Anonymous threatens to DDOS root Internet servers

An upcoming campaign announced by the hacking group Anonymous directed against the Internet's core address lookup system is unlikely to cause much damage, according to one security expert.

Android vs Apple

Motorola's Xyboard/Xoom 2 is an elegant design. It's the software that isn't so elegant. (Credit: Motorola) Comparing Apple's iPad 2 with Motorola's XyBoard and Amazon's Kindle Fire is fraught with peril. But here goes anyway.

Cyberwar is a New Yellowcake ?

“Today’s cyber criminals have the ability to interrupt life-sustaining services, cause catastrophic economic damage, or severely degrade the networks our defense and intelligence agencies rely on,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said at a hearing last week. “Congress needs to act on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation immediately.”

Extreme solid-state drive





The new Extreme SSD from SanDisk

SanDisk announced today its latest solid-state drive, the SanDisk Extreme.The company says the new drive offers up to 10 times the speed of a 7,200rpm hard drive and will greatly improve the boot and shutdown time as well as overall performance of a computer.

Import, Export of iPad soon going to ban in China

  

Court Orders

Apple's legal headache over the iPad trademark in China is getting worse, now that a local company is seeking a ban on iPad imports and exports there. Bloomberg reports that Proview International Holdings, which says it owns the rights to the iPad name in China, has filed paperwork with the country's customs body seeking a ban of both imports and exports of the device.

iCloud's Got Popularity



iCloud

 More than 100 million people are now signed up to Apple's Cloud service, the company's CEO said today.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs annual Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again described the service as part of the company's strategy for the next decade, adding that more than a 100 million people were using it.

Technology:90% Psychology

If you've ever implemented a technology project at a nonprofit, you know it's true: technology is 90% psychology. Success rarely hinges on the hardware and the software; technology hinges on the humans involved.

These days, technology has forced its way into every single aspect of our organizations. While we used to use change management strategies to help soothe the fears of those who would reject the new database, now we need something slightly more radical: entirely new organizations.

Apple's iPod Spy Shots

You certainly can't call the past few days boring for Apple.
The company filled a vacancy left on its executive team, was handed a fairly major setback in a German court, and maybe had its next iPod's big trick unveiled in some alleged spy shots.
That was all on top of a petition from a third-party consumer watchdog group demanding Apple improve working conditions at overseas factories where its products are made

Windows 8 stable on ARM

Windows 8 is stable on the ARM chip platform and will be seeded to developers soon, sources told CNET. Devices may be priced significantly less than their Intel counterparts, too.Windows 8 on ARM should go to developers in February, said one source, who had some hands-on time with a high-profile device from a major PC maker, adding that Windows 8 was impressive and stable.
"In October of last year. [Windows 8 on ARM] scared the industry because it was unstable. But what we are seeing now is quite stable," said another source, who also confirmed an expected February developer time frame.

Symantec Warns Customers to Don't use there product

Symantec is advising customers to disable one of its products, after hackers revealed the theft of the underlying code powering the software earlier this month.

The security firm said the theft occurred in 2006, compromising 2006-era version of Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security and Norton SystemWorks. More important was the theft of the code behind the remote access package pcAnywhere, which could allow malicious users to gain complete access to systems and data, experts warn.

“Symantec recommends disabling the product until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks,” the company wrote in an online statement about the hacking.

The new advice is a marked change from earlier comments from the company, which at first downplayed the significance of the hacking, said Ira Victor, a security expert with Data Clone Labs in Nevada.

iPhone's Exciting Feature

It's something you probably already own: a computer.

With an inexpensive cable (like this one for Mac), you can mirror your computer on your television, giving you complete access to any Internet streaming services or local content on your hard drive.

Many newer laptops even include HDMI out, giving you full 1080p mirroring. Older machines would have to rely on DVI or VGA out with an accompanying audio-out cable.

But once you hook up your computer to your TV, the setup can be cumbersome.

TouchMouse, a free iOS app, lets you control your computer (and in turn, your TV) from a distance, giving you the freedom to surf the Web from your couch.

The application can also be used as a PowerPoint remote when giving a presentation.

• Connect your computer to Wi-Fi and download the Touch Mouse Server on your computer (PC or Mac) from Logitech.com/touchmouse.


• Connect your iPhone to the same Wi-Fi hot spot and download the Touch Mouse app(iTunes link). When the app launches, your computer will be listed. Tap to select it.


• Now you're ready to control your computer with your iPhone. Watch the video to learn some basic gestures, and get the full list of functions on Logitech's Web site.

Now thats Interesting!

What would you do with such a tiny, low-powered machine? How about turning it into a poor man's Apple TV? That's exactly what one Raspberry Pi developer did, as shown in this video. It depicts a YouTube video streaming from an iPad to a Pi, which is connected to a TV, using a bit of AirPlay-powered hackery. Take a look:

Don't look now--actually, do--but the Raspberry Pi mini-puter was just hacked to run AirPlay.

(Credit: Raspberry Pi)

Steve Jobs' Vision

Apple's new digital textbook initiative is Steve Jobs' brainchild, McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw says.

"Sitting and listening to all of this, I wish Steve Jobs was here," McGraw told All Things Digital in an interview referring to Apple's iBooks 2 announcement yesterday. "I was with him in June this past year, and we were talking about some of the benchmarks, and some of the things that we were trying to do together...This was his vision, this was his idea, and it all had to do with the iPad."

