News written by James Delahunty (August, 2011)

Theresa May requests meeting with representatives of social networks.

The meeting will take place next Thursday, and will discuss the role of the social networking sites in the recent riots across England. Facebook, Blackberry and Twitter have been asked to attend, though only Facebook has officially confirmed that it will attend the meeting.

"We look forward to meeting with the home secretary to explain the measures we have been taking to ensure that Facebook is a safe and positive platform for people in the UK at this challenging time," it said in a statement.

BlackBerry has not officially confirmed that it will attend, but previously suggested that it would welcome talks. Twitter has not addressed the issue at all, and didn't respond to a BBC question about its attendance.

Some rioters used services like Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry's BBM instant messaging system to organize their activities during the riots. UK Prime Minister David Cameron hinted that the government would draw up plans for limiting access to such services in the event of further unrest.

"We are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality," the Prime Minister said whilst addressing Parliament.

Paul Ceglia, the man at the center of a Facebook ownership lawsuit, ordered to turn over materials by August 29.

Lawyers for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg hope that the contents will help expose Ceglia as a fraud. U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio ordered Ceglia to turn over the materials by August 29 for review by Facebook's experts, including ink sampling.

Paul Ceglia will also have to provide a sworn affidavit about the contents and also about other materials he doesn't claim to possess. Facebook lawyers have been seeking a storage drive that they believe contains a scanned image of the original contract between both men.

Ceglia claims to have hired Zuckerberg in 2003, when he was a Harvard freshman, to work on a street mapping project. He also claims that he gave Zuckerberg $1,000 as an investment in what would become Facebook. He has shown a contract to that effect, but Facebook claims that it has been doctored.

A few days ago, Facebook lawyers submitted a blurry image of what they claim is the real contract, which makes no reference to such an investment.

UK regulator slaps providers for incorrectly billing customers.

TalkTalk and Tiscali UK were fined a total of £3 million after they incorrectly billed tens of thousands of their customers for services they never received. The fine is the result of an investigation opened in July 2010, after the regulator received complaints from over 1,000 customers.

Ofcom found that the pair billed customers for services they didn't receive, and singled out bills that were given to consumers who had closed their accounts previously. Ofcom issued both with a legally-binding notification in November 2010 and set them a deadline of 2 December 2010 to take steps to sort out their billing problems.

According to Ofcom, while they did take steps to improve their billing departments, they still manages to incorrectly bill almost 3,000 people between December 2, 2010 and March 4 this year.

"Ofcom has therefore issued TalkTalk and Tiscali UK with a financial penalty to reflect the seriousness of their breach of the rules and to act as a deterrent to them and other telecoms companies who must comply with the rules," a statement from the regulator reads.

TalkTalk and Tiscali UK have paid over £2.5 million in refunds and good will payments to over 65,000 affected consumers.

Blog post introducing the Windows 8 team modestly confirms App Store rumors.

The blog entry was written by Steven Sinofsky, President of the Windows Division at Microsoft, to introduce the teams that are working on the firm's Windows 8 products, which will be available for PCs, tablets, smartphones and beyond when launched.

The blog was intended to show just how much work goes into the creation process, spelling out the roles that different employees and different teams have.

"We have several engineering roles, or disciplines, that make up our team. The implementation work on Windows happens when developers write code. This code implements features that come from specifications written by program management along with interaction designs from our product designers. Testers are responsible for making sure the spec is complete and the code does what the spec says it should do. This is a simplified view of the relationship between roles, since we routinely walk a bit in each other's shoes."

• App Compatibility and Device Compatibility
• App Store
• Applications and Media Experience
• App Experience
• Core Experience Evolved
• Device Connectivity
• Devices & Networking Experience
• Ecosystem Fundamentals
• Engineer Desktop
• Engineering System
• Enterprise Networking
• Global Experience
• Graphics Platform
• Hardware Developer Experience
• Human Interaction Platform
• Hyper-V
• In Control of Your PC
• Kernel Platform
• Licensing and Deployment
• Media Platform
• Networking Core
• Performance
• Presentation and Composition
• Reliability, Security, and Privacy
• Runtime Experience
• Search, View, and Command
• Security & Identity
• Storage & Files Systems
• Sustained Engineering
• Telemetry
• User-Centered Experience
• Windows Online
• Windows Update
• Wireless and Networking services
• XAML

Apple's case against Samsung Electronics in the Netherlands is more severe than previously thought.

The iPhone-maker is reportedly demanding an extensive ban on all of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets in the European market, and even goes as far as demanding that Samsung issue a recall of stock by European distributors and resellers too.

Apple's ban would cover manufacturing, importing, exporting, stocking or selling of all Galaxy-branded devices by Samsung Korea and all of its Dutch subsidiaries. Samsung's Dutch presence is a crucial part of its operations in the European market.

Apple also demands that Samsung send letters to all of their European clients to recall all infringing products within 14 days, and to offer compensation and cover all costs. The letter would also have to notify the client that if they do not comply, then they too will be violating Apple's intellectual property rights.

In the past year, Samsung has rapidly overtaken Apple in shipments in the smartphone market in Europe, and in the Middle East and Africa, while Apple still dominates the tablet market with an 69 percent share compared to Samsung's 7 percent.

Widespread encryption system could be broken faster than brute-force.

The Advanced Encryption Scheme (AES) is used to protect everything from e-commerce to government data. AES is the encryption standard of choice for the United States government since 2001, when the it took over from the Digital Encryption Standard (DES).

A paper presented at the Crypto 2011 conference on Wednesday detailed a new technique for attacking the encryption standard. It would allow an attacker to recover AES secret keys up to five times faster than was previously possible, using a technique called biclique cryptanalysis.

"This research is groundbreaking because it is the first method of breaking single-key AES that is (slightly) faster than brute force," said Nate Lawson, a cryptographer and the principal of security consultancy Root Labs. "However, it doesn't compromise AES in any practical way."

By practical way, he means that the method will only do a slightly better job than brute force, and so would still take an unfathomable amount of time - in the trillions of years - to break it.

"This technique is a divide-and-conquer attack. To find an unknown key, they partition all the possible keys into a set of groups. This is possible because AES subkeys only have small differences between rounds," Lawson said. "They can then perform a smaller search for the full key because they can reuse partial bits of the key in later phases of the computation. It's impressive work but there's no better cipher to use than AES for now."

AMD Quad Buffer SDK for AMD HD3D technology announced by the chipmaker.

The tool is intended for developers engaged in building immersive stereo 3D capabilities into upcoming game titles. New Passive and Active monitors from Acer, LG, Samsung and Viewsonic were also released, expanding the support for AMD HD3D technology.

"AMD HD3D technology has reached critical mass, with more games, more movies, and supporting hardware and software from many of the industry's leading vendors," stated Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Division.

"The addition of the Quad Buffer SDK can help our many developer partners make stereo 3D a standard part of future game titles."

The SDK (available on AMD Developer Central) provides clear guidelines on how to implement stereo 3D to help ensure that it can be enjoyed across the expanding ecosystem of monitors and stereo 3D glasses supporting AMD HD3D technology. Additionally, the quad buffer can be used to add native support for stereo 3D in video games and supports DirectX 9, 10 and 11.

Music stars ramp up security to avoid leaks of pre-released tracks.

Jay-Z and Kanye West recently released an album called "Watch the Throne", one of the most anticipated hip-hop albums of the year. These days, such a major release would be expected to find its way onto the Internet long before its official retail or digital release, with some tracks often leaking out months in advanced, maybe in an unfinished state.

To avoid their albums suffering the same fate, the artists reportedly stored music and other content on fingerprint-protected hard drives. In studios where they recorded (often pop-up studios in hotel rooms), they made sure there was no Wi-Fi connection turned on on any of the equipment.

Draft versions of songs were not e-mailed to other artists, which is a common practice with Hip-Hop because the albums often feature many collaborators on tracks. For Jay Z and Kanye's album, all collaborators had to come to the temporary studios to hear the music and record their contribution.

Virgil Abloh, art director for the album, joked on Twitter that producer Noah Goldstein had slept with hard drives for over ten months straight. Only people directly involved with the album production had access to the content, and it was only passed on to CD manufacturers after its iTunes debut.

UK Information Commissioner gives suggestions to search giant.

An ICO report into Google's privacy policies and practices was broadly positive, though it did warn that problems could still arise. The commissioner looked into Google after the Street View incident last year, in which Google's Street View cars accidentally sniffed payload data packets from unsecured wireless networks.

The incidents happened across the world and different jurisdictions dealt with the incident in different ways. Since then, Google promised reforms to help ensure better privacy practices later.

It has been praised for improving staff training and for a Privacy Design Document (PDD) which laid out guidelines and safeguards for engineers working on new Google products.

