News written by James Delahunty (February, 2013)

UK regulator Ofcom has raised over a billion pounds less than it expected to make from its long-awaited 4G auction in the country.

It had forecast a haul of about £3.5 billion, but ended up netting £2.34 billion instead. In 2000, when mobile operators bid on 3G spectrum in the UK, the regulator raised £22 billion. Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, said the figure is much lower because we are now in very, very different times.

"What we were trying to do was ensure that a valuable economic resource was brought into productive commercial use," he said.

The winners of the UK's 4G auction were Everything Everywhere; Hutchison 3G UK; Niche Spectrum Ventures, a BT subsidiary; Telefonica (O2); and Vodafone.

The shortfall might cause headaches for Chancellor George Osborne, as he had included £3.5 billion worth of 4G auction receipts in his Autumn statement in December. He had predicted that the UK's budget deficit would fall in 2012-13, but now with a shortfall of over a billion in the 4G auction, all bets are off.

Some users of Sony's PlayStation Network got a surprise on Wednesday with a free PSN code for $10.

Sony sent out messages to some of its users giving them a free $10 voucher to use. The gift giving was likely linked to the PlayStation Event that Sony held in New York on Wednesday, where it announced the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console.

"Thank you for being a loyal customer and fan of PlayStation Network," the message reads. "As a token of our appreciation, we've sent you $10.00 to spend on the PlayStayion Store!"

Sony has run promotions in the past where some credit was given back to users for spending in the PlayStation Store, but it usually had those advertised.

The operator of an Italian file sharing website has been filed €6.4 million, or about $8.5 million.

ItalianShare had about 300,000 users and reportedly had 30,000 links to copyrighted material available through file lockets, BitTorrent and eD2K. The site operator, identified only as PG, was arrested in July last year on charged of copyright violations, tax fraud and others.

Italian authorities said that the defendant made €580,000 from advertisements and donations to the site.

He has been fined €6.4 million euros by the Salermo provincial judicial authority, after a case was brought against him by the Finance Guard's local office in Agropoli, which is responsible for investigating cybercrime, financial crime, smuggling, Intellectual property infringement and more.

At the Sony PlayStation event in New York, it was announced that Diablo III would be made available for the PS3 and PS4.

Diablo III was released last June and is only available for Windows and Mac. That's going to change however, as Blizzard Entertainment's VP of development, Chris Metzen, said that they had teamed up with Sony to take over the world.

He revealed that Diablo III is already running on PS3 hardware, and that it was amazing. He didn't give details about it working on prototype PS4 hardware, but confirmed it would be available for both the PS3 and PS4 soon.

Striking a deal with Blizzard is a big win for Sony, and one can only wonder if it will extend beyond Diablo into other franchises over the lifespan of the PS4.

Sony announced the PS4 on Wednesday.

Sony has officially announced the PlayStation 4 console at an event in New York, confirming many previous rumors and leaks.

Andrew House, CEO and President of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), gave some hardware details for the upcoming console. It will use an x86 CPU as a nod to easier development for the console, and will pack 8GB of RAM.

It will include local storage - no information on how much just yet - and has a high performance graphics card with GDDR5 memory. The system allows you to simply Suspend it - mid-gameplay - and Resume it later. The state of your console will be stored in RAM, so you do not need to wait for the console to boot, and then load the game and load your save.. it will just continue from where it left off.

The new DualShock 4 controller has the Share button that we all already knew about, enhanced rumbling, a headphone jack and is tracked by a camera that is still in development. PlayStation Move will be supported on PS4.

Thanks to Gaikai, if you have a PSVita, you will be able to use it for Remote Play from the PS4, and eventually will be able to stream older PlayStation titles to the PS4 from the cloud.

The PlayStation 4 will allow you to play games as you download them, and has dedicated hardware that will handle game updates and other such annoyances in the background. The console makes it easy to connect directly with friends, building social networking right into the experience.

At the PlayStation event, Sony has unleashed some of the details of the PlayStation 4's interaction with the cloud and what it means for gamers.

The PS4 has integrated technology acquired from Gaikai last year, according to Gaikai CEO David Perry. It will allow the PS4 to stream games directly to the PSVita handheld. The functionality was shown streaming Knack to a PSVita.

The PS4 acts as a server, feeding the video footage directly to the handheld console. and the PSVita can be used to remotely control it.

Gaikai will also power a form of backwards compatibility, eventually bringing all older PlayStation titles to the PS4, but not a lot of details were given beyond that promise. Given the CPU differences, and the resources demanding nature of software emulation, it is safe to assume that this kind of streaming will have to be put in place of actual backwards compatibility.

At the PlayStation event, Sony has shown off the DualShock 4 controller, and it looks very familiar if you have been following the leaks and rumors.

As rumored, the DualShock 4 brings social to your hands with a Share button, that makes it easy to capture and share clips of gameplay with friends and the PlayStation community. The DualShock 4 also has the touchpad on the front as previously seen.

Mark Cerny, lead system architect, showed that like the PlayStation Move, the player is identified by a color which is located on top of the controller between the should buttons.

The DualShock 4 is also tracked by a camera that is still under development.

On Tuesday, Google's stock price hit $800 for the first time as confidence in the search and mobile giant is booming.

In 2007, Google stock hit $700 but then joined the rest of the market in a decline during turmoil years after the financial crisis hit. In April 2011, it was decided that Google co-founder Larry Page should take over the role of CEO from Eric Schmidt.

Since then, Google stock has risen around 35 percent, with most of the gains occurring in the past seven months.

Analysts see Google as one of the best position tech companies for the forseeable future. It's Search service continues to dominate in its field, and over 600 million devices now run the Android operating system. It also owns other huge services, like YouTube, which is gaining more confidence from advertisers.

It is also overhauling its ad system to address concerns about the revenue that can generated for mobile ads.

Apple Inc. has pushed out a security update to Mac users after admitting that the company itself has been subject to a hack attempt in recent weeks.

Just as was the case with Twitter and Facebook, Apple employees were targeted using Java security flaws that had previously been unknown. Apple said this week that it had been targeted in recent weeks by hackers of an unknown origin.

"We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network," the company said.

"There is no evidence that any data left Apple. We are working closely with law enforcement to find the source of the malware."

The Mac update brings the installed version of JRE up to the latest release, which fixes several serious security bugs. Oracle pushed out an update with fixes earlier this month, so Apple's procrastinated response was criticized by Graham Cluley, of Sophos, who said Apple has a history of being a "little laid back on patches."

Google has posted a video to show you how it feels to use its ambitious Glass prototype.

All the footage in the video is actually recorded through Glass. The video shows a variety of different scenarios, including sky diving, a rollercoaster ride, horse riding and more. You interact with Glass by simply instructing it to do something, like "record a video."

It also shows sharing images that you've just taken with contacts, and requesting that it shows you certain types of pictures.

Another part shows how you can ask Glass to translate words for you, and get a response pretty quickly. Glass is still very much a work in progress, but it is headed in the right direction.

Dell Inc. reported an 11 percent fall in revenue and 31 percent drop in net profit in the recent quarter, in what could be its last reported results before it goes private

Its figures were ahead of analysts expectations, but still shows the drop in Dell's consumer business. The company reported an 11 percent drop in revenue to $14.3 billion over the quarter. Net profit dropped 31 percent compared to the same period the previous year, to $530 million.

Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Inc., is proposing a buyout of the company that will take it into private ownership. He is joined by equity firm Silver Lake, and is helped with a 10-figure loan from Microsoft and financing from several major lenders.

The buyout, which would be worth $24.4 billion, is being contested by some Dell shareholders, including its largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management. Its position is that the figure grossly undervalues the company.

Domains have been registered that indicate Sony is about to reveal something called "PlayStation Cloud".

The domains have been registered by a system administrator for Gaikai, which is a games streaming company that was bought by Sony in 2012 for $380 million. They suggest that an upcoming "PlayStation Cloud" service is to be announced, which would fit with rumors that the PS4 supports game streaming, and may use it to allow PS4 owners to play older PS3 titles.

The domains include playstation-cloud.com, playstation-cloud.org and ps-cloud.net.

Sony is expected to officially announce the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console in New York tomorrow, with rumors suggesting a holiday release for Japan and North America, followed by a Spring 2014 release in Europe.

(via: superannuation)

Apple has released iOS 6.1.2 for iPhones, iPads and iPod touch to fix a couple of bugs reported in iOS 6.1.

It had previously released iOS 6.1.1 just for iPhone 4S users to fix problems with 3G signal, after several carriers told their customers not to update to iOS 6.1 due to several reported issues.

Now Apple has pushed out iOS 6.1.2 for all compatible devices, fixing an issue with Microsoft Exchange servers that caused headaches for corporate network administrators, and also fixing another issue that reportedly caused battery drain.

What is more peculiar is what Apple has not fixed however; iOS 6.1.2 is still vulnerable to a flaw that lets a user easily bypass the lock screen and access some user data, so we guess that we have to wait for Apple to fix that now too.

iOS 6.1.2 is available OTA, or through iTunes, for all compatible devices now.

With a copy of Gears of War: Judgment leaking over a month earlier than its release date, Microsoft has warned pirates who download and play it.

As with cases of previous leaks, Microsoft has warned Xbox 360/Live users who download and play the recent leak of Gears of War: Judgment, due to be released on March 19.

"We are aware of isolated cases in which Gears of War: Judgment content has been propped on the web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation immediately," a Microsoft spokesperson told Eurogamer.

"Consumers should be aware that piracy is illegal and we take vigorous action against illegal activity related to our products and services."

Of course, playing a game that is not even out for a month on Xbox Live is just asking to be banned, so that will come as no surprise. Playing pirated copies of games is a violation of the Xbox Live Terms of Use, and will likely get a console banned from Xbox Live for good.

Google has given details about its fight against account hijacking, showing how the company has reduced the amount of accounts stolen by 99.7 percent since a peak in 2011.

Most Google accounts hijacked are compromised because of poor password decision making. Many Internet users tend to use the same password for every service they use, so they can easily remember their login details each time. This presents an obvious problem; only one of those services needs to be hacked to put all of your other accounts at risk.

This is exactly what Google has observed happening in recent years. The spam filter for its service only allows less then 1 percent of spam to get through to inboxes, so spammers changed their habits in recent years.

Compromised databases of passwords and other items are sold in underground markets to spam groups who will then check the passwords against stored e-mail addresses. If successful, the spammers will send more personalized e-mails to contacts.

"We've seen a single attacker using stolen passwords to attempt to break into a million different Google accounts every single day, for weeks at a time," Mike Hearn, Google Security Engineer, wrote. "A different gang attempted sign-ins at a rate of more than 100 accounts per second."

Google is reportedly in talks with payment processors to cut funding to piracy websites in order to make it more difficult for them to operate.

Google has purged millions of links to copyright infringing content that was indexed by its Search engine in recent years. It has also changed its search recommendations to purge some potentially piracy-related suggestions and more.

Now it is reportedly in talks with Visa, Mastercard and Paypal to block such websites from receiving funding.

"Google has never worked harder to tackle piracy online," the company said in a statement. "Last month alone we removed over 14 million links to pirated material. There are also huge and growing opportunities for content creators to make money online, which is why so many have signed up to Google Play and as YouTube partners."

Google has repeatedly argued that authorities should "follow the money" to hurt Internet piracy.

Sony has continued its Evolution of PlayStation series of videos by celebrating the effect the brand has had on gaming since the early 90s.

After previously reminiscing about the original PlayStation console (1995), the PlayStation 2 (2000), the PlayStation 3 (2006) and the portable PlayStation gaming consoles, Sony is now focusing on the impact PlayStation has had on gaming.

It quickly runs through many of the best sellers available since the mid-90s for PlayStation consoles, setting aside the first praise for the Gran Turismo title for the original PlayStation console.

Check it out.

Kim Dotcom has said that his MEGA cloud storage service will expand to other areas where privacy is needed, and that the service will now accept bitcoin.

He revealed the details on Twitter during the weekend. He said that MEGA would take payment in the form of Bitcoin through reseller Bitvoucher, which will be good news for enthusiasts of the central bank-less online currency.

Mega, he said, will also expand into "secure e-mail, chat & voice, video and mobile", and described Mega as "The Privacy Company."

Earlier, he had tweeted that GMail, iCloud and Skype have to provide secret and untraceable NDA backdoors to all of your data, and said you should never host anything on a U.S.-based service, because "the US govt says if you do they can extradite you."

Microsoft is reminding Windows 7 users that support for Windows 7 RTM ends on April 9, 2013, so its time to install the service pack.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released almost two years ago now, and Microsoft policy is to end support for a Windows product 24 months after the release of a new service pack. So in other words, if you are running Windows 7 RTM (with no service pack), then you will need to install SP1 before April 9 to get continued support for the product.

For those who are updated, there is no need to worry. Windows 7 will continue to be fully supported for a long time, with mainstream support continuing until January 13, 2015, and extended support continuing until January 14, 2020.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 can be downloaded from Microsoft.com

For the difference between Mainstream Support and Extended Support, view the chart below.

A source has told Kotaku that the PlayStation 4 games console will launch in the United States in November this year, starting at $430.

Two separate models will be available, with a higher end model going for $530. This information fits in with previous rumors about pricing for the console in Japan and in the United Kingdom.

The source also provided Kotaku with another image of the PS4 controller, and revealed that most of the PS4's online features will require a premium subscription - not likely to go down well. PlayStation Plus will apparently be renamed PlayStation World.

One interesting snippet of info suggests that the PS4 can be controlled with a smartphone or tablet PC, and that each PS4 comes with a PlayStation Eye as standard. A feature also described is the ability to allow gamers to watch their friends play games remotely, without having to own the game they are playing.

