Items tagged with KIN
It's not the first time something like this has happened, and it won't be the last. What's worrisome is that it probably happens more often than we know, and we just don't hear about it. No, someone didn't explicitly sell personal info on eBay. What they did was sell a hard drive with the bank account numbers, phone numbers, mothers' maiden names and signatures of 1 million customers of American Express, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland on it. Big oops, right? Fortunately, the buyer was Andrew Chapman, an IT manager from Oxford, and not some scammer. Obviously, the odds are in favor of the buyer either being someone honest, or else just not noticing the extraneous data. The drive originally...
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Everyone and their Aunt Sally wants to sell users on a different use for broadband. You can stream HBO shows, Netflix videos, using tons of bandwidth, and that's not even taking P2P into account. Ah, and NBC would love it if you would watch the "Olympics on the Go." Problem is, you poor folk with metered-use broadband, which may soon come to the rest of us, might have to watch just what you ... well, watch.We’ve talked before that metered access is a boneheaded idea that is bad for innovation, bad for Microsoft and Google, and ultimately bad for you. Until today, the idea seemed like an eventuality, not an immediate reality. But then NBC and TonicTV launched a new service that...
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While cyber attacks on large business often make the headlines of tech publications, security company, McAfee wanted to know if smaller businesses were any less susceptible to cyber security breaches as a result of their smaller size. So McAfee surveyed 500 companies in the U.S. and Canada that have between 2 and 1,000 employees, and McAfee just released the results in its study titles "Does Size Mater? The Security challenge of the SMB."As to just how important reliance on the Internet is to SMBs (small and medium-sized business), the study found that:"SMBs have become very reliant on the Internet, with 92 percent of respondents claiming that online access and availability is very important...
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You'll recall that in February security researchers found a way to break into encrypted hard drives by using a trick that relies on the fact that RAM dissipates its contents slower if cooled.The research paper, by Princeton, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Wind River Systems was titled "Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys" (.PDF"). Over the weekend, timed to coincide with the Last HOPE hacker conference over the weekend in New York, the source code was published to the Web.Of course, this technique only works if the laptop hasn't already been turned off, which would have enabled the memory to fully dissipate. This probably isn't the method most people on...
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Apple sent an e-mail out to its MobileMe service members today, apologizing for the hiccups in getting the $99 per month MobileMe service up and running, announcing that the service was now finally fully operational, and even offering a conciliatory, free 30-day extension to all current MobileMe subscriptions. Apple's e-mail (click the image to read the e-mail) MobileMe is an updated version of Apple's .Mac ("Dot Mac") subscription-based online service, which has been around since 2002 (or even as far back as 2000 if you count its original iteration as Apple's free, Mac-only, online service called iTools). The new MobileMe service rolled out at the same time as the release of the iPhone...
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What would you say if Steve Wozniak and his entourage cut in line in front of you? Anything?What would you say, on the other hand, if they tried to "pretend" they waited in line overnight, for good PR, and THEN cut in line?In fact, according to Doug and Patrice Broussard, Woz actually never waited in line at all. The couple, who were there, said the Apple co-founder lounged on some of the mall's nearby sofas for about four hours and then ambled up to the front of the queue when the store opened at 8 a.m and simply cut in line. No discussion.And he wasn't alone. He had his posse in tow, say the Broussards, who photographed the Woz playing big shot. Didn't anybody say anything?No. Doug Broussard...
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Kingston Technology Releases HyperX High-Performance DDR2 SO-DIMMs in 3GB Kits Fountain Valley, CA - July 9, 2008 - Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is shippingHyperXR 667MHz and 800MHz low-latency DDR2 SO-DIMM notebook memory in 3GB kits. The 3GB SO-DIMM kits are an excellent way to take advantage of the Microsoft Windows VistaR 32-bit operating system and for notebook users running mid- to high-performance applications. Kingston's 3GB kits boostsystem performance and assure users that their notebooks are equal in memory capacity to most of the desktop systems sold on the market today. The release of the 3GB SO-DIMM kits continues...
