The "lulz" for LulzSec may be about to end as worldwide authorities begin a push to apprehend those responsible. The British Metropolitan Police Service -- better known as Scotland Yard -- said Tuesday that it had arrested a 19-year-old man believed to be one of the lead individuals within the hacking collective.

UK law enforcement was under increasing pressure to find those responsible after LulzSec said that it planned to release the entire database from Britain's 2011 census. That would have meant some 62 million people could have their personal data exposed, the biggest hack yet for the group.

Continue reading →

Today, Apple debuted Final Cut Pro X for the ridiculously low price of $299.99, along with Compressor 4 and Motion 5 -- $49.99 each. The previous version, available as a suite, sold for $999. The price cut reflects Apple passing savings onto customers through the Mac App Store. But digital distribution also is a means of compelling people using older Mac OS X versions to upgrade.

Final Cut X is available via digital download, exclusively for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard customers and perhaps those folks lucky enough to be testing successor Lion. The price reduction is no means the first and unlikely the last. For example, Apple dropped photo-editing suite Aperture's price from $199 to $79 when Mac App Store launched in January. Presumably, Apple is passing savings onto customers. Digital download means Apple doesn't have to manufacture disks and boxes or distribute them.

Continue reading →

Image-Line studios on Tuesday released FL Studio Mobile and FL Studio Mobile HD, the first mobile versions of the company's popular Windows-based music production and beatmaking software FL Studio, which is now in its 13th year on the market.

Like many other iOS music apps, FL Studio Mobile can be used as a multi-track sequencer to create music from scratch, giving users resizable piano keys and assignable drum pads to link to the app's built-in synthesizers. The major difference that FL Studio Mobile offers over other music creation apps, however, is its interaction with the desktop software. Projects created in the desktop version of FL Studio can be exported and loaded into FL Studio Mobile for manipulation on the go, and vice-versa.

Continue reading →

Nokia deserves the award for most mixed-marketing messaging, by today announcing the luscious N9 smartphone. What a beauty, too. Just one problem: It runs MeeGo, which is effectively DOA since Windows Phone will soon be Nokia's primary mobile operating system. The N9 is the handset that most any technophile should want to buy and probably won't. Why invest your hard-earned cash in MeeGo, when Nokia won't?

By the specs, the N9 is one impressive handset and worthy of being a Nokia flagship handset. Quick specs: 3.9-inch AMOLED display -- curved Gorilla glass -- with 854 x 480 resolution; 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 processor; 1GB RAM; 16GB or 64GB storage; 8-megapixel rear-facing camera -- Carl Zeiss f/2.2 lens with 2x LED flash; front-facing camera for video conferencing; 720p video recording; Near-Field Communications; Bluetooth 2.1; GPS: 1450 mA battery; and MeeGo 1.2 "Harmattan."

Continue reading →

Today Groupon finally responded to naysayers expressing deep caution about its upcoming IPO -- the so-called great cash grab before burning through venture financing. Groupon coyly used the so-called "quiet period" defense for defying news media requests for comment about its business model. I'm confused. Didn't the Security and Exchange Commission largely eliminate the quiet period six years ago?

"The 'Quiet Period' is the time right before a company 'goes public', during which it is legally prohibited from saying anything to the press that may make the company look 'good', 'successful', or 'not currently on fire'", according to a blog post on Groupon's website.

Continue reading →

The much prophesized life in the cloud is now all but upon us. Software in its traditional form is still popular, but it is losing ground to web-based apps. Sites such as Google Docs and Aviary, go a long way to proving that working with online applications does not mean having to make compromises. As the Internet is now more important than ever, it is entirely possible that your web browser is your most frequently used program -- something Google is exploiting with its Chromebook. Using Webian Shell, you can achieve the same with your current computer.

The application has really been designed for use on publically accessible terminals that do not need to be used for anything other than internet access, or running a limited number of web apps, but there is no reason that it cannot be put to good use at home. As it is likely that you spend a large proportion of your time online, it seem pointless to clutter you screen with other distractions such as the Windows taskbar or OS X's dock.

Continue reading →

Anonymous, the hacker collective famous for performing cyber attacks as public retribution, has reportedly teamed up with LulzSec, the hacker group that attacks mostly for entertainment, for a mission going by the title AntiSec (Anti-Security) which seeks to expose any government-classified information that can be stolen.

