I got hacked on iTunes
Last night, I was sitting around with friends enjoying the evening and happened to check my e-mail. To my surprise, I had received two e-mails from PayPal with the subjects "Receipt for Your Payment to iTunes Store." That's funny -- I hadn't bought anything on iTunes in over a week, and the last charge had already hit my account days ago.
Imagine my horror when I logged into the Account Management section and saw this: repeated charges totaling $95.30, split in two equal parts. Worse yet, it was for a game I had never downloaded, Sega's "Kingdom Conquest." Repeatedly, somebody had purchased within the app 1,200 CP (which I'm guessing is in-game credits) at $8.99 a piece.
It took 4 min 34 sec to get me really excited about Windows again
Sign me up for the Windows 8 beta, Microsoft, and I'll sell my MacBook Air. Perhaps the Samsung Series 9 should be next?
Late yesterday, Microsoft gave the first sneak peak of Windows 8. What a peak! Apple unveils Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" in just four days, and it's antiquated before release. Microsoft has taken one of the freshest approaches to operating system user interfaces since, well, the Macintosh in 1984. The new UI is fluid and modern, using HTML5 for rendering.
BUILD It for Windows 8
Windows isn't the only makeover going on at Microsoft this week. Alongside today's Windows 8 preview, Microsoft also announced the BUILD conference, what had been PDC 2011. Microsoft previously announced the developer conference during MIX11, in April, for Sept. 13-16 in Anaheim, Calif. BUILD is the same event, made over, and with new name.
What a name! The connotations are loaded, and Microsoft is doing good job endearing them. From Microsoft: "BUILD what you DREAM." "BUILD with Windows 8."
Windows 8: the lovechild of Windows Phone and Windows 7
At the D9 Conference on Wednesday, Microsoft gave the public a much deeper look at Windows 8 than it had previously, revealing the company's progress in making a Windows that is scalable to the most popular types of interfaces in addition to the most popular instruction sets.
The result looks a lot like Windows Phone, but it has a lot of the underpinnings of Windows 7.
+1: Can a Googlized Like button succeed?
Google's Facebook "Like" clone +1 took another step towards becoming exactly that on Wednesday as the company said it was now allowing web publishers to place the button directly on their websites.
Previously, +1 was only a feature within Google's search engine that allowed users to 'upvote' results as a method of approving of their relevance. With the expansion of the functionality, it would now include votes from users directly on those pages as part of those totals.
Google begins killing off support for older browsers -- well, not that old
Wouldn't it be funny if Google turned out to be the Internet's security cop? That's one way to interpret the search and information giant's continued push to clear away aging web browsers. First Internet Explorer 6, now Firefox 3.5, IE7 and Safari 3. Google will stop supporting these latter three browsers two months from today.
Google's reasons have nothing to do with security, but there could be a safety benefit. Let's face it, major developers invest more in their newest browser versions. More significantly, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla are now on fast development tracks, with new browser milestones coming every six to eight weeks. For example, Firefox 4 launched in late March with great fanfare -- 6 million downloads in 24 hours -- yet version 7 Nightly builds are already available for download. Firefox 5 is scheduled to release on June 21.
Is new spam scourge coming, as botmasters repopulate networks?
Have you noticed a decline in spam reaching your inbox? Sadly, the respite won't last long. More spam is coming your way.
Today, McAfee Labs released its First Quarter 2011 Threat Report, and there's good news. Spam volumes are considerably lower and it's because of some significant law enforcement victories. Among them: In march, law enforcement, working with Microsoft, took down the Rustock botnet and with it a big chunk of the zombie/bot population.
Android dominates smartphone market but consumes tons of data
Market research company Nielsen has released its smartphone market share figures for the first quarter of 2011 which show that Android has risen to both the top of market share and data consumption.
Android's meteoric rise can be seen quite clearly when comparing Nielsen's first quarter 2010 numbers with those it just released.
Apple's Mac Defender patch is already worthless
Within hours of Apple updating Mac OS X to specifically deal with the Mac Defender problem, the malware developers have already released code that bypasses the fix into the wild. "Mdinstall.pkg" is the name of the file, and it appeared to have been released about 8 hours after Apple's fix.
It will take some time for this version of Mac Defender to propagate, thus Apple's updated antivirus definitions will provide some limited protection. It will likely require the Cupertino company to work daily in updating the definitions -- a whole new world for a company used to watching malware purveyors attack Windows instead.
Genie Timeline Cloud grants your wish for online storage
Genie9 Corporation, the company behind the Genie Timeline backup tool, has introduced a new cloud-based backup for businesses and families. Timeline Cloud features the usual cloud-based backup tools, plus adds in some unique features that could prove invaluable for businesses and families.
The most notable feature offered is Cloud Disaster Recovery, which makes it possible to restore a computer to working order via the Internet or network. Timeline Cloud is also designed to be administered from the web, allowing one person to set up and manage backup policies for employees or other family members. Genie9 claims that configuring backup plans takes just five minutes.
Malwarebytes 1.51: Faster malware scanning, free 'Pro' trial
It seems like the beta had only just appeared, but the final build of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.51 released to the public today.
Highlights for the free version include "much more efficient" updating, says Malwarebytes, and it does seem noticeably faster in our initial tests.
EASEUS bulks up Todo Backup Free, offers more for less
EASEUS has decided to give away the commercial Home edition of its EASEUS Todo Backup for free, replacing the previous function-limited free edition with a fully featured backup tool.
EASEUS Todo Backup Free now provides both file- and image-based backup functionality in one program, allowing users to back up selected files and file types alongside entire partitions and hard drives. It also includes partition and drive-cloning tools for upgrading hard drives, as well as a WinPE-based rescue disc for access to the program outside of Windows.
Nvidia improves performance, not power, ahead of E3 with new notebook GPU
Next week in Los Angeles, the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo -more familiarly known as E3- begins. Graphics company Nvidia chose Computex in Taipei this week to unveil its new GeForce GTX 560M mobile graphics processor for notebook PC gaming.
Nvidia has two lines of mobile processors, GT and GTX, respectively designed for lower and higher performance gaming. The GTX 560M that Nvidia launched this week is a semi-upgrade to the high performance line that offers a 1550MHz Processor Clock, a 775MHz Graphics Clock, 192 CUDA Cores, and up to 3GB of 192-bit 1250MHz GDDR5 RAM. Nvidia says it has better performance per watt than all previous generations of its notebook GTX GPUs, which means higher frame rates with similar battery consumption.
Google Offers beta should scare the crap out of Groupon, other startups
Do you remember the days when every startup had to ask: "If we're successful, will Microsoft move into our market?" With its new Groupon competitor, time has come -- and perhaps long past it -- to ask the same about Google.
Last night during the opening of the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Stephanie Tilenius, vice president of Google commerce, demonstrated Google Offers, which begins beta testing today in Portland, Ore. D9 cohost Walt Mossberg asked Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt why Portland? Schmidt said that Portland is a surprisingly good place to test tech products.
Acer shows off Windows Phone Mango handset, MeeGo tablet
Taiwanese PC maker Acer took a rather sudden hit last April when Gianfranco Lanci resigned as CEO of the company, saying it should have been focused on competing with HTC and Apple in the mobile space instead of with HP in the PC space.
At the Computex trade show in Taipei, Acer this week has shown off its scattershot approach to covering the mobile device market, which will include, among other things, a 10" tablet running Intel's MeeGo operating system, and a Snapdragon-powered smartphone running Windows Phone 7 "Mango."
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