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3/30/07

Ufficiale, ora Dell ama Linux e i driver open

Dallas (USA) - Dell ha confermato la propria intenzione di preinstallare Linux non solo su server e workstation, ma anche su un selezionato numero di sistemi desktop e notebook. Si tratta senza dubbio di una prima grande vittoria per i moltissimi utenti che, nelle scorse settimane, hanno appoggiato in massa le proposte pro open source apparse sul sito DellIdeaStorm.com.Dell non ha fornito dettagli sull'iniziativa, come ad esempio il nome delle distribuzioni Linux supportate, ma ha promesso di fornire maggiori informazioni nelle prossime settimane. "Il conto alla rovescia parte oggi", ha proclamato l'azienda.

Il produttore texano ha anche rivelato, seppure solo a grandi linee, i risultati del sondaggio pubblico su Linux lanciato lo scorso 13 marzo. Dei circa 100mila partecipanti, oltre il 70% ha detto che vorrebbe utilizzare PC Dell, sia home che office, con Linux preinstallato. La maggior parte degli interpellati ritiene inoltre che l'hardware certificato per Linux abbia lo stesso peso, nella scelta di un nuovo PC, della distribuzione offerta con il sistema.

Secondo molti osservatori, uno dei maggiori problemi che dovrà affrontare Dell sarà fornire supporto agli utenti Linux, specie nell'ambito domestico e dei piccoli uffici. A quanto pare, però, l'azienda ha trovato un escamotage: "scaricare" l'onere del supporto alla stessa comunità open source. Dell sottolinea infatti come, nel suo sondaggio, la maggior parte degli utenti afferma di potersi accontentare degli attuali forum di assistenza community-based. In questo modo l'azienda di Dallas potrà concentrarsi sui servizi di supporto alle aziende e ridurre sensibilmente i costi legati alla formazione di nuovo personale.

In questo post Dell fa poi notare come molti suoi clienti abbiano posto l'accento sulla questione dei driver per Linux, che la maggior parte vorrebbe a codice aperto e gestiti direttamente da kernel.org.

"Questa richiesta non è nuova per noi. È una procedura standard da ormai otto anni per i nostri server PowerEdge, che oggi non necessitano più di alcun driver closed source", ha commentato Dell. "Sui nuovi desktop e notebook Linux-based utilizzeremo, per il maggior numero di componenti possibile, i driver che fanno già parte della linea principale di kernel forniti da kernel.org. In questi casi i driver si troveranno già inclusi nella distribuzione che sceglierete. Questi includeranno storage, reti cablate, power management, USB ed altro ancora".

"Quando avremo la possibilità di scegliere tra un componente con driver free ed uno dello stesso tipo con driver non free, nelle nostre soluzioni Linux opteremo sempre per il componente corredato da driver free", ha aggiunto l'azienda, che nel resto del post affronta anche la questione dei driver per i modem integrati, l'accelerazione grafica e il wireless.

Colossi come Dell potrebbero giocare un ruolo decisivo nello spingere i produttori di hardware a rilasciare i propri driver sotto una licenza open source o, quanto meno, aderire all'iniziativa lanciata poco tempo fa dagli sviluppatori del kernel di Linux.

In un mercato dove Linux si può ormai considerare una reltà ben radicata, ha fatto un certo scalpore, pochi giorni fa, la notizia secondo la quale HP si rifiuterebbe di onorare la propria garanzia sull'hardware nei confronti degli utenti che utilizzano Linux.

Creative Commons Licensepunto-informatico.it

Speciale/ PlayStation 3 sul banco di prova

Roma - Dibattuta, amata, desiderata, sovrastimata, ritardata, bocciata, contesa, pretesa, combattuta, denigrata, elogiata, derisa e molto, molto altro ancora. Questa è PlayStation 3, una console da gioco che porta sulle spalle l'eredità della macchina leader in assoluto della scorsa generazione e della quale, ancor prima che fosse disponibile sul mercato, si sapeva già tutto, e anche di piùUn progetto tanto ambizioso quanto quello di Ken Kutaragi non poteva che avere un aspetto "importante", o forse sarebbe meglio dire imponente. Le sue dimensioni, come del resto il suo peso, sono infatti non indifferenti, tanto che la console troneggia, nel vero senso della parola, sulle concorrenti. Sarebbe più opportuno un paragone con la prima Xbox, piuttosto che con Xbox 360 e Wii, sebbene PlayStation 3 si avvalga di un alimentatore interno che evita il fastidio di imboscare ulteriori "mattoni" dietro al mobile.