The ICO also welcomes Privacy Stories, a series of tutorials produced by Google for users, outlining what data the company keeps and why. It covers 28 products, but the ICO has called for it to be extended to all products offered by Google.

"We know that there is no perfect solution, so we will continue to improve our current processes and develop new ones so that privacy awareness grows and evolves alongside Google," Alma Whitten, director of Privacy at Google, wrote in response to the report.

Two British men handed tough punishments for attempting to incite violence.

Last week, people in Britain had to sit back and witness an unprecedented level of peace-time civil unrest in the country, as rioters and looters rampaged through streets damaging homes and businesses, looting and some starting fires.

It became clear that social networks were being used to organize some of the disorder, and police kept tabs on Facebook, Twitter and other online services. Two men in their early 20s have been dealt serious punishments for attempting to organize rioting using their Facebook accounts.

22 year old Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan from Warrington, and 20 year old Jordan Blackshaw from Marston, near Northwich, have been jailed for four years for attempting to incite violence, even though police said their attempts failed.

"If we cast our minds back just a few days to last week and recall the way in which technology was used to spread incitement and bring people together to commit acts of criminality, it is easy to understand the four year sentences that were handed down in court today," said Assistant Chief Constable Phil Thompson.

Update addresses vulnerabilities in popular RealPlayer SP.

If you use RealPlayer for Windows, Mac or RealPlayer Enterprise, RealNetworks recommends that you make sure that it is up to date. The latest version of the software patches vulnerabilities and several other software bugs reported by users.

The security vulnerabilities, if exploited, can allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on a victim's PC. All the user has to do for this to happen is to visit a maliciously crafted website, or open a malicious file that targets the security holes.

Users of RealPlayer software should update it at: www.real.com

More information: service.real.com

Japanese reports suggest Apple will make move to ensure steady supplies.

The news comes as relations between Apple and Samsung continue to sour over Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets, which Apple claims slavishly clone features of the iPad and iPhone devices. The company is reportedly looking to diversify suppliers.

Japanese chipmakers are hoping that poor relations with Samsung will bring them a lot more business from Apple. "If the situation escalates into a state of war, this could mean a huge shift in orders," a Reuters source said on the situation.

Japanese media has been suggesting a possible investment in a Sharp LCD facility for some time, and Sharp's shares rose on Wednesday after firm, MF Global FXA Securities, talked up the likelihood of the deal in a sales note.

"We think it is highly possible that Apple will make an investment in Sharp's Kameyama plant to the tune of around $1 billion in order to secure a stable supply of screens for iPhones and iPads," MF Global FXA Securities analyst David Rubenstein said.

"This would have a material impact on Sharp's profitability."

Low cost standard- and high-def movie rentals to be offered weekly.

Sony Network Entertainment America (SNEA) has introduced a discount movie rental rate for rentals offered over the PlayStation Network (PSN). The online service has offered movies for rent for the past three years, when it was introduced at the E3 conference.

Now U.S. and Canadian PSN users will be able to rent some movies in standard-definition for just $0.99 and some in high-definition for just $1.99. The titles available on this special discount rate will be rotated each week by the service.

The new rentals will appear as part of Sony's Tuesday PSN updates. The titles offered at the discount rate this week include Sicko, The Longshots, Salvage, Tony, Shank, Bonded by Blood, JFK: Reckless Youth (Part 1), JFK: Reckless Youth (Part 2), Deadly Blessing, Carver, Devil in the Flesh 2 and Illuminating Angles & Demons.

iPhone maker targeted by thousands following location info gaffe.

In total, Apple is being sued by 27,612 people in South Korea. They are suing Apple for privacy violations, related to the collection of location information on the iPhone handset. Each is seeking 1 million won in damages, or about $932.

Attorney Kim Hyeong-seok filed a lawsuit against Apple earlier this was and was awarded 1 million won in damages.

Apple's devices stored information on nearby cell towers and WiFi hotspots for up to a year, without users' consent and even if location tracking features had been switched off. It was heavily criticized by privacy groups, who said the information could be used to trace the movements of an iPhone user.

Apple has not commented on the South Korean lawsuit.

Nintendo finally gets some relief, for now.

According to Enterbrain, Nintendo's 3DS handheld system sold 215,000 units following a price cut in Japan. The price cut was enforced to boost sales of the ailing handheld, which saw a lot less demand than Nintendo had anticipated.

From August 11, the price of a 3DS in Japan dropped from ¥25,000 to ¥15,000. The sales numbers for the following week have been the second highest for the handheld, behind the launch week tally of 371,000 units in the country.

Japanese publication Nikkei also reported a strong week for the 3DS following the price cut, though its sales figures were 8,000 units less than those given by Enterbrain.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata recently apologized to customers in Japan for the price cut. He admitted that such a sudden price cut not so long after the launch off the device had left some first buyers upset.

Videos show possible new Xbox 360 Dashboard.

YouTube videos showed screenshots and brief usage of a new Xbox 360 Dashboard development that leaked. The Dashboard was clearly in an unfinished state but offered a glimpse into what Microsoft has in store for the next software upgrade to its almost six year old console.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has pounced on any videos uploaded to YouTube with a copyright claim, forcing them down, though that does suggest confirmation of authenticity. The original uploader, ITzLuPo, who got his hands on the new Dashboard also had other revelations that weren't shown in the videos.

PlayStation-maker seeks boost in sales to regain ground on Xbox 360.

Sony announced that it will cut the price of its PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles to push up sales and prepare for the holiday season. The announcement comes on the eve of GamesCon, the biggest gaming trade show held in Europe.

From Tuesday, the price of a 160GB PS3 model will drop to $249 from $299 in the United States, to €249 from €299 in Europe and to ¥24,980 from ¥29,980 in Japan.

A 320GB PS3 model will set you back $299 in the United States, down from $349. In Europe, it will cost €299, down from €349 and in Japan, ¥29,980, down from ¥34,980.

The price cuts take affect in Europe and the United States immediately, but not until Thursday in Japan. The new price points for the UK have not yet been published.

Lawyers unveil their "smoking gun".

Attorneys for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have filed new evidence that they previously described as the "smoking gun" which proves the ownership case brought by Paul Ceglia is a fraud. The after-hours filing includes an image of a contract.

Ceglia's case relies on a contract he claims to have made with Mark Zuckerberg back in 2003. He is claiming that it entitles him to a large share of the social networking giant, having allegedly made a $1,000 investment in the year leading up to Facebook's launch.

The new court filing contains an image of a two page contract that refers to a street-mapping database Ceglia was hiring Zuckerberg to work on. It was recovered by digital forensics experts from Ceglia's computer.

"This smoking gun evidence confirms what defendants have said all along: the purported contract attached to the complaint is an outright fabrication," attorney Orin Snyder of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, wrote Monday. They argue that the image is of the original contract made between Zuckerberg and Ceglia, with no mention of any Facebook investment or ownership entitlement.

Ceglia said that he made the $1,000 investment at the same time that he hired Zuckerberg to work on the street mapping project.

Suppliers say iPad 3 won't make Fall 2011 launch.

Apple has cancelled its suply schedule for the iPad 3 in the second half of 2011, according to sources within Apple's supply partners, reports DigiTimes. Apple's supply schedule has reportedly been between 1.5 million and 2 million iPad 3 units in Q3 2011, and then between 5 million and 6 million units in Q4 2011.

The reason for the change is apparently supply problems with the 2048x1536, 9.7-inch panel. Supply partners reportedly cannot meet the volume requirements for a Fall 2011 launch.

DigiTimes sources also suggest that the higher-resolution panel requires a much larger backlight source, and that a single edge light bar is not cutting it at the moment.

Reports of Apple testing a higher-resolution display surfaced over the past few months. The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was testing a prototype iPad with a higher resolution, though not as high as the panels referenced in the DigiTimes report.

Injunction barring import and marketing of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 now limited to Germany.

The German court previously had imposed a preliminary injunction at Apple's request, which affected Samsung in most of the European Union. Now, the court has lifted most of the injunction, so it only affects the German market and not areas outside the country.

The Duesseldorf regional court questioned its own authority to impose restrictions on international companies operating outside Germany. Now, the court says the ban is still effective in Germany, but also applies to Samsung GmbH (German Samsung Unit) throughout the European Union.

"We look forward to the opportunity to reassert our intellectual property rights at the hearing scheduled on August 25," Samsung said in a statement.

Apple accused Samsung of slavishly cloning the iPad 2 in its design for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It has sued Samsung in the United States, Europe, Australia and South Korea, trying to get import bans enforced.

The mobile patent war rages on.

Taiwan's HTC Corp. has filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. alleging patent infringement in Macs, iPhones and iPads. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, seeks a halt to the import of products found to infringe HTC patents.

