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Apple Inc. has reported that it discovered 17 violations of its Supplier Code of Conduct by foreign suppliers. Apple began carrying out audits back in 2006 when it emerged that workers were being abused and mistreated by a Chinese manufacturer that assembled iPods. Three of the 17 violations involved the hiring of underage workers.

"Across the three facilities, our auditors found records of 11 workers who had been hired prior to reaching the legal age, although the workers were no longer underage or no longer in active employment at the time of our audit," Apple said in its report. The auditors reviewed the employment records to analyze how the underage workers were hired, and required each facility to implement better identification verification.

In another three cases, suppliers had contracted with non-certified vendors for the disposal of hazardous waste material. Apple requires each facility to contact certified vendors for this task. They also must engage a third-party consultant and undergo a review of their systems for managing the waste.

Palm has managed to push out the webOS 1.4 update for some of its handset users. The update revolves greatly around the improvements in video recording functionality. It provides the Pre and Pixi with an iPhone-like interface for recording video and then carrying out trimming and simply tasks afterward.

Users can share their videos through Multimedia Messaging, YouTube, Facebook or by sending it through e-mail with the device. The update comes with support for Flash 10.1, making the Pre and Pixi the first handsets to fully support in-browser Flash videos and games, and other Flash-based content.

Some other features that are not as noticeable include a change that pulses the LED for notifications even if the phone is in "asleep" state, sorting e-mail by different criteria and better integration between calling and messaging features.

The update is available today for Sprint users, and also available to Movistar and O2 subscribers in Europe. Users of other services will have to wait a little while longer.

Intel plans to release a faster version of its Atom N450 processor for use with Netbooks on Monday. The new N470 is almost identical to the N450 except that it has gotten a speed increase from 1.66GHz to 1.83GHz. The chip will feature fairly quickly in new netbook offerings from laptop makers, as the segment remains popular among consumers.

The Atom processors are built to be more energy efficient. The company uses a different architecture to achieve this goal, but the trade-off is lower performance. Netbooks generally sell for less than $350, which puts restraints on how much an Atom processor should cost manufacturers.

Intel is also reportedly on track to deliver a new "Moorestown" Atom chip targeted for use with smartphones and mobile Internet devices. The new chip is expected to be unveiled by Intel later this year. The company's manufacturing relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is currently on hold according to a report in the New York Times.

SanDisk has made upbeat comments on the near-future market for flash memory products. The U.S. flash-memory maker raised its revenue forecast for the first quarter, prompting a 2 percent rise in shares after a 2.2 percent rise in the regular session on the Nasdaq. It now forecasts its Q1 revenue to be between $925 million and $1 billion, up from $875 - $950 million.

SanDisk CFO Judy Bruner said the company is comfortable that 2010 revenue will be at the high-end of its $4 - $4.4 billion forecast. Chief Executive Eli Harari said he expects the growth in the industry for flash industry over the next decade to "dwarf" the growth of the previous ten years in the sector.

"What is different really over the next decade is that the scale of the business, I believe, the growth ahead is going to be on a bigger scale," Harari said at an investor meeting. He expects SanDisk to ship 1 billion units over the next two years. In the previous three years, SanDisk shipped 1 billion units.

SanDisk is the No.1 manufacturer of NAND flash memory cards used in devices like digital cameras. It rivals consumer electronics heavy-weights including Samsung Electronics, Toshiba Corp and Hynix Semiconductor.

The gaming industry in China is continuing to enjoy rapid growth, spurred on by increasing numbers of Chinese citizens getting access to the Internet. In 2009, the industry earned 26 billion yuan, or about $3.8 billion, which was an increase of 39.5 percent over the previous year. Games developers overseas are looking at the market as a high priority investment.

However, it is the domestic game developers that will continue to get large pieces of the pie, according to experts. Games offered up by homegrown firms are more closely tailored to the tastes and preferences of Chinese people. "Foreign game developers are having a tough time competing in China," said Daniel H. Vlad, a senior analyst at JLM Pacific Epoch.

