Spanish cops ask for trouble, say they've nabbed 3 Anonymous hackers
Spanish national police have arrested three individuals responsible for hacking Spanish banks BBVA and Bankia, Italian energy company Enel and the governments of half a dozen different countries in Europe, South America, the Middle East and Africa, and Oceania. Officials believe the three men were members of Anonymous, a quasi-hivemind "hacktivist" group that has been blamed for the repeated attacks on Sony's PlayStation Network.
The three men were arrested in Barcelona, Almería and Alicante after they attempted to carry out a DDoS attack on the websites of Spain's two main political parties as well as the Spanish parliament on the eve of election day. The server they used to orchestrate these attacks, as well as ones against the website of Spain's central election commission and the Catalonian police force, was confiscated.
How much does it cost to migrate a government agency to the cloud?
This week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it is migrating its 25,000 e-mail inboxes to a cloud-based solution which will integrate calendar, contact, and collaboration tools. The total cost of the migration will be $11.5 million for three-years, contracted to Earth Resource Technologies (ERT), a Maryland-based science and technology contractor who also works with NASA, USAID, and the Army Corps of Engineers.
"The cost to the taxpayer will be 50 percent less than an in-house solution," said NOAA Chief Information Officer Joseph Klimavicz. "As the new standard, cloud computing has great value allowing us to ramp up quickly, avoid redundancy and provide new services and capabilities to large groups of customers."
IDC should stop swelling Steve Ballmer's head for things he hasn't done
Is Microsoft's contract with analyst firm IDC up for renewal? Hey, the software giant's fiscal year ends June 30, so it could be. What else, other than group insanity, can explain IDC predicting, again, that Windows Phone will be No. 2 in smartphone operating systems come 2015? It's -- get this -- the second time IDC made such a prediction in less than two months. I guess the first time wasn't enough to get the contract signed.
Mighty Suspicious Timing
Ex T-Mobile UK workers fined for stealing and selling customer info
The pair of T-Mobile UK employees who stole confidential subscriber data and sold it to a rival wireless company in 2008 were hit with £73,700 ($121,000) in "fines and confiscation costs" this week as a part of their hearing at Chester Crown Court (Case# T20100382), if the fines are not paid, the men face up to 18 months in prison.
The former employees, David Turley and Darren Hames, pled guilty last year to multiple violations of Section 55 of the UK's Data Protection Act of 1998. This section of the act makes it a criminal offense to "knowingly or recklessly obtain or disclose personal data or information without consent of the data controller."
SlimCleaner: Crowd-sourced PC maintenance
The Windows world is packed with PC cleanup tools, most of which look exactly the same. They might try to clean your Registry, list your startup programs, maybe delete the contents of your temporary folders, but this rarely makes much difference to your PC's performance.
There are a few products that take a different approach, though, and the free SlimCleaner is one of the most interesting.
Mozilla updates SeaMonkey to v2.1
Mozilla has released a major update to its all-in-one application suite, SeaMonkey. Comprising browser, email client, IRC chat client and webpage editor, SeaMonkey 2.1 is major new release, adding support for browser sync, personas (lightweight themes), drag-and-drop downloads and optional search bar.
In addition to this, SeaMonkey also features a reworked bookmarks system, Add-Ons Manager, Data Manager as well as a host of other minor feature and performance improvements, including support for Jump Lists in Windows 7. Support has been extended to 64-bit versions of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), but SeaMonkey no longer supports OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or PowerPC-based Macs.
Is it child abuse to give my kid a Chromebook?
Remember me? I'm the one who wrote right here at Betanews that Google Chromebooks are a waste -- gimme Windows and a good browser -- just 24 days ago. Gulp. I might have been a little hasty and over-generalized in my perspective. You tell me.
My daughter is nine and coming out of third grade. We've decided she needs to work on her writing over the summer -- on a computer, and learn how better before going into fourth grade.
Why is T-Mobile so much cooler in Europe?
Meanwhile here in the United States the ads are so lame.
Watch the videos and you tell me, because I can't figure it out.