Additionally, it also seeks compensatory damages and triple damages for "willful infringement." Apple has previously targeted HTC with patent infringement cases of its own, including a filing with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).

HTC said in July that it would consider trying to settle its patent dispute with Apple.

Did Apple manipulate picture to strengthen its case against Samsung in Europe?

Questions are being raised about a photograph in an Apple court filing that compares an Apple iPad 2 with a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Apple has argued that Samsung slavishly clones its products, and that the Galaxy Tab takes considerable liberties in mimicking the iPad 2's design.

So far, Apple has been successful in getting a German court to ban import of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, though a court in The Hague declined to impose an immediate injunction until a decision is made next month.

Dutch publication Webwereld.nl noticed a strange comparison in an Apple court filing. The picture shows an iPad 2, alongside a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, but the dimensions of the Samsung device are considerably different to the device on the market.

Logging into Facebook on stolen Macbook Pro is a bad idea!

Information security professional Greg Martin, who formerly worked for NASA and the FBI, had his Macbook Pro stolen in West Kensington last week. He had been staying at his girlfriend's house due to troubling occurrences near his home.

Martin had previously installed open source tracking software on the Macbook Pro (http://preyproject.com) and flagged the laptop as missing within Prey.

"Almost two weary days had gone by and I'm at dinner on a business trip in Luxembourg and I received an email which nearly knocked me out of my chair with excitement," Martin wrote on his blog. He then went back to his Hotel room and changed the frequency of reports from the stolen device to every five minutes.

Larry Page gives details in blog post following announcement.

Google and Motorola Mobility announced yesterday that a $12.5 billion acquisition of the Motorola unit, by Google, was agreed. In the press information released, Google said it would run Motorola Mobility as a separate business, and that it would remain dedicated to Android as an open platform, continuing to work with mobile partners.

Larry Page took to the Official Google Blog to tell the world how the acquisition would supercharge the Android operating system, and to reaffirm the commitment to an open Android. He also squeezed in a couple of remarks about other companies that Google recently lashed out at over their patent strategies.

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies," Page said in the post.

Google said previously that Microsoft, Apple and others were banding together in an anti-competitive patent attack on Android. He also mentioned in the blog that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had to intervene in the results of a recent patent auction, and is currently looking into the results of the Nortel patent auction.

Rumor suggests carriers testing 4G iPhone, though not necessarily iPhone 5.

Boy Genius Report claimed on Monday that Apple's U.S. carrier partners are testing a new prototype iPhone that connects to high-speed Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. The claim comes from images said to be code from the firmware of an internal iOS test build issued to Apple carriers.

The firmware's .plist (property list) file is where the the indications are found. A key tag allegedly found references, "connected mode LTE Intra-frequency Measurement."

Rumors of Apple pursuing 4G have been around for some time, though the company has said it doesn't need to bring out a 4G iPhone yet. Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook previously said that the company was happy with the performance of its 3G handsets and is in no rush to make the next step.

Upcoming browser will use as much as 50 percent less memory.

Mozilla is tackling the amount of memory that its Firefox web browser uses, and how it uses it over prolonged periods of times. For users who keep a lot of tabs open for long periods of times, memory usage might become an issue on some systems.

On Mozilla's blog, programmer Nicholas Nethercote details improvements that are being made to near-future releases of the browser. Mozilla recently switched to a quick release cycle, promising major updates much more quickly than in the past, mimicking Google's release patterns for the Chrome browser.

"Firefox 7 uses less memory than Firefox 6 (and 5 and 4): often 20% to 30% less, and sometimes as much as 50% less," Nethercote wrote. "In particular, Firefox 7′s memory usage will stay steady if you leave it running overnight, and it will free up more memory when you close many tabs."

He credited the improvements to MemShrink, which is a Mozilla effort to improve how Firefox uses memory. Going past Firefox, he said early development versions of Firefox 8 even improve memory usage further.

Court decides not to impose immediate sales ban in the Netherlands.

Apple targeted Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the Netherlands, hoping to get an injunction against its import and sale placed on the South Korean electronics giant. Samsung will go to court in Germany on August 25 in an attempt to get an injunction overturned there.

Apple accused Samsung of slavishly cloning the iPad with its Galaxy Tab 10.1, and its iPhone models with the line of Galaxy smartphones. It filed legal actions against Samsung in the United States, Australia, Europe and South Korea.

It specifically targeted the Netherlands because Samsung's European distribution center is located there. A court at The Hague declined to impose an immediate sales ban and will reach a decision by September 15. If it sided with Apple, it would mean an injunction would come into effect on October 13.

Samsung has complained that Apple's model registrations, which are a central part of its evidence against Samsung, are far too general. It points out, for example, that a lot of products which pre-date the iPad, featured a similar design, such as its own SPF107H 10-inch Digital Photo Frame.

Announces partnership with SCEE to sell digital titles in stores in the UK and across Europe.

Europe's leading PC and video game retailer, GAME, announced a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) to sell a range of digital games in its stores. Initially, a range of digital titles will be available in 42 GAME and gamestation stores in the UK, expanding to 620 with over 50 titles by the middle of next month.

The range will include full game downloads, game add-ons, and subscriptions to the PlayStation Network (PSN). The partnership with SCEE means that GAME will become Europe’s biggest retailer of digital games, with the widest range of digital titles in the largest number of stores.

It follows the announcement in July 2011 that GAME had extended its range of digital pc titles to 1,200 stores across Europe.

"This is a significant step forward in our digital strategy. For the first time, gamers will be able to browse a wide range of digital titles for the PlayStation Network in our stores, alongside a variety of other digital and physical products," said Ian Shepherd, GAME Group CEO.

"This is important because it offers customers more choice, more advice and more control than they can get online. Our partnership with SCEE means that we can offer customers an unbeatable range and great value across all the gaming channels."

id Software's John Carmack puts PlayStation 3 (PS3) in second place.

For game developers, having a console with plenty of computational power and with high data capacity available per title is certainly an advantage. For id's John Carmack though, these selling points don't seem to be as important as the development tools available for the platform.

Carmack gave a speech at Quake Con earlier this month, in which he seemed to be leaning away from the PS3 console and toward its main rival, Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. RipTen's Dave Oshry got a chance to talk to Carmack sometime later about the industry, and he decided to ask him about his preferred console.

“Well, it's the second best console ever made," Carmack responded when asked what he really thinks about the PS3 console. When asked the obvious follow-up question of which console he thought was the best, he replied, "The 360."

He admitted that there are parts of the upcoming RAGE title where the PS3 has had an easier time due to the extra computational power under the hood, compared to the Xbox 360, but Carmack said it is not so much about the difference in hardware, it's more the dev tools that push him toward the Microsoft console.

Ex-Oasis fading star crying heart out again over violent video games.

The world watched as parts of British society tore their own cities apart in three days of senseless rioting and looting. Ever since, there has been an ongoing debate about why these regrettable events took place in the UK, and why many of the rioters were clearly very young.

The media has asked politicians, community organizers, psychologists, ex-gang members and even the rioters themselves for their opinion on the disturbances. Of course, who didn't think that eventually video games would be blamed?

Enter Noel Gallagher, the ex-Oasis star currently pursuing a solo career. We wrote about Noel's opinion on Britain's knife crime over three years ago. "People say it's through violent video games and I guess that's got something to do with it," he said in June 2008.

"If kids are sitting up all night smoking super skunk and they come so desensitised to crime because they're playing these videogames, it's really, really scary."

Three years later and Noel is pointing his finger of blame at video games once again, this time as part of the cause for rioting in the UK that claimed several lives, destroyed homes and diminished livelihoods in an already jittery economic climate.

Search giant agrees to buy Android partner for $40 a share.

Google Inc. and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. announced this morning that Google will acquire its Android partner in a deal worth $12.5 billion. The board and directors of both firms unanimously approved the deal, which will see Google paying $40 a share, a 63% premium over the closing price of Motorola Mobility on Friday, August 12.

Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of the Android operating system, and Google has said that the OS will remain open. It will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business. The deal is subject to shareholder approval, and will require some regulatory approval in the United States, the European Union and elsewhere.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year, or possibly early 2012.

Larry Page, Chief Executive Officer, Google Inc.
"Motorola Mobility's total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers."

EA puts tremendous amount of faith in "Star Wars: The Old Republic."

EA has invested more than $100 million in the development of the online Star Wars title, which it hopes will gain similar success to World of Warcraft. Activision Blizzard's mega-popular online game boasts more than 12 million subscribers.

"We think it should be a very attractive season for Electronic Arts as we have quite a few blockbusters in the pipeline," said EA's Jens Uwe Intat, head of sales and distribution, Europe. No launch date for Star Wars has yet been announced by the developer.

"We have lots of people who have been subscribing to newsletters and webpages so we are actually feeling very bullish about the game," Intat said, adding that they were still in the process of fine tuning services for the game.