Sony is expected to announce the PlayStation 4 (PS4) at an event in New York.

Credit: Kotaku

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is hoping to have all six major ISPs in the UK block three more websites it claims are heavily linked to piracy.

The three websites - Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents - would be blocked by BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk if the BPI gets its way in a court hearing. BPI argue these sites infringe music label's copyright. They are likely to join Newzbin2 and the Pirate Bay by being blocked in the country.

The Open Rights Group opposes such blocks, giving the following arguments:

• Website blocking is an extreme response. There are growing fears this precedent will make it too easy and quick to block sites. Time needs to be taken to consider the legitimate use of the sites.
• There needs to be a more specific and adequate definition of the precise URL or IP address to be blocked to prevent mistakes.
• Once a site is blocked, its alleged clone sites can also be blocked, but in this case, BPI will be able to practice this without a court order. The decisions would be made between BPI and ISPs and will not be published.
• The blocking of these sites does not come with an expiry date. This indefinite blocking is potentially problematic if the number of sites blocked keep growing, leaving a large number of sites hidden from the public.
• These court hearings between a judge, ISPs and right holders do not sufficiently represent the needs of the user as their voice is not included during the hearing.

Amazon has confirmed that it terminated a contract with a German security firm that was providing protection at its warehouses, after a documentary showed serious abuse of workers.

The documentary aired last week, and prompted the German government to call for an investigation into workers' conditions at German Amazon warehouses. Following the documentary, Amazon said it terminated the contract with Hensel European Security Services (Hess) with immediate effect.

"Amazon has zero-tolerance for discrimination and intimidation and expects the same from every company we work with," a spokesperson said.

The documentary had drawn attention to the clothing worn by the security guards, and their alleged link to the neo-Nazi movement, as well as pointing out that the security firm shares the name "Hess" with Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess. The firm denies suggestions of links to far-right wing politics.

Whether linked or not, the documentary exposed harsh harassment aimed at some workers in the warehouses, particularly those from Poland and Spain.

European Union regulators plan to take action against Google by the summer due to a change in the firm's Privacy Policy last year.

Google moved to pool all user data across multiple services, such as YouTube and GMail, and users had no way to opt out of the change. European regulators warned Google about the change at the time, saying it was a high risk to users' privacy.

Google consolidated around sixty privacy policies across its services into one.

French regulator CNIL spearheaded the opposition to Google's change, and in October European regulators gave Google four months to change its approach to privacy. Now the French regulator has said Google failed to address concerns.

"Google did not provide any precise and effective answers," CNIL said.

"In this context, the EU data protection authorities are committed to act and continue their investigations. Therefore, they propose to set up a working group, led by the CNIL, in order to coordinate their reaction, which should take place before summer."

Google maintains that its privacy policy is in line with European laws, and that it did in fact contact CNIL in January with a list of steps already taken to alleviate concerns.

In another one of its "Evolution of PlayStation" series, Sony has looked back at the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and covers its PSVita handheld.

Having already made videos for the original PlayStation console (1995), the PlayStation 2 (2000) and the PlayStation 3 (2006), Sony has now reminisced about the PlayStation Portable, released starting in 2004.

It touts the PSP's large screen (for a handheld) and its ability to deliver console quality gaming for a handheld device.

As for the PSVita, it focuses more on its social integration and so forth, but clearly the PSVita is an unfinished story.

Check it out.

Iceland is mulling blocking 'violent pornography' in the country, setting itself up as a pioneer of state-sponsored censorship of material deemed inappropriate by.. the state?

There's no doubt that Iceland is a progressive country; it has an openly gay prime minister for example, and it also topped the list of the Global Gender Gap Report in 2012 that assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, followed by Finland, Norway, Sweden and Ireland.

Now, with a nod toward gender equality, and also toward protecting children from harmful material, there is a serious debate underway in Iceland about blocking 'violent pornography'.

It's not much of a surprise, Iceland already bans the printing and distributing of pornography. It outlawed strip clubs in 2010 and a year earlier, changed the law on prostitution to criminalize the customer, rather than the sex worker.

Now, it is mulling plans to block violent pornography, with proposals to install web filters, block Internet addresses and even criminalize the use of credit cards for pay-per-view pornography.

Iceland's actions will be watched closely by governments around the world, who may favour blocks on some forms of pornographic content. The biggest problem comes with enforcing the block, given that many porn websites may be user-driven, and might host only small amounts of content that could be considered violent. How do you deal with them?

Sony has uploaded the second part of its 'Evolution of PlayStation' series, covering the incredible success of the PlayStation 2 console.

The first video released by Sony on the history of PlayStation ahead of the PS4 launch event, covered the beginning of the brand with the 1995 release of the original PlayStation.

This video covers the world's most successful video games (home) console, the PlayStation 2. It has sold more than 150,000,000 units worldwide, and has a library of more than 10,000 games. You probably have one gathering dust somewhere now, but when it launched in 2000, the PS2 came with the emotion engine providing excellent graphics improvements, and of course a coveted DVD drive, providing far more capacity than the 700MB discs that contained PS1 games.

Supporting playback of DVD-Video was also huge in 2000, and Sony later went on to release the EyeToy add on, and the network adapter that provided online play for compatible titles.

Watch the video of the biggest selling home console of all time.

Apple is reportedly preparing to release iOS 6.1.2 early next week to fix a security flaw that allows an attacker to bypass the pass code easily.

It's not the first that the iPhone has been affected by this flaw, and it could worry some iPhone users who don't want others to be able to get around their pass code and access some limited information.

German site, iFun, is reporting that Apple will release iOS 6.1.2 to fix the flaw early next week. It has previously predicted iOS release dates accurately.

Apple has come under some pressure since iOS 6.1 was released. Besides the security flaw that will be targeted in iOS 6.1.2, it has also had to grapple with battery related bugs, and problems with 3G signals particularly with iPhone 4S handsets.

The iOS 6.1 update also caused problems for corporate networks, clashing with Microsoft Exchange servers.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has said it is very likely that Sony will cut the price of PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles as it unveils the PS4 in New York next week.

Pachter told GamesIndustry International that a cut was likely by February 21, the day after the Sony PS4 event. He predicts a cut to $199 for the console, and that Microsoft will respond with price cuts for the Xbox 360 console before E3.

Sony may decide to cut the PS3 price to keep gamers interested in buying a new PS3 console, even as it starts to court them with the PlayStation 4 (PS4) before it starts to launch - expected this holiday season.

During Black Friday last year, PS3 bundles sold for $199, and now typically sell for $100 more than that.

Social Network giant Facebook has revealed that it was a target in a sophisticated attack using a zero-day exploit that delivered malware to employee's computers.

The social network discovered the problem last month, which had been started when Facebook employees visited a compromised mobile developer website, specially crafted to exploit a previously unknown vulnerability in Oracle's Java browser products.

Facebook made the discovery when a suspicious domain showed up in the corporate DNS logs and was traced back to an employee's laptop. Further investigation found several other compromised devices. When it discovered the source of the problem, Facebook alerted Oracle, which already issued a security update for affected Java products.

The social network made the information public on Friday, and assured users that there is absolutely no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised.

It also said it was not the only firm targeted with this attack by an unknown group, and said it is committed to sharing information about security threats with other major websites, law enforcement and so on.

Sony is rolling out videos of the evolution of its PlayStation products, starting in 1994 and working their way through the history before the PS4 launch event.

The first episode in this "Evolution of PlayStation" series covers the launch of the original PlayStation, from its inception in 1994, to its launch in late 1995. It shows off some of the software that helped the product sell, and will undoubtedly bring back memories for a lot of us.

It would appear that Sony is planning to release a new video every day up to the PS4 launch event on Wednesday, as it takes advantage of the buzz around the upcoming console.

Check out the video of the PlayStation's birth.

Sony will provide backwards compatibility with PlayStation 3 (PS3) games by supporting streaming them to the console, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Last July, Sony acquired Gaikai in a deal worth $380 million, which led to speculation that the PlayStation 3 would be able to stream game demoes and possibly older PS2 games from the service.

According to a WSJ report, Sony has decided to support streaming of PS3 games to the PS4 console, using the technology acquired from Gaikai. This will allow Sony to offer a level of backwards compatibility, rather than having to include extra hardware in the PS4, or work on complicated software emulation.

Sony is expected to highlight the support for streaming when it reveals the PlayStaion 4 (PS4) in New York on Wednesday, February 20.

Nintendo's woes about its slow launch of the Wii U system continued into January, while Microsoft is touting its 25th straight month as the top selling console in America.

According to reports, Nintendo's Wii U only managed about 57,000 sales in the United States in January, down about 38 percent from the original Wii console at the same point of its life. More than 3 million units have been sold so far, with Nintendo expecting to hit 4 million for the current financial year.

Microsoft on the other hand was boasting about its performance in the market. More than 281,000 Xbox 360 consoles were snapped up in the United States in January 2013, compared to 270,000 in January 2012. That marks the 25th straight month that Microsoft topped the charts with the ageing console, which claims about 44 percent of the market.

The Xbox 360 drove $338 million in retail spending during the month, between the consoles themselves and accessories.

Microsoft is to start pushing its Windows Live Messenger users to its Skype service starting on April 8, 2013.

It had already announced plans to bring Windows Live Messenger and Skype together in November last year, and Microsoft accounts can already be used to login to Skype and have contacts transferred Messenger, Hotmail and Outlook.

Starting in April, users of the Windows Live software on Desktops will get notifications to upgrade from Live Messenger to Skype. The service will start the upgrades with its English language clients, and finish up with Brazilian Portuguese on April 30 or later.

Switching from Messenger to Skype adds some advantages for users:

• Instant message conversation history
• The ability to edit and remove instant messages
• Being able to share files and contact information
• Video calling and instant messaging with Facebook friends
• Group video calling

Valve has launched a version of its Steam gaming software for Ubuntu Linux users, initially offering 60 supported titles for the operating system.

Among the games Linux users can get are titles such as Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2. Valve also cut the prices of the PC and Mac versions of games available to Ubuntu users by up to 75 percent, in a sale that will continue until Thursday, February 21.

With a version of Steam being available for Ubuntu, developers might be interested in including it as a supported platform, but its launch may have more to do with Valve's games console that is in development. The console, which brings the Steam experience to TV, is expected to run some form of Linux.

Currently, Steam sells more than 2,000 games that run on Windows operating systems.

Google is challenging the inclusion of a YouTube video on a Russian blacklist, meaning it is to be blocked by Internet Service Providers in the country.

The video in question shows a woman using make-up and a razor blade to make it look like she cut her wrist. It was added to a blacklist in Russia, meaning it is to be blocked, on the grounds that it provided instructions for suicide.

Google decided to block the offending clip in Russia, or else it risked having its YouTube service blocked entirely. Now it is appealing the inclusion of the video on the list, using it as a test case to have the regulations of the blacklist clarified.

"We will, at times, restrict content on country-specific domains where a nation's laws require it or if content is found to violate our community guidelines," said a YouTube spokeswoman.

"In this case, we have appealed the decision of Russian Consumer Watchdog because we do not believe that the goal of the law was to limit access to videos that are clearly intended to entertain viewers."

In Russia, regulators can add content to the blacklist if it includes material about suicide, drugs or child sex abuse.

Adobe is investigating reports that there is a vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI being exploited in the wild.

The software giant put a notice on its Security Incident and Response Team blog explaining that it was investigating reports that a security problem with the latest Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI (11.0.1) was being exploited in the wild.

This means that a security flaw that Adobe is unaware of is being used by attackers to target users of the Adobe products, though the blog post is shy on details.

"Adobe is aware of a report of a vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI (11.0.1) and earlier versions being exploited in the wild. We are currently investigating this report and assessing the risk to our customers. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information. Please continue monitoring the Adobe PSIRT blog for the latest information."

A picture of an alleged early prototype of a PS4 controller containing what appears to be a touchpad has leaked ahead of the PlayStation event.

It had been rumoured in the previous week that the new PlayStation 4 controller would have a touchpad (or touchscreen?) on the front. Now an image has been posted online by Destructoid that allegedly shows an early prototype of a PS4 controller with what appears to be a touchpad.

The controller is wired to what appears to be a development kit. Destructoid cites multiple sources in confirming that it is indeed an early prototype of a PS4 controller.

Sony is set to hold a PlayStation event in New York next Wednesday, February 20, where it is expected to unveul the next PlayStation console.

Gartner research is indicating that the sale of mobile phones worldwide declined by 1.7 percent during 2012.

The research stated tough economic conditions had been partially responsible for the drop. During 2012, over 1.75 billion mobile handsets had been bought, a reduction of 1.7 percent over the previous year.

The biggest drop came from feature phones - low-end devices that do not contain smartphone functionality. In total, 264.4 million feature phones were sold in the busy fourth quarter, a drop of a huge 19.3 percent over the period of the previous year.

Smartphones on the other hand saw a 38.3 percent rise during the same period. Apple and Samsung clearly dominated the market with a 52 percent combined share, while Gartner noted that no other manufacturer was firmly in third spot.

"Their direct competitors, including those with comparable products, struggle to achieve the same brand appreciation among consumers," said principal research analyst Anshul Gupta.

LG Electronics Inc has said that it has received more than 100 pre-orders for its 55-inch OLED television, due to start selling in South Korea.

It will go on sale next Monday, coming to the market before rivals, albeit at a very high cost. Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) televisions promise lower power consumption and sharper contrast than LCD screens, and are widely tipped to be the successor to LCD TVs.

