Technology News Feeds

Report: FCC's Adelstein backs Sirius XM merger; who's #3?  

Two FCC Commissioners now support the proposed merger of Sirius and XM radio. The agency just needs one more. Who could she be?

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Users reporting failed Windows and Office validations (Updated)  

The problem affecting offline activation has been fixed.

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Court rules smartcard hackers can publish exploit data  

Dutch researchers have cracked a smartcard system in use around the globe, including on the London Underground. A judge has just decided that the team can publish details of its attack, over company objections.

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Malware bad guys tout new trojan guaranteed to evade filters  

A new Trojan making the rounds could potentially cause problems for security vendors if its guarantee of undetectable operation hold up under fire. Hackers are now offering customized versions of the Limbo 2 trojan for sale—and guaranteeing the result.

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How to Approach Access Control in the Social Networking Age  “Here comes trouble,” say John Yun and Jay Kelley from Juniper Networks. Trouble in this case means social networking. Like instant messaging and e-mail before it, social networking can cause worries to companies that havent learned to adapt - and real trouble to companies that havent learned how to manage it.
- Enterprises are beginning to adopt social networking applications. Theyre doing it for the same reasons millions of consumers do: because they offer a fast, easy-to-use way to keep in touch, organize activities and share ideas. However, businesses and IT executives are wary, and for good reason. W...

OSCON: Linux Rocks in Mobile, Embedded Realm  Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation says Linux is the platform of choice for the mobile and embedded platforms. Zemlin will speak on the state of mobile Linux at OSCON.
- Linux is here to stay in the mobile and embedded worlds. That is the message Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, plans to deliver at the upcoming O'Reilly OSCON (Open Source Convention). OSCON runs July 21 to 25 in Portland, Ore., and Zemlin will be one of the first speakers ...

AMD Tries to Redefine Processor Business  After AMD CEO Hector Ruiz leaves his post and President Dirk Meyer takes day-to-day control of the chip maker, AMD will embark on a less ambitious agenda that will focus on chips for servers and PCs as well as processors for the low-cost notebook market.
- Former Advanced Micro Devices CEO Hector Ruiz never lacked an ambitious agenda for the small but innovative chip maker when he took the top leadership role in 2002. During his six years as AMD's CEO, Ruiz oversaw the development of the Opteron, which gave the company a way to enter the lucrati...

Lawmakers Seek Opt-in Regime for NebuAd  Rejecting NebuAd's deep packet inspection model, Ed Markey calls for user permission before ISPs could deploy the DPI technology, which tracks Web users' complete travels over the Internet and serves up ads based on those patterns. ISP customers can opt out of the online advertising program but not online tracking.
- It has not been a good few months for NebuAd, the Silicon Valley startup pushing DPI, or deep packet inspection, as a source of new revenue for ISPs. Without a user's consent, NebuAd collects information about the user's browsing history and serves up ads based on those travels. Privacy advocate...

Tim Grey Answers Your Digital Photography Questions   Tim Grey, author of the just released Take Your Best Shot: Tim Grey Tackles Your Digital Darkroom Questions, sits down with Derrick Story to answer submitted questions about photography during this video interview from Photoshop World Orlando. Tim addresses a number of topics including film vs digital, megapixels, sharpening, color management, and more.

Aperture Screencast 2: Spot Removal with the Retouch Tool   Aperture's Retouch tool has both "Repair" and "Clone" modes to help you tackle a variety of imperfections. In this screencast, Derrick Story shows you how to use the Repair mode for removing spots, such as sensor dust. He then demonstrates the Clone mode for larger cleanups.

dekePod 001: Metadata Forensics, What a Crock   We all know digital photos can be modified. So much so that, at least in the popular lexicon, Photoshop is synonymous with turning fact into fiction. But at least one facet of digital photo, a variety of metadata called EXIF, is supposed to be secure. EXIF records when and how an image was captured, and if credible, might actually be judged admissible in a court of law. But not if Deke has anything to say about it. To hear Deke tell the story, metadata forensics is pure baloney. Learn how to cook your own EXIF in this episode of dekePod.

Aperture Screencast 1: Designing a Postcard with Custom Layouts   The book making tool in Aperture 2.1 goes well beyond the handsome stock templates that Apple provides. It's actually a sophisticated layout tool that you can use to design posters, fliers, invitations, and more. In this screencast, Derrick Story shows you how to use these tools to design a postcard with imagery and metadata from your Aperture library.

LG Glimmer AX830  Alltel's flashy, touch-screen phone is both fun and frustrating.

HP Photosmart A636 Compact Photo Printer  The HP Photosmart A636 Compact Photo Printer is strong on convenience, with a kiosk-like touch screen and effortless installation.

Monoprice HDX-401E  The Monoprice HDX-401E is a quality, low-cost option for a four-port HDMI switch.