Apple yesterday unveiled its plans for playing a more integral role in education. Chief among the announcements was iBooks 2, a digital-textbook initiative that will let publishers create interactive titles. Apple showed how the textbooks, which will run on the iPad, can increase student interest through video, 3D images, and other multimedia content. The textbooks--for high school, at least--will cost $14.99 or less.

It's all about Google+

(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

Users of the social network can now start a conversation with other people directly from search results. Searching for a specific topic on Google+ opens a box called "join the discussion" where you can chime in with your thoughts about the topic in question.

Your comment then appears in your Google+ feed where other people can respond and potentially trigger an ongoing discussion. As with your regular posts, you can share your comments with the entire Google+ world or limit it just to specific circles. Your comment will also appear in Google+ results when other people search for the same topic.

HotSpot Shield strengthens VPN

The HotSpot Shield VPN now incorporates an anti-malware site blocker. HotSpot Shield maker AnchorFree has built an extra wall of protection into its popular virtual private network software, available today.

The update adds a malware site guard to the VPN client without requiring you to download a new version of the program because the changes have all been made on the server, not on your computer.

With the anti-malware site guard in place, HotSpot Shield will throw up a warning like the one you see in the screenshot above. Available on Windows, Mac, and iOS, the new anti-malware site protection is based off a database of more than 3 million malicious sites. Between the three operating systems, AnchorFree says that HotSpot Shield has more than 10 million active monthly users. Since the site guard is implemented on the server-side, it will be available in the coming HotSpot ShieldAndroid app, too.

For people who use the free, ad-supported version of HotSpot Shield, the new guard will block malware sites. If you upgrade to the ad-free and bandwidth-prioritized Elite version, you will also receive protection against three additional types of passive Web threats. These include otherwise safe sites that have been infected by third-party malware, phishing sites, and sites that promulgate spam.

AnchorFree CEO David Gorodyansky said during a phone call on Tuesday that the update makes HotSpot Shield a complete secure browsing solution. "There was no issue for us in integrating the secure browsing with the VPN."

How SOPA Is Dangerous

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that SOPA is bad and would ruin the Internet, but have you actually read the bill? If not, it’s worth reading, for two reasons. First, if you are going to oppose a bill, you should know exactly what you’re opposing, not just the vague principle behind it. Second, it’ll provide you with a valuable insight: that these bills are written in an attempt to obscure the truth.

First off, we are going to qualify that we are not  lawyer. However, we are programmers, and that’s made us pretty good at unraveling spaghetti code. If ever a bill was spaghetti, this is it. If a programmer on our team wrote code as convoluted as this bill,we would fire him on the spot. That being said, there may be provisions we wrong about; if there are, please do correct us. our intent is to communicate the truth of this bill as cleanly as possible.

Here is the full text of the bill, as of Jan. 15, 2012. Open a copy, because I’ll be referring to it. It helps to click the “Printer Friendly” link to access a single-page view of the bill.

Modern Technology and Future of War

The chief futurist for Cisco, Dave Evans, describes it as “The Technology Avalanche” — the exponential increase in technological breakthroughs that, like an avalanche, will disruptively and permanently change the landscape. Future “disruptive” technologies will certainly change the way we conduct war.

Google Chrome 17

While the last few Chrome release candidates have focused on adding new features, Google is shifting the focus back to speed with the upcoming release of Chrome 17.

First noticed by testers of the most recent beta release of Chrome, Google now starts to pre-render pages as the user types them into the address bar according to the official Google Chrome blog. The feature has many similarities to the Google Instant tweak of the search engine. As Chrome watches what the user types and starts to auto-populate the result, it will choose to pre-render the most likely choice. For instance, a frequent visitor of this site will simply have to type “D” and watch the Digital Trends address autofill in the omnibar as well as watch the site start loading. The quicker page loads are most notable on frequently visited pages as well as bookmarked pages.

How To Silence A Noisy Laptop Fan

I’ve had laptops for a good few years now, and never really looked back. The portability and masses of space I save outweighs my desire for a desktop PC and separate monitor.

The only thing that annoys me about my current laptop is the noise it kicks out when things start happening. This noise is my laptop cooling fan, which indicates that my laptop is hot. If it’s really loud then it’s too hot, and that’s not a good thing.

After years of dealing with this problem, I’ve learned that there are a few things you can do to silence that cacophony on your desk and hopefully stop your laptop from falling victim to heat exhaustion.

Apple 2012 rumor: iTV Q2, iPad 3 Q1, iPhone 5 Q4

The Apple future product road map seems a little more clear following a series of revelations across the Christmas weekend, revelations which suggest an iPad 3 model in February, a summer time Apple TV unit and the later introduction of the iPhone 5 just in time for Christmas 2012. Let's take a look at the pack.

Those recent Apple TV rumors

I think the rumor mill has churned this one around sufficiently that we're all expecting an Apple television next year. Now Digitimes tells us that manufacturers have begun ramping-up production for the components used inside the device, which is expected to go into production in Q1 2012.

"The supply chain of Apple will start preparing materials for iTV sets in the first quarter of 2012 in order to meet Apple's schedule to launch the new display products in the second or the third quarter of 2012, according to industry sources."