LG Electronics, the world's No.2 manufacturer of televisions behind South Korean rival Samsung, aimed to get to market for a 55-inch OLED display before its rivals. Samsung has yet to announce when it will start producing of OLED flat screens.

This year, LG is hoping to boost TV shipments by 15 percent, after poor performance in its TV business during the vital fourth quarter of 2012.

Apple will challenge a ruling in Brazil this week that found the iPad-maker does not have exclusive rights to the "iPhone" trademark in the country.

The ruling found that Gradiente Eletronica SA had exclusive rights to use the iPhone trademark in relation to mobile handsets - while Apple is still free to use it in software or any other area. In fact, Apple can go ahead and market iPhones in Brazil all it wants, but Gradiente would be able to sue it for exclusive rights any time.

Gradiente applied for the iPhone trademark in 2000, and it was awarded to the firm in 2008.

Due to Apple's complaint to regulator, Inpi, Gradiente will have to prove that it used the iPhone trademark before January 2013, as Brazilian regulation states that brands in brazil must be developed within five years of gaining approval.

The Android-running iPhone Neo One (pictured) was launched in December 2012, so proving the use of the brand name should not be difficult.

Europol leads charge against cybercriminals who profited from distributing ransomware to victim's computers, forcing them to hand over money.

It worked with Spanish police to dismantle the operation, which affected at least tens of thousands of computer users in Europe.

The ransomware would present itself on screen and attempt to emotionally blackmail, or scare the user into handing over a fee. For example, it would asset that the PC had been used to view images of child sex abuse, and demand that a €100 fine be paid immediately as a settlement.

Even if users were completely sure that their computers were never used for such illicit activity, ransomware can make using a computer incredibly difficult.

Operation Ransom resulted in 11 arrests – the first was a 27-year-old Russian, responsible for the creation, development and international distribution of the various versions of the malware. He was arrested in the United Arab Emirates and is currently awaiting extradition to Spain.

Furthermore, one of the criminal network's largest financial cells in the Costa del Sol was dismantled. Spanish Police also arrested another 10 individuals linked to the financial cell: six Russians, two Ukrainians and two Georgians.

An Egyptian regulator has appealed against an order to block the YouTube website in the country, saying that the block is not enforceable without serious economic costs.

The National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority is objecting to a court ordered block on YouTube over the availability of, "Innocent of Muslims" a movie trailer deemed blasphemous for portraying the Islamic prophet as a stupid, sexual deviant.

"The National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority has presented an appeal to halt implementation of the verdict," a statement read. "The government cannot carry out the contents of the verdict within Egypt's borders."

It warned that it was technically impossible to shut down YouTube in the country without harming Google's Search business, and so risking economic damage. It also noted that the video itself is already blocked in Egypt.

"Blocking YouTube would affect the search engine of Google, of which Egypt is the second biggest user in the Middle East," the statement said, also going on to say that only the United States can block YouTube.

Microsoft is pushing out updates to address issues with the Surface RT tablet, fixing problems with Wi-Fi and improving performance.

The company is addressing some problems the reliability of Wi-Fi in the first tablet it has ever released, and is also pushing out some more updates to improve the performance.

Moderator Jordana_S gave the details to a questioner on a Microsoft Support forum thread.

Hi there Wesley P.

That is a great question, which I am happy to address. The February update, which will be available later today, includes improved Surface Wi-Fi reliability, connectivity in various scenarios, and performance improvements:

• This release will address several 'Limited' Wi-Fi connections issues.
• Contains driver updates improving performance with Windows, Volume and Power buttons

I hope this is helpful, please let me know if you have any further questions.

GameStop chief financial officer Rob Lloyd has said that around 60 percent of customers would not buy a games console that will block used games from booting.

Lloyd was speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference yesterday when he made his remarks. He also put the "problem" of used game sales into perspective.

"It's really only about 4 percent of our used game sales are games that were games released in the last 60 days," Lloyd said.

"So it does not have a big impact on the sale of new product. So that's why publishers understand how important the preowned business is to them. Sony has said publicly that they don't intend to block used games in their next console. Microsoft has refused to or has not commented on the rumors that have hit the marketplace."

Lloyd said that GameStop has shared internal research with platform holders that indicate a high percentage would snub consoles with such limitations.

"I think it's approximately 60 percent of the customers who have said they wouldn't buy a new console if it didn't play preowned games," he said.

Apple does not have exclusive rights to the 'iPhone' trademark in Brazil, it has been ruled.

Gradiente Eletronica registered the iPhone trademark over 12 years ago, and currently sells its own iPhone Neo One in Brazil - running Android.

Apple had argued that it should be granted exclusive rights to the iPhone trademark because Gradiente never released an iPhone device until December 2012. Apple can still sell its iPhone models in Brazil, but now Gradiente has the option to sue for exclusivity.

Apple can also use the iPhone trademark for products other than mobile handsets, and is expected to appeal the decision.

Gradiente's iPhone sells for 599 reals - about $196 - and runs Android 2.3. Check it out at gradiente.com.br

Apple has made some changes to its line of MacBook products, beefing up specs and/or cutting the price of models.

Sales of Apple's MacBook products have been lower than expected, leading some analysts to question whether Apple's own iPad product is harming sales of its high-end notebooks.

Today, Apple has made some changes to bump the disappointing sales. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now starts at $1,499 for 128GB of flash, and $1,699 for a new 2.6 GHz processor and 256GB of flash.

The 15-ince MacBook Pro with Retina display now features a 2.4GHz quad-core processor, while the top-end 15-inch notebook now comes with a 2.7GHz quad-core processor and 16GB of memory. Apple also announced that the 13-inch MacBook Air with 256GB of flash has a new price of $1,399.

The updated MacBook Pro with Retina display and MacBook Air models are available today through the Apple Online Store, Apple's Retailer Stores and authorized re-sellers.

Phony Pirate Bay has real copies of pages, style sheets.

Finnish anti piracy group, TTVK, has uploaded a fake Finnish language copy of the Pirate Bay at piraattilahti.fi (literally translates as Pirate Bay). The page has been translated to Finnish, as well as the logo, which shows a pirate ship sinking.

Clicking on any of the links just brings you to an anti-piracy message, linking you to an external source.

What's amusing about the phony page is it copies certain elements 1:1 from the Pirate Bay website in order to dupe Finnish Internet users into believing they are using a localized version of the popular site. The style sheet used by the mock site even starts with the comment, "The Pirate Bay - main style sheet for thepiratebay.se." (See Below)

The evad3rs team has released an update for its evasi0n iOS 6.x jailbreak tool in order to add support for iOS 6.1.1 on iPhone 4S handsets.

At the time of writing, iOS 6.1.1 is only available officially for the iPhone 4S. It was released early by Apple after reports of bugs with iOS 6.1 that seemed to affect iPhone 4S handsets more than other devices. Vodafone in the UK and 3 in Austria had encouraged users to hold off iOS 6.1, but Vodafone then encouraged its iPhone 4S users to get the iOS 6.1.1 when it became available.

The updated evasi0n v1.3 now adds support for the iPhone 4S model, which is not much of a surprise as it had already been confirmed that the bugs exploited by evasiOn in iOS 6.0-6.1 were unfixed when Apple pushed out iOS 6.1.1 to developers to test.

In the week or so that evasi0n has been out, more than 7 million devices - including iPhone 5 and iPad mini - have been jailbroken, allowing for non-approved apps and code to run on the devices.

Apple warns users about the dangers of jailbreaking, including security risks of running unapproved code and the loss of warranty for jailbreaking a device.

Vertu's latest luxury smartphone comes with a hefty $10,000 price tag, and it doesn't even support 4G networks.

The Android-running Vertu Ti starts around US$10,000, but cost double that based on which model you choose, and it doesn't even support 4G networks. For Vertu though, it is not about being at the bleeding edge of technology, it is about craftsmanship and making a device that isn't a disposable product.

The Ti sports a titanium frame and 3.7-inch sapphire screen, and weighs about 180g.

Vertu Ti is powered by Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, and features a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 SoC, 64GB storage. Other features include an 8MP rear camera with auto focus and twin LED flash, a 1.3MP front facing Skype compliant camera and secure near field communication technology.

Until recently, Vertu was owned by Nokia. It targets only the very high end of the market with its products, with approximately 360,000 owners of Vertu devices after ten years in business.

Hackers managed to breach the Emergency Alert System to broadcast a message about Zombie attacked on a TV station in Montana.

CBS affiliate KRTV in Montana had its regular programming interrupted with an audio message warning viewers about an ongoing Zombie attack, telling them that the bodies of the dead have risen from their graves and are attacking the living.

KRTV published a response to the message explaining that the message was the result of the hack, but didn't even mention the topic of the alert.

The full message read out during the broadcast (see video) is as follows:

"Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living. Follow the messages onscreen that will be updated as information becomes available. Do not attempt to apprehend or approach these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous.

"I repeat, civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living. Do not attempt to apprehend or approach these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous. Read more...

Microsoft and Apple are investigating an issue with iOS 6.1 devices and Exchange E-mail Servers, as Microsoft offers workaround advice.

The problem arises when a user syncs a mailbox by using an iOS 6.1-based device, prompting excessive logging and resource usage with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Client Access server (CAS). It can cause memory and CPU usage to increase significantly, impacting performance.

IT administrators have already reportedly been blocking iOS 6.1 devices from syncing, and now Microsoft is presenting this as a workaround until it, and Apple, can find a solution for the issue.

"You can block iOS 6.1 users by using the Exchange Server 2010 Allow/Block/Quarantine feature," a Microsoft advisory on the issue reads.

Microsoft also details a couple of other options to work around the problem before it is fixed.

iOS 6.1 has been the root of several different problems since its launch in late January. Users reported that they had decreased battery life after updating, which is a common complaint when a new iOS iteration is put out. Then there were reported of intermittent 3G signal issues, which were later confirmed by multiple mobile service providers in Europe.

Intel Media VP Erik Huggers has confirmed that the chipmaker will enter into the growing and competitive Internet TV space with a new service, set to launch this year.

Huggers said that hundreds of Intel's employees are testing out a set-top box that the company will bring to the market as part of its service. Intel Media is currently in ongoing negotiations with content providers.

It joins Google, Amazon and Apple in their quest to shake up the $100 billion cable TV ecosystem, taking advantage of changing habits of consumers.

"We have been working for (the past) year to set up Intel media, a new group focused on developing an Internet platform," Huggers said at the AllThingsDigital "Dive into Media" conference.

"It's not a value play, it's a quality play where we'll create a superior experience for the end user."

Huggers once worked for the BBC, and launched the iPlayer for the British corporation in 2007.

As well as providing on-demand content, Intel wants to step ahead of the competition and offer live programming too, whilst also making its system smarter. For example, Intel's STB will include a camera that can filter content for a specific users, and also target ads more effectively.

Pelosi wants comprehensive gun violence debate that is based on evidence, and not anecdote.

The House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi (D), was speaking on Fox News Sunday on the issue of gun violence in America. Interviewer Chris Wallace brought up the role of video games and asked Pelosi why she doesn't get her Hollywood friends to "stop the video games."

"I understand what you're saying. I'm a mother, I'm a grandmother," Pelosi said. "The evidence says, in Japan for example, they have the most violent games and the lowest mortality from guns. I don't know what the explanation is for that, except that they might have good gun laws."

She criticized Wallace for sticking to only one part of the issue of gun violence. While she said that further examination of video games is needed, it must be in the context of a larger comprehensive look at the gun issue and based on evidence.

"I think we have to do it all. We have to take a look at these games are," Pelosi said.

"I don't think we should do anything anecdotally. We have a saying here: the plural of anecdote is not data. And so we want to know: what is the evidence? What will really make a difference here? And I think it has to be comprehensive."

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hit Reddit today to answer some questions.

Before he even started the AMA, he posted a short animated video answering the the most popular questions being posed to him. The first question in the video is, "How much money is in your wallet?," followed by, "Can I have a million dollars?," and of course, "Which would you rather fight: 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?" (Video below).

In the AMA he got into more interesting stuff however, like when he was asked about any products he regretted not launching with Microsoft:

"We had a rich database as the client/cloud store that was part of a Windows release that was before its time. This is an idea that will remerge since your cloud store will be rich with schema rather than just a bunch of files and the client will be a partial replica of it with rich schema understanding."

Apple is going to rush out the iOS 6.1.1 update to fix bugs in iOS 6.1, according to a report from German site iFun.

Apple released the iOS 6.1 update late in January and quickly started to receive complaints about decreased battery life and problems with 3G signal. Such complaints arise after almost every iOS update, but in this case it has gotten to a point where wireless carriers have told users - particularly iPhone 4S owners - not to install the iOS 6.1 update if they already haven't.

Vodafone in the UK even suggested that a number of iOS 6.1-running iPhone 4S handsets in the same area could cause 3G congestion and affect non-iPhone users too. It pointed the finger of blame at Apple, and assured customers that the company is working on a fix for the 3G connectivity problems.

3 in Austria also warned iPhone 4S users to hold off the iOS 6.1 update last week.

Facebook sued over its 'Like' button.

The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Virginia by global law firm Fish & Richardson, on behalf of Rembrandt Social Media. The lawsuit involves two patents originally issues to "Jos" van der Meer, who is now deceased.

Rembrandt now owns patents that va Der Meer used in constructing a social network called Surfbook. He died in 2004, the same year that Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg. Rembrandt alleges that Facebook, and another firm called Add This, has used two patents without permission.

"We believe Rembrandt's patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence," said attorney Tom Melsheimer, counsel for Rembrandt and managing principal of Fish & Richardson's Dallas office.