"So far only one Western game, World of Warcraft, has really succeeded in China. Chinese users spend significantly more time playing games than their Western counterparts. Foreign games typically fail to deliver enough content... Chinese gamers eventually lose interest and move on."

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has enabled SWF Verification for its catch-up Internet-video service. SWF Verification is effectively a content protection mechanism, in that its use can block out unauthorized software from accessing content. In this case, users of Open Source software (such as Xbox Media Center - or XBMC) can no longer access videos from BBC's iPlayer.

Adobe has effectively made it impossible for develops to create a fully-compatible open source Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) client. RTMP is used by Flash for streaming video, and it is publicly documented, but Adobe has guarded the RTMP content protection measures. SWF Verification is a security measure that can lock out an unauthorized client from multimedia content.

Content becomes accessible only by specific SWF files, and is controlled by the use of an authorization key. Fail to provide the authorization key and the video won't be retrieved. The principal intention of SWF Verification to guard against piracy (ripping videos) but regular honest users are once again caught in the crossfire.

The UK's Digital Economy Bill (DEB) may have a negative effect on establishments that offer open Wi-Fi access to users. Libraries, Universities, Cafes and other small businesses will not be exempt from anti-piracy policies in the Digital Economy Bill, meaning that a small business offering WiFi might be warned and held responsible for copyright infringement of somebody using their WiFi access.

Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law at Sheffield University, said that the scenario as described by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) would effectively "outlaw open Wi-Fi for small businesses," while leaving the likes of Universities and public Libraries in an uncertain position.

"This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in," Edwards said. "Even if they password protect, they then have two options — to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small cafe."

U.S. Senator Herbert Kohl (D), chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, has written a letter to NBC Chief Executive Jeff Zucker asking for an explanation of a Pay-TV link to Internet-based Winter Olympics videos. Kohl expressed concerns that certain content on the NBC site is only viewable by those who have Pay-TV subscriptions.

Kohl has a very valid concern in this case, because if NBC wanted to raise revenue from its coverage of the Vancouver events, it could simply charge users for premium online content. Instead, when users register to view the games' feeds, they are asked to verify themselves as a Cable TV, Satellite TV or IPTV service subscriber - in other words, a subscriber to services provided by a third party.

This raises enormous suspicions for a politician in Kohl's place, as Comcast/NBC Universal merger is looming. "I fear that this practice of locking up certain content only for pay-TV subscribers may be a preview of what is to come with respect to TV programing shown on the Internet, particularly in the context of the proposed Comcast/NBC Universal merger," Kohl wrote in the letter to NBC.

For those of us who regularly work with malware-infested machine as part of our jobs, rogue anti-malware software is absolutely nothing new. In Windows XP in particular, rogue software often portrays itself as Windows Security Center (while disabling the actual Security Center) to provide false warnings to users about (usually) non-existent virus and spyware infections.

Now, Microsoft has spotted a rogue piece of scareware that portrays itself as its Security Essentials suite (as have I on one laptop already), which is freely available to Windows users that have genuine software installed. As usual, the rogue anti-malware client lists a bunch of bullsh** infections before asking a user to pay a fee to purchase a "full" non-trial version of Security Essentials.

Here is what it looks like...

Click to Enlarge (Credit: Technet)

A Texas appellate court has ordered Whitney Harper to pay $27,750 in fines for illegal sharing of 27 tracks when she was 15 years old, throwing out the old judgment that had ordered her to pay just $7400.

The first decision had given Harper the "innocent infringers" exemption, via the DMCA, meaning she could be fined a number under the minimum $750 per track, as stated in the law.

Harper shared the files via Limewire seven years ago, back when she was a 15-year old high school cheerleader, and says she thought the sharing was the same as Internet radio.

"Harper cannot rely on her purported legal naivety [sic] to defeat the … bar to her innocent infringer defense," said the court.

