Chinese government documentary shows attacks against US sites
It was probably a slip-up and appears to have been taken down, but a Chinese documentary on cyber-warfare shows attacks being performed against US-based Internet properties of Falun Gong and other organizations banned in China. Thanks to F-Secure for passing this on, although they appear to have picked it up from the Epoch Times.
The video was entitled "Military Technology: Internet Storm is Coming" and was published on the Government-run TV channel CCTV 7, Military and Agriculture (at military.cntv.cn). According to F-Secure the specific URL was:
'I think we just had an #earthquake in va, my house was shaking'
Twitter user NeimanMarcus757 is the first person to tweet using the #earthquake hashtag about today's 5.8-magnitude quake originating in the Mid-Atlantic region. He tweeted less than a minute after the quake started, which was 1:51:04 p.m. EDT.
Other people might have posted sooner, but NeimanMarcus757 used the hashtag, which gives him distinction of being first.
Lenovo takes preorders for business Android tablet
Lenovo said Tuesday it would begin accepting preorders for its
business-centric ThinkPad Tablet. The Android-powered portable begins shipping within a week and will start at $499 for the 16GB model.
The Chinese computer maker aims to market the ThinkPad Tablet to the business sector. It had previously announced the IdeaPad K1 -- its tablet for consumers -- and that device has been on sale in China since March.
New Yorkers saw DC quake tweets before the ground shook
It is said by some that Twitter is the fastest way to get the word out about the news -- and in the case of the 5.8 tremblor that struck central Virginia on Tuesday afternoon, for some that may actually have been the case.
Shock waves from quakes travel at a high rate of speed, however not fast enough that there may be a delay in the ground shaking actually occurring.
Virginia earthquake overloads cell networks from North Carolina to New York, Twitter takes over
Earthquakes on the East Coast of the United States are pretty uncommon, especially ones of significant magnitude, so on Tuesday afternoon when a magnitude 5.8-6.0 quake hit central Virginia, sending shocks from New York to North Carolina to Detroit, cellular networks, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless, were knocked out.
Twitter quickly took over as the primary source of communication, as people shared their surprise at the quake -- the biggest on the East Coast since 1886 -- and assured friends and family they were safe. Facebook news feeds were filled with comments from those feeling the quake and checking on those affected.
Find Windows' hidden icon troves
It’s easy to customize the shortcut icon for a Windows application, at least in theory: just right-click it, select "Change Icon", and choose whatever icon you’d prefer.
Of course you have to find a suitable icon, first, and that’s where life gets a little more difficult. Windows actually provides thousands of icons you could use, but tracking them down isn’t easy, unless you get help from a third-party tool like Icon Explorer.
NY Judge: There's no way to tell if free songs on the Internet are illegal
New York District Court Judge William H. Pauley, III, has determined that MP3tunes falls under the safe harbor provisions in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), protecting it from a four-year old copyright infringement lawsuit from record label EMI and its subsidiaries.
After a multimillion dollar lawsuit by record labels more than ten years ago, MP3.com founder Michael Robertson sold off the site and launched MP3tunes.com, which was designed to help indie artists sell their music. In fall 2005, it added a storage service letting users store files in personal online storage lockers, and songs uploaded to these lockers could be played and downloaded through any web-connected device.
Annotate your photos with Skitch for Android, iOS
It has been a busy few days for Evernote recently. Less than a week ago the company acquired the Mac application Skitch, and this was quickly followed by a big update to the Evernote iOS app. Just as the main Evernote notetaking app is available on a range of platforms, so Skitch is available not only for Mac but also for Android, making it possible to add annotations and doodles to the photos you take.
Skitch enables you to use a number of text and drawing tools to add information to photographs you have taken. This could take the form of useful notes about a snap you took on holiday, such as the name of a restaurant or attraction you liked, or it could be notes to help someone else understand what is visible in an image.
Download.com wraps all software in proprietary installer, irks developers and users
We don't use CNET's Download.com (big surprise), so it took an article from ExtremeTech reporter Lee Matthews to alert us that the long-running download site and competitor to Fileforum will now put all files in a proprietary wrapper unless the uploader pays a Premium subscription fee to have his software available unaltered, without third party "bloatware" such as toolbars and default home page and search engine changes.
CNET said the reason for doing this was: "The same reason you have your applications on Download.com – for the users. The CNET Download.com Installer ensures a safe and improved download experience by making it easier for Download.com users to complete downloads and launch the software’s installer."
Ultrabook can't beat MacBook Air pricing
Intel has a big problem, and senior executives know it. Ultrabooks running its processors and Windows cannot compete with MacBook Air on price. There's a strange offing coming, when Macs, which for so long cost more than Windows PCs, will be the value choice -- that's assuming Apple chooses to pass savings on to customers rather than be extra greedy about margins.
Wintel OEMs can't compete on price because Apple realizes cost advantages inherent to its end-to-end development, manufacturing and distribution model. These smaller powerhouse laptops aren't cheap to produce, but it's two secret ingredients in Apple's recipe that will prove decisive.
Hulu attracting bids of up to $2 billion, say reports
It's no secret that Hulu is shopping around for a suitor: new reports indicate that process is well on its way. Bids are due by Wednesday, and it's expected they will range between $500 million and $2 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Several suitors are said to be in the running including Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and DirecTV. There also have been rumors that Apple may be interested too: the WSJ's sources have not confirmed that.
2017: When PCs go the way of the dinosaur?
Today, In-Stat predicted that the global tablet market will reach 250 million shipments by 2017. It's a seemingly big number, but its real significance is bigger: How much will tablets displace PC sales?
Right now the global install base of PCs is about 1 billion units. Shipments have been above 300 million PCs per year, but they're way down in mature markets, still strong in some emerging markets and losing sales to tablets, according to both Gartner and IDC. Is there market sustainable enough for 300 million PCs and 250 million tablets? I'm the wrong person to answer, having already proclaimed -- to the chagrin of many Betanews commenters -- that the "PC era is over."
Even with drastic price reduction, TouchPads still get 50GB free cloud storage
One of the nice bonuses of the HP TouchPad is that it comes with a lifetime 50GB cloud storage account from Box for free. This is exactly ten times more storage than they offer standard users on their free tier.
With the sudden discontinuation of the TouchPad and the subsequent liquidation of all stock, this little bonus looks a lot sweeter, but we wondered if Box could pull out of the deal due to behind-the-scenes agreements and arrangements.
Microsoft offers free Windows Phone gear to disenfranchised webOS devs
(Alternate title: "From Dead to Dead Last")
Now that webOS has zero official hardware manufacturers supporting it, Microsoft is hoping to lure webOS developers over to Windows Phone by giving them free hardware, training, developer tools, and so forth.
Motorola's Android sales are kaput...no big deal
According to market research company NPD Group, the sale of Android-based handsets grew 29% in the second quarter of this year, bringing the operating system to a 52% share of the US market. Contributing to this growth were South Korean manufacturers Samsung and LG, which both experienced "substantial gains."
But while Samsung and LG were improving their Android sales, Motorola Mobility fell dramatically.
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