Wednesday, August 25, 2010



broadband advert banned over speed claim

An advert for telecommunications firm BT has been banned for misleading customers over broadband speeds.
"Jane" from the BT advertIn a TV advert, a voice-over said BT is "rolling out up to 20 meg speeds" to give "consistently faster broadband". The Advertising Standards Authority, which received 17 complaints, said it had not seen sufficient evidence to support the claim and concluded that the advert was likely to mislead.
Posted by rorybaust at 6:25 PM

Windows DLL flaw will be a big headache for end users

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 
A year-old Windows bug affecting the way that DLL (Dynamic Link Library) files are pre-loaded is going to be a big headache for end users trying to eradicate vulnerable software from their systems.
The problem is that while Microsoft can patch Windows, affected programs, which could number hundreds, will need to be patched by the developers who created them.
CNet gives us an indication of the scale of the problem:
Posted by rorybaust at 5:05 PM
NEW SOLAR SYSTEM DISCOVERED
The system has at least five planets -- one of which is nearly the mass of Earth.

European astronomers on Tuesday said they had found a distant star orbited by at least five planets in the biggest discovery of so-called exoplanets since the first was logged 15 years ago.
The star is similar to our sun and its planetary lineup has an intriguing parallel with own solar system, although no clue has so far been found to suggest it could be a home from home, they said.
The star they studied, HD 10180, is located 127 light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus, the male water snake, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said in a press release.
http://news.discovery.com/space/exoplanets-solar-system.html
Posted by rorybaust at 4:59 PM

Ad firm sued for allegedly re-creating deleted cookies

By Ryan Singel
Specificmedia, one of the net's largest ad-serving and tracking companies, has been hit with a federal lawsuit accusing the company of violating computer intrusion laws by secretly re-creating cookies deleted by users.
The lawsuit (.pdf), filed in California's Central District federal court last Wednesday, is the third such suit filed this month by privacy attorney Joseph Malley. The first "zombie" cookie suit targeted sites ranging from MTV to Scribd that used technology from a company called Quantcast, while the second suit went after Disney and Demand Media for their use of similar tech from Clearspring Technologies.

Posted by rorybaust at 4:44 PM

Confirmed: Apple Event Scheduled for September (Updated)

Apple invited members of the press Wednesday morning to a special event scheduled for Sept. 1. Rumor has it that Apple is preparing to announce a major revamp for the Apple TV and upgrades for the popular iPod Touch, according to multiple reports.
The event will kick off 10 a.m. at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts theater, where Apple has held its annual iPod event for several years.
Citing two anonymous sources, Bloomberg claims that Apple will introduce the new products along with a new iTunes rental service for TV programs, as Wired.com’s Epicenter reported Tuesday.
Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/apple-tv-event/#ixzz0xezK5PJr
Posted by rorybaust at 3:40 PM
Better security, lovely pictures
By Kable

The Home Office has said that new UK passports with 'strengthened security features' will be issued from October.
To make the passports more secure, the chip which stores the holder's details has been moved to the inside of the passport cover so it will no longer be visible, the Home Office said.
The new 10-year passport will also have a transparent covering which will display several holograms to protect the holder's personal details, and a secondary image of the holder printed onto the observations page


Posted by rorybaust at 3:18 PM

Office 2010 beta expiry date: when is it?

We tell you when you need to upgrade your Office 2010 beta

By Dan Grabham
If you've been wondering when theOffice 2010 beta expiry date is, wonder no more. Your copy of Microsoft Office 2010 Beta is set to expire on 31 October 2010.
Microsoft is still taking feedback on the Office 2010 beta as well as Microsoft Office Online.
The public beta became available last November as Microsoft sought widespread public testing of its new version of Office in the wake of a successful Windows 7 beta program. Office 2010 was fully released in June.
However, as with all beta software, it only has a limited life - in this case, you'll have been able to use it for nearly a year for free.


Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/office-2010-beta-expiry-date-when-is-it--712413#ixzz0xestQ0du
Posted by rorybaust at 3:14 PM

The latest real estate rip-off?

By Les Christie,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Would you be willing to pay the original builder a fee when you resell your home? That's an obligation some developers are trying to slap on homeowners in their communities.
Many condo and townhouse dwellers are already familiar with the "flip tax," more formally known as a resale fee. Typically calculated as a percentage of the sale price, it's a fee due to the condo association or community when an owner sells. These charges fund common-area maintenance or provide a boost to reserve funds, which benefits the association's homeowners.
Posted by rorybaust at 3:10 PM

Google makes it official: Phone calls now in Gmail

by Tom Krazit 

Gmail isn't just about e-mail anymore: it's also a phone.
Google launched the ability to make voice calls to any traditional phone number from a Gmail account Wednesday, whichCNET had reported Tuesday was in testing. It's a blend of Gmail and Google Voice technology that allows users to dial numbers from their computers as well as receive incoming calls through one's Google Voice number.
Gmail users can link their Google Voice accounts with their Gmail accounts to have their in-boxes treated like just another line that will ring when people call their Google Voice numbers, and their Google Voice number will appear on the incoming call screen of those they are calling.  http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20014676-265.html?tag=topStories1









Posted by rorybaust at 3:06 PM

Anti-Piracy Campaigns Fail, People Keep Downloading

Written by enigmax  
For as long as Internet file-sharing has been considered a problem, copyright holders and their respective anti-piracy groups have been mobilizing with campaigns they hope can reduce the phenomenon. Despite the efforts, downloading continues unabated. Against the law? One in four in Denmark certainly don’t.
During the last decade anti-piracy campaigns have taken many forms. Warnings running on the beginning of a DVD, for example, are fairly straightforward and to the point – “don’t copy this, it’s illegal”, they said.

Posted by rorybaust at 2:59 PM

Android antipiracy cracked, Google says devs used it wrong

By Ryan Paul
In response to growing concerns among third-party developers about Android application piracy, Google recently released a new framework called the License Verification Library (LVL). It is intended to make it easier for Android applications to verify that the user is authorized to run the software. The framework is still at an early stage of development, however, and has already been shown to be susceptible to a trivially simple attack.
Posted by rorybaust at 2:56 PM