could aid in impersonating a popular web service on a malicious server.

Comodo said the attack exhibited "clinical accuracy" and added it was likely to be a state-driven attack. Since it came from Iranian sources and appears to have targeted mainly web communications services, it is thought to have been carried out at the request of Iranian authorities in pursuit of opposition groups in the country that use the web to coordinate their activities on the ground.

Kingston has announced it is shipping new Class 10 microSDHC cards.

The world leader in memory products announced it will be shipping 4GB and 8GB capacity Class 10 microSDHC cards, joining the 16GB Class 10 microSDHC card currently on the market. Additionally, the company revealed it will add a 32GB capacity card to the line-up in the second quarter.

Class 10 cards tout a fast transfer rate of 10MB/s. In addition to the Class 10 cards, Kingston currently ships the microSDHC card in a Class 4 specification as both a standalone and part of the Mobility in capacities up to 32GB.

"Kingston's Class 10 microSDHC cards are compatible with many of the latest mobile phones including Android smartphones and BlackBerry devices, hi-def cameras and the increasingly popular tablet PCs," said Mike Kuppinger, Flash card business manager, Kingston.

"The Class 10 speed provides faster data transfer rates and the various capacities help satisfy storage needs for users with both light and heavy memory needs."

The Kingston Class 10 microSDHC cards are available in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities costing $22, $37 and $138 respectively (add $1 for inclusion of SD Adapter to each.)

The Linux Foundation has announced the formation of the MeeGo Smart TV Working Group.

MeeGo is an open source project targeting several segments of the market including netbooks, smartphones, tablets, TVs and more. The new Working Group is designed to drive the evolution of MeeGo within the television ecosystem and provide an open framework for industry creativity and innovation.

The Working Group features some heavyweight participants already, including Amino Communications, Intel Corporation, JetHead Development, Locatel, MIPS Technologies, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Sigma Designs, Telecom Italia, Videon Central, and Ysten.

"The Smart TV segment is growing fast, and with it comes both opportunity and complexity," said Ibrahim Haddad, Director of Technical Alliances at The Linux Foundation. "MeeGo is built from the ground up to address next-generation computing in multiple market segments like Smart TV and is intended to help advance Linux in this burgeoning market in the year ahead."

Working Group members will define software components and a compliance program as well as focus on building an innovative and thriving ecosystem of developers and content providers with leading capabilities and tools.

The latest release in the Google Chrome beta channel adds support for HTML speech input API.

Developers will be able to test out speech-to-text features on their web applications through the Chrome browser thanks to the added support, which stems from work Google has been doing with the HTML Speech Incubator Group.

Web apps will be able to transcibe voice heard through a computer's microphone to text. The user would click on an icon on the application and speak into the mic. The data is then sent to speech servers for transcription and the text is then typed out automatically for the user.

For those who would like to test this out, and are running the latest Chrome beta, check out an example here.

The latest beta also offered devs a sneak peak at GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, allowing for slick 3D effects on webpages using CSS.

Toshiba has unveiled a new 14-inch USB-powered mobile LCD Monitor designed for use on-the-go with notebook computers.

The Toshiba 14-inch USB-powered Mobile LCD Monitor is intended to provide a multi-screen solution where it otherwise wouldn't be easily possible. The ultra-portable monitor is designed to fit in most laptop bags, getting its power via a USB cable. Video is also fed via USB, eliminating the need for a video lead or an AC adapter (though an AC adapter is optionally available.)

Providing a maximum resolution of 1366x768, the monitor weighs just 2.8 lbs and can be neatly folded up. It is DisplayLink-certified and compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, Vista and XP. It is limited to 256,000 colors, but considering how it is powered and its intended use, it is adequate. It's specs list a contrast ratio of 400:1 and response rate of 16ms.

The screen is easily controlled with simple buttons to set brightness and other settings. It comes with a USB Y cable, cover, CD-ROM and documentation (an optional AC adapter is sold separately).

   
  

The European Union revealed a "serious" cyber attack against EU bodies on Wednesday, the eve of a summit held in Brussels.

"We're often hit by cyber attacks but this is a big one," a BBC source stated. The commission assessed the scale of the threat at the time and shut down accross to e-mail and to the institutions' intranet to prevent the disclosed of unauthorized information. Staff were also asked to change their passwords and other information as a precaution.

"The Commission and External Advisory Service are subject to a serious cyber attack," Antony Gravili, the spokesman for the inter-institutional relations and administration commissioner, told BBC News. "We are already taking urgent measures to tackle this. An inquiry's been launched. This isn't unusual as the commission is frequently targeted."

France's Finance Ministry was targeted in December. Attackers attempted to steal information about the G20 summit which was held in Paris in February.

French Budget Minister Francois Baroin confirmed the attack at the time and said an investigation had been launched into the source.

UK Chancellor George Osborne's budget will lead to some tax relief for the games industry in the region, according to TIGA.

