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AfterDawn: News

The Apple iPad remains the only relevant tablet

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Jun 2011 6:38

The Apple iPad remains the only relevant tablet According to the latest figures from comScore, the Apple iPad remains the only relevant tablet, accounting for 99.3 percent of all tablet traffic in the world.

The figures also show Android with a measly 0.6 percent share of traffic and the RIM PlayBook at the remaining 0.1.

Acer, Motorola, RIM and Samsung have all downgraded their tablet shipment expectations for the year while Apple sold 4.69 million tablets in the last quarter, alone.

Apple may face increasing competition, however, when HP releases their TouchPad, running on webOS, later this month, and Microsoft begins rolling out Windows 8 tablets next year.

For now, it appears that the iPad is the only tablet in the world that really matters.

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AfterDawn: News

AT&T hacker pleads guilty

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Jun 2011 4:32

AT&T hacker pleads guilty Last June, AT&T confirmed that 114,067 iPad 3G owners had their email information leaked to the Web, with the data being stolen by a group calling themselves Goatse Security.

The group then published the emails, which included prominent politicians, celebrities and even military officials.

Earlier this week, Daniel Spitler pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers connected to the Internet and one count of identity theft.

At sentencing, the hacker is facing up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines but will likely see fractions of those maximums.

Adds U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman in a statement:

Computer hackers are exacting an increasing toll on our society, damaging individuals and organizations to gain notoriety for themselves. Hacks have serious implications – from the personal devastation of a stolen identity to danger to our national security. In the wake of other recent hacking attacks by loose-knit organizations like Anonymous and LulzSec, Daniel Spitler's guilty plea is a timely reminder of the consequences of treating criminal activity as a competitive sport.


A few of the most notable emails breached were New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson, Diane Sawyer of ABC News, film mogul Harvey Weinstein, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

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AfterDawn: News

Turntable.fm no longer available for international fans

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Jun 2011 2:45

Turntable.fm no longer available for international fans Turntable.fm has noted today that licensing issues have forced the start-up to block international users from trying the popular social music listening and discovery service.

The site, which requires a Facebook login, lets you "DJ" in a room with other DJ's while others listen on and up or down vote the track. The higher the votes, the more points you get, and credibility, etc.

Included is chat, music uploading and playlists as well as a selection of music already uploaded by other users.

The site has exploded to 140,000 members in a very short time, with venture capitalists beginning to show interest.

Anyone who is interested in a fantastic service, try it here: Turntable.fm

(Pic via GigaOM)




AfterDawn: News

Geohot now working for Facebook?

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Jun 2011 12:47

Geohot now working for Facebook? TechUnwrapped has reported today that infamous jailbreaker George 'Geohot' Hotz is now working at Facebook, following his Sony lawsuit.

Earlier this year, Hotz was sued by Sony after the jailbreaker created a custom firmware for the PS3 using a root key.

The custom firmware allowed users to run homebrew and Linux on their devices and Hotz condemned all types of piracy, even blocking it with his firmware. Regardless, Sony was not a fan and took the teen to court.

Hotz and Sony settled after a meaningless trial, and Hotz is no longer able to have a PSN account or ever modify any Sony devices.

The "confirmation" of Hotz' new day job comes via a Facebook post by the jailbreaker in where he says: "Facebook is really an amazing place to work…first hackathon over."

Furthermore, Joshua Hill of the Chronic-Dev Team confirms it via a video:

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AfterDawn: News

FourSquare raises $50 million more

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Jun 2011 12:21

FourSquare raises $50 million more Foursquare has raised $50 million more in a new round of funding, and the company says it will use that cash to expand internationally and build new products.

The "check-in" social networking app has just surpassed 10 million registered users.

Says CEO Dennis Crowley:

The thing that's most exciting is that we think we're inventing the future here a bit.We're doing things nobody has really done before, and to be able to raise this amount of capital will really allow us to look at the white board and accomplish the goals we have written up there -- things we've been wanting to do for awhile now.


Additionally, the company has just closed on their first major partnership, with credit card company American Express. The partnership will let users get discounts on their monthly statements when they check-in at select retailers and then use their card.

Adds the CEO on what the money will be used for:

The Foursquare Merchant Platform is used by more than 400,000 merchants, and there's a lot more room to grow there. About 50 percent of our users are coming from outside of the U.S., and we believe there's a lot of room to grow there too. Right now we're seeing a lot of traction in Brazil, a little bit in India and Russia, and we want to keep that going.




AfterDawn: News

Google hits 1 billion visitors in a month

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 8:12

Google hits 1 billion visitors in a month comScore publishes data that suggests Google achieves an Internet-first for traffic.