Philips SPC 620NC WebCam  The Philips SPC 620NC is a poorly conceived webcam that underperforms in terms of design, brightness and quality of picture, and included software.

Web-Crawling Program Spots Disease Outbreaks  no1home writes "There is a story at Discovery Channel's site about a new utility for mapping disease. The premise is to have bots crawl the web looking for stories about disease outbreaks and log them onto a map. '"We were originally thinking about how we could expand disease surveillance and pick up outbreaks earlier than traditional methods," said John Brownstein of Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston, who created HealthMap in September of 2006 with Clark Friefeld, a software developer at Harvard Medical School.' But then it was noticed by Google.org and has since grown into its own website, HealthMap Global disease alert map, and claims to be able to identify 95% of all disease outbreaks, some of them before WHO or CDC."

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FBI Fights Testing For False DNA Matches  Statesman writes "The Los Angeles Times reports that an Arizona crime lab technician found two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles, so similar that they would ordinarily be accepted in court as a match, but one felon was black and the other white. The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. Dozens of similar matches have been found, and these findings raise questions about the accuracy of the FBI's DNA statistics. Scientists and legal experts want to test the accuracy of official statistics using the nearly 6 million profiles in CODIS, the national system that includes most state and local databases. The FBI has tried to block distribution of the Arizona results and is blocking people from performing similar searches using CODIS. A legal fight is brewing over whether the nation's genetic databases ought to be opened to wider scrutiny. At stake is the credibility of the odds often cited in DNA cases, which can suggest an all but certain link between a suspect and a crime scene."

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To Stet Or Not To Stet, That Is the Question  theodp writes "The NY Times' Virginia Heffernan confesses to being stumped by how to excerpt the language on message boards and blogs. For example, Heffernan notes she could quote kavya on Yahoo Answers word for word ('How is babby formed? How girl get pragnent?'), but worries that doing so makes kavya look like an idiot rather that the sweetly earnest 7-year-old that he or she might be. Is it better to paraphrase or revise the question into 'How is a baby formed?' For now, Heffernan is going to let things stand (stet) and treat message boards like novels, preserving idiosyncrasies of language as far as possible and taking them as intentional — a 'wuz' on the Internet remains 'wuz' in the paper."

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Real-World 3G Monthly Cost With Taxes and Fees?  Kristl writes "I have called AT&T and walked into several AT&T stores to ask 'How much will an AT&T phone plan cost per month with taxes and fees and everything?'. No one can answer this question. They are evasive and become testy when I push them on it. Their answer is they can't tell me what the government is going to charge me as the fees can vary month to month, but I've been an AT&T customer for several years, and my taxes and fees have not varied more than a dollar in all of that time. So I question them: 'Can you just tell me what the taxes and fees will be for a 3G plan in California that has the basic calling plan, basic data plan, and the basic text plan?' I even do the math for them, that's $75. Okay AT&T, what are the taxes and fees on $75? Oh, they can't tell me that, as the taxes and fees can vary from month to month." There's more to this justified rant (below); real-world numbers in comments could help answer the questions that cell carriers seem content to sidestep as completely as possible.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google eats Russkie ad firm  

Begin the Begun

As it plays catch-up in the Russian search market, Google will acquire a seasoned Russian ad firm for $140m in cash.…

Dell's Ubuntu love-in expands to new laptops  

Existing gear gets Hardy Heron

Linux lovers take note, Dell is feeling another round of the community spirit tugging on its heartstrings.…

AMD thanks Ruiz for courageous ability to lose money  

Heck of a job, Hector. We'll keep it up!

Comment Normally, a succession plan is a good thing. You want the new CEO to slide into the old CEO's chair with an ease that says, "Our asses were molded by the same country club rib eyes and crème brûlées. Everything is under control."…

Power6 meets Tukwila meets Rock meets SPARC64 in chip death match  

China's Godson-3 whimpers in too

Hot Chips The grandest chip unveiling in many, many years will take place this August on the campus of Stanford University.…

Web networking photos come back to bite defendants (AP)  

AP - Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunken driving crash that seriously injured a woman, the 20-year-old college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner. Pictures from the party showed him in a black-and-white striped shirt and an orange jumpsuit labeled "Jail Bird."

Black market iPhones being sold for $1,200 in Russia (AP)  

AP - In the Soviet days, Russians asked their American friends to bring blue jeans, rock records and other Western goods into the country. Today Russians can buy almost anything they want here — but they are still begging for one item: Apple Inc.'s slick iPhone.

Big shareholder backs Yahoo board over Icahn (AP)  

AP - One of Yahoo Inc.'s largest shareholders is supporting the re-election of the Internet company's incumbent board, delivering a significant blow to an attempted coup being led by activist investor Carl Icahn.

GM researches high-tech windshields to aid vision (AP)  

AP - When Coke bottle glasses just won't cut it for safe driving, a futuristic windshield might do the trick.