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The computer mouse must rank among the most useful things ever invented. Like all great inventions, it's pretty well impossible to even calculate the value that it's brought to society. But many more ways to point at something on a pixellated screen have been developed since the mouse was born back in the sixties. According to an analyst at Gartner, these new methods of pointing and clicking will make the mouse lose its dominance -- perhaps in as few as two to four years. ... next-generation operating systems will sport what I call multitouch, physics and gestures (MPG) user interfaces. They represent the next quantum leap in PC usability. And they have no use for a mouse.The evolution of user...
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If you're running Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5, there's a nasty Trojan horse out in wild that antivirus firm SecureMac has spotted being distributed from a hacker website. Taking advantage of a vulnerability of the Apple Remote Desktop agent, the Trojan does every sort of bad thing to your computer.According to SecureMac, the Trojan runs hidden on a Mac and allows a malicious user complete remote access. The Trojan can transmit system and user passwords, and avoid detection by opening ports in the firewall and turning off system logging. The AppleScript version, SecureMac reported, can also log keystrokes, take pictures with the built-in Apple iSight camera, take screenshots, and turn on file sharing.The...
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Toshiba recently announced that its lightweight Portégé R500 ultraportable laptop is now available with a 128GB solid state drive (SSD). With this new, but pricey option, Toshiba claims that the Portégé R500-S5007V is now "the world's lightest laptop with a 128GB SSD and DVD SuperMulti drive." That might sound impressive upon first blush, but it's actually a rather hollow claim, as there are very few--if any--other 128GB SSD-based laptops on the market right now. But, we thought we would use this opportunity to proclaim HotHardware.com as the world's favorite tech enthusiast site among HotHardware.com editors.The Portégé R500 has been around for a year or so now, but still remains one the...
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You'll recall our earlier post about the AP's DMCA takedown notices against the Drudge Retort, over excerpts that most would consider "fair use," but that AP felt were infringing on copyright. AP has back off - some - but now wants to create its own guidelines for blog posting of excerpts.On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed” and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.But Rogers Cadenhead, the owner of the Drudge Retort and several other Web sites, said the issue goes far beyond one site. “There...
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How fitting and appropriate for today, Father's Day 2008. Looking for that special gift, for a gadget-loving Dad that has everything and then some? Dubbed "a unique combination of art and technology", this product offers a "technological and ergonomical solution that enhances comfort, productivity and gaming experience". And you know we're all about the comfort and productivity around these parts at HH. All we can say is it better have enough horsepower under the hood because if it's all show and no go, you know someone with a big checkbook will be shelling out far too much money for a stylized geek Lazy-Boy.You've just got to see this...
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Kingston Technology Releases High-Performance 800MHz SO-DIMMS Fountain Valley, CA – June 11, 2008 – Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is shipping HyperX 800MHz low-latency DDR2 SO-DIMM notebook memory kits in 2- and 4GB capacities. The latest offering provides mobile computer users an even greater performance and flexibility option as the SO-DIMMs are pre-programmed with three serial presence detect (SPD) profiles, allowing the memory to work in 800MHz-CL5, 667MHZ-CL4 and 533MHz-CL3 low-latency configurations. The release of the 800MHz SO-DIMM kits continues a series of new performance notebook memory offerings. In May, Kingston...
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Billionaire J.R. Simplot, whose wealth earned him the title of "spud king" of America, passed away Sunday at his Boise home (where else but Boise for the "spud king") at the age of 99.In 1980, at age 71, Simplot took a gamble on the next generation of businessmen, giving Ward and Joe Parkinson $1 million for 40 percent of what would become computer chip maker Micron Technology Inc. Over the years, he pumped in $20 million more to help Micron build its first manufacturing plant and to stay afloat. Micron went on to become a major producer of DRAM memory chips, which are used to store information in personal computers.At one time Simplot was a McDonald's board member, and later in life he could...