The report found that Google beat Facebook and Microsoft to be the first to hit one billion unique visitors in a single month, during May. Google saw an 8.4 percent boost in unique visitors during the month, while Microsoft made a 15 percent gain and Facebook witnessed a 30 percent boost.

Microsoft got 905 million unique visitors in May, while Facebook got 714 million. comScore started tracking in 2006, and at the time placed Google at 496 million unique visitors per month, behind Microsoft's MSN network which tallied 539 million.

The data is collected using a global measurement panel of two million users. comScore receives pageview data from around 90 of the top web content publishers, though Google does not share its data.




AfterDawn: News

PCI Express cabled version to take on Thunderbolt

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 8:12

PCI Express cabled version to take on Thunderbolt PCI Special Interest Group (PCI SIG) to develop the new technology under a new working group.

The PCI Express cabled standard will take on the Thunderbolt interconnect developed by Intel and Apple. It would be based on PCIe 3.0, likely supporting a maximum of four parallel lanes for throughput up to 32 Gbit/s. A further version based on PCI Express 4.0 (16 GT/s) could push up throughput even further, though cable length is likely to be limited to about three meters.

It would be used for delivering high throughput I/O to small notebooks and tablet PCs, to connect to peripheral devices. A new working group being formed will define the standard, with the goal to deliver a spec that system makers can implement in products by June 2013.

The difficult task will be to define technical requirements and a new connector. A separate cable group formed in 2005 by PCI SIG already delivered a specification for 2.5 * 5 GT/s based on PCIe 1.1 and 2.0.

"This will help proliferate PCI Express into new business opportunities," said Al Yanes, president of the PCI SIG.




AfterDawn: News

Xbox 360 is 'about halfway' through its lifecycle: VP

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 8:12

Xbox 360 is 'about halfway' through its lifecycle: VP Xbox EMEA Vice President says Kinect provided a surge of adrenaline.

In and interview with MCV, Chris Lewis said that the Xbox 360 console - on the market since November 2005 - is enjoying an ongoing boost from the introduction of Kinect in late 2010. Some rumors lately have suggested that the Xbox 360 console might see a successor as soon as 2012.

"We see it as about halfway through. But yes you are right, Xbox is defying the normal curve you might expect. There's no doubt that Kinect put a huge shot of adrenaline into the business," Lewis said.

"What we are now seeing is massive swathes of families and younger audiences flocking to it. As you saw at the press conference, we are now in line with what we projected at E3 2010."

He said that Microsoft deliberately focused the initial Kinect software on families and children, but that now the company was looking to provide complementary experiences for core gamers too.




AfterDawn: News

Nvidia driver update brings SLI support to AMD platform

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 7:27

Nvidia driver update brings SLI support to AMD platform Nvidia makes good on promise to bring SLI to AMD systems.

At the end of April, Nvidia said it was responding to customers requests by bringing SLI to AMD-based boards. It announced that it had licensed SLI to the world's leading motherboard companies for integration onto their upcoming mothers featuing AMD's 990FX, 990X and 970 chipsets.

ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, and MSI were among the first to implement the technology which had previously been limited to systems running Intel CPUs.

Earlier this week, the support was made official with the release of new (beta) Nvidia GeForce drivers. The Nvidia GeForce 275.50 BETA software suite enabled SLI on supported AMD systems.

Of course, not all boards with 990FX, 990X and 970 chipsets support SLI, only the certified boards, which will feature a logo on the packaging.




AfterDawn: News

Irish 'three strikes' system in doubt following false accusations

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 7:27

Irish 'three strikes' system in doubt following false accusations As many as 300 incorrectly accused of Internet piracy.

Up to 300 Irish Internet users were incorrectly sent "first strike" notices warning them about copyright infringement offenses. The 300 were customers of Eircom, who agreed a gradual response system with record labels that would see alleged pirates warned about their activities and possibly cut off if they persist.

Eircom has admitted that a mistake was made due to a software failure caused when the, "clock went back last October." This explanation suggests that the server clocks did not reflect Daylight Savings Time, and as a result, some innocent users were identified as the offender for something another user did with the same (dynamically obtained) IP address, at a different time.

The Data Protection Commissioner in the country is investigating the incident, which now may probe the legality of the entire system. When the High Court gave the green light for Eircom and the rights' holders to operate the system in the country, the only parties before the court had a vested interest in it being passed. The Data Protection Commissioner was not even represented.

At the time, the Commissioner was not convinced by the judgement, but until a valid complaint against the system would be made, the Commissioner could not take any action. Now that there is a valid complaint, the Commissioner has the power to issue an enforcement notice which would prevent Eircom from using personal data for the system (the Commissioner previously had said the usage of personal information in this way did not constitute "fair use").