Google ran an ad for the popular Nexus 4 smartphone during the Grammys, featuring its Google Now service, widely seen as a Siri competitor.

The ad shows Nexus 4 users in different cities around the world, using their device for a variety of tasks. While the smartphone is popular, Google clearly wanted to advertise Google Now by showing off its useful features in different contexts.

Two girls use it to help them to get translations to communicate with locals overseas, while another couple use to it help locate a suitable restaurant. A mother checks Google Now for a weather update and tells her son its snowing, which he then tells his Dad who is away on business, through video.

Check it out if you didn't watch the Grammy awards.

Microsoft shows off its Surface Pro tablet running Windows 8 in a new ad featuring beatboxing and break dancing, but some customers would like to know where they are.

The Surface Pro commercial really emphasizes the pen input on the tablet, when a bunch of Surface users break into a choreographed session of dancing and beatboxing, solidifying the ad in the realm of pure cheese. See it below.

As enthusiastic as Microsoft appear to be about the Surface Pro launch, they can't seem to keep up with demand, either because they genuinely screwed up the launch or because they are trying some silly marketing trick to get "sold out" headlines.

"I really wanted the Surface Pro 128. I went to 4 stores...but like most others I was completely let down by the lack of inventory. It reeks of incompetence at best or a poor marketing ploy at worst," user ARigs, said on Microsoft's official Surface blog.

Others were just as annoyed, checking multiple locations and not being able to get their hands on a precious Surface Pro. They aren't cheap either, remember the 64GB Pro will set you back $899, while one packing 128GB stretches to $999.

Mobile service provider Solavei brings BlackBerry 10-equipped BlackBerry Z10 smartphone to the United States a month early, but it will cost you almost a thousand dollars.

It is listed on GSM Nation - Solavei's retail partner - for a whopping $999.00. The smartphone is slated to launch in the United States in mid-March, but for those who can't wait that long and don't care about the lack of a subsidy, Solavei comes to the rescue.

Solavei is a contract-free mobile service provider that piggy backs on T-Mobile's national network, offering customers an unlimited voice, SMS and data plan for $49 per month, and provides financial incentives for signing other people up to the service.

It does not spend much money on advertising - relying instead on encouraging customers to recruit - and it will not provide similarly generous subsidies that major carriers in the U.S. do (typically coupled with a long-term contract.)

The BlackBerry Z10 is already available in the United Kingdom and in Canada, and was technically due to hit the U.S. market next month.

"We believe in giving our members access to the latest phones and wireless capabilities," said Ryan Wuerch, founder and CEO of Solavei.

President Obama to follow VP Joe Biden by hosting Google+ Hangout.

The President will deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress and the American people on Tuesday evening, continuing a 200 year tradition. Ex Presidents and their staff would typically then be grilled about the speech for a few days afterwards by the media, and the Obama administration will be no different.

On Thursday however, President Obama will subject himself to questions in a Google+ Hangout session at 4:50pm ET. Like VP Biden's Hangout, the President will be joined by a group of people who regularly discuss important issues of the day online. Americans will also be able to submit questions or thoughts to the President by going to the White House YouTube channel and submitting a questions (text or video).

You have until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, February 13.

The President's State of the Union address will also be broadcast live on YouTube, from 9pm ET, as will the response from the Republican Party via Senator Marco Rubio.

Tech giants summoned to answer Australian Federal Government's questions on prices.

Australians are paying more than Americans for tech products and software, and the Australian parliament wants to know why. It has summoned Apple Inc, Microsoft Inc and Adobe Systems Inc to answer questions about prices in the country before a committee on March 22, 2013.

Leading the charge for answers from the tech giants is Labour representative for Chifley, Western Sydney, Ed Husic, who said it should not have come to a subpoena. He had previously raised questions about the amount of corporate tax paid by Apple in Australia, generating UAD$6 billion in revenue and paying only UAD$40 million in tax.

Now he wants to know why Australians pay so much more for hardware and software than their United States counterparts, despite a stronger Australian dollar. For example, Apple's 16GB iPad (WiFi model) sells in Australia for AUD$539, compared to US$499 in the United States. It is a similar story for Microsoft's software products, such as Office, which sell for a considerable mark-up over U.S. prices.

In May 2012, a committee was setup to probe the higher prices, and all three tech firms were invited to participate. Of course, none of them did, and reportedly blamed each other for not showing up.

evasi0n updates as 7 million devices already jailbroken.

The tool was released earlier in the week to jailbreak iOS 6 devices - iPhone (incl. iPhone 5), iPad, iPad mini and iPod touch - and has since now had two subsequent updates. The first, addressed an issue with the Weather app and long reboots, while another update (v1.2) disables OTA updates since they don't work jailbreak devices.

In the first four days since the jailbreak was released, it had been run on over 7 million devices, according to Cydia founder Jay Freeman.

If you are considering running the jailbreak on your phone/ipad, make sure that you get the latest version of the tool. The homepage for the tool is evasi0n.com.

Kim Dotcom will be paying out to hackers.

He offered hackers up to €10,000 per successful hack or exposure of security vulnerabilities with his new MEGA service. The actual amount paid out will depend on the severity rating of the security issue that is identified by the contestant.

There are six "severity class" vulnerabilities that hackers can aim at, with low impact or "purely theoretical scenarios" being at one end of the spectrum - class I - and more serious exploitable cryptographic design flaws at the other end - class VI.

The results show that so far, seven flaws have been identified with the MEGA service's security. They include two Class I flaws, one Class II flaws, three Class III flaws and one Class IV flaws. There were no Class V or VI flaws.

Here are the details...

More and more full movies show up on YouTube.

Despite YouTube allowing media companies to weed out copyright infringing content on the service, using Content ID, users are still uploading full length movies from studios including Walt Disney and Sony. Combined, these movies have racked up hundreds of millions of views on the service.

"We are aware of the issue and are concerned about it," Howard Gantman, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, told the Wall Street Journal.

"Our member companies have raised the issue with YouTube and hope they will work cooperatively with us to fix it."

A YouTube spokesman told the WSJ that the service has invested heavily in copyright and content management tools to give rights holders control of their content. Over 4,000 media companies use Content ID, which has identified more than 200 million infringing videos since it appeared in 2007.

Cook didn't want to start legal fight with Samsung.

Apple CEO Tim Cook did not have an appetite for a legal fight with Samsung after the South Korean firm released its first Galaxy-branded smartphones. He felt that Samsung was a critical supplier of components for Apple's products, and that a legal dispute would be damaging.

The late Steve Jobs saw it differently, however. He felt that Samsung was using its position as a main supplier to Apple as an advantage, making its products very similar in design to Apple's and betting that Apple wouldn't resort to litigation.

After Samsung's release of the Galaxy Tab in 2011, Steve Jobs accused Samsung of outright stealing from Apple, as he had also deemed Google's Android OS a "stolen product."

After Apple filed a lawsuit in 2011, a patent war emerged between the two companies, spilling into Europe, Australia and to Asia.

Security firm hacked because it wasn't running its own software.

Bit9, a company that provides security solutions to customers, said it was hacked and a number of its customers were targeted with malware. It admitted that it could have avoided the hack if it had implemented its own software properly on its network.

Bit9 is a "white listing" service provider with customers that range from government agencies to financial firms. White listing protects systems from being attacked by only allowing software from trusted vendors.

The hackers breached a system that Bit9 uses to digital sign its software so that its customers know its safe to run on their systems. They then signed malware using Bit9's digital signature and pushed it out to several of its customers.

"Due to an operational oversight within Bit9, we failed to install our own product on a handful of computers within our network," Chief Executive Patrick Morley wrote.

"As a result, a malicious third party was able to illegally gain temporary access to one of our digital code-signing certificates that they then used to illegitimately sign malware."

Amazon looking at second hand e-books, audio sales?

The Internet giant has been granted a patent that covers a secondary market where used digital content, such as e-books and audio, is sold. The content is stored in a user's personalized data store.

The ability to re-sell digital content is a hot topic at the moment, and one likely to be met with nothing but resistance from content providers. Amazon's business model however, does have a large focus on the sale of used goods like books and games, and therefore it is not much of a surprise that it would be interested in innovating for digital items.

ReDigi.com is an attempt to provide a market place for pew-owned digital music, but it is currently involved in a lawsuit brought by Capital Records. It wants to expand into e-books and has responded positively to the news of the Amazon patent.

"The Amazon patent is further proof that the secondary market is the future of the digital space and that there is no turning back," ReDigi is quoted to commented by PublishersWeekly.

BBC Trust backs iPlayer trial.

The BBC will make TV programmes available on the iPlayer before they broadcast on TV, after the BBC Trust approved a year long trial. Broadband customers in the UK will be able to watch content on the services' iPlayer before it is scheduled to be broadcast on TV, across all genres.

In 2012, the BBC iPlayer served more than a billion videos and radio streams to Internet users. Around 2 percent of all BBC viewers watch its programming solely via the Internet.

BBC's iPlayer is available across platforms, such as games consoles and mobile devices, and while the license-payer funded service dwarves the private competition, services like Netflix can benefit in the long run to more consumer adopting of Internet streaming as opposed to TV viewing.

The BBC has not yet decided exactly which programmes will be available on iPlayer first.

Apple to beef up iPhone line in 2013, rumor says.

Chinese mobile phone information site Laoyaoba.com is reporting that Apple will release an iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 later this year. The source (translated by BrightWire) is providing the information after apparently spotting the new models at Apple suppliers in the country.

The report suggests that the iPhone 6' display has grown to 5 inches, and is lighter and thinner, though you would expect as much in a new Apple product anyway.

Whether true or not, Apple is being urged to work on a larger iPhone as Samsung has seen success with the bigger Galaxy Note device. It is speculated that Apple would simply stretch out the 640x1136 resolution used by the iPhone 5 to fit a 5-inch display, which would hurt pixel density but would be easier for developers already working on apps for iPhone 5.

Apple is last man standing in DoJ case.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) had previously settled an anti-trust case with four of five book publishers alleged to have conspired with Apple Inc. to fix prices of e-books. The DoJ sued Apple and the five publishers - Macmillan, Hachette Book Group Inc., HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C., Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc. - for damaging the emerging market with its conspiracy, and costing consumers millions of dollars more.

On Friday, the DoJ and Macmillan filed a settlement in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which is pending approval. If it is approved by the court, then only Apple will be left in the Justice Department's war path.

The case was filed in April last year, and alleged that Apple Inc. and the publishers conspired to eliminate competition in the free market by forcing e-book retailers to keep prices of the most sought after e-books higher than they would otherwise be.

The DoJ said that one of the publishers' CEO's had remarked that e-books were being sold at a "wretched $9.99 price point." When you have a lot of e-book retailers, they will naturally look to provide the best prices for the content to keep customers coming back, and with the e-book market growing all the time, such competition is vital for consumers to feel comfortable adapting.

Hardware not the main selling point, SCE official says.

According to a Nikkei report (translated by Engadget), Sony will not push its new PS4 console by focusing on its hardware specs, but rather on its playing options and home entertainment abilities.

The Japanese daily cites an unnamed Sony Computer Entertainment executive as saying that the PS4's selling point will be how it opens up new styles of play, and that the company could push the new console as a home entertainment nerve center.

The official cited the console's ability to connect and share with mobile devices, which he(?) identified as the rival that is taking gamers away from traditional gaming.

It has been rumoured that the PS4 controller comes with a dedicated "share" button, with speculation on its functionality including sharing with mobile devices.

The PS4 is expected to be unveiled in ten days time, February 20.

Ouya release pattern will follow mobile devices.

Ouya will take advantage of the annual decrease in the price of components in order to launch a new iteration of the Android-driven console every year, according to Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman.

The Ouya packs a ARM Cortex-A9 Quad-Core 1.7GHz processor, Nvidia Tegra 3 SoC, 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal flash memory. It's OS is based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and it has its own tailored Ouya store for applications and games. Ouya will be compatible with the OnLive video game service too. It will cost $99.99 at retail.

"As it relates to iterating the console and refreshes, our strategy is very much similar to the mobile strategy. There will be a new Ouya every year," Uhrman told Joystiq.

"There will be an Ouya 2 and an Ouya 3. We'll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling. So if we can get more than 8GB of Flash in our box, we will. And in so doing, make sure that all games are backwards compatible."

When it launches, Tegra 3 will be around a year old, with Tegra 4 on the horizon, but Uhrman points out that since Ouya is not a mobile device, there will be no need to balance power for battery life, so it will easily be the "best Tegra 3 device on the market."

Vodafone and 3 Austria warn against iOS 6.1.

The warnings come amidst some complaints from iPhone 4S users who have updated to iOS 6.1. Vodafone in the UK is urging iPhone 4S users to refrain from updating to iOS 6.1 - released in January - until Apple has released a fix for the problem.

In Austria, the 3 network has also reportedly warned its iPhone 4S users against the update.

"The update of the iPhone 4S on iOS 6.1 can currently cause connectivity problems. We responded quickly and are working with Apple on a solution to the problem," 3 in Austria has warned customers.

"For this reason, we recommend not to install the update for the time being. We will inform you immediately if there is a solution. Your 3 ServiceTeam."

In the UK, Vodafone contacted its iPhone 4S users via SMS, as shown below.

Read more...

'Innocence of Muslims' leads to YouTube block.

The 13 minute thoroughly-unentertaining train wreck of a "movie trailer" has actually led to an Egyptian court blocking the entire YouTube service for a month. The video - which claims to be a trailer for a longer movie - is fairly pathetic, but so is the Egyptian court's response to it.