Il design della console spartisce con PlayStation 2 ben più dettagli di quanto si creda. Anche la nuova arrivata è caratterizzata dal blocco inferiore su cui poggia le radici, che rompe l'armonia delle forme arrotondate delineate dalla parte superiore. La colorazione nero lucido snellisce in qualche modo l'impatto di PlayStation 3, ma risulta estremamente suscettibile alla polvere, alle ditate e ai graffi, proprio come la console portatile di casa Sony. Nel complesso, la fattura della macchina è molto buona e offre una sensazione di eleganza superiore alle rivali ma, peccando di pignoleria, si odono scricchiolii non indifferenti maneggiandola.

Clicca per ingrandireSulla parte frontale si nota immediatamente la fessura del lettore ottico di tipo slot-in, capace di risucchiare con estrema semplicità qualunque tipo di disco, anche quelli da 8 cm. In corrispondenza, vi sono i tasti a sfioramento per l'accensione e spegnimento della console e per l'espulsione del disco, un tocco di classe che impreziosisce sia l'estetica che il "feeling" generale di alta tecnologia. Sotto uno sportellino riposano i lettori delle memorie a stato solido Compact Flash, Secure Digital e Memory Stick, mentre nella parte inferiore trovano spazio ben 4 porte USB 2.0, decisamente comode per il collegamento di accessori come tastiere o mouse.

Sul retro del sistema vi sono i consueti connettori video - uno per i cavi HDMI e uno valido per Scart, composito e Component - una presa LAN RJ45, l'uscita ottica per l'audio digitale e, naturalmente, la presa di corrente corredata da un non banale interruttore. Sul lato sinistro, infine, si nasconde lo sportellino che dà accesso all'hard disk Serial ATA da 2,5 pollici (quello dei PC portatili, per intenderci). Seguendo i passi di PlayStation 2, il nuovo monolite nero di Sony se ne sta comodo sia in posizione orizzontale che verticale. Evidenziamo come in quest'ultima configurazione PlayStation 3 sia ben più stabile rispetto a Xbox 360, grazie alla base più ampia e al peso maggiore.
Sul retro del sistema vi sono i consueti connettori video - uno per i cavi HDMI e uno valido per Scart, composito e Component - una presa LAN RJ45, l'uscita ottica per l'audio digitale e, naturalmente, la presa di corrente corredata da un non banale interruttore. Sul lato sinistro, infine, si nasconde lo sportellino che dà accesso all'hard disk Serial ATA da 2,5 pollici (quello dei PC portatili, per intenderci). Seguendo i passi di PlayStation 2, il nuovo monolite nero di Sony se ne sta comodo sia in posizione orizzontale che verticale. Evidenziamo come in quest'ultima configurazione PlayStation 3 sia ben più stabile rispetto a Xbox 360, grazie alla base più ampia e al peso maggiore.

Clicca per ingrandireIl controller, denominato a mo' di scioglilingua "SIXAXIS", fa affidamento sul design del Dual Shock 2. Il nome del pad deriva dai sensori di movimento integrati che garantiscono sei gradi di libertà. Tali sensori, infatti, permettono al pad di rilevare movimenti di traslazione e di rotazione e, a differenza di Wii-mote, non necessitano di barre né di altri accessori addizionali. La tecnologia Bluetooth, e quindi l'assenza di fili, costituisce la seconda novità del controller. Purtroppo, SIXAXIS non presenta alcuna funzione di vibrazione, un compromesso difficile da accettare ai giorni nostri. Il tasto "PS" nella parte centrale scimmiotta il tasto in posizione analoga del pad Xbox 360 ed è utile per accendere la console, sincronizzare il controller - un'operazione, purtroppo, da effettuare a ogni accensione - ma anche per accedere al menù di spegnimento o di reset della stessa. Maneggiando SIXAXIS si nota immediatamente l'estrema leggerezza che, dopo un certo sconcerto iniziale, diviene un grande pregio.

Clicca per ingrandireDiverso il giudizio sull'impugnatura, meno confortevole che in passato a causa della minore sporgenza dei tasti dorsali che, nel Dual Shock 2, si offrivano come appoggio per le dita. Adeguandosi alle altre console, i tasti L2 e R2 sono diventati completamente analogici e offrono ora una corsa adeguata per dosare l'acceleratore, per esempio, nei giochi di corsa. Purtroppo, la forma convessa non offre un saldo appiglio per le dita, che tendono a scivolare durante le sezioni di gioco più frenetiche. Il pad può essere ricaricato tramite il collegamento USB alla console, ma non è possibile sostituire il pacco batterie interno. Le specifiche ufficiali riportano la possibilità di collegare fino a sette controller contemporaneamente, ma sul dorso degli stessi vi sono soltanto quattro led di identificazione. Pur basandosi su un pad che è divenuto ormai un'istituzione, non possiamo dire che SIXAXIS sia il controller più comodo prodotto negli ultimi anni.