EA also has the launches of Battlefield 3, another Need for Speed iteration and Sims Pet to look forward to. FIFA 12 has also already taken record-breaking pre-orders ahead of its end-of-September launch.

The company has also expanded its avenues of potential revenue online. It is focusing on Facebook games which are free to play, but gain revenue from items sold in-game to enhance the experience. To boost its position in social gaming, EA is turning to its heavyweight franchises, with "The Sims Social" being a perfect example.

Focuses on upcoming 2K Games title, The Darkness II.

The heads of the Christian Police Fellowship have taken aim at violent video games, singling out an upcoming title from 2K games, The Darkness II. Its complaint about the video game is that it will create a distorted perspective of police officers for younger gamers.

The group drafted a letter for politicians and game developers explaining their objections to violent content in many video games. It pushed for lawmakers and publishers to stop the same of games with violent content immediately.

"For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," is quoted in the letter, lifted from the Bible.

2K Games responded to the group, telling GameSpot that, "Reported stories regarding police officers in The Darkness II were erroneous. To be clear, there are no police officers in the game."

The Darkness II is due to be released on February 7 next year in the United States.

Man accuses Microsoft of charging him for a two year subscription without consent.

The plaintiff, Ryan Graves, claims that he had left his Xbox Live subscription lapse, leaving old credit card details on his account. Upon updating his details while buying a new subscription, he was charged twice. One charge was for the new subscription as planned, and the second was renewal of the expired subscription.

Graves argues that the two year subscription was against his wishes, and that Microsoft refused to refund him for the extra year subscription it charged.

He filed a lawsuit against Microsoft seeking unspecified damages.

"Plaintiff asserts claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, conversion, and violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA), 15 U.S.C. § 1693, et seq., on behalf of himself and similarly situated Xbox LIVE Gold members," the legal complaint reads.

Dr Mark Dean says variety of devices are starting to end the era of the PC.

Dean was one of the engineers of the first IBM PC, holding 3 patents related to the technology. The original IBM PC set several standards that were followed and built-on over the years in the market. Now, Dean says that the era of the PC is ending, being replaced by the socially-mediated innovation brought by the PC itself.

"When I helped design the PC, I didn't think I'd live long enough to witness its decline," wrote Dean. "It's becoming clear that innovation flourishes best not on devices but in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact."

Dean, who says his primary computer is now a tablet, said that PCs will be used a lot in the future but are no longer the force for innovation that they were for a couple of decades. "It is there that computing can have the most powerful impact on economy, society and people's lives."

He made the comments while commemorating 30 years since the IBM personal computer. Microsoft also marked the occasion with a blog post, but instead said that the world is moving into a "PC-plus" era, pointing out that over 400 million PCs are projected to be sold this year.

Mobile security experts criticize applications for Android OS.

The warnings have come from Riley Hassell, founder of Privateer Labs, and who along with Shane Macaulay, opted to cancel a scheduled appearance at the Black Hat conference last week. Their scheduled talk, "Hacking Androids for Profit," didn't go ahead, disappointing many who had waited for it.

Hassell explained that the decision was made not to publicly identify more than a dozen widely used Android applications with serious security problems. "App developers frequently fail to follow security guidelines and write applications properly," he said.

"Some apps expose themselves to outside contact. If these apps are vulnerable, then an attacker can remotely compromise that app and potentially the phone using something as simple as a text message."

He said that they alerted Google to the problems they had found with widely used applications. A Google spokesman said that Android security experts had discussed the issues with Hassell and found that the problems were not present in Android itself.

German magazine report drags Google into controversy over Patriot Act requests.

Back in June, Microsoft's Gordon Frazer sparked a debate when he was asked a question about the Patriot Act. According to ZDNet, he was asked if Microsoft could guarantee that information stored in EU-based data centers would be protected even against requests made under the Patriot Act.

Frazer responded that he could not provide such a guarantee, and that neither could any U.S. company. Indeed, the Patriot Act does mandate that firms based in the U.S. handover data stored by foreign subsidiaries when ordered to.

Originally intended as a response to global terrorism, the Patriot Act has been pushed way beyond those boundaries, according to some opponents. In this case, it forces U.S. companies into a conflict with EU data protection laws, which mandate that firms storing information on citizens protect it.

"As a law abiding company, we comply with valid legal process, and that - as for any US based company - means the data stored outside of the U.S. may be subject to lawful access by the U.S. government. That said, we are committed to protecting user privacy when faced with law enforcement requests," a Google statement read.

German court announces date to hear Samsung appeal.

Samsung is seeking to overturn a preliminary injunction that prohibits it from importing its Galaxy Tab 10.1 into the German (and most of the European) market, following a complaint made by Apple Inc. The iPad-maker has accused Samsung of slavishly cloning its products with its Android-packing smartphones and tablet PC.

Despite the injunction, German retailers have continued to sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as the injunction does not necessarily apply to them. Apple could go back to court to have the injunction to new "defendants" but is unlikely to do so, as the same retailers are big Apple customers.

Apple has targeted Samsung in the United States, Australia, Europe and South Korea. It has asked a court in The Hague to impose a similar ban for infringement of three patents. If the court agreed, it would stop the Samsung products from being imported to the EU via the Netherlands.

Samsung will get a chance to argue its case on August 25, and a decision will follow within weeks.

Hands more control to users to authorize apps installed by third-party software.

If you are a Firefox user, how many times have you installed software on your computer and noticed later that it installed its own add-on to Firefox (or even other web browsers?). Mozilla has decided to target this common practice, handing more control over to the user on what add-ons can and can't be active.

It found that many of these add-ons can result in reduced performance of Firefox, such as slow browser loading times and slower webpage loading. They also can hit user experience by cluttering the interface with toolbars, and they also can present a problem when they aren't supported by important browser updates.

Therefore, Firefox will changed so as to make the use of such add-on's strictly "opt in" for the user right from the beginning. If Firefox starts and finds that another program has installed an add-on, Firefox will disable the add-on until the user decides to authorize its use.

Warns Internet users about "you've won a cellphone" scam.

The trade group, which represents the wireless industry in the United States, said it was alerted to an e-mail that used the group's name and logo as part of a scam. Of course, this is nothing new, and they are almost always followed by such a warning.

The contents of this e-mail are what make it more interesting, since it is quite clearly a scam. It should win awards for the sheer lack of effort put in. For additional comic value, the scam e-mail even claims its from the Fraud Prevention Unit at CTIA.

From: C.T.I.A PROMO OFFICE
To:
Sent: Monday, August 8, 2011 6:12 PM
Subject: CTIA PHONE WINNING NOTIFICATION!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS ,
THANKS YOU FOR COMPLLYING WITH US FROM THE TEXT MESSAGE WE UNDERSTAND YOU HAVE NOT BEEN TOLD ABOUT YOU USING YOU MOBLIE PHONE AND QUALIFYING TO WIN. WELL I'LL TAKE THIS TIME TO EDUCATE YOU ON HOW WE CAME UP WITH THIS PROMO THIS YEAR SINCE 1984 WHEN THE ASSOCIATION STARTED WE HAVE NEVER HAD A GOOD OUT SALES BEFORE,SO IN OUR OWN WAY TO SAY THANK YOU TO MOBILE PHONE USERS WE HELD A PROMO DRAW, WE GOT YOUR NUMBER FROM THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK COMMAND BT TRACKING OUR CELL PHONE CHIPS. in order to to view your WINNINGS you are requested to follow the link below. Read more...

Sony DADC burned in fire impacted smaller independent labels in UK.

So far, more than £100,000 has been made available in interest-free loans to Indie labels in the UK affected by the arson attack on the distribution center in Enfield earlier this week.

"The BPI is founded on the principle that majors and indies should work together and that a vibrant independent sector benefits the recorded music business as a whole," said Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive of BPI.

"For that reason, I am delighted that independent and major members of BPI are showing their solidarity by creating a growing fund to assist indie labels that experience financial difficulties as a result of destruction of stock in the Sony DADC warehouse"

The fund is comprised of cash put up by individual BPI members, which includes scores of Independent labels as well as the usual suspects in the business, and also from BPI's own commercial revenues.

Board of Directors OKs repurchase of up to $100 million of its outstanding common shares over two years.

The share repurchase program will be funded through the company's existing cash, according to information provided for the press.

"We believe that the repurchase of our common stock represents one effective use of our capital and underscores our commitment to maximize value for our shareholders, given the significant recent market weakness and the cash on our current balance sheet as well as our NOL position," said Tom Rogers, TiVo President and CEO.

"We are confident in our future growth prospects and believe we have the right elements in place and resources available to drive long term value for our shareholders."

The program will be effective on August 29. The timing, manner, price and amount of any repurchases will be determined by the company in its discretion and will be subject to economic and market conditions, stock price, applicable legal requirements and other factors.