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AfterDawn: News

LulzSec publishes their final release

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Jun 2011 7:21

LulzSec publishes their final release LulzSec, the group behind many high-profile hacks in the past two months, has published their last release, and appear to be sailing off into the sunset.

The group has faced some heat recently from other Web-based groups like "Web Ninjas" and "The Jester," each of which promised to reveal the personal details of the group just like the group did to many innocent users.

LulzSec's legacy will be that of 50 days of chaos and an arrest on a lowly IRC chat operator with Asperger's.

Group's last post after the break.

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AfterDawn: News

Germany launched its own cyber-defense center

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 6:54

Germany launched its own cyber-defense center Protecting critical infrastructure from cyber-attack.

Germany is the latest country to build itself its very own cyber-defense center to build a strategy to defend against cyber-warfare, a hot issue this year. The National Cyber-Defense Center is located in Bonn at the Federal Office for Information Security building.

For now, it had ten permanent employees with the German Federal Police, Federal Intelligence Service and Armed Forces to join the effort in the coming months. The Interior ministry said it recorded a record number of attempted cyber attacks last year, nearly double the number of attempts in 2009.

"At the heart of cyber-security is the protection of critical infrastructures," said Federal Interior Minister Friedrich. "Stuxnet and the most recent example of the hacker attack on the French nuclear company EDF (Electricité de France) have shown that IT systems represent critical infrastructure in the context of cyber-attacks."

Germany's move follows other's around the world, including the UK's Cyber Security Operations Center (CSOC) and the United States' Cyber Command center. Estonia, which was the victim of a country-wide cyber-attack in 2007 in a dispute over the moving of a soviet-era war monument, is also planning to build its own cyber defenses.




AfterDawn: News

Hip-Hop sites, blogs caught up in anti-piracy mess

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 6:54

Hip-Hop sites, blogs caught up in anti-piracy mess Popular hip-hop sites and blogs on advertisement blacklist.

Advertising firm GroupM revealed a few weeks ago that it had adopted a new anti-piracy policy. It constructed a list of websites that it deemed to be either in support of piracy, or directly offering illegal downloads. The list of sites eventually got into the hands of the media and there are some bizarre listings on it.

For example, the list includes archive.org, which has nothing to do with piracy. It also includes Vimeo, a YouTube competitor. However, the real controversial part is the music-based sites that are listed. One listed site was SoundCloud, which is one of the most popular tools for musicians to promote new material to fans. The Beastie Boys streamed their latest album using the site.

Another blacklisted website is Vibe.com, the online portal of Vibe magazine, founded by Quincy Jones. A 2009 list of the top 50 hottest rap blogs was published on Vibe.com. These websites are where hip-hop producers really want to be featured. TechDirt points out that if you check that list against the GroupM "piracy sites" list, most of them are on it (7 of the top 12 alone.)

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AfterDawn: News

Apple given approval to buy Nortel assets

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Jun 2011 2:23

Apple given approval to buy Nortel assets FTC anti-trust regulators in the U.S. have given Apple approval to buy assets from the bankrupt telecom Nortel Networks.

Intel, Apple, Google and Ericsson have all expressed interest in the over 6000 patents in Nortel's portfolio and each is expected to be granted approval within the week.

Begging on Monday, all patents head to auction and will be sold.

The patents cover a wide range of topics from wireless, data and optical networking, voice, Internet and semiconductors, says Reuters.

Apple and Google will likely be strong bidders for 4G and LTE technologies, while Intel will be interested in the semiconductor patents.

Google's $900 million "stalking horse" opening bid has been approved and will be the starting point for the auction on Monday.




AfterDawn: News

UK hacking suspect remains in custody

Written by James Delahunty @ 25 Jun 2011 1:52

UK hacking suspect remains in custody Ryan Cleary was arrested this week in FBI / Scotland Yard LulzSec probe.

The 19 year old was granted bail, but remains in custody after objections from the prosecution. Ben Cooper, defending Mr Cleary, said he was concerned about him remaining in custody. The court had been told that Cleary suffers from Asperger's syndrome, being highly intelligent but with social interaction difficulties.

The prosecution, which refused to reconsider the bail appeal, accuse Cleary of setting up a DDoS attack on the Serious Organised Crime Agency on June 20, and attacked the websites of the International Federation of the Phonographgic Industry twice in late 2010.

He has also been accused of making, adapting, supplying or offering to supply a botnet to carry out distributed denial of service attacks against web targets.

If Cleary is released on bail, he will be banned from having possession of any device that can access the Internet. No Internet access will be permitted at his home, and he will be prohibited from leaving his home without his mother.





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