Sebbene lo scatolone di imballaggio sia molto voluminoso, non è custode di un ricco tesoro. Oltre alla console e alla manualistica - fra cui spicca un foglietto che indica di aggiornare la console per migliorare la retrocompatibilità - sono presenti i cavi di alimentazione, un pad SIXAXIS e il relativo cavo USB di ricarica, un hard disk da 60 GB, un cavo video composito con tre connettori RCA e adattatore SCART. Dopo le dichiarazioni altisonanti di Sony, che attribuiscono alla propria creazione lo scettro di "vera Next Generation", è contraddittorio notare l'assenza di un cavo video adeguato per godersi PlayStation 3 in alta definizione, sia esso HDMI o un più comune cavo Component. Al prezzo di 599 euro, questa è più di una piccola mancanza, soprattutto quando la console rivale di Microsoft offre quanto necessario per l'alta definizione anche nella versione più economica. Segnaliamo, sempre ai fini dell'alta definizione, l'assenza in commercio di un cavo video VGA, che impedirà ai possessori di monitor comuni di potersi godere PlayStation 3 a una risoluzione degna della spesa.

Creative Commons Licensepunto-informatico.it

Puntodivista/ Diritto d'autore, parla Universal

Roma - Il prossimo 24 aprile il Parlamento Europeo voterà la nota direttiva IPRED2 volta ad inasprire le sanzioni penali verso i reati contro il diritto d'autore. L'atmosfera è di grande polemica, e le major dell'intrattenimento si trovano, come spesso accade, sotto accusa. Il senatore Fiorello Cortiana si è mobilitato con una lettera aperta ai parlamentari europei. D'altro canto, Franco Frattini, vicepresidente della Commissione Europea, ne difende gli intenti, in quanto costituirebbe "la base minima per condurre un'azione incisiva volta a sradicare un fenomeno che arreca grave pregiudizio all'economia", suggerendo la lettura dei dati ufficiali sulla pirateria in Europa.
Dopo l'intervista a Claudio Ferrante della Carosello Records, Punto Informatico ha conversato con Claudio Buja, Managing Director della Universal Music Publishing (UMP), terza compagnia nel settore e branca della più grande casa discografica al mondo. Buja è stato direttore artistico di Sony Music (dall'88 al 92) e direttore artistico di Universal Music Italy (fino al 2001). Attualmente, dal dicembre 2001, è Managing Director di Universal Music Italia, società di publishing di Universal Music Group. È anche membro della Commissione Musica in SIAE e vicepresidente di FEM, la Federazione degli Editori Musicali.

Punto Informatico: Universal come affronta e giudica l'avvento di Internet?
Claudio Buja: UMP guarda, ovviamente, ad Internet con grandissimo interesse (potrebbe essere altrimenti?). Internet ha cambiato la nostra vita (e quella dei nostri figli) sino dall'età scolare, con un impatto enorme nell'apprendimento, nel lavoro, nel tempo libero. Ha creato una realtà di comunicazione e di scambio del tutto inedita e impensabile fino a pochi anni fa, basta ricordare fenomeni come YouTube o MySpace. Tutto questo, per il mondo della musica, può soltanto essere visto come un'opportunità; la novità del mezzo, peraltro, crea una situazione ancora instabile, dove l'abuso è frequente.
A cura di Luca Spinelli

Creative Commons License

punto-informatico.it

3/26/07

NBC and News Corp. prime YouTube, Google stuffer

YouTube has a fight on its hands with News Corp. and NBC today announcing plans to create a premium online video distribution site well-backed by major media players.

The yet-unnamed service has initial content suppliers, MSN, Yahoo!, Time Warner/AOL and Myspace on its side of the ring, all itching for a piece of the pie currently dominated by the 'Tube. Each site will have its own embedded player displaying the video content. Shows such as "Heroes," "House," "24" and movies such as "Borat" and "Little Miss Sunshine" will be featured on the service when it rolls out. And users will be able to upload their own videos as well

The service is set to debut this summer with initial advertisers Cadbury Schweppes, Cisco, Esurance, Intel and General Motors paying the bills.