Will you buy Google Chromebook?
Acer and Samsung Chromebooks are now available for preorder. Interest is so great it took a tweet from Google today for much of anyone to know about the sale. The Chrome OS-based laptops are available from Amazon and Best Buy. Hey, right now! Official launch is June 15 -- that's right, in six days.
My question for Betanews readers is easy: Will you buy Chromebook? Prices range from $379.99 to $499.99. Please answer in comments or email joe at betanews.com -- and, of course, everyone wants to know your reasons. Please give them.
7 things Microsoft should do to fix Software Assurance
Last in a series. It would be unfair to identify "Microsoft software licensing: Seven deadly sins" without offering like number of remedies for them. To recap: Software Assurance is an upgrade addition to Microsoft volume licensing announced 10 years ago that generated stiff resistance from customers. The company removed any-time upgrade options, replacing them with annuity programs where customers annually pay 25 percent of a server license's cost, and 29 percent of a desktop (primarily Windows and Office) software license. Customers must choose whether or not to get Software Assurance when acquiring new licenses. Customers get the right to upgrade but not the assurance Microsoft will release new software during the contract period.
Seven Remedies
Where in the world are iTunes hack victims? [Map]
View iTunes Hack Reports in a larger map
It all began last Wednesday with a startling discovery. I noticed mysterious charges on iTunes that I didn't make. Someone hacked my account, and I told my story here on Betanews. I didn't realize until after the e-mails began pouring in the next day from readers that I may have stumbled onto something. Some readers wrote in and told us they had experienced something much the same, which we shared with you.
Motorola's Photon 4G has a kickstand, and you know what that means...
Motorola on Thursday unveiled its first WiMAX-capable Android Smartphone which also happens to be Sprint's first dual-core device from Motorola, Photon 4G.
The specs of Photon 4G are indeed impressive. It has a 4.3" (540 x 960) touchscreen display, dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 Processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage with microSD support up to 32GB, worldwide GSM roaming, dual cameras (8MP/720p with dual flash, VGA), Android 2.3, mobile hotspot capability and and Motorola's impressive Webtop functionality first showcased by Atrix 4G. It is expected to launch later this summer, when Sprint will announce pricing and accessory support.
JumpPad brings Mac OS X Lion's Launchpad to Windows
It seems as though the attention of the tech world has been focused solely on the activities of Apple this what -- what with Monday's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, which feature iCloud, iOS 5 and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. The Launchpad feature of OS X Lion is something that Mac users have been looking forward to and Windows users have eyed somewhat jealously. Now, using JumpPad 2, you can enjoy the same ease of program launching in Windows.
The program is particularly useful if you have a large number of programs installed, as it avoids the need to work your way through an unwieldy Start Menu or struggle to locate the icon you are looking for on an overcrowded desktop. A customizable list of program shortcuts can be accessed by moving the mouse to one of the corners of the screen. You can choose any of the four corners, so JumpPad can be used in conjunction with other apps that are hotspot activated.
Microsoft loses i4i patent case before U.S. Supreme Court
In a stunning defeat. The country's highest court ruled against Microsoft in its appeal regarding XML patents.
A lower court had ruled that Microsoft violated i4i payments, which was upheld on appeal. Rather than seek a reversal on the patent claims, or address whether or not Microsoft essentially pilfered i4i's XML technologies, the software giant attacked the patent process and how evidence about it is presented in court.
Texas Instruments designs $5 wireless headphones with 22-hour battery life
Thursday, American chipmaker Texas Instruments unveiled a new 2.4GHz wireless audio streaming chip and wireless headset development kit designed for portable audio players and audiophile-level consumer audio solutions. Texas Instruments says the headphone reference design is capable of 22 hours of usage (double the current average battery life) with an electronic material cost of only $5.
At just about one year old, Texas Instruments' PurePath Wireless audio family is a low-power Radio Frequency protocol in the unlicensed 2.4GHz ISM band like Bluetooth, WLAN, Zigbee, ANT, and RF4CE.
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