TiVo joins a list of companies that has recently boosting stock buybacks to reward their shareholders. The company has had some struggles in recent quarters, posting wider than expected losses attributed to higher operating costs and lower revenue.

Puts down prices to gain more market share.

Sony has dropped the price of Google TV flat-screen models in the United States. The company said that it is not dropping the prices in preparation for a new line of Google TV sets, instead it is attempting to grab more market share in the region.

Amazon lists the Google TV models in the United States, pricing a 24-inch Sony NSX-24GT1, 1080p 60 Hz LCD HDTV Featuring Google TV, at just $298. It also lists a 32-inch model, 40-inch model and 46-inch model but their prices are varied based on the source of the product, while Amazon does not list its own price (though all prices are cheaper than the models previously were marked at.)

Injunction doesn't harm sales of the Android-based tablet in Germany.

The decision by a German court earlier to his that forced a block on the import of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, has not yet affected the sale of the device in the country. In fact, the leading retail chain MediaMarkt is promoting the Galaxy Tab model at a new lower price of €469 this weekend.

Financial Times Deutschland confirmed that the tablet PC is to stay on sale as usual, quoting a spokeswoman for Media-Saturn, the holding company of all MediaMarkt stores.

The reason that the German retailers can continue to sell the device in the wake of the preliminary injunction, is that it only applies to Samsung. That is, Samsung cannot import the device into the country and it also cannot promote the device within the country, but that injunction does not have to be respected by firms independent of Samsung.

Apple could go back to court and name the retailers as new defendants if it so pleased, but analysts think it is unlikely to do so as those same stores are major Apple customers in Europe.

High capacity SSD brings Ultra-fast SATA Revision 3.0 interface.

Samsung announced its new PM830 SSDs, touting the Serial ATA Revision 3.0 interface, on Wednesday. SATA 3.0 offers data transmissions at 6 gigabits per second (6Gb/s). The new SSD is available in capacities up to 512GB.

Sample production of the SATA 6Gb/s 512GB SSDs began in May, with volume production initiated earlier this month. The new drives are expected to replace SATA 3Gb/s-based SSDs by year-end.

"Samsung's new line up of advanced SSDs will raise the performance bar to the next level for ultra-slim notebooks and tablets and accelerate growth of the market for high-performance SSDs," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics.

"The industry is expected to quickly embrace SATA 6Gb/s-based SSDs, which also will help increase market interest in 256GB and higher densities significantly."

Chinese government says it is a victim too.

When talk of cyber attacks come up, you can be sure that China is highly likely to be mentioned. That's because experts keep tracing the origins of cyber-attacks to places within China, some of which were very high profile cases that made headlines around the world.

However, the Chinese government does not admit to any involvement in such shenanigans, and has insisted that it is a victim of cyber-warfare. It claims that last year, the number of attacks against it totalled almost half a million, with the majority coming from outside the region.

The National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China reports that most of those attacks included the use of Trojan horse malware. As for where they came from, a report pointed the finger at the United States as the worst offender, linked to 14.7 percent of the occurrences. India followed in second place, allegedly sourcing 8 percent of the attacks.

The Chinese report came a week after McAfee detailed a mass on-going cyber-attacks against institutions around the world from one unnamed source. Targets included governments, defence contractors and institutions linked to the Olympic games. McAfee says the operation, which is dubbed "Shady RAT", persisted for more than five years, but it did not identify a source.

New South Wales government gives in-principle support for new rating.

The government is supporting a move to classify certain video games as R18+, which would bring some considered Adult-Only titles into the R18+ category and also some from the MA15+ category too.

"Few people would dispute the value of a classification system that helps keep adult material beyond the reach of children," New South Wales attorneys-general Greg Smith said in a statement.

"With strong classification guidelines in place, an R18+ rating should result in violent games currently rated MA15+ in Australia being reclassified as adults-only, as they already are in many other countries."

The states' attorneys-general will now draft national guidelines for the new rating. The guidelines will be reviewed by the federal government as part of a larger review of Australia's content classification scheme. The new ratings scheme should be in place by the end of 2011.

Viacom programming to stay on Cablevision apps.

Viacom had alleged that Cablevision applications were offering unauthorized streams of its content. It argued that Cablevision only had an agreement that would allow it to only distribute Viacom programming over cable TV systems.

Time Warner Cable Inc. had also targeted Cablevision for the same reason, but the case has been on hold since June. Cablevision launched its Optimum Apps for the iPad and other devices in April this year.

"Cablevision and Viacom were able to resolve the iPad matter and an unrelated business matter to their mutual satisfaction," Cablevision and Viacom said in a joint statement. "Neither side is conceding its original legal position or will have further comment."

Due to the growing use of mobile devices for viewing video content, disagreements have been brewing between content providers and cable companies over the rights to distribute programming.

World's largest chipmaker puts money where mouth is.

The company will create a $300 million Ultrabook Fund to drive innovation for the new category of devices. Ultrabook systems promise the performance and features of today's high performance laptops will offering today's popular tablet-like features.

Ultrabook devices will deliver a highly responsive and secure experience in a thin, light and elegant design at mainstream prices. The Ultrabook fund will invest in firms building hardware and software solutions that benefit Ultrabooks, such as innovative physical designs, longer battery life and improved storage capacity at small form factors.

"Ultrabook devices are poised to be an important area for innovation in the $261 billion global computer industry," said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and Intel executive vice president. "The Intel Capital Ultrabook fund will focus on investing in companies building technologies that will help revolutionize the computing experience and morph today's mobile computers into the next 'must have' device."

Pair brings end to long-running legal battles over patents.

Sony Corp and LG Electronics announced early on Thursday that the companies have moved to resolve patent disputes over products ranging from Smartphones to Blu-ray players. "LG and Sony recently agreed to drop patent infringement lawsuits against each other," a spokeswoman at South Korea's LG Electronics said.

Both companies have clashed in the United States and the European Union in recent years sine failing to renew a technology sharing agreement. Sony filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) that sought a ban on the import of LG smartphones, such as the Rumor Touch.

In March this year, an LG complaint against Sony resulted in the seizure of PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles by customers officers in the Netherlands. LG also told the ITC in the United States that Sony's PS3 violated patents related to the Blu-ray Disc technology.

Sony offered no public comment on the resolution of the global patent fight.

"Cloud console" service to launch in the region on September 22.

Available in the United States for more than a year, Onlive allows gamers to play titles on a variety of hardware and gadgets. That's because the computation is done on remote servers, while only the video and sound is streamed to the user, while the user's commands are sent to the servers.

The promise of such a service is the ability to play high quality and graphically intense video games on systems with very low spec hardware. Onlive is not perfect yet however, but it is a good start and receives mostly favourable reviews.

"There are some sacrifices," said Scott Lowe, executive editor at games website IGN. "You lose a little bit of the clarity and the graphics don't stack up as well as something like a PC or a console, but you do get most of the major gist of the experience."

Onlive has put a lot of effort into making all the underlying hardware as low latency as possible, to minimise any delays in feedback experienced at home.

A concern that the service needs to address in the UK is its need for bandwidth and potential high data usage. It's lowest connection speed (to deliver compressed video) is 1Mbit/s, which can amount to more than 450MB of data downloaded easily per hour.

Court documents indicate iPad-maker is targeting another rival tablet in the EU.

Apple has a lot of patent warfare history with Motorola. In the United States, there are four ongoing federal lawsuits between the pair, and two investigations being carried out by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). In total, over 40 patents are part of the disputes.

Having scored a victory against Samsung Electronics in Europe by getting a German court to ban the import and sale of Galaxy tablet PCs, it has emerged that Apple is also targeting Motorola's Xoom tablet PC, launched in February, in Europe.

Apple claims that the Xoom tablet infringes its registered EU Community Design for the iPad tablet. In its complaint filed in the German court (against Samsung), Apple also said it filed a complaint against a company called JAY-tech for the same reason, and has obtained a preliminary injunction against it.

It's not clear if Apple has requested an injunction against the import and sale of the Xoom, similar to the one granted against the Samsung Galaxy Tab, yet.

Federal Communications Commission examines NG911 - Next Generation 911.

With the widespread use of smartphones, wouldn't it be much better if you could use their features in the event of an emergency? The FCC is pushing an upgrade to the 911 emergency system in the U.S. that would let users send video feeds, photos and other communications that would be sent to first responders.

"It's hard to imagine that airlines can send text messages if your flight is delayed, but you can't send a text message to 9-1-1 in an emergency," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the 2011 APCO Conference in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

Next month, the regulator is expected to address the technical issues behind enabling text, photo and video transmissions to 911 services. One area of concerns is whether the broadband infrastructure can handle the necessary bandwidth for the service to work as proposed.