The new video network may be a titillating prospect to media gloms eager to get content online but wary of YouTube's reputation of hosting unlicensed clips. The 'Tube was recently sued by Viacom for $1bn in damages over copyright infringement claims.

The fresh service would also mark an attempt by some very large, very powerful companies to wrestle online content control away from YouTube owner Google. (Hence the appearance of Yahoo!, Microsoft and others.)

The new site may face an uphill battle, however, to steal the hearts and minds of the immense YouTube clan. Market researcher Hitwise lists the service as the 12th most trafficked site on the internet.

“Anyone who believes in the value of ubiquitous distribution will find this announcement incredibly exciting,” said Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal. “This venture supercharges our distribution of protected, quality content to fans everywhere. Consumers get a hugely attractive aggregation of a wide range of content, and marketers get a novel way to connect with a large and highly engaged audience.”

A transitional management team for the new LA and New York-based company will be lead by NBCU's chief digital officer George Kliavkoff for the launch. The site's permanent management team will be announced shortly
c by the register

Vista feature helps VXers trick surfers

Microsoft's trustworthy computing initiative is five years-old but the software giant is still making bone-headed design decisions that favour usability over basic security.

A good example comes from the folks at F-Secure who noticed that Vista continues to hide extensions for known file types by default, just like older versions of Windows. This is a bad idea because it allows virus writers to create malware with double extensions - such as LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.VBS - to run malicious code, Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, notes.

"This sucks," he addds.

Microsoft's decision to retain this feature on default installs is galling because the company's mantra is that should not be blamed unless malware exploits specific vulnerabilities in its software.

But if Microsoft fails to take basic precautions to block well-known social engineering exploits used for years by malware authors, then all the hard work that's gone into making Windows more secure in other respects is squandered
c by the register

Mother Superior: MySpace or school, your choice

The principal at St Hugo of the Hills Catholic School in Bloomfield Hills has banned her students from having MySpace pages.

According to reports, Sister Margaret Van Velzen has sent out an edict instructing students to take down their pages or face suspension from school. Families are expected to support the school's policy, which it says is aimed at keeping the students safe.MySpace has been linked to a number of assaults, some of them sexual, some less so. It does have a minimum age limit - no one younger than 14 is supposed to join- but verifying the ages of everyone on a social network as large as MySpace is next to impossible and, some would argue, not even desirable.

Nevertheless, Sister Margaret has asked various staff members to keep an eye on the MySpace network for anyone transgressing the new rule.

While the move will surely seem draconian and intrusive to the average Register reader, it does have the backing of local police. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard says it removes peer pressure, which he described as "the biggest factor" in encouraging kids to have pages.
However, not everyone is convinced. Jerry Herron, Wayne State University professor of American Studies argues the move will just give everyone a sense of false security. "A predator who wants to violate children will find a way, electronically or otherwise," he added.
This is to say nothing of setting up a MySpace page under a nickname. But we wouldn't want to suggest anyone actually do that, of course.

The Register's resident grumpy old man, who we consult on occasions such as these, was heard to mumble into his pint: "Too right. Burning CDs? Burning in hell more like. In my day..." at which point we stopped listening
c by register.com

3/23/07

Firefox update fixes compatibility snags

Mozilla pushed out a minor update to its Firefox web browser on Wednesday, chiefly designed to address glitches with a more significant security update issued late last month.

The latest update - Firefox 2.0.0.3 and Firefox 1.5.0.11 - also addresses a low-risk file transfer protocol (FTP) port-scanning security bug, as explained in an advisory from the Mozilla Foundation here.

In related news, the Mozilla Foundation announced that no further security or stability updates will be made for Firefox 1.5 users after 24 April. Users are encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 2 before this date

C the register

Yahoo! and Google act on click fraud

ahoo! and Google are taking action to counter click fraud. Yahoo! is appointing a click-fraud Czar and Google is trialing changes to its AdWords scheme.

Click fraud occurs when someone deliberately hits adverts on a website to rack up charges for a rival company.

It is not clear how big the problem is, but many companies claim, and receive, refunds for dodgy clicks. Advertisers fear that bills are being wrongly inflated and the search engines hold all the cards - it is all but impossible to know whether clicks on your adverts are genuine potential sales leads or not.
In response, Yahoo! is promoting company attorney Reggie Davis to the postion of VP of marketplace quality, with the job of reducing click fraud and ensuring customers trust the results they get.
Davis told Reuters that between 12 and 15 per cent of Yahoo! clicks are rejected and not charged for. But not