Said the woman, two years in court: "I knew I was listening to music. I didn't have an understanding of file sharing."

We reported two weeks ago that an NES console with an opened copy of Stadium Events sold for $13,000, a high premium, although there are only known to be around 10 copies of the game in existence.

Today, that number has been blown out of the water, with a sealed NTSC copy of the game selling for $41,300 today, alone.

Read the auction:
"An online article states that, “The North American, or NTSC, version of Stadium Events is universally accepted as the rarest licensed NES game available for purchase in North America”. As the article continues, “ONLY ONE OF WHICH IS FACTORY SEALED”. If this is true then THIS IS that “ONLY” game that is factory sealed. This is truly an opportunity of a lifetime.

The PAL versions (many listed for sale here on EBay) were never recalled and therefore are not nearly as valuable as this NTSC version I am selling. Not only is this a NTSC version - it is factory sealed, the box alone (opened) is estimated at approximately $10,000. Do your research - this is truly ONE OF A KIND!!"

Two days ago we reported that there was a massive phishing attack being worked through Twitter, with people you are following sending personal messages asking you to click on a link that promptly took you to a new landing page where you are asked to sign in to Twitter.

By signing in, users were having their accounts stolen, and used to send more of the messages to other victims.

Today, Twitter finally released a warning about the attack:

Over the past few days, Twitter has been helping folks victimized by a phishing attack. Phishing is a deceitful process by which an attempt is made to acquire sensitive information such as Twitter usernames and passwords. The bad guys masquerade as someone you trust and may send you a Direct Message (DM) with a link. This DM may say something along the lines of, "LOL that you??" followed by a link to a fake Twitter login page. If you enter your credentials on that fraudulent page, the phishers can sign in as you and trick more people.

Anatomy of A Phishing Scam

Generally a phishing attack against Twitter users breaks down to a three-part process. First, accounts compromised in the manner described above send out messages to all accounts following them. Second, accounts that are newly compromised send out more messages. Third, the scammers behind the phishing attack make an attempt at monetization by sending out spam links instead of links to a fake login page. We fight phishing scams by detecting affected accounts and resetting passwords. However, it's better to stop them before they start.

Although not in our normal niche, this article was too interesting to pass up.

Eurocopter has created a new helicopter blade, dubbed Blue Edge, that significantly reduces noise from the rotor blades. Testing on an EC155 helicopter has seen noise reduced by 4 decibels.

Says Wired: "The technologies are able to reduce noise by minimizing the blade-vortex interaction of the main rotor on a helicopter. Blade-vortex interaction is the source of the pulsating sound most of us are familiar with when helicopters fly overhead. The noise is created when a rotor blade hits the wake vortex left behind from the blade in front of it."

Current Hulu investor Providence Equity Partners has invested $50 million into the new Qiyi online video service started by search giant Baidu.

The service, as promised, should be a Hulu-esque ad-supported streaming service for China, including censorship.

Providence is the biggest investor by far, with Reuters reporting that the service has $60 million in backing, with the other $10 million coming from Baidu itself.

According to TC, China has over 500 million Internet users, but the online video market only brings in about $25 million in revenue per quarter. Analysts expect that number to at least triple by 2012.

The business rating and review site Yelp has been sued this week by two law firms, which are alleging unfair business practices and extortion.

The class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of a veterinary hospital in California which asked Yelp to remove a negative review, but was then denied. Afterward, sales representatives from Yelp called the hospital at least once a week demanding a check for $300 to make bad reviews go away.

This is the second time Yelp has been accused of extorting from small businesses, with East Bay Express accusing them last year in a broad report.

Yelp responded to the new case, via TechCrunch: "Yelp provides a valuable service to millions of consumers and businesses based on our trusted content. The allegations are demonstrably false, since many businesses that advertise on Yelp have both negative and positive reviews. These businesses realize that both kinds of feedback provide authenticity and value. Running a good business is hard; filing a lawsuit is easy. While we haven’t seen the suit in question, we will dispute it aggressively."