In the Muslim world, depicting the Islamic prophet in any media is often considered blasphemous on its own, so a video depicting him as a sexual deviant and an idiot was always likely to get a response, especially when coupled with the provocative spew of its creator when he spoke to the media.

Regardless, blocking an entire service over one really stupid video is simply unbelievable, even if it is just for a month. YouTube is a public forum, it's a market place of content containing everything from brilliant educational videos, to great ideas, to downright junk. Trust me, even the most hardened person could find something that would annoy them or even anger them on YouTube.

That is the reality of free speech and free expression. When you decide to silence somebody because you don't like what they are saying, you are not only depriving them of their right to speak, you are depriving yourself of your right to hear what they have to say, regardless of how ridiculous or provocative it might be. If you don't want to listen to it, then walk away, it's really that simple. You don't have to watch videos on YouTube.

Dell founder makes commitment to customers.

With Dell Inc. currently facing a potential $24.4 billion buyout to take it into private ownership, Michael Dell has written an open letter to customers. While the deal has already attracted some disapproval from shareholders, Michael Dell and equity firm Silver Lake appear poised to take control of the company.

Here is the open letter from the CEO:

To Our Customers,
The agreement to take Dell private represents an exciting new chapter for our company and for you, our customers.

As always, our unwavering focus is on delivering a fantastic customer experience and creating value for your organization. We believe that our proposed new ownership will provide long-term support to help Dell innovate, invest for growth and accelerate our transformation strategy. We'll have the flexibility to continue organic and inorganic investment and drive industry-leading innovation.
We've made solid progress over the past few years. Our leadership and our strategic execution have been consistent, as we've built a comprehensive portfolio to help you succeed. Secure, easy to manage, end-to-end solutions from the cloud to the data center to devices remain at the core of our value proposition to you. Read more...

Adobe issues important fixes.

It has had to address two zero-day vulnerabilities that are being exploited in the wild. One (CVE-2013-0633) is being exploited in the wild in targeted attacks designed to trick the user into opening a Microsoft Word document delivered as an email attachment which contains malicious Flash (SWF) content.

The other serious flaw (CVE-2013-0634) is being exploited in the wild in attacks delivered via malicious Flash (SWF) content hosted on websites that target Flash Player in Firefox or Safari on the Macintosh platform, as well as attacks designed to trick Windows users into opening a Microsoft Word document delivered as an email attachment which contains malicious Flash (SWF) content.

Affected software versions include...

• Adobe Flash Player 11.5.502.146 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.261 and earlier versions for Linux
• Adobe Flash Player 11.1.115.36 and earlier versions for Android 4.x
• Adobe Flash Player 11.1.111.31 and earlier versions for Android 3.x and 2.x

Microsoft targets some critical flaws.

It will roll out fixes as it always does; on Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of every month. The February 2013 bundle targets flaws in the Windows Operating Systems, Internet Explorer and Exchange. All in all, 57 security issues will be addressed on Patch Tuesday.

The company will push out at least 12 updates to address the flaws - five of which come with a rating of critical. Security updates with this rating suggest that the flaws could be exploited to run arbitrary code on a victims PC if they, for example, visit a specially crafted webpage to exploit them.

Every version of Internet Explorer from IE6 needs to be patched, while flaws in the Windows operating system are considered critical only for versions below Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.

Users should not procrastinate when it comes to Microsoft's monthly patches. While the second Tuesday of every month has become known as "Patch Tuesday", there is a lesser known monthly special day, known by some as "Exploit Wednesday".

Malware writers and others dissect the updates pushed out on Patch Tuesday and develop exploits as quickly as they can against the vulnerabilities, hoping to catch out users who procrastinate when it comes to keeping updated.

Wii U sales hit 3 million worldwide.

That isn't enough to satisfy Activision CEO Robert Kotick however (and not Nintendo either), who said that the publisher is "somewhat disappointed" with the start the Wii U has had.

He made his comments when responding to a question during a post-earnings financial call on Thursday. The question concerned the sales of Activision's Skylanders series on the Wii U.

Kotick said that with the lower-than-expected sales - combined with the target audience of 6-11 year olds for the Skylanders series - it is "something we are concerned about."

Still, it is not all bad news at all for Activision, who reported $4.86 billion in revenue for 2012, with profit at $1.1 billion.

Lithium-Ion burns in pocket.

South Korean media is reporting the case of a man who suffered burns when the lithium-ion battery from a Galaxy Note 'exploded' and caught fire in his pocket.

The battery was not in the Samsung device at the time, according to the Bupyeong Fire Station in Incheon city. South Korean media reported that the battery actually exploded, but the officials did not confirm that was the case.

The man, who was not identified, suffered second degree burns and a one inch wound on his thigh from the incident on Saturday night.

Samsung has said there is no investigation planned, according to the Associated Press.

Lithium-Ion batteries are in millions of different kinds of devices all over the world, and every now and then we hear cases of them overheating and burning. They are at the center of the current problems with the Boeing 787 dreamliner aircraft, for example.

Given the amount of L-Ion batteries in constant use, the number of these incidents is extremely low, and may often come down to the batteries being damaged, such as the case of the iPhone that started burning after an Australian flight landed a while back. In that case, a bad repair of the iPhone was to blame.

Dell's largest independent investor wants a higher offer.

Southeastern Asset Management is opposing the buyout of Dell Inc. by founder and CEO Michael Dell, and equity firm Silver Lake. Earlier this week, the Dell board settled on a deal of $13.65 a share for the company, which Michael Dell wants to take into private ownership.

In order for the buyout to get shareholder approval, it requires that a majority of shares held by investors other than Michael Dell must be in favor when a vote is taken.

With Southeastern's objections, shareholders accounting for 11 percent of shares (not held by Michael Dell) are now against the deal.

Southeastern says it values Dell at $24.00 per share, and said the deal is bad for shareholders as they could have made more from alternative scenarios. It gave an example of breaking up Dell Inc. and selling its units separately.

"Selling multiple business units to strategic buyers could easily exceed $13.65 per share," it said.

Update address bugs with weather, reboot.

Some users who opted to jailbreak their iOS 6.0-6.1 devices using the evasi0n jailbreak tool from evad3rs this week were reporting a couple of problems afterwards.

Some users complained of issues with the iOS Weather app, where it would crash spontaneously. Another problem came when rebooting the device, with users reporting long time for the reboot process to complete.

Evad3rs quickly moved to provide fixes for the problems, and have now also updated the original jailbreak - evasi0n v1.1 - so that the bugs will be fixed on devices that are jailbroken from now on.

You can get evasi0n v1.1 from here.

Or you can visit the evasi0n homepage at: evasi0n.com

For those of you who have already used evasi0n and just want to fix the bugs without redoing the process, then you can do it right from your device. Just follow these instructions.

• Turn on your device and look for the Cydia app, launch it. Don't worry if you get a Preparing Filesystem message which hangs there for a while before going back to the lock screen - simply go back and run Cydia again and it'll be fine.
• When Cydia launches, tap Changes at the bottom of the app.
• There should be two "Available Upgrades", evasi0n 6.0-6.1 Untether and UIKit Tools.
• Install evasi0n 6.0-6.1 Untether by tapping it, then "Modify", tap "Upgrade" and then "Confirm" it.
• Do the same to install the UIKit Tools update
• REBOOT THE DEVICE right away.

Are you getting...SCROOGLED????

Microsoft is attacking Google's GMail service in a new video and pile of information on its SCROOGLED website. This time Microsoft is warning you that GMail pries through your most personal e-mails in order to target advertisements at you.

The video shows Eric Schmidt at the end saying; "There's what I call the creepy line: the Google policy about a lot of these things is to get right up to the creepy line but not cross it."

The website urges you to sign a petition telling Google to stop going through your email to sell ads.

Oh, and of course, it points out that Outlook.com would never do such a bad thing!

Check it out at scroogled.com

Pirate Bay docu posted online for free.

The new documentary, TPB AFK, is premièring at the Berlin International Film Festival. It follows the Pirate Bay's founders around and documents their fight with Swedish authorities, and the U.S. Government.

It covers their eventual arrest and subsequent conviction for copyright violations whilst operating the notorious BiTorrent outfit.

Film Director, Simon Klose, has is sharing three copies of the movie through the Pirate Bay itself. It is available in 480p, 720p or 1080p. If you would prefer to support the filmmakers for making the documentary, you can buy it here.

Don't want to take the time to download it? No problem, just watch it here.

Bush' e-mail account hacked.

A hacker has stolen personal e-mails and photographs belonging to the 41st US President, George HW Bush, according to a spokesman for the Bush family.

"We do not comment on matters under criminal investigation," Jim McGrath told the Houston Chronicle.

The hacker is said to have broken into several accounts of the Bush family. One of the photographs stolen from the accounts is of the former President in a hospital bed, as he was being treated for a bronchitis-related cough.

Another shows his son, 43rd President George W Bush, posing beside a cardboard cut-out of himself with a moustache drawn on it, while other show painting by him.

Speaking with the Smoking Gun, the hacker said he had taken "a lot of stuff" including "interesting mails" about the former president's time in hospital.

The e-mails reportedly include a note sent by President Barack Obama to George HW Bush while he was in hospital.

FBI on the case.

The Federal Reserve said that it was still in the process of determining exactly what information had been leaked in the hack of an internal website. Hackers breached the security of the Emergency Communication System (ECS) using a flaw in webserver software. After the hack, activist group Anonymous claimed to have leaked information on 4,000 bank executives.

"We are in the process of a comprehensive assessment to determine what information might have been obtained in this incident," said Federal Reserve spokesman Jim Strader.

"We remain confident that this incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve."

The FBI has launched a criminal probe into the breach, which was an embarrassment for the central bank as it is expected to provide high levels of information security.

The website that was breached is used for banks to communicate with the central bank during a natural disaster.

Did Japanese newspaper suggest $400 price tag on Sony's upcoming console?

The reports swirling around suggest that Japanese newspaper, Asahi News, priced the PS4 console at $400. However, as Kotaku pointed out, the report only stated that the console was expected to sell for more than ¥40,000, which converts to about $427.

The PS3, when it launched, cost ¥60,000 in Japan, and $499-$599 in the United States based on the HDD space. Heading into the holiday season - when the PS4 is expected to ship in North America - with a price tag of $400 would be very interesting, but that's not what the Japanese report said.

Instead, it seems to have just been speculation that was lost in translation and became just another leaked detail about the PS4.

We are unlikely to know what the PS4 will cost for some time yet, even if most details are given at the event on February 20, as there is a big difference between producing early development models, and producing for the mass market.

Sony drops PS Vita sales expectations by 3 million units.

The company had initially estimated that it would sell 16 million PS Vita and PSP units (it combines both handhelds' figures) during this Fiscal Year, which ends March 31, before cutting its estimates not long after to 12 million.

In November, it dropped its expectations again, down to 10 million. Sony just reported a 15 percent drop in year-on-year revenue for the third quarter of FY 2012. Poor sales in its gaming division had a lot to do with its performance.

Now Sony only expects to sell 7 million PS Vita's and PSP's during the fiscal year ending March 31, less than half of its initial forecast.

Still, Sony has acknowledged the subpar start for its latest handheld device already, and pledged to meet the challenge with new software.

Sony will hold an event on February 20, where it is widely expected to unveil the PlayStation 4 (PS4) to the world.

New Xbox is chatty, apparently.

Microsoft's next Xbox console will come with improved speech recognition, much like Apple's Siri service, according to a report by The Verge.

It cites sources familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans in reporting that the next Xbox will have greatly improved speech recognition functions compared to Xbox 360 + Kinect. It will support "wake on voice", natural language controls and provide for speech-to-text.

Users will be able to ask the Xbox console questions - like what games their friends are currently playing - and the Xbox will give answers. The Xbox can also be told to play certain movies, which will resume from where they left off.

Skype is also expected to be woven into the next Xbox console, which is expected to be shown off at E3 this year and ship in major markets before year's end.

BlackBerry to quit Japan.

According to a report from the Nikkei business daily, BlackBerry will soon cease selling smartphones in the Japanese market entirely. The Canadian smartphone-maker - which just officially changes its name to BlackBerry with the launch of BB10 - cannot justify the cost associated with providing an operating system that accommodates the Japanese language.

BlackBerry has had a difficult time all over in the past few years, but its performance in Japan is mind-numbing. According to the report, BlackBerry has witnessed its market share in the country decline to just 0.3 percent, from 5 percent.

As for owners and customers of BlackBerry products in Japan, the company will continue to provide support, according to the report.

GameStop cites surveys of its customers.

The game retailer - which makes around half of its profits from selling pre-owned games - has warned that its customers might decide not to buy a next generation games console if it blocks playing pre-owned titles.

GameStop spokesman, Matt Hodges, pointed to surveys of members of the chain's PowerUp Rewards loyalty program, which boasts about 21 million members in the United States, that suggest they would be reluctant to spend their money on such restrictive platforms. PowerUp members were responsible for about 75 percent of all GameStop's sales in the United States last year.

"We know the desire to purchase a next-generation console would be significantly diminished if new consoles were to prohibit playing pre-owned games, limit portability or not play new physical games," Hodges told Bloomberg.

Following a report this week suggesting that Microsoft's next Xbox console would not allow pre-owned games to be played (with physical discs coming with one-time activation codes), shares of GameStop dropped 6 percent to $52.50.

Calls inspired by Icelandic block of violent material.

Finnish Minister for Justice, Anna-Maja Henriksson (pictured), is backing extending Finland's current pornography censorship to move beyond child pornography. Under current Finnish law, the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) maintains a blocklist of foreign sourced child pornography websites, as it cannot take direct action against them.