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Facebook has 70 million members, so if the owners change something about it the users don't like, the angry virtual mob that appears outside the window with digital pitchforks and torches is something to behold. Facebook's attempt to share information about user's purchases through a utility they called Beacon didn't go down too well, for instance, and the ensuing outcry included just about everything except calls for a guillotine outside Facebook's office. So Facebook is cautious now, and even though they've announced they're going to dramatically change the appearance of their website in June, they're quick to point out that it's only on a test basis. We'll go slow. Very beta. Nothing...
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We love living on the edge. We sometimes take a chance and drink milk from a carton so old that the lost child pictured on it has already been found. We've even been known to participate in beta tests of buggy software. But we're a little leery of monkeying around with web browsers until they're finished, because we don't even trust them not to tell gangsters all our passwords even when they're working properly. So even though Mozilla calls the latest work-in-progress iteration of the Firefox browser a "release candidate," instead of a "beta test," we're going to let some other brave soul monkey around with it until it's ready. Someone like Lifehacker, with their Top Ten Firefox 3...
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A recent issue where MSN Messenger and Windows Live were blocking YouTube has now been resolved. Microsoft has laid the blame on an unnamed partner that is allegedly responsible for blocking unsafe content. Thankfully the situation has now been resolved and Microsoft is assuring users that there won’t be a repeat of such an issue:"Microsoft did not request to block any of the URLs that were accidentally blocked," it said in the blog. "The blocks were made by our partner as a result of their process to block harmful URLs. We are still investigating the specific reason our partner made these incorrect blocks and we will work with them to improve their process for detecting harmful URLs while...
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YouTube may rule supreme in the melded world of online video and social networking, but Microsoft has a new trick up its sleeve that it hopes might steal some eyeballs away from the competition. Launching today in 20 countries and 12 languages is Microsoft's Messenger TV service, integrating online video directly into Microsoft's Live Messenger application. "Watching online video is no longer about one person in front of their computer, it's now a social experience. Users can now share a selection of free content and watch it at the same time as their friends through Messenger TV."Microsoft has partnered with a number of popular content providers, such as MTV, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, National...
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Not only did Id Games announce today that it is hard at work on the next installment of the first-person shooter DOOM series, DOOM 4, but the company is looking to hire designers, artists, animators, and programmers to develop the new title."DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. "It's critical for id Software to have the best creative minds in-house to develop games that meet the standards synonymous with our titles."No less than 15 positions were listed on the Id Software job listings page at the time of this news post....
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You may or may not know web mogul and conversational media entrepreneur Jason Calacanis but it's safe to say that he "got it" when weblogs were just starting to become hip. Along the way, the properties he built (Engadget, Joystiq etc) were picked by companies like AOL for just a little bit of coin. Though not breaking news, it's safe to say his latest start-up is gaining traction and proving relevance. Calacanis' latest vision is called Mahalo and he's taking on traditional search engines giants like Google and Yahoo but with Wikipedia-like capabilities and couple of strategic twists. Sounds interesting, but what does that...
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Pirate Bay has announced plans to Danish ISP Tele2 over their court ordered block of their web site that began in February. Pirate Bay set up a sister site with trackers called The Jesper Bay to prove just how ineffectual the block was, and as a result the block was more or less an exercise in futility.“The court case was initiated by the IFPI - the infamous anti-piracy organization that represents the recording industry. The IFPI later tried to use the “landmark decision” to force Swedish ISPs to do the same, but failed. In fact, it seems that filtering traffic to The Pirate Bay is actually illegal according to European law.”Pirate Bay claims that if they win damages from the case, they...
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Responding to a letter Microsoft sent the Yahoo Board of Directors over the weekend, Yahoo said not only is the offer not enough, threats aren't going to get Microsoft anywhere.Steve's letter said that Yahoo's management is "choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations" with the Redmonds, letting "this window of opportunity" to reach a friendly agreement pass. If it has to come to a proxy fight with dueling director slates, it will be with a new offer as a backdrop—and it will be lower then the one currently on the table. Yahoo has three weeks to accept Microsoft's current offer before the price drops.Yang says that he's "not opposed to a transaction with Microsoft if it is in the best...
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