The trade group represents the games industry in the United Kingdom, and has been lobbying for tax breaks for UK gaming firms to help it compete on the world stage. The group said that the plans in the budget to enhance R&D tax credits is a "decisive victory" that will be worth around £7 million to the industry.

Osborne did not go nearly far enough to protect the UK games industry however, according to TIGA. The group has been lobbying for more aggressive tax measures to help the ailing UK games industry, as international competitors are offering all kinds of incentives to bring the business to within their borders.

"The R&D tax credits will deliver 60% to 70% more value to games studios than the current tax credit regime," TIGA chief executive, Dr Richard Wilson, said. He was unhappy that the new coalition government was unable to go further however.

"Failure to deliver TIGA's Games Tax Relief is a dismal decision that displays a complete lack of imagination and one which will leave the UK video games industry swimming against the tide internationally," Wilson declared. "Our key competitors have tax breaks for games production. The UK does not."

United States senators have cried foul over applications for smart phones that they say enable people to drive drunk with less chance of getting caught.

Senators Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Harry Reid of Nevada, Charles Schumer of New York and Tom Udail of New Mexico, all Democrats, signed a letter sent to Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, RiM's James Balsille and Scott Forstall, Apple executive in charge of software for iPhone.

"Giving drunk drivers a free tool to evade checkpoints, putting innocent families and children at risk, is a matter of public concern," the letter from the senators states. They have asked the firms to remove the apps from stores, saying they present a real threat to public safety.

The apps apparently allow users to alert each other to the locations of police stops. The letter does not name the apps specifically, but claim they have as many as 10 million users and offer databases of police checkpoints updated in real-time.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, around 10,000 people are killed each year in accidents that involve drunk drivers.

The Chinese government has denied accusations made by web giant Google Inc. that it is disrupting its e-mail service in the region.

Google said on Monday that users in China were experiencing some problems with their GMail service, and that it was a result of government blocks and not a problem with the e-mail service itself. It went further to say that the blockage was "carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu denied the charge from Google on Tuesday. "This is an unacceptable accusation," she said during a regular news conference.

According to affected users, the disrupting experienced with GMail in China comes amidst calls for protests against the government like those seen in the middle east recently.

Google scaled back its presence in China last year after it blamed China-based organizations for attempting to hack e-mail accounts of known Chinese human rights activists. Beijing still denies any involvement in the spat that caused tension between China and the United States.

German security researcher Ralph Langner has told an audience at this years TED conference that the United States and Israel were most likely behind the Stuxnet malware.

He said that the malware was designed specifically to cripple systems related to Iran's nuclear program. Langner was one of the first researchers to show how Stuxnet is used to take control of industrial equipment. The most likely target of the malware was equipment used for the enrichment of uranium.

"My opinion is that Mossad is involved," he said. "There is only one leading source, and that is the United States."

Symantec had suggested in a report on Stuxnet that it would have taken a team of between 5 and 10 developers about six months to create the Stuxnet worm. Langner says they needed to have inside information to get the worm to its intended targets and to carry out its duties.

Analysts say that Stuxnet was likely designed to damage centrifuges used in the process of enriching uranium. The worm targeted programmable logic controllers (PLCs) made by Siemens, which are used to control a wide variety of industrial systems.

A row over the rights to broadcast football games has resulted in a ban of Google's blogspot service in Turkey.

Digiturk, a satellite TV provider in Turkey, made a copyright complaint after discovering feeds of its broadcasts of football matches on Google's blogspot service. A court in Turkey dealt with the problem by simply blocking the service altogether, which is permitted by the country's copyright laws.

The move is likely to anger the estimated 600,000 users of blogspot in the country who will now either have to wait for another resolution, or use a technical measure to get around the block.

Google acknowledged the blocking of its popular blogging service in Turkey, saying those with concerns about piracy should use its simple takedown systems rather than banning the service outright. "The process for making a copyright claim for content uploaded to Blogger is straightforward and efficient, and we encourage all content owners to use it rather than seek a broad ban on access to the service," said a Google spokesperson.

"That way, people in Turkey can continue to enjoy Blogger whilst we respond to the specific complaint."

Google has thrown out some rogue applications from the Android Marketplace after it emerged that they contained a virus.

All in all, more than 50 applications got the boot and three accounts were suspended after the discovery. A Reddit user, "Lompolo" is credited with finding the first dodgy apps after he noticed an application was listed under the name of a developer he knew didn't develop it.

The application was exactly the same as the original except for a change of title and of course, the malicious code buried inside it.

He initially found 21 apps but a further investigation by Android Police uncovered 50 in total. Lompolo estimated the rogue applications to have been downloaded between 50,000 and 200,000 times.

The virus lurking in the applications is "DroidDream", which immediately would call home to a remote server and send certain information, such as the phone's unique ID number. It checks first whether the handset is already infected and if not, will utilize a bunch of known security flaws in the operating system to infect the handset.