Specifically, the Minister eyes expanding the list to involve websites that include pornographic material showing animals, and "violent porn."

The idea does not have unanimous support even within the Finnish government, however. Finland's Interior Minister, Päivi Räsänen, doubts the need to expand pornographic censorship at all. Indeed, even Finland's own child pornography blocklist has, in the past, included websites that had nothing to do with such vile content.

Still, child pornography blocklists are a reality that even many of the most vocal opponents of censorship accept as reasonable, and justified. The spreading of material that documents the sexual abuse of children prolongs one of the most abhorrent crimes, and re-victimizes the child every time it occurs.

Xbox was all about hurting Sony.

Joachim Kempin used to be VP for Windows sales at Microsoft, and has since gone on to write a book about his experiences with the software giant. He recently gave an interview for IGN, in which he was asked for details on Microsoft's motivation to launch a dedicated games console in late 2001.

"The main reason was to stop Sony," he said, explaining that Sony and Microsoft did not have a very comfortable relationship, but asserting that this wasn't Microsoft's intention.

"Sony was always very arm's length with Microsoft. Yeah, they bought Windows for their PCs but when you really take a hard look at that, they were never Microsoft's friend. And Microsoft in a way wanted them to be a friend because they knew they had a lot of things we could have co-operated on because they are, in a way, an entertainment company, you know?" Kempin added.

Microsoft, Symantec and U.S. marshals take down C&C servers.

Technicians and U.S federal marshals served warrants at data centers in Weehawken, New Jersey, and Manassas, Virginia, on Wednesday, taking aim at servers that send commands to zombies that were zapped into the Bamital botnet. They seized control of one server at the New Jersey location, and persuaded the Virginia data center to contact its parent company in Holland to take down another, according to Retuers.

Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, told the Reuters news agency that they had a high degree of confidence that the operation has brought down the whole crime operation.

The problem did not end there for infected machines however, as the Bamital botnet was used to redirect web searches as part of an advertisements scam. That meant that infected machines - estimated between 300,000 and 1,000,000 - could no longer use web services.

To alert those users of their PC's infection, they will now be redirected by different servers to information explaining their situation, and how to fix it.

USITC judge sets date for final ruling.

In October 2012, the International Trade Commission (ITC) said Apple infringed on four Samsung patents in several smartphones, but that decision is being reviewed following petitions by both companies.

Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender entered a scheduling order setting Aug 1, as a target final decision date, according to Florian Mueller's Foss Patents blog.

The case was filed by Apple with the ITC in July 2011, and is separate from the case filed by Samsung against Apple in August 2011. The South Korean consumer electronics giant initially alleged that Apple infringed 5 patents in its products, but has since withdrawn one.

The ITC has the power to impose an import ban on products. It is unknown what affect an ITC final ruling imposing a ban on infringing Samsung products would have, given that Samsung has already made modifications based on the ITC, and other, findings.

YouTube investment would value Vevo at $50 million.

If the negotiations are successful, Google will own around 10 percent of the music video service. The deal then, would value Vevo somewhere near half a billion dollars, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, who remain anonymous as the negotiations are not public.

Vevo was formed by Universal Music and Sony Music Entertainment. It has a contract with YouTube - owned by Google - to list Vevo music videos on the popular video hub.

Vevo counted 51.6 million unique U.S. viewers in December, according to data from ComScore. YouTube recorded about 181.7 million.

"While we don't comment on individual negotiations, we always hope to renew our relationships with valuable partners so we can continue to provide YouTube users with the best possible music experience," Chris Dale, spokesman for Google, said in a statement to Bloomberg.

German downloads 25 billionth song.

The song itself was "Monkey Drums" (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch. Phillip Lüpke, the downloader from Germany, will be rewarded a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

"We are grateful to our users whose passion for music over the past 10 years has made iTunes the number one music retailer in the world," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.

"Averaging over 15,000 songs downloaded per minute, the iTunes Store connects music fans with their favorite artists, including global sensations like Adele and Coldplay and new artists like The Lumineers, on a scale we never imagined possible."

iTunes is available in 119 countries, and packs more than 26 million songs.

No used games on next Xbox?

A report from Edge Online, citing sources with first hand experience of Microsoft's next generation Xbox console, suggests that the anticipated console will not allow used games. Even though games will be sold in physical form, they will come with activation codes that are useless beyond the initial user.

The report also says that the new Xbox will require a constant Internet connection to function, with a huge Xbox Live overhaul to be a core part of the system.

Games sold in physical form will be on 50GB Blu-ray discs, according to the report.

Edge also reported that the sources confirmed the rumoured specs for the next Xbox, including an AMD octo-core 1.6GHz CPU, a D3D11.x 800MHz graphics solution and 8GB of DDR3 RAM. What storage capacity the device will ship with has not been decided yet.

A new, more responsive Kinect, is also rumoured to be on the way.

Samsung Galaxy S IV to be unveiled next month, report says.

SamMobile cites a "trusted insider" in reporting that Samsung will officially announce the Galaxy S IV on March 15, but conceded that the location is still unknown. It also says that the Galaxy S IV will go on sale starting the second week of April.

It reports that the smartphone will launch in Europe and Asia first during April, then to North America, Australia and Africa between May and June.

The rumoured specs for the Galaxy S IV are an Exynos 5 Octa (8-Core) CPU, Mali-T658 (8-Core) GPU, 4.99″ Super AMOLED Full HD Resolution Display and 2GB of RAM, with a rear facing 13 megapixel camera capable of shooting in 1080p at 30fps, and a front facing 2 megapixel camera. It will run Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean out of the box.

(Pic Source: SamMobile)

Kaspersky releases fix for update error.

An update for a Kaspersky anti-virus product knocked thousands of Windows XP users offline, and even blocked some users from accessing internal company networks. Kaspersky became aware of the issue very quickly and had a fix at hand within two hours.

As a workaround at first Kaspersky said affected users needed to disable the product or roll back the update.

The Russian security firm then issued a statement, apologizing for any inconvenience caused by the database update error.

From users' reports of the problem, it would appear that the update altered the database to block access to port 80, the default port used by web servers to listen for client (browser) requests.

Oops.

Chinese still at it, media giant says.

Rupert Murdoch took to twitter to inform everyone that news of hacks at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post had not deterred the attackers from continuing their actions.

He tweeted that the "Chinese still hacking us, or were over the weekend."

China has denied any involvement in attacks against Western media outlets, and has said allegations against it are "irresponsible." It claims to also be the victim of frequent cyber attacks, and that such actions are not tolerated in the country.

This week, the U.S.-China Business Council urged the two countries to cooperate to tackle the growing problem, or risk causing serious damage to their trade relationship.

Chinese still hacking us, or were over weekend.

-- Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) February 6, 2013

Project SHIELD streams Borderlands 2 from PC.

As part of a "PC Mondays" series, Nvidia has uploaded a video showing its Project SHIELD device playing Borderland 2, with graphics settings "cranked all the way up with full 60fps performance."

Of course, the device itself isn't doing all the Borderlands 2 crunching, it is streaming the game from a GeForce GTX 680-enabled PC that's right across the room.

The video lets you take a peek at the interface of Project SHIELD and get a look at the latency (or apparent lack thereof) while it is streaming Borderlands 2.

Project SHIELD was one of the more unexpected revelations from CES.

Fed confirms hack.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has confirmed that an internal website was breached and some personal information was stolen. The central bank said that the hack was limited to the internal website, and did not affect any critical systems or functions of the organization.

The attackers - widely reported to be Anonymous - exploited a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product to retrieve information on up to 4,000 bank executives from around the United States.

"Some registrants also included optional information consisting of home phone and personal email. Despite claims to the contrary, passwords were not compromised," the Fed said, though it denied that any passwords had been exposed.

The internal website appears to be part of an emergency response system for cases of a natural disaster. For example, if a bank was damaged in a storm or a flood, this is the system that executives could use to keep the Fed posted on conditions. Combined, the data would give the Federal Reserve a view of the overall impact on the U.S. banking system.

YouTube removes North Korean propaganda.

We covered the posting of the very strange video from North Korea just yesterday, pointing out that the propaganda piece had used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in order to depict a burning U.S. city and American flag.

Now it appears that Activision didn't find the use of its blockbuster video game in this fashion very tasteful, and had it removed from a North Korean YouTube channel for copyright violations. It would appear the channel operators then completely removed the video afterwards.

Still, it is not completely gone from YouTube, so if you missed the complete train wreck, then here it is...

Google did not mislead, court says.

Australia's High Court has ruled that Google Inc. is not responsible for the messages conveyed by paid advertisers on its web services. The case was brought against Google by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The watchdog accused Google of misleading, and of deceptive conduct with its paid advertisements. Its case was based on advertisements shown on search results for Honda Australia, which would include ads for CarSales, a rival of Honda in the country. The suggesting, according to the group, was that CarSales was linked to Honda. An Australian Federal Court had ruled against Google and ordered it to take measures accordingly.

This week, the Australian High Court overruled the Federal Court's decision, finding that Google did not create the sponsored links and content, and was not responsible for the message they portrayed.

"Ordinary and reasonable users of the Google search engine would have understood that the representations conveyed by the sponsored links were those of the advertisers, and would not have concluded that Google adopted or endorsed the representations," the court said.

Total spend down 9 percent.

The figures come from the NPD Group, showing a a 9 percent fall in games spending in the United States in 2012. The drop was driven largely by a drop in total physical software sales (which included all new, used and rental spending), accounting for $8.8 billion during the year, compared to $11.25 billion in 2011 (down 21 percent).

It wasn't all bad news however, as digital spending jumped 16 percent to $5.92 billion, up from $5.09 billion in 2011.

"When including all other forms of content spending outside of new physical games, the 2012 U.S. games market was more than twice as large as the total spending on new physical games alone," NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in a statement.

"There were divergent trends when looking at content spending in 2012 as a whole, with a decrease of 21 percent in spending on physical content while digital content spending grew 16 percent; both formats combined for a total decline of 9 percent for the year."

More: NPD

Video shows WebRTC promise.

Mozilla and Google have made further strides in WebRTC development, making it possible for Chrome and Firefox browsers to support video calls without a plugin. WebRTC (Real Time Communication) is a new set of technologies that brings clear crisp voice, sharp high-definition (HD) video and low-delay communication to the web browser.

Chrome and Firefox can now communicate by using standard technologies such as the Opus and VP8 codecs for audio and video, DTLS-SRTP for encryption, and ICE for networking.

Here is a video showing the first such video chat between Mozilla's Chief Innovation Officer, Todd Simpson, and Google's Director of Product Management, Hugh Finnan.

Rockstar sets some fans straight.

The GTA-maker recently announced a 4 month delay for the eagerly anticipated Grand Theft Auto V title, due in September 2013. There were many questions about the delay with some theories ranging from finance issues to a sign of next generation console launches.

While that is to be expected, Rockstar Games seemed to be annoyed enough by some of the feedback it received on its own website that it posted a message warning users that, "general rules of common courtesy, decency and behavior as listed above the Comment Box still apply here, therefore anyone continuing to post abusive comments will have their privileges suspended."

Then the message singled out users who were alleging that all is not as it seems...

"To those of you saying or seeing various conspiracy theories about there being some other ulterior motive for this delay, rest assured that they're all nonsense – literally the only reason we've delayed the release is because we want the game to be as good as it needs to be.

"Operation Decoy File"

Users of domestic P2P networks in Japan may download certain files thinking they are pirated content, but instead receiving a threatening anti-piracy message. A translation of the message has been provided by RocketNews24.

"A Warning from the Organisation to Raise Awareness of Copyright. Files with the same name as this contain content which is in violation of copyright when distributed over P2P networks such as Winny or Share.

Knowingly downloading and of course uploading files that are protected by copyright law without the consent of the owner over the internet is illegal copyright infringement. Please stop immediately.

Also, from 1 October 2012, downloading content which is known to be available for sale is punishable by a maximum 2-year prison sentence and/or 2,000,000 yen [£13,770] fine.

Our copyright organisation is working to eliminate copyright infringement by file sharing software. In addition to consulting the police to obtain the disclosure of user's identities, we want to focus on user education."

Xbox 360 scores console exclusive.

The Major Nelson blog announced the deal that will bring Redbox Instant by Verizon to the Xbox 360 console in the "very near future." Redbox Instant is currently in beta, and anyone who already is a beta participant will automatically get an email with a unique code to access the app on Xbox 360 in the coming days.

Those who are interested in joining the beta, apply at: redboxinstant

A Redbox Instant subscription package, priced at $8 per month for DVD or $9 per month for Blu-ray, combines four one-night credits for the latest movie releases at Redbox kiosks with access to a great catalogue of popular movies available for unlimited streaming.

Xbox 360 owners will also be able to purchase or rent the newest digital releases without being a Redbox Instant subscriber.

The Xbox 360 is the exclusive gaming and entertainment console partner for Redbox Instant when it launches.

App brings old classics to Sony's latest handheld.

The PlayStation Home Arcade app is available to download for free from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita, and can be used to purchase a variety of classic games for $1.49. Some newer games are also available, like Icebreaker and Scribble Shooter, which was previously only available on PlayStation Home.

From today, the following titles are available:

• Icebreaker (Free)
• WipEout 2D (Free)
• Scribble Shooter (Demo available for Free) – $1.49
• Frogger – $1.49
• Time Pilot – $1.49
• Asteroids – $1.49
• Centipede- $1.49
• Astrosmash Gen2 – $1.49
• Shark! Shark! Gen2 – $1.49
• Mad Blocker – $1.49

Apple did not violate state law.