LulzSec, which has recently stolen headlines for a rash of denial of service attacks issued an AntiSec manifesto today, asking everyone to join the rebellion.

Continue reading →

Mobile network LightSquared today said it has a solution to the problem of interference with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers that will allow the company to proceed with the construction of its new hybrid satellite/cellular data network.

LightSquared has been trying to answer the United States' massive mobile data bandwidth demands by combining satellite and cellular network services that creatively utilize the free spaces in the L-Band wireless spectrum where it could obtain licenses. But a report last week from the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Systems Engineering Forum (NPEF) assessed LightSquared's network technology, and found that it caused significant interference to defense and agriculture-related GPS satellites.

Continue reading →

If your business isn't spending big on cloud computing perhaps it should, or will. Today, IDC forecast that public IT cloud spending would reach $72.9 billion in four years, up from $21.5 billion in 2010. That works out to 27.6 percent compound annual growth rate, which the analyst firm applied to five categories.

Those categories -- applications, application development and deployment, systems infrastructure software, basic storage and servers -- will account for nearly 50 percent in new net growth on IT spending, not just cloud computing, IDC claims. Software-as-a-service will account for about three quarters of public IT cloud spending.

Continue reading →

Adobe quietly released an update to its Flash Builder and Flex framework on Monday that lets developers create and deploy apps for Apple's iOS and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook OS in addition to Android, which it has supported since April.

Statistically, developers who design and release apps for multiple mobile platforms make up only a small portion of the community. But in terms of influence, these are actually some of the biggest companies in the field today, and it is not uncommon for the most popular app on one platform to also be the most popular app on MOST mobile platforms.

Continue reading →

A new Windows beta of its Skype's popular instant messaging and voice and video mail client is now available. If you're one of the 92 percent of online social networkers using Facebook (according to Pew Internet), this release could be for you. Skype for Windows 5.5 Beta big new benefit is deeper integration with Facebook.

These closer ties include the ability to take part in instant chats with Facebook contacts, plus access Facebook news feed within Skype itself. Skype 5.5 also makes it possible to both Like and comment on Facebook statuses. All of this extra integration is rounded off by a new dedicated Facebook tab, which gives users access to all of their Facebook friends.

Continue reading →

Could Microsoft be less subtle? A press release issued today proclaims: "Microsoft Office Division to make announcement" -- "detailing the latest on Microsoft Office 365," which if you didn't know is the company's "next-generation cloud service." This is what companies do when there aren't enough rumors or buzz about a forthcoming product release. They desperately try to make some.

So to help Microsoft get that buzz lift, I'm taking a chance with a headline that definitely asserts Office 365 will be available next week. What else could it be? CEO Steve Ballmer is leading the launch event -- in New York City, where Microsoft does nearly all its big product launches.

Continue reading →

Sega is the latest video game company to fall prey to hackers, as the Sega Pass network of gaming sites, forums, and customer offers has been taken down and the information connected to 1.3 million accounts stolen.

User names, birthdates, e-mail addresses and passwords were all exposed in the security compromise. Fortunately for users, it did not include any financial information.

Continue reading →

It's not officially released until tomorrow, but if you'd like to have an early look at Firefox 5 then the final build is actually available now, and while the "new features" list is a little on the short side, the browser includes some interesting tweaks which are well worth having. Mozilla posted the release candidate just three days ago.

You won't find these by examining the interface, though. The only notable visual change is that the Do Not Track privacy feature introduced in Firefox 4, which has been relocated so it's easier to spot (top of the Tools > Options > Privacy dialog, where it really should have been in the first place), otherwise you might just as think you're using Firefox 4.

Continue reading →

The Evernote Corporation has released a major update for both Mac and Windows clients of its online note-taking tool, Evernote. Evernote 4.4 (Windows) and 2.20 (Mac) includes a major new feature called Note Links, which allows users to create links to any specific note that can subsequently be placed just about anywhere else: notes, calendars, to-do lists, documents and even other apps.

Other new features in the latest update include an option for copying notes between notebooks, a brand new "snippets" view, plus the addition of forward and back buttons to the Note History browser. In addition to this there are several features exclusive to Windows and Mac versions of the software.

Continue reading →