Once infected, code can be installed on the phone remotely and sensitive information can be stolen.

Facebook has been valued at $65 billion as General Atlantic looks to invest in the popular social networking giant.

General Atlantic is seeking to buy about 2.5 million shares of Facebook from former employees, which will give the firm a 0.1 percent stake in the company. The deal has not closed as it requires the approval of Facebook first, which has not given public comment on the original report from CNBC.

Back in January this year, Facebook announced that it raised $1.5 billion from investors that included Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies. At the time, the investments valued Facebook at about $50 billion.

The mammoth valuation of Facebook reflects its penetration into the every day lives of millions of people around the world. The site, launched originally in 2004, has amassed half a billion users across the world.

The new VIA Eden X2 dual-core processor has been unveiled at Embedded World 2011.

The company claims the fanless Eden X2 is the world's most power-efficient dual-core processor. It is made for use with a broad range of industrial and commercial embedded systems.

"Eden X2 shows how once again VIA is setting the pace when it comes to highly optimized, power-efficient processing," said Daniel Wu, Vice President, VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "Embedded developers will relish the opportunity to integrate a native 64-bit, dual-core processor in passively cooled, ultra stable systems."

Designed with the latest 40nm manufacturing processor, the VIA Eden X2 processors combine two 64-bit, superscalar VIA Eden cores on one die, offering enhanced multi-tasking and superb multimedia performance on a rigidly low power budget.

It also touts VIA VT virtualization, a technology that allows legacy software and applications to be used in virtual scenarios without impacting on performance. The unique VIA AES Security Engine offers hardware-based data encryption on the fly, and essential tool in content protection and system security.

VIA Eden X2 processors are natively 64-bit compatible, facilitating an essential transition for the future of the embedded industry as 64-bit operating systems such as Windows Embedded Standard 7 allow for vastly improved data throughput per clock cycle. It is also fully compatible with the Windows CE and Linux operating systems.

According to reports, Microsoft Corp. will not unveil an operating system for tablets to compete with Android and iOS until next year.

Bloomberg cites people familiar with the company's plans in reporting that Microsoft will not release a tablet OS until the 2012 back-to-school season. This means Microsoft will be entering the competition very late, with many analysts claiming 2011 will be the year of the tablet wars.

It provides Apple and Google with ample time to strengthen their hold on the market. Microsoft's OS will likely be released after a third iPad is unveiled by Apple. HP and RiM, among many other firms, will likely have released second generation tablets by then too.

In January this year, Microsoft vowed to support ARM architecture-based processors in the next versions of its Windows operating systems. ARM processors are used in smartphones and tablets to drive the feature-rich devices while keeping power consumption and heat as low as possible.

Higher demand for PC alternatives, such as tablets, will result in lower than expected PC shipments this year, according to research firm Gartner. Microsoft's Windows operating system powers more than 90 percent of personal computers, but Apple is claiming 90 percent of the tablet market, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Sony has admitted that PlayStation 3 consoles have been seized by customs officers in the Netherlands.

It was reported earlier this week that tens of thousands of PS3 units were seized in the Netherlands following a Dutch court order. The actions stem from a patent dispute between Sony and LG Electronics, which has so far resulted in a 10-day import ban being ordered.

The legal dispute between both consumer electronics firms can be traced back three years, when the companies failed to renew a technology sharing deal. Since then, both have sued the other alleging patent infringement.

Last year, Sony tried to have imports of LG smartphones to the United States blocked, while last month LG filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging the PS3 infringes on patents related to Blu-ray technology

While the Netherlands is an important entry point to the European market for Sony, the company is looking for alternative solutions to avoid supply problems anywhere in Europe. It does not affect the issue to affect its regional sales.

Intel has shown off the next in a line of new solid-state drives (SSDs) featuring fast SATA 6Gbps performance.

The new drives in the Intel Solid-State Drive 510 Series take full advantage of the transition to higher speed SATA bus interfaces on the recently introduced 2nd Generation Intel Core processor-based platforms. The SSD 510 models support transfer speeds up to 500MB/s, doubling the sequential read speeds, and triples the sequential write speeds of the 3Gbps line to 315MB/s.

The Intel SSD 510 with 6Gbps SATA interface outperforms 10,000 RPM HDDs by 50 percent for fast performance and high visual fidelity game play. The line is aimed at gamers, media creators and performance-intensive workstations.

"The Intel SSD 510 Series helps round out our SSD product line and was specifically designed for applications that require high sequential media transfers," said Pete Hazen, director of marketing for Intel's NAND Solutions Group.

"Whether it's a gamer wanting impeccable visual performance and faster game loading, or a performance-intensive workstation user, the new 6Gbps SATA SSD from Intel is not only significantly faster than the top 10,000 RPM gaming HDD, it's also faster than two RAIDed gaming HDDs."