An official said that NG911 services could be available within 5-10 years, if the program is properly funded.

FCC Five-Step Action Plan to Deploy Next Generation 9-1-1

• Develop location accuracy mechanisms for NG-911: The FCC's Location Accuracy proceeding (July 2011 agenda item) has launched development of a framework for providing automatic location information in the NG911 environment.
• Enable consumers to send text, photos, and videos to PSAPs (NPRM): Next month, the FCC will consider an NPRM to accelerate NG911 adoption. The NPRM will help answer practical, technical questions about how to enable text, photo, and video transmission to 911, including how to ensure adequate broadband infrastructure to deliver the bandwidth PSAPs will need to provide NG911. As part of the NPRM, the FCC will examine interim solutions for ensuring that carriers/service providers support transmission of text-to-911.
• Facilitate the completion and implementation of NG911 technical standards: For NG911 to be effective, we need technical standards for the hardware and software that carriers and public safety answering points (PSAPs) use to communicate NG911 information. The FCC will work with NG911 stakeholders to resolve NG911 standards issues and facilitate consistent and coordinated implementation of a standards-based architecture.
• Develop a NG911 governance framework: Because no single governing entity has jurisdiction over NG911, the FCC will work with state 911 authorities, other Federal agencies, and other governing entities to provide technical expertise and develop a coordinated approach to NG911 governance.
• Develop an NG911 Funding Model: To assist 911 authorities and Congress in considering NG911 funding options, the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau will prepare a cost model focused on the cost-effectiveness of the NG911 network infrastructure linking PSAPs and carriers.

Increasingly, malware authors target rivals to keep compromised systems completely under their control.

In one interesting case, reported by The Register, an author of the TDL 3 rootkit decided to make some extra cash by selling the source code of the rootkit. The Russian developer sold the source of one version of the rootkit, while keeping another.

From the rootkit source sale, another called ZeroAccess allegedly rose, with added ClickFraud modules. A second ZeroAccess rootkit also added the ability to target and remove the TDL 3 rootkit using a specific module called anti-TDL.

"The original author of the TDL3 rootkit made two versions of TDL3. He kept the second version of the rootkit code for himself and sold the first version to the guys behind ZeroAccess," Jacques Erasmus of Webroot told The Register.

"TDL3 Authors sold a version of TDL3 sourcecode to ZeroAccess authors. Now ZeroAccess guys are double crossing the TDL3 author by uninstalling the TDL rootkit."

Such measures are becoming more common. TDL-4, which received considerable media attention recently, has the built in ability to remove a host of rival malware, such as ZeuS.

Amazon builds browser app that will save it from paying a 30 percent cut to Apple.

The new Kindle Cloud Reader is optimized for iPads, while directing customers to Amazon's own eBook store. It will work on PCs, Macs and any mobile devices using Apple Safari or the Chrome web browser.

Since the application is web-based instead of being a "native" iPad application, Amazon can avoid Apple policies that would force it to use Apple's purchasing system, and pay a fee. Direct purchasing links are no longer allowed on native iPad applications.

Despite being a web-based application, the Kindle Cloud Reader looks like a native application. Last month, the Financial Times also switched to a HTML 5 newspaper reader application. "We believe that in many cases, native apps are simply a bridging solution while web technologies catch up," said Stephen Pinches, the FT group product manager of emerging Technologies.

"We expect to see more HTML5 apps and fewer native apps. At the FT we believe our customers are paying for the content rather than the channel, and that a single payment and single subscription which works across multiple devices offers significant benefits to users."

Jason Chen won't face charges for buying prototype iPhone found in a bar.

San Mateo County Assistant District Attorney Morley Pitt said that Chen is protected by California's shield law, that protects the confidentiality of journalists' sources. "The difficulty we faced is that Mr. Chen and Gizmodo were primarily, in their view, engaged in a journalistic endeavor to conduct an investigation into the phone and type of phone it was and they were protected by the shield law," said Pitt.

"We concluded it is a very gray area, they do have a potential claim and this was not the case with which we were going to push the envelope."

Misdemeanor charges were filed against two men however. Brian Hogen and Sage Wallower found and sold the prototype device after it was left at a bar by an Apple employee. Hogan was charged with misappropriation of lost property, as was Wallower who was also charged with possession of stolen property.

After Gizmodo posted images of the prototype iPhone, Chen's home was raided and his computer was seized. The raid was highly criticized in the media, as the state law prohibits the seizure of unpublished notes from journalists.

Offer of assistance to police dealing with riots in English cities results in threats from hackers.

Hacker group, Team Posion, reportedly defaced the official Blackberry blog to post a threat to attack the firm if it hands over user data to authorities that relates to the recent riots in English cities. Blackberry's messaging service is known to have been used by looters to time their crimes around police movements.

The firm pledged to co-operate with the Home Office and police in the affected cities. "We are all for the rioters that are engaging in attacks on the police and government," a message from the group stated. "Innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a Blackberry will get charged for no reason at all."

It said that if BlackBerry hands over user data to police, it will respond by releasing employee information, including names, addresses and phone numbers of staff. UK law allows police to retrieve mobile data if it related to criminal activity.

German group claim crack of widely used mobile encryption code.

A German newspaper has reported that a Berlin-based security firm has cracked the encryption code for some mobile devices that use the Internet with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) technology. The report claimed that the group discovered a way to read emails and observe Internet use of phones.

"With our technology we can capture GPRS data communications in a radius of 5 km," Karsten Nohl, head of Security Research Labs, is quoted as saying.

He said that phones using the UMTS standard are obviously safer, but the crack may have implications for industrial equipment, toll systems and other things that rely on GPRS technology. It is often the only type of connection available in remote areas.

Temporary ban affects most of European Union.

A German court has issued a temporary injunction banning Samsung Electronics from selling its Galaxy Tablet in the European Union. The court sided with Apple Inc., which has accused Samsung of slavishly cloning the iPhone and iPad products in its Android-packing smartphones and flagship tablet.

Products already distributed prior to the court order on August 9 may still be sold, with retailers saying they have received no legal instruction to remove stock. Samsung does not expect the injunction to have an immediate impact on EU sales.

The decision hit Samsung a week after the company was forced to delay its Australian launch of the Galaxy tablet following another lawsuit from Apple alleging patent infringement.

"It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging," said Apple's London-based spokesman Adam Howorth. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

Customers lucky to still have unlimited data plans are putting it at risk if tethering.

AT&T has confirmed that it will revoke unlimited data plans held by users who are using a Jailbroken iPhone for tethering. It will then lump its 4GB tethering-approved plan on the customer. The carrier has sent out warning letters to those tethering without a plan.

In order to keep tethering, a customer will have to switch plan, but since the unlimited data plan no longer exists, that means taking on a 4GB limit split between smartphone use and tethering. The minimum tethering plan would actually cost a customer with unlimited data an additional $15 per month.

Customers lucky to still have unlimited plans could be forgiven for getting angry about this policy, as there was no state restriction on tethering at the time the unlimited plan was still available.

Global mobile connections to hit 5.7 billion this year.

Research firm Gartner has said that global mobile data revenue is to rise 22.5 percent this year, to $341.7 billion, compared to 2010. It also projected revenue to increase to $552 billion by 2015.

Driving this demand for data is a rise in mobile connections from 5.6 billion at the end of 2011, to 7.4 billion by 2015. "Data revenue will continue to grow but at a much slower rate," Jessica Ekholm, principal research analyst at Gartner.

"This is causing a decoupling between revenue and data traffic, and is creating an increase in network costs for carriers as they try to sustain growing data traffic." Network operators are trying to strike a balance between capacity and revenue, dumping unlimited data plans for monthly data caps.

"What carriers need are innovative ways to increase data revenue while finding smart solutions to manage a growing demand in data," said Sylvain Fabre, research director at Gartner.

"Ultimately, it will be the consumer who chooses the content he or she wants to use, and carriers need to ensure the quality of experience is good. A sub-standard user experience may lead to higher churn."

Sony has ruled out exiting the TV business despite continuous losses to its divisions.

Kazuo Hirai, head of Sony's consumer businesses, said that the company was not considering selling off any of its factories, and that it would not exit a TV panel partnership with Samsung Electronics. "Televisions are a core business for Sony and it would be unthinkable for us to shrink that business," Hirai said.

The company has said it will put forth plans to reform its troubles TV business this month, while warning that losses on TVs could widen this year. In the past, it has sold off factories in Spain, Mexico and Slovakia, and outsourced much of its production to third parties.

The company's TV business is heading for an eight straight year of losses, as it struggles to cope with competition from lower-cost Asian rivals, and even with Samsung. Hirai was clear however that the company has no plans to dismantle its partnership with the South Korean firm.

"We are absolutely not thinking of abolishing the joint venture, and it's not something that would be easy to do," he said.

