Latest news

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to a blurb posting by the BusinessInsider, Microsoft has only sold 500 Kin "smartphones" since the devices went on sale in May, a horrible number even by the lowest expectations.

The story says Verizon has sold only about 1 or less per store the phones are available in.

Each device sells for under $100 with contract, but both require data plans, which can be as expensive as $30 USD.

Kin One:


- Has a compact full QWERTY keypad
- Multitouch screen
- 5MP camera with LED flash
- 4GB memory
- "Media player powered by Zune."

Kin Two:


- Full QWERTY keypad
- Multitouch screen
- 8MP camera with LED flash, HD video recording
- 8GB memory
- "Media player powered by Zune."

PCMag is reporting today that Samsung has sent out a press invite to "join Samsung Mobile as we unveil a new class of brilliant Android smartphones" on June 29th. The invite has a Galaxy S logo on it, which the company introduced in March.

Generically, the Galaxy S line devices all include Super AMOLED screens, which are 20 percent brighter, with 80 percent less sunlight reflection and 20 percent more battery life. Each model will have at least a 1Ghz processor, as well.

Samsung introduced the first Galaxy S phone, the Captivate, earlier in the week, with the phone headed to AT&T.

The Captivate has a 1Ghz Samsung Hummingbird processor, which the company says is comparable to Qualcomm Snapdragon chips at the same speed. Additionally, it has 5MP camera, and accelerometer and gyroscope for 3D motion sensing, 16 GB of built-in storage, HD video recording and surround sound.

Kobo, the company behind the Kobo eReader apps and supporting ebook store has announced the launch of an Android app, making the Kobo store now available for PC, iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry users.

The company also has a standalone eReader device.

Says Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis: "Now the fastest-growing mobile platform, many of the new Android devices are great for eReading and we’re excited to deliver Kobo to the millions of Android users around the world. We’ve adapted the features our customers love and expect from Kobo to ensure that we provide the best reading experience for Android-enabled smartphones."

The app is free through the Android Market, and Kobo supports ePUB file formats that can handle rich text and images.

Kobo's ebook store has over 2 million titles, with some for free and best sellers for as low as $10.

The Japanese Nikkei is reporting this week that the upcoming Nintendo 3DS will allow for game installs on the handheld's onboard storage, an important feature that was not disclosed by the company during the console's E3 launch.

The report says "multiple" games can be installed to the system off their original carts, giving users a way to take a bunch of games on the road without the need to bring the physical game card.

While the game carts are tiny and not to bad of a hassle to carry around, it will be nice to not have to worry about losing multiple games you have paid for, when you can simply carry them on the system with you, leaving the physical copies at home.

There was no word on how to install the games from the cartridges, and Nintendo has not commented on the report yet so it is still considered a rumor.

Gamers will be able to switch from the games they install through a specialized home menu, one that will likely look similar to the "Moonshell" main menu seen on flash carts used for homebrew.

Media reports from Pakistan today are saying that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could face the death penalty in the nation, for allowing users of his site to run a "Draw the Prophet Muhammad" contest last month.

Pakistani penal code allows for the death penalty in certain cases of blasphemy.

The popular social networking site was banned in Pakistan when the contest started, but access was later restored, with all "offensive contents" removed.

While the police in the nation have already started formal proceedings, there is little chance Zuckerberg will be extradited to Pakistan to face his accusers.

Human rights watchdog Privacy International had this to say on the matter: "The move to prosecute Zuckerberg parallels the government’s attempts to shut down a substantial spectrum of internet activity."

Additionally, PI says the Pakistani government is planning to increase its censorship in the nation, which is already one of the world's most censored in terms of Internet activity.

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of employers this week, in a case that will allow supervisors to read through employee's texts if they feel work rules are possibly being violated.

In the unanimous 9-0 ruling, the justices said they felt a police chief in California did not violate constitutional rights when he read the transcripts of sexually explicit texts sent from an officer's pager.

The ruling says the reading of the messages was reasonable, because it had "a legitimate work-related purpose." The chief was looking into whether officers were using their text pagers for police work, or for personal matters.

Police Sergeant Jeff Quon has sued the city of Ontario, California after he was told his messages were being read, and Quon had won in the Court of Appeals before losing this week in the highest court.

Quon had been sending sexually explicit texts to his wife and a girlfriend.

Microsoft has filed suit against a group of spammers this week, accusing them of one of the "largest" spam attacks against Windows Hotmail, ever.

Making the case more insulting to Microsoft, was the fact that the spammers used Microsoft's anti-spam filtering technologies to start the spam campaign.

"The lawsuit ... alleges [the] defendants engaged in an elaborate scheme to evade Microsoft's filters by abusing Microsoft's Junk E-Mail Reporting Program (JMRP) and Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) to send vast quantities of spam each day," says John Scarrow, general manager of safety services for Microsoft.

The SNDS and JMRP features are free services for Hotmail users that want to report spam that breaks through filters.

As a way to get around the anti-spam filters, Microsoft says the defendants hired hundreds of people to open millions of Hotmail accounts, who then were sent the spam, and manually misidentified them as valid e-mails, thus destroying the accuracy of the filters.

According to a new report from Digitimes, a CDMA-capable iPhone for the Verizon network is already being manufactured and will be ready to ship in time for the 2010 holiday season.

The report says contract manufacturer Pegatron already has an order from Apple for the CDMA iPhone 4, and the company is "currently using its plants in Shanghai, China, to produce the products."

A Wall Street Journal report earlier in the year said the same thing, that Pegatron had already been contracted.

An iPhone for Verizon has been rumored, on and off, for years now but earlier this month a Verizon spokesperson said: "We have no plans to carry the iPhone in the immediate future." That being said, it is likely an iPhone 4 for Verizon is in the works, but unlikely that it is coming as soon as a few months from now.

There is also still the possibility that Apple and AT&T signed an iPhone exclusivity pact until 2012, which would clearly make it impossible, at least without a breach of contract, for a Verizon iPhone this year.

Verizon, the biggest wireless carrier in the U.S., has said today that it may follow AT&T's recent move into tiered data plan pricing, while at the same time eliminating unlimited plans.

Says Verizon CFO John Killian: "We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate."

The plan will likely not take effect until Verizon rolls out its 4G networks. When 4G goes live, the carrier expects an "explosion in data traffic," due to video downloads, video conferencing, and other bandwidth-intensive applications.

Verizon says smartphone owners currently use about 700MB of data per month, and the company says eventually smartphone users will be 80 percent of all Verizon consumers, up from just 17 percent today.

AT&T's cheapest new plan is $15 per month, but will only include 200MB of data. If customers go over the limit, they will be charged $15 extra for every 200MB of data, a very expensive proposition.

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

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

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

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