23043774
submission
Stoobalou writes:
In a move worthy of China's communist regime, UK PM David Cameron wants to shut down social networks whenever civil unrest rears its head in Britain's towns and cities.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron said, "Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were, organised via social media.
"Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality."
22995880
submission
Stoobalou writes:
British chip designer ARM's Mali graphics technology drives one of the fastest smartphones on the market today, but the company isn't going to stop there. Thinq_ chats to Ian Smythe and Simon Hickman to find out what the future will bring for the world of gaming.
22454602
submission
Stoobalou writes:
The cat and mouse game between Apple and the jailbreaking community continues unabated as an updated version of PwnageTool hits the web just hours after apple updated its iOS mobile operating system to lock out the JailbreakMe PDF-based exploit.
22286650
submission
Stoobalou writes:
Microsoft exec Tami Reller told attendees at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 taking place in Los Angeles yesterday that any PC capable of running Windows 7 today would be capable of running Windows 8 when it is released, towards the end of the year.
22284436
submission
Stoobalou writes:
AMD has scored another point over its graphics rival Nvidia with what it claims is the world's fastest single-GPU mobile graphics processor, the Radeon HD 6990M.
While the red team is unlikely to hold the crown for long in the fast-moving world of discrete graphics, the company's latest chip is certainly impressive enough. Based on the TeraScale 2 unified processor architecture and the Barts GPU core, the Radeon HD 6990M — a mobile equivalent to the company's high-end Radeon HD 6990 PCI Express graphics card design — features 1,120 stream processing units, 56 texture units, 128 Z/stencil ROP units, and 32 colour ROP units.
21985446
submission
Stoobalou writes:
Blizzard Entertainment has announced that its enormously popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft will be free to play for characters up to level 20.
WoW has always offered free trials of one of the world's biggest multi-player online games but previous offers have always been limited to a set number of days.
The new policy means that first-time visitors to Azeroth will be able to build an unlimited number of characters and classes up to level 20 at their leisure, although there will be some limitations.
21871878
submission
Stoobalou writes:
A lawsuit filed this week suggests that Sony sacked a group of employees from its network security division just two weeks before the company's servers were hacked and its customers' credit card details were leaked.
The suit, which seeks class action status, is being brought by victims of the massive data breach that took place in April.
21760054
submission
Stoobalou writes:
An eight-petaflop Japanese supercomputer has grabbed the title of fastest computer on earth in the new Top 500 Supercomputing List to be officially unveiled at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg today.
The K Computer is based at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, and smashes the previous supercomputing records with a processing power of more than 8 petaflop/s (quadrillion calculations per second) — three times that of its nearest rival.
21359118
submission
Stoobalou writes:
NATO leaders have been warned that Wikileaks-loving 'hacktivist' collective Anonymous could pose a threat to member states' security, following recent attacks on the US Chamber of Commerce and defence contractor HBGary — and promise to 'persecute' its members.
In a toughly-worded draft report to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, General Rapporteur Lord Jopling claims that the loose-knit, leaderless group is "becoming more and more sophisticated", and "could potentially hack into sensitive government, military, and corporate files".
21222204
submission
Stoobalou writes:
VoIP and instant messaging service Skype has disappeared from the Internet, nary a fortnight after Microsoft snaffled up the outfit in an overpriced $8.5 billion deal.
20928608
submission
Stoobalou writes:
A pair of mathematicians have created an electronics project that nostalgic computer buffs will likely recognise straight away: a magnetic-core memory shield for the Arduino electronics prototyping platform.
20814650
submission
Stoobalou writes:
Civil war appears to have broken out in the ranks of headless 'hacktivist' collective Anonymous, with claims that a rogue admin has seized control of two key sites used to coordinate the loose-knit group's online direct action.
The news follows speculation that a breakaway group of Anonymous members was responsible for the hacking attacks on Sony's PlayStation Network and Online Entertainment Network, which saw personal information, including credit card details, stolen from as many as 100 million users' accounts.
20706620
submission
Stoobalou writes:
Spotify has made a surprise announcement, and while it's still not the long-awaited US launch, it will be making a splash over the pond: the streaming music service is morphing into an iTunes competitor.
In what is a clear attempt at rattling Apple's cage, Spotify has unveiled a pair of major new features: the ability to synchronise Spotify playlists with iPods, and the option to buy MP3 files to own — both key features of the iTunes platform. Any playlist created via the Spotify player can be downloaded in a single step, making 'digital mix-tape' creation significantly simpler.
20580944
submission
Stoobalou writes:
Soon-to-be-celebrity hacker and thorn in Sony's side George 'Geohot' Hotz has denied any involvement in the ongoing breach at the PlayStation Network.
The 21-year-old hacker — who is best known for creating the first software-based hack for the iPhone, and getting hypervisor access and exposing the root key to the PlayStation 3 — has made it clear that he had nothing to do with filleting Sony's online gaming servers, saying "I'm not crazy".
19964498
submission
Stoobalou writes:
Researchers at the the National University of Cuyo, in Mendoza, Argentina, looked at that strange breed — men who wear mobile phones on their hip. They discovered evidence to suggest that the proximity of the mobile phone caused a reduction in bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) in the men who wore the phones over a 12-month period, compared to a control group that didn't.
