Latest Technology News

Even though domain theft has occurred for years, it has never been treated as a criminal offense until now.

The $160,000 domain name P2P.com was allegedly stolen in 2006 by Daniel Gonclaves, a 25-year old computer tech from New Jersey. Gonclaves then sold the domain on eBay for $110,000 to professional basketball player Mark Madsen. Gonclaves claimed he had purchased the domain for $1,500 from its owners Albert and Lesli Angel.

The White House acknowledged this afternoon that Melissa Hathaway -- chosen by the President last February to lead the nation's cybersecurity review, and the person seen as most likely to be appointed to the "Cybersecurity czar" post -- will instead resign her appointment on August 21, letting someone else fill the post.

In an e-mail obtained yesterday by Federal Computer Week, White House spokesperson Nick Shapiro credited Hathaway for her contribution to the federal cybersecurity effort, including spearheading the 60-day review of the nation's security status ordered by President Obama. Hathaway, previously a Bush administration appointee, had been reporting to the Director of National Intelligence, though she was expected to be elevated to a "czar" style post (the term having originally been coined by then-Senator Joe Biden) that would report to Mr. Obama, by way of both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Perhaps the Mozilla organization's most valuable contributor to its Web browser's integrity is the tester who goes by the handle moz_bug_r_a4. On multiple occasions now, this developer has located and privately reported to Mozilla extremely serious issues, including a potential page hijacking exploit last December.

Yahoo's social bookmarking service Delicious today has received an upgrade with a Twitter mashup component originally designed for Yahoo News.

TweetNews took Yahoo News articles (which are ordered chronologically) and compared them to Twitter's trending topics (which are based on a subject's popularity.) The result was a news search that could not only determine the freshest articles, but also those based on the most popular subject at the moment. The app also used social commentary to determine the pertinence of authoritative news sources when determining search results.

Canadian mobile network operator Bell Mobility will be getting the Palm Pre on August 27.

In May, Palm Inc. announced that it would be bringing its flagship touchphone to Bell Mobility "in the second half of 2009" with no specific date.

In the European Commission's first public comment on the matter since Microsoft changed its mind last Friday, a spokesperson for the EC's Office of Competition Policy told Betanews this morning that it has yet to make up its mind on the matter of whether Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows is specifically unlawful. This despite the EC having sent Microsoft a formal Statement of Objections last January which, although still officially private, Microsoft publicly interpreted as saying such bundling was unlawful.

"The Commission has not taken a final view on the lawfulness of Microsoft providing Windows with Internet Explorer preinstalled," stated EC press officer Maria Javorova this morning. "This issue is the subject of pending proceedings, the outcome of which cannot be prejudged, and the fact that Microsoft has announced its intention to continue this practice in the latest version of Windows to be shipped in Europe does not change that."

Following the resignation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple's Board of Directors, Google and Apple face further scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission for more potential problems.

The FTC first began investigating Google and Apple's relationship in May, and Schmidt's position as CEO of Google was causing an increased amount of conflict as an Apple director, especially as Google started working on the Android Operating System. Schmidt's resignation yesterday looked like it could have brought a swift end to the potentially anti-competitive relationship.

Responding to the FCC's probe of the rejection of the Google Voice app for the iPhone, AT&T said it has no input in the approval or denial of applications in the iTunes app store.

"AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it," the company said in a statement today.

It would appear to be the most lucrative new platform in all of computing: the "cloud" -- the space on the Internet from which applications and services can be presented to customers without the need for physical location. It was once called the "grid," but the fact that companies other than IBM managed to effectively rechristen the idea speaks to its inability -- along with everyone else's -- to build a clear and concise message around just what the cloud is.

No one really knows, at least not completely. That's the message we've seen thus far from nearly every major vendor in the cloud space, and it's the message we're seeing from Microsoft as well. Even with a full business plan for Windows Azure, the company's platform for .NET Services in the cloud, its own platform evangelist admitted to Betanews that much of the projected purpose for the service still remains a mystery. Microsoft usually undertakes a platform buildout by leveraging its resources from other platforms (Internet Explorer from Windows, SharePoint from Office, Exchange from Outlook, etc.). And it would seem, at least on paper, that Azure would be leveraged from .NET.

When Microsoft originally presented its proposal to the European Commission last July 24 to offer Windows 7 to European customers without Internet Explorer 8 pre-installed as a requirement, it showed the EC a picture of how it could present customers with a choice of Web browsers, including IE8 but also Firefox 3, Safari 4, Google Chrome, and Opera. (The order of appearance may have been according to estimated usage share.)

As the company's proposal (DOC file available here) read, "Nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen and the presentation of competing web browsers will express a bias for a Microsoft web browser or any other web browser or discourage the user from downloading and installing additional web browsers via the Ballot Screen and making a web browser competing with a Microsoft web browser the default."

Apple's iPod Touch is the latest device to succumb to a lithium-ion battery explosion, but as the Times of London first reported this morning, Apple reportedly wanted to keep the issue a secret.

When Ken Stanborough of the UK dropped his daughter's iPod Touch last month, the device began hissing, burning, and then eventually exploded in "a big puff of smoke, and it went 10 feet in the air." Stansborough said he went to Apple for a refund, and was only promised a refund if he would sign a paper stating he would "agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential."

In the 1980s, we wanted our MTV. These days, we want our IP-based telephony, we want it at home and on the go, and we don't want to get ripped off in the process. Apple either hasn't gotten the message or has chosen to ignore market reality, and it's a mistake that in the long run could cost it dearly.

By now the facts are well known: Apple last week rejected the official Google Voice Application for the iPhone from its online App Store, and removed a whack of third-party applications that relied on or connected to the service. Apple's lame excuse? The app offered functionality already available on the device.

Peter Sunde (also known as brokep), who has been the spokesman for torrent indexing site The Pirate Bay during its public legal battles, announced today that he is stepping down from the position.

"I have decided to not be the spokes person for The Pirate Bay anymore. The reasons are many but most importantly it takes too much of my time. I want to build something new and I want to focus my energy in a different direction. I have projects waiting to be finished, a book is waiting to be finalized and many more books are waiting to be read." Sunde said in his blog today.

Google's Chrome browser will be getting Google account synchronization, a post from Google Engineer Tim Steele in the Chromium developer group revealed today.

"A bunch of us have been working on a feature to sync user data in Chromium with a Google account," Steele said. "We have built a library that implements the client side of our sync protocol as well as the Google server-side infrastructure to serve Google Chrome users and synchronize data to their Google Account."

On September first, Clearwire Communications plans to launch new WiMax networks in ten markets simultaneously. These will include Boise, Idaho, Bellingham, Washington, and eight markets in Texas: Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Killeen/Temple, Waco, and Wichita Falls.

This will be the first time that Clearwire celebrates launches in more than a single market at a time, and customers in these markets can activate service immediately through Clear.com. Resellers such as Sprint, Comcast, or Time Warner, however, have not yet been announced for these markets.