French daily deals company is the latest to pile on Google Inc. in EU antitrust probe.

Deal du Jour filed a complaint with the European Commission on Sunday, joining a group which includes Microsoft that is urging the EC to investigate Google's business practices. The French firm claims that Google illegally removed it from its web index, and also blocked it from using the Adsense advertising service.

The firm told the European Commission that Google's actions were clearly anti-competitive in nature. "We ask the competition regulator to investigate Google as a matter of urgency because our small company is being destroyed by Google," Deal du Jour said in the complaint.

It also filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in the United States, and with the French competition regulator. Google is now subject to nine antitrust complaints filed with the European Commission and is also being investigated by the FTC.

"We haven't seen a new complaint, but our AdWords program has clear guidelines. We work to ensure these policies are easy to understand and continue to improve our customer service for advertisers," Google spokesman Al Verney said.

Two senators write letter pushing regulators to approve the buyout.

Republican senators Mike Lee (Utah) and John Cornyn (Texas) have written a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) urging them to approve AT&T's proposed buyout of T-Mobile. The proposed deal would be worth about $39 billion, and would consolidate 80 percent of all U.S. mobile users under just two carriers; the new combined AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

Lawmakers and consumer groups alike have lashed out at the proposed merger, saying the decrease in competition will result in higher prices for customers. Proponents of the merger say it will enable AT&T to roll-out a next generation 4G network faster.

Both Senators Mike Lee and John Cornyn are two of three Republicans on the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.

Democratic Senator Herb Kohl (Wisconsin) acts as chairman of the subcommittee, and has previously urged the authorities to block the deal on the ground that it would be bad for consumers and would harm competition. Lee and Cornyn's letter urges the FCC and DoJ to focus on the possible benefits too before making a decision.

Skype expands number of Android devices that can use video call features dramatically.

The Skype for Android application has been updated to v2.1, bringing official support for video calling to 17 Android handsets. You can download the updated Skype for Android app from the Android Market or Skype.com/m using your Android phone's browser

The Android handsets that Skype has "officially" added video call support for include the following...

• Acer A5
• HTC Desire (2.2)
• HTC Desire HD
• HTC Evo 3D
• HTC Evo 4G
• HTC Flyer
• HTC Incredible S
• HTC Sensation
• HTC Thunderbolt - Verizon (2.2) (US only)
• LG Revolution - Verizon (2.2) (US only)
• Samsung Droid Charge - Verizon (2.2) (US only)
• Samsung Galaxy S
• Samsung Galaxy S II
• Samsung Galaxy Tab
• Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro
• Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

UK's Metropolitan Police reminds potential hacktivists that the actions are a crime and they will be prosecuted.

Using its official Twitter account, the Met Police directed users toward a notice that stated defacing website,s carrying out denial of service attacks and stealing information from servers is illegal in the UK. It also said that attacks aimed at targets outside the UK can be prosecuted within the country.

The UK's warning comes just days after the arrest of another teenager in an investigation into attacks against the Soca website, the UK's agency for investigation serious cyber crimes.

Across the world recently, more alleged members of hacker groups have been arrested for similar activities. Law enforcement agencies are among the top targets of such attacks, usually in response to arrests that have been made.

Metropolitan Police

The investigation into the criminal activity of so-called "hacktivist" groups #Anonymous and #LulzSec continues. We want to remind people of the law in this area:
The Law Against Computer Misuse

Anyone considering accessing a computer without authority should understand that such acts are unlawful and can carry a term of imprisonment. Read more...

Chrome OS extensions singled out for analysis.

Google touts the additional security that is offered by Chromebooks. On the level of hardware and the operating system itself, the security aspect cannot be denied. It has no native applications except for a browser and it had built in systems to protect the system from boot.

However, Chromebooks are vulnerable to many of the same threats that affect web users every day already. WhiteHat Security researcher Matt Johansen calls attention to Chrome OS' reliance on extensions, Often times, extensions contain cross-site scripting (XSS) bugs that can be exploited by hackers.

Of particular interest is how a bug in one extension could result in the hijacking of communications of a different, secure, extension. As a demonstration at the Black Hat conference, Johansen and colleagues exploited an XSS bug in an extension to steal passwords from an otherwise secure account on LastPass, a cloud password storage service.

"If any of the other vulnerable extensions have an XSS hole, we can utilize JavaScript to hijack that communication," Johansen said. "LastPass is doing absolutely nothing wrong here. You can have an extension that's perfectly fine, but if you have another that has a cross-site scripting error in it we can still access information in secure applications."

Developers can incorporate PS Vita controls and features into PS3 titles.

Sony has confirmed that developers will be able to incorporate features of the PlayStation Vita handheld console into PS3 games. Devs can make use of the handheld's touch screen, gyroscopic features and other elements. The PS Vita handheld features a 5-inch OLED screen.

The functionality was confirmed as possible by Sony Europe R&D manager Phil Rogers at the Develop conference last month. At the time he suggested that Sony would allow cross-talk functions between the two systems most of the time.

"PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it," Rogers said.

"You could use the unique features [of Vita]--gyroscope, touch front and back--as a control device for a PS3 game. You can run software on both devices and use the network to sync the game states. And that's pretty good because you then have the processing power of PS3 doing that work, Vita [doing] fancy graphics...however you want to do it. You're not sacrificing the PS3's CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita."

Nintendo boss apologizes to Japanese early adopters.

Nintendo's Japanese website is hosting a personal letter of apology from company President Satoru Iwata. In the letter, Iwata explains that hardware prices fall eventually in every case, but that the company acknowledges the Nintendo 3DS price cut's timing is unprecedented in the history of the gaming firm.

"We are all too keenly aware that those of you who supported us by purchasing the 3DS in the beginning may feel betrayed and criticise this decision," the letter reads.

"If the software creators and those on the retail side are not confident that the Nintendo 3DS is a worthy successor to the DS and will achieve a similarly broad base, it will be impossible for the 3DS to gain popularity, acquire a wide range of software, and eventually create the product cycle necessary for everyone to be satisfied with the system."

Nintendo's "Ambassador Programme" provides 3DS owners with 20 free downloads games from the Nintendo eShop. Nintendo dropped the price of its 3D handheld console following disappointing sales of the system. It also posted a drastic reduction in Nintendo's annual earnings forecast.

Regulator surveys citizens use of mobile phones.

UK Communications Regulator Ofcom has said that over a third of all UK adults now use smartphones. Apple's iPhone had the most popular with adults, while teenagers appeared to prefer Blackberry handsets instead. Apple's smartphone was the model of choice for 32 percent of adults, while 37 percent of teenagers favour RiM's handsets.

Of adult males, 58 percent owned a smartphone, compared to 42 percent of women, whereas for teens it was the reverse with 52 percent of girls owning a smartphone to 48 percent of teenage boys.

Ofcom said that the growth of smartphone use in the UK has led to a dramatic rise in mobile Internet use. Facebook was the most visited website, with an estimated 43 million hours spent on it in December 2010.

The information on mobile phone usage in the UK was pulled from Ofcom's annual Communications Market Report, which takes a look at the UK's TV, radio, Internet and telecommunications consumption.

Former counter-terrorism official warns that same sceptical mindset is being applied to cyber-attacks.

Speaking at the Black Hat conference, former CIA counter-terrorism official Cofer Black recalled the attitude toward al Queda by the United States in the 1990s. He described it as a biased view that while Osama bin Laden was known to fund terrorism, his network did not initiate attacks itself.

He said a problem back then with "validation" applies now to the cyber-threat. Judging the severity of the threat and who is behind it can be tricky at least. In October 2000, the USS Cole was bombed in a Yemeni port, and the demand for validation that it was done on the orders of bin Laden took up to five months, far too long, according to Black.

"Validation of threat and attack will come to your world," he told the audience at the Black Hat conference. He said there was a lack of appreciation for how much of a thread al Queda states before September 11, 2001, and said decision makers now are in the same boat. "They hear it but they don't believe it."

Black said that Stuxnet was an example of cyber-warfare carried out by a nation (suggesting the obvious effort and cost of developing and deploying Stuxnet points at a state operation). "The Stuxnet attack is the Rubicon of our future," he said.

Research shows the growth of Android-targeting malware.

Research carried out by mobile security firm Lookout suggests that mobile users with Android handsets are 2.5 times more likely to encounter malware now than they were just six months ago. The report said that mobile users have a 30 percent likelihood of clicking on a malicious link.

Of course, most malicious links and crafted pages target PCs and so are harmless even if a mobile user encounters them, but some do not discriminate based on operating system and will attack mobile browsers in use.
Phishing attacks also affect mobile users the same way as desktop users.

The report estimates that half a million people were affected by Android malware in the first half of 2011. In January, 80 apps were known to be infected with malware. That tally rose to 400 by June.

A problem now has also arisen when apps confirmed to be cleaned are updated to include malware. Two of the most prevalent Android threats are DroidDream and GGTracker. The latter is the first known threat designed to steal money from Android users in the U.S. by signing up for a premium text subscription service and costing the user between $10 and $50.

Pair behind threatening letters for alleged piracy given hefty fines.

Davenport Lyons former intellectual property partner Brian Miller, and current equity partner David Gore, have been fined £20,000 each for sending intimidating letters to Internet users accused of illegal file sharing activity. Additionally, the pair have been ordered to pay £150,000 to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to cover some its costs for bringing the case to prosecution.

The fines here handed down at a hearing before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) on Monday. Between 2006 and 2009, Miller and Gore sent over 6,000 letters to alleged pirates on behalf of clients that included Topware Interactive and Atari.

Which? had filed a complaint with the SRA over the letters, saying the solicitors were bullying and being excessive. It also alleged that the letters contained false assertions on copyright infringement, such as a claim that failing to secure an Internet connection was grounds for legal action. The pair also increased the level of compensation claimed over the period of correspondence. The letters typically demanded £500 to be paid in compensation to avoid it going any further.

Comments spark fear of state control over Internet.

Russian Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, has sparked some web censorship fears in Russia by commenting that limits should be enforced on the Internet to protect cultural values of young people. The 54 year old, ex-KGB officer said that Russia's youth needs to be protected against being corrupted by "lopsided" ideas.

"It is necessary to work out a set of measures for limiting the activities of certain Internet resources without encroaching on the free exchange of information," Nurgaliyev was quoted as saying. "It seems to me that the time has long been ripe to carry out monitoring in the country to find out what they are listening to, what they are reading, what they are watching."

He added: "They have forgotten the love songs of old, the waltzes, everything that united us, our background and our roots."

Russian President Dimitri Medvedev has previously ruled out "draconian controls" of the Internet, but has suggested that more discussion is needed on how to deal with clearly illegal content on the Internet, such as child porn.

Trade panel votes to review Apple charges against South Korean rival.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has said it will investigate claims made by Apple Inc. that Samsung Electronics is violating multiple patents held by Apple. The iPhone-maker has accused Samsung of shamelessly cloning its products.

Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets run Google's Android operating system. Apple filed a complaint with the ITC seeking an injunction against the import of the devices it says infringe its patented technology. Samsung made a similar request to block the import of iPhones and iPads a week before.

The dispute between both of the tech giants has strained an otherwise lucrative business relationship. Apple was Samsung's biggest customer in 2010, providing business worth $5.7 billion throughout the year.

The market for smartphones and tablet PCs is jammed full of patent-related litigation as all the major tech firms look to stake their claim to a piece of the growing pie.

South Korea is first country to fine iPhone-maker since location collection news broke.

The fine is hardly a problem for the multi-billion dollar corporation, being just 3 million won ($2,855), but it represents the first time that the company has been fined over the unauthorized collection of location data with the iPhone and iPad.

It may also have an affect on the outcome of lawsuits that have been filed against Apple over the issue. Over 27,800 South Korean iPhone and iPad users are part of a class action lawsuit against Apple. In the United States, two separate cases are being built against the company.

In April, it was revealed that Apple's iPhone and iPad collected location data and then stored it for a year on the device, even if location software was turned off. Apple blamed it on a software bug and fixed it with a patch soon after.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said that it had found loopholes in systems supposed to protect such location data, and ordered that tech giants such as Google and Apple encrypt location data stored on handsets for any purposes.

"Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so," said Steve Park, a spokesman for Apple Korea.

Regulator found plan was unworkable.

The UK Government will revamp the country's copyright laws in the coming years to bring them in line with the digital age. Besides preventing piracy, the government wants to simplify procedures for buying and selling licenses for copyrighted works, and will broaden the list of exemptions for use of some works.

The moves follow a review by Ian Hargreaves, a professor at Cardiff School of Journalism. It found that the reforms to Britain's intellectual property framework could add up to £8 billion to the economy. The British government is seeking ways to rebalance the economy away from struggling financial services, and the creative industries have been seen as a high potential target.

As reported already, the UK will make copying CDs and DVDs to digital music players or computers for personal use legal. It will also allow commercial and cultural use of "oprhan works" (the copyright owner cannot be contacted).

It will also work to make data mining less restricted by copyright laws. Right now, according to Business Secretary Vince Cable, mass amounts of medical research data is blocked from data mining due to copyright law restrictions.

McAfee finds disturbing evidence of mass global data breaches in analysis of C&C servers.

In total, 72 organizations have been alerted by McAfee about security lapses going back five years. Among those caught up are the United Nations and the United States government. Disturbingly, McAfee tracks all of the intrusions to just one "state actor," which it does not identify. Security experts that examined McAfee's report are pointing the finger at China.

"Even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators," McAfee's vice president of threat research, Dmitri Alperovitch, wrote.

"What is happening to all this data ... is still largely an open question. However, if even a fraction of it is used to build better competing products or beat a competitor at a key negotiation (due to having stolen the other team's playbook), the loss represents a massive economic threat."

McAfee uncovered the global breaches when it was examining log files found on command and control servers discovered and seized in 2009. It has dubbed the attacks "Operation Shady RAT" with "RAT" standing for "Remote Access Tool."

Leaker flier gives clue on UK release date.

The successor to the PSP, the PlayStation Vita handheld, is due to be released sometime this fall. Comments from Sony suggest that the global rollout will initiate this fall but its unknown whether it will be available in its three main territories by the end of the year (North America, Europe and Japan).

IGN posted a scan of a Blockbuster flier from the UK that suggests the PS Vita handheld console will be released in the region on October 28. The flier lists it among upcoming games releases, pricing the WiFi only model at £229.99 and 3G model at £279.99.

The flier was posted last week and IGN attempted to contact Blockbuster for confirmation that its real without any luck. Sony only reiterated that the handheld console will started a phased rollout later on in the year.

Source: IGN

CA Security Advisory details Android call snooping trojan.

There has been a lot of attention focused lately on the growth of malware in circulation for the popular Android smartphone operating system. Some past discoveries include applications that leak private information on Internet and other use, record text messages and information on calls made and received which can be uploaded to a remove server.

This new Trojan takes things a step further by actually recording phone calls to local storage in the AMR format before uploading them to a server specific by the attacker.

The Trojan dubs itself the "Android System Messenger" and asks for permission upon installation to be allowed to incept outgoing calls. This should act as a warning for users, but the truth is most users see these messages all too often and end up just ignoring them. The same problem is seen with User Account Control prompts on Windows, where users allow a program to execute even if they have no idea what it is.

When installed, the malware drops a configuration file to the device which will include information on the remote server to upload the files. When a call is made, the conversation is recorded to a .amr file located in a directory "shangzhou/callrecord". The directory hints at a Chinese origin for the malware.

Lawsuit against tens of thousands of alleged Expendables pirates suffers jurisdiction setback.

All in all, the lawsuit targeted 23,322 alleged pirates identifiable only by the IP address used. For a time it was the biggest file sharing lawsuit seen yet, though it was surpassed by the Hurt Locker lawsuit later on.

Now a U.S. District Court of Columbia has dealt the case a major setback that casts doubt over whether over 99 percent of the alleged pirates will be pursued at all. Judge Robert Wilkins ruled that the vast majority of alleged pirates cannot be pursued through his court because they fall out of the court's jurisdiction.

"Plaintiff has only shown good cause for, and will only be entitled to discovery related to, those John Does for whom there is a good faith basis to believe may reside in the District of Columbia," Wilkins wrote in his ruling.

"Plaintiff can establish such a good faith basis for residence or personal jurisdiction by utilizing geolocation services that are generally available to the public to derive the approximate location of the IP addresses identified for each punitive defendant."

Finnish media company AfterDawn Oy has established two new localized versions of Tom's Hardware and AfterDawn.com in Denmark.

AfterDawn.dk hosts AfterDawn's software collection and some other basic services you would find at AfterDawn.com, while Tom's Hardware Denmark (tomshardware.dk) specializes in thorough tech-related news, product reviews and in-depth technical articles primarily edited by Martin Graversen and Michael Larsen, two recent additions to the AfterDawn team with backgrounds in Danish tech media.

Tom's Hardware, which boasts over 30 million readers per month, is owned by Bestofmedia Group. Through a licensing agreement with the French company, AfterDawn Oy is tasked with establishing a presence of Tom's Hardware in all the Nordic countries.

Tom's Hardware Finland went live last year, and AfterDawn Oy will launch Tom's Hardware in Norway over the coming weeks, and in Sweden later on in the year.

Danish AfterDawn: www.afterdawn.dk

Tom's Hardware Denmark: www.tomshardware.dk