The California Supreme Court found that Apple did nothing illegal by requiring customers to provide home addresses and phone numbers in order to accept payments made by credit card. Privacy protection policies in California do protect customers from being asked for such information from brick and mortar retailers, but the supreme court found that this did not extend to digital transactions.

The ruling was not unanimous however, with three dissenting justices arguing that consumers had lost in the decision, as such requirements were a violation of their privacy.

The majority justices disagreed with that view however, pointing out that conditions are different for transactions in person and over the Internet.

"Unlike a brick-and-mortar retailer, an online retailer cannot visually inspect the credit card, the signature on the back of the card, or the customer's photo identification," Justice Goodwin Liu wrote.

Apple had received backing in the case from Wal-Mart and eBay.

European Union regulation sets default sound limit of 85 decibels (dB).

While it is described as a limit, users will be able to increase the limit to 100dB if they choose to do so. The limit comes from research into the affects of high volume music on hearing, and its ability to bring on conditions like tinnitus, which is a persistent ringing in either ear, or both, and is often associated with hearing loss.

Experts embraced the new regulations as good news, but charity Action on Hearing Loss fears that a large proportion of listeners may decide to ignore the warnings and bypass the 85dB limit.

After this month, all portable music players sold in the EU must come pre-set with a limit of 85dB, and must display some form of warning if the limit is bypassed informing the user of the danger of hearing damage.

The European Commission cited research into the matter that concluded that persistent listening at 85dB was safe, while some users push the volume up as far as 120dB, which is the equivalent of standing new a jet as its taking off.

The quality of headphones/earphones can also contribute one way or another.

Trade group urges cooperation.

The U.S.-China Business Council, which represents 230 U.S. companies that have varying interests in China, is urging the U.S. Government and Beijing to cooperate against cyber attacks. The group warns that such high-profile attacks can undermine the trade relationship between both countries, with possible devastating economic consequences.

"We would simply say it's time for the governments to work on it," John Frisbie, president of the trade group, said. "We do know that companies are constant targets of efforts to get into their systems globally."

As a start, Frisbie has urged an annual summit between the U.S. President Barack Obama, and China's next President Xi Jinping. Obama has met with outgoing President Hu Jintao many times, though its usually during an international gathering of one sort or another.

The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post are the latest high profile hacking cases which seem strongly linked to China, but they are far from the only organizations making such allegations. China vigorously denies that it is involved in cyber attacks, and says that it is also a victim of such crime on a regular basis.

Iwata says Cloud gaming has major issues.

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, was asked by investors about the future of dedicated gaming platforms, and whether they would be negatively affected by newer gaming solutions, like Cloud gaming services. Needless to say, he dismissed the notion right away, pointing out that Cloud gaming has some inherent problems.

"For some highly interactive games, action games in particular, the time required to reflect the push of a button on the screen is critical and the frame rate determines the fluidity of the movements," he said, referring to the latency issues of online cloud gaming services.

"This means that there are some types of games that can be put on the Internet and others that cannot. There are many things that cloud gaming cannot do by design, but this fact has not been communicated well to the public, and I find it strange that many people claim that cloud gaming is the future."

He said that Nintendo's stance is that dedicated gaming platforms will not die out, and denied suggestions that Nintendo was going to integrate its home and portable devices into one in the near future.

Court tells Apple it must wait.

The Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. rejected a request made by Apple Inc. to expedite its appeal against a District court's decision not to impose an injunction on the sale of some Samsung smartphones. The California court had awarded Apple $1.05 billion in its case against Samsung, but Judge Lucy Koh rejected a request to impose a sales ban.

The appeals court has informed Apple's representation that a three judge panel must consider Apple's appeal first, and the court will later decide whether to hear the case.

While the injunction sought by Apple is now for older Samsung smartphones, the iPhone-maker would be expected to try to have such a ban extended to Samsung's newer devices.

For now, Samsung's products will stay on the market in the United States, and Apple will have to wait on the appeals court.

Nokia's share of web usage plummets year over year.

The Finnish giant saw the share of mobile web usage attached to its products drop by 15 percent in January 2013, compared to January 2012. Apple moved itself to the top of the list despite losing some share itself, though the iPad was not counted in the StatCounter research. Apple's share of mobile web usage stood at 25.86 percent, down from 28.67 percent a year earlier.

In second place, Samsung showed the only gain, rising to 22.69 percent from 14.84 percent a year earlier. Nokia's fortunes continued to sour, as its devices accounted for 22.15 percent, compared to 37.67 percent a year earlier.

"It's good and bad news for Apple," said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.

"Apple has been handed the number one spot despite its falling usage share. A decline in Nokia usage from January 2012 to January 2013 means the Finnish company ceded the top spot to Apple. Samsung, in contrast to Apple, has seen an increase in its usage share since January 2012."

North Korea uploads truly bizarre video.

The video shows a man as he sleeps, dreaming about blasting off into space, and seemingly circling the Earth in what looks like a really cheap model of a space shuttle. All the while, "We are the World" is the tune that is playing along.

Later in the video, around the 2:15 mark, you see a burning city draped in an American flag. The burning city appears to be New York, and the footage seems to have been lifted right from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," the caption reads, according to the description on LiveLeak. "It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire started by itself."

Given that a North Koran nuclear test is apparently imminent (in response to UN imposed sanctions), you would think they could at least make a better video, right?

Android console to hit retail in June.

The Ouya games console - the result of a very successful Kickstarter campaign that raised $8 million - will go on sale at Gamestop, Target and Best Buy from June, which is good news for interested consumers who missed out on the campaign. The console will sell for $99.99 and will come with one controller, an extra pad costing $49.99.

Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman admitted to the Wall Street Journal that $49.99 is a "premium price" for an extra controller, but that the inclusion of a touchpad makes up for it.

The Ouya packs a ARM Cortex-A9 Quad-Core 1.7GHz processor, Nvidia Tegra 3 SoC, 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal flash memory. It's OS is based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and it has its own tailored Ouya store for applications and games. Ouya will be compatible with the OnLive video game service too.

The console can be rooted without voiding the warranty and is purposely made to be easily disassembled for hardware expansion and modifications.

Deal done at $13.65 per share.

Dell's original founder, Michael Dell, wants to take the company into private ownership, joined by equity firm Silver Lake. Dell will put up some of his own money toward the deal, as will his investment firm MSD Capital, and Microsoft Corp. will also provide financing in the form of a $2 billion loan.

Four other banks are included in the deal, which is the largest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis hit more than four years ago.

Under the terms of the agreement, Dell stockholders will receive $13.65 in cash for each share of Dell common stock they hold, in a transaction valued at approximately $24.4 billion.

The price represents a premium of 25 percent over Dell's closing share price of $10.88 on Jan. 11, 2013, the last trading day before rumors of a possible going-private transaction were first published; a premium of approximately 35 percent over Dell's enterprise value as of Jan. 11, 2013; and a premium of approximately 37 percent over the average closing share price during the previous 90 calendar days ending Jan. 11, 2013.

"I believe this transaction will open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our customers and team members. We can deliver immediate value to stockholders, while we continue the execution of our long-term strategy and focus on delivering best-in-class solutions to our customers as a private enterprise," said Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell.

Teenager lucky to escape jail sentence.

Jake Birchall (or Fennic) was 16 years old when the Operation Payback actions were taken in 2010, reportedly in response to PayPal's refuse to process Wikileaks donations. Two others involved in the attack were jailed for their part, while another received a suspended sentence.

Due to Birchall being underage at the time of the attacks, judge Peter Testar did not hand out a custodial sentence, but according to the Guardian, he made it clear that if Birchall had been older he'd have received a substantial sentence.

Instead, Birchall has been given an eight month youth rehabilitation order and 60 hours of community service. "The fact of the matter is although he had and has a disadvantage in life he did actually play an important role," said the judge.

"He did play a prominent and important part in this and I think he has got to learn to get out of bed in a morning and do unpaid work."

The Judge was referring to psychiatric and pre-sentencing reports that described the defendant as isolated.

Microsoft to take stake in Dell.

A consortium led by Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Inc, has been negotiating a leveraged buyout of Dell Inc., seeking to take the prolific PC manufacturer into private ownership. Michael Dell is joined by Silver Lake and Microsoft Corp, who are expected to put up $1 billion and $2 billion respectively.

Michael Dell will roll over his 16 percent stake of the company and will invest some of his own money, but the deal clearly is heavily leveraged - the largest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis rocked the business world.

Reuters cites a person familiar with the buyout in reporting that price negotiations have narrowed to between $13.50 and $13.75 per share, suggesting a valuation between $23.5 billion to $23.9 billion.

Facing tough competition from Lenovo and others in the space - along with a shift in the industry away from the traditional Desktop - Dell has ceded market share and is struggling to recover.

L.A. Noire has its own gag reel.

The Rockstar title was released in 2011, depicting 1947 Los Angeles and the fight against crime from the perspective of Police Officer Cole Phelps.

It was noted for the quality of facial expressions and body language, due to the use of Depth Analysis' MotionScan technology, which uses 32 surrounding cameras to record actors as they portray the characters. It is up to the player to make judgements based on the characters' expressions and movements during interrogation.

But since real actors were used for the game, they are inevitably going to make mistakes. Depth Analysis has compiled such a blooper reel from mistakes made by the actors while being captured by the MotionScan process.

Enjoy!

Team evad3rs bring untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.0 through 6.1.

The evasi0n tool was released today, with support for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini devices running iOS 6.x. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and takes only a few minutes to complete.


You require...

• 5 minutes of your time!
• A computer, running Windows (XP minimum), Mac OS X (10.5 minimum) or Linux (x86 / x86_64)
• An iPhone, iPad or iPod running iOS 6.0 through 6.1 (you may check in Settings / General / About => Version)
• A USB cable to connect the device to the computer

HP taking "multiOS approach."

It's new Pavilion 14 Chromebook sports a 14-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit display, a couple of inches larger than the typical Chromebook display, and has Altec Lansing speakers. The Pavilion 14 measures 13.66 x 9.37 x 0.83 in, and weighs 3.96lb.

As a Chromebook, naturally, its runs Google's Chrome OS, and HP focuses heavily on a seamless Google experience with popular products like Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive and Google+ Hangouts for multiperson video chat as well as access to apps in the Chrome Web Store.

Under the hood, it packs an Intel Celeron 847 1.1GHz processor with integrated Intel HD Graphics, 2GB DDR3 memory (upgradable to 4GB) and a 16GB SATA SSD (100GB free Google Drive storage for two years). The Pavilion 14 packs some necessary ports: 3 USB 2.0; 1 HDMI; 1 RJ45; 1 headphone-out/microphone-in combo and a multi-format digital media card reader. It also sports a HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated microphone.

The 4-cell (37WHr) Li-Ion battery lasts up to 4 hours and 15 minutes per charge, and for networking, the Chromebook features Intel 802.11a/b/g/n (2x2) and Bluetooth support - and of course a standard 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet LAN interface.

 

 

Google raises the top prize for hackers.

Previously, Google has offered prize totals of $1 million, and then $2 million, for hackers who can break its Chrome browser security in one way or another (the amount of compensation depends on the attack type). Now it is raising the total to $3.14159 million (a nod to Pi) for hackers who dare breach its Chrome OS security.

Google will issue Pwnium 3 rewards for Chrome OS at the following levels, up to a total of $3.14159 million USD:

• $110,000: browser or system level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via a web page.
• $150,000: compromise with device persistence -- guest to guest with interim reboot, delivered via a web page.

American media outlets under constant threat.

The Wall Street Journal confirmed earlier this week that it too has been hacked, and points the finger of blame in China's direction. Just a day before the WSJ revealed its own breach, the New York Times reported that its systems had been attacked, with evidence pointing toward China.

In the Wall Street Journal's case, the outlet said that the hackers were clearly trying to monitor its coverage of events in China. Beijing has previously come under scrutiny from governments and corporations for cyber attacks, but it outright denies any link to the crimes.

China's foreign ministry dismissed the New York Times' allegations as "groundless" and said the media outlet was "totally irresponsible."

"China is also a victim of hacking attacks. Chinese laws clearly forbid hacking attacks, and we hope relevant parties takes a responsible attitude on this issue," spokesman Hong Lei, said.

Suggestions for motives for China to hack media outlets include attempts to identify sources of information that was previously passed out of the country, or to monitor what stories journalists are currently working on that are relevant to China.

Kim Dotcom offers cash for bugs.

The freshly launched Mega cloud storage service is putting its security to the test with cash prizes for hackers who can find bugs in the service. Successful breaches of Mega security could net an enthusiast up to €10,000.

"We have, however, also suffered three direct hits, and we want more! To improve MEGA's security, we are offering rewards to anyone reporting a previously unknown security-relevant bug or design flaw," The Mega site reads.

The following type of bugs qualify for payment...

• Remote code execution on any of our servers (including SQL injection)
• Remote code execution on any client browser (e.g., through XSS)
• Any issue that breaks our cryptographic security model, allowing unauthorized remote access to or manipulation of keys or data
• Any issue that bypasses access control, allowing unauthorized overwriting/destruction of keys or user data
• Any issue that jeopardizes an account's data in case the associated e-mail address is compromised

FTC issues guidelines for privacy.

The non-binding guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) act as recommendations for how mobile firms take measures to protect privacy of users.

The report recommends that mobile platforms should:

• Provide just-in-time disclosures to consumers and obtain their affirmative express consent before allowing apps to access sensitive content like geolocation;
• Consider providing just-in-time disclosures and obtaining affirmative express consent for other content that consumers would find sensitive in many contexts, such as contacts, photos, calendar entries, or the recording of audio or video content;
• Consider developing a one-stop "dashboard" approach to allow consumers to review the types of content accessed by the apps they have downloaded;
• Consider developing icons to depict the transmission of user data;
• Promote app developer best practices. For example, platforms can require developers to make privacy disclosures, reasonably enforce these requirements, and educate app developers;
• Consider providing consumers with clear disclosures about the extent to which platforms review apps prior to making them available for download in the app stores and conduct compliance checks after the apps have been placed in the app stores; and
• Consider offering a Do Not Track (DNT) mechanism for smartphone users. A mobile DNT mechanism, which a majority of the Commission has endorsed, would allow consumers to choose to prevent tracking by ad networks or other third parties as they navigate among apps on their phones.

Amateur CPU Spurs' side slaughtered in bid to break FIFA 13 record.

The previous record was apparently a margin of 110 goals. In the video, player "KSI" is allowed to choose which team he wants to play with, and against. He can also choose the skill level (which is amateur to ensure the highest margin of victory) and the half length, which he sets at 20 minutes. He's using an Xbox 360 console, by the way.

Don't worry, the video does not show the entire game, just a description of the challenge, the first few goals, some highlights and then the final score of Arsenal 190 - 0 Tottenham Hotspur.

Being a slight FIFA addict, I am impressed by the margin of victory, but can't help but laugh at how utterly useless he has made his CPU opposition. The ease at which his players can control the penalty area from a corner kick, score from ridiculous ranges (with pretty much perfect accuracy) and dispossess opponents by walking into them means he essentially had no challenge at all from the CPU... but who cares, its a World Record attempt after all!

Enjoy!

Schmidt labels China a menace.

"The New Digital Age," by Eric Schmidt is due to be released in April, but the Wall Street Journal has obtained information from it. Schmidt hits out at China in several areas of Information Technology, branding the state the "world's most active and enthusiastic filterer of information."

The book alleges that China is the most sophisticated and prolific hacker of foreign companies.

"The disparity between American and Chinese firms and their tactics will put both the government and the companies of the United States as a distinct disadvantage," Schmidt is quoted to have written.

Washington "will not take the same path of digital corporate espionage, as its laws are much stricter (and better enforced) and because illicit competition violates the American sense of fair play."

However, he does argue in the book that the United States, and other Western governments, should follow China's lead to develop stronger relationships between the state and technology companies.

Consortium close to buying PC maker.

It is led by Michael Dell, the founder and chief executive of Dell Inc., along with private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. They hope to take Dell into private ownership, paying between $13-14 per share, valuing Dell at between $22.6 billion and $24.4 billion.

Michael Dell would take majority ownership, while Silver Lake Partners and Microsoft Corp. would become minority investors, according to Reuters sources.

According to the sources, the group has secured up to $15 billion of debt financing from four banks; Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital. The deal may be finalized this weekend.

If it goes ahead, it will be the largest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis began in 2008.

I/P Engine Inc sets sights on Microsoft.

It is suing the Redmond-based software giant over patents related to how Internet search engines efficiently place advertisements on pages.

IP/Engine Inc previously secured a ruling against Google and AOL, when a Virginia jury awarded the firm around $30 million in damages, though it had been seeking damages up to $696 million. It is now pursuing Microsoft with the same patents at the core of its case.

It alleges that Microsoft is using the technology to generate advertisements and links for users of its Bing web search service, and that the infringement is wilful on Microsoft's part.

To back up its patent claims, it points out that the U.S. Patent and Trade Office rejected a Microsoft patent application in 2003, referencing the similarities it has with IP/Engine's patent.

No science-based evidence linking video games to violence, EA CEO says.

John Riccitiello, EA chief executive officer, said that EA was horrified at the events at the Sandy Hook school and previous shooting incidents in the United States, but felt compelled to note that there has been no link found between this type of extreme violent behaviour and video games.

Video games were predictably dragged right into the middle of the debate following the terrible shooting at the Sandy Hook school in December. The National Rifle Association (NRA) condemned violent video games, saying they were partially to blame for the massacre. Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, said that games need to be examined in the wake of the shooting, while members of Congress also chimed in to attack video games.

United States senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) even asserted that video games are a bigger problem than guns themselves, because they "affect people."

However, political figures and lobbyists can say whatever they like but what really counts, is evidence to back up such a link.

Microsoft's 7 year old console pushes on.

An updated sales chart from the Redmond giant notes that it has sold 75.9 million Xbox 360 consoles. The estimate is up from 70 million units reported in October 2012.

The new sales chart also notes 40 million Xbox Live members, which is unchanged from the previous report on its usage from Microsoft several months ago. As of November 2012, Sony was reported to have shipped 70 million PS3 consoles around the world.

Microsoft is expected to officially announce its next-generation Xbox very soon, possibly in March, while Sony is expected to at least offer a peak at the PS4 later this month.

PS4 automatically records video output, rumor suggests.

Edge cites sources familiar with the PS4's development in reporting that Sony's upcoming next-gen console constantly records the video output, storing the previous 15 minutes automatically.

Using the rumored share button on the PS4 controller, users can easily publish this content, or screenshots of gameplay, on the Internet. The sources also seemed to confirm the previous rumors of the new controller featuring a rear touchpad based on the PS Vita's existing tech.

The Edge report also suggests that the PS4 will be released in Jspan and North America before the busy holiday season, but the European release will slip to the Spring, as was the case with the PS3.

Of course, rumors like this are likely to spread like wildfire before the PlayStation event later this month where Sony is expected to at least tease the new console, and then more rumors will brew in time for E3 this summer.

Oracle forces out updates early.

The Critical Patch Update for Java SE was scheduled for February 19th, but Oracle decided that it simply could not wait that long. One serious vulnerability that affects the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in Desktop browsers is being actively exploited in the wild, causing quite a stir and prompting some browser vendors to disable Java by default in their browser updates.

All in all, the patches released by Oracle include 50 security updates across its Java SE products. If you have Java software installed then you will be prompted eventually by the update utility that is installed and runs by default on start-up.

Alternatively, you can get the Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment for Windows v7 update 13 from AfterDawn, or the 64-bit version for Windows.

For more information, see the Oracle Java SE Critical Patch Update Advisory for February 13 from here.

German police warn about ransomware.

Windows users being extorted by malicious software into handing over money is nothing new. Fake anti-virus utilities in particular are notorious for warning about non-existent threats and making a computer very difficult to use (if not impossible) until a "license" is bought in order to remove the "infection".

Ransomware on the other hand is even more sly. You can find, for example, ransomware that will scramble documents and other data on a users' hard disk drive, and will only decrypt the information if the user pays up. This kind of infection is particularly nasty, because removing the ransomware infection might not help to retrieve your original data, and who knows, maybe paying up won't either.

Even more nasty is the use of emotional blackmail to force a user to get out a credit card. Germany's Federal Criminal police office, the Bundeskriminalamt, is warning Germans about a virus doing the rounds now that accuses victims of viewing "juvenile pornography."

It pops up a window on the victim's computer, and locks out access to the system. The interface is designed to look like it was prepared by the Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BKI) and the office responsible for copyright infringement prosecution in the country.

Ofcom to relax limits on 4G spectrum.

While it is currently auctioning off unused airwaves that can be utilized for 4G mobile networks in the region, Ofcom has also started a public consultation exercise on a proposal to let mobile operators run 4G services on airwaves they use for existing services. The consultation exercise runs until March 29.

The only 4G provider in the UK currently is EE, and it already is using those parts of the radio spectrum for its 4G services. Vodafone and 3 have previously asked Ofcom for permission to do the same.

"This will meet a long standing objective to liberalise all mobile licences so that there are no regulatory barriers to the deployment of the latest available mobile technology," Ofcom said in a statement about the proposals in its consultation document.

"The only reason we allowed EE to use its existing spectrum for 4G services was because it made an application to us to do this. This decision was taken after conducting a thorough assessment of how competition might be affected."

Malware infected four million computers, targeted popular web sites.

Remember the DNS Changer malware that caused a stir in the middle of 2012? It comes down to seven people from Estonia and Russia who were indicted in November 2011 on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and computer intrusion, among other offenses.

Valeri Aleksejev, 32 years old from Estonia, is the first of the seven individuals to enter a plea, admitting his guilt for his role in the global scam that netted approximately $14 million. The other six individuals have been named as Anton Ivanov, Vladimir Tsastsin, Timur Gerassimenko, Dmitri Jegorov, Konstantin Poltev, and Andrey Taame (the sole Russian who has not yet been apprehended).

Malware was delivered to victims' PCs when they visited specially crafted websites (that presumably targeted browser/plug-in flaws) or when they downloaded phony video codec software. The malware changed the DNS settings of the infected computers, and even in cases could change the DNS settings of the routers they were connected to.

Infected computers could not download essential security updates or virus/malware definition files. If the user went to a number of popular online destinations - such as Apple's iTunes site, or Netflix - they would be redirected to other websites entirely that were controlled by the scammers.

Apple hits No. 1 in U.S. for first time.

Data from Strategic Analytics showed that mobile phone shipments amounted to 52 million units in the United States in the last three months of 2012, about a 4 percent increase over the same period of 2011. However, the previous three quarters saw the market contract 16 percent as economic uncertainty and changes to upgrade policies from wireless carriers.

According to Strategic Analytic' report, Apple shipped 17.7 million mobile phones to snatch 34 percent of the U.S. market during Q4 2012, compared to 12.8 million units and a 25 percent market share in Q4 2011.

Apple pushed its iPhone 5 heavily in the media, and Carriers offered relatively generous subsidies to help it along. Displaced from the top of the list, Samsung shipped 16.8 million units in the United States, claiming a 32 percent market share during the quarter, up from 27 percent in the same period of 2011.

The South Korean CE giant will take note of its overall 2012 performance in the United States, with 53 million mobile phones shipped compared to Apple's 43.7 million. Taking the entire year's performance, Samsung claimed 31.8 percent market share, compared to Apple at 26.2 percent.

VESA makes update to standard to support HDMI 1.4 display resolutions.

The HDMI 1.4 revision supports video output in 1080p 3D at 60Hz and 4K (Ultra HD) at 30Hz, and also supports 1080p output with deep color. The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has announced the updated DisplayPort Dual-Mode Standard version 1.1, to provide a higher data rate for DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable adaptors.

DisplayPort was developed to provide a single video interface that both provides advanced features as well as interoperability with HDMI, and legacy displays including VGA and DVI.

The 1.1 revision bumps Dual-Mode cable adaptors' TMDS clock rate up to 300MHz, up from the 165Mhz currently supported. The increased clock rate allows DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable adaptors to output in higher resolutions supported by HDMI 1.4.

VESA also said that existing adaptors will now be referred to as "Type 1" adaptors, and the new adaptors as "Type 2." A Type 2 adaptor will be backward compatible with an existing Dual-Mode DisplayPort source device, but it will only support up to a 165MHz TMDS clock rate unless it is used with a "Type 2 enabled" Dual-Mode DisplayPort source device.

Micro-blogging giant advises concerned users.

This year seems to have gotten off to a worrying start in the realm of cybersecurity, with the New York Time and the Wall Street Journal confirming they have been targeted by overseas hackers. On top of that, serious woes about Java security have prompted browser maker Mozilla, and Apple Inc., to disable Java in their browsers by default.

The latest scare making the headlines is the confirmation from Twitter that around 250,000 of its users have been affected by an attack on the service. Specifically, Twitter has revealed that attackers have gained access to limited users information - such as usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords - associated with the quarter of a million affected accounts.

The service has reset the passwords of all the affected accounts, and revoked session tokens, as a precautionary measure. If you have been affected by the attack, then you will receive an e-mail from Twitter to the address associated with your account, and will need to set a new password as your older password will no longer work.

Tablet sales way up in fourth quarter.

In the last three months of 2012, things were looking good for the global market for tablet PCs. Global shipments of tablet PCs leaped 75 percent during the period, hitting a record 52 million devices. The more interesting detail though is who is gobbling up the spoils?

Samsung will be pleased having shipped 7.9 million units of its Galaxy-branded tablets, up from 2.2 million during the same period of 2011. IDC estimates Samsung's market share during the quarter at 15.1 percent, up from 7.3 percent in 2011.

Apple still led the way in the fourth quarter with 22.9 million iPads shipped, up from 15.5 million in Q4 2011. Despite the increase in sales, Apple's market share in the quarter fell to 43.6 percent, down from 51.7 percent in Q4 2011.

IDC slots Amazon in third place with 6 million shipments during the quarter, up from 4.7 million over the same period of 2011 and representing a market share of 11.5 percent (down from 15.9 percent). ASUS shipped 3.1 million units during the quarter, up from 600k in 2011, with an estimated market share of 2 percent.

German consumer group sues Valve.

Following a ruling from the European Court of Justice in July, 2012 - which found the practice of selling used "software licenses" legal and that software publishers cannot oppose such resales - the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZVB) has filed a lawsuit against Valve.

It argues that Steam gamers own the games they purchase, and should have a right to re-sell them. However, with Steam accounts being linked to purchased games and with Online game restrictions, the consumer group argues that Valve does not allow users to easily sell games their previously purchased.

Valve also forbids its users to sell or transfer accounts, and was sued by VZVB for that restriction too. In that case, Valve prevailed, with the German Federal Court of Justice finding that Valve was not violating German law.

With this new case, the VZVB can use the European Court's findings as sufficient basis for a lawsuit against Valve.

The possible limitation of video game resales - across all platforms - is a hot topic right now as Sony and Microsoft prep their new consoles for the market. Video games developers/publishers have long had mixed feelings toward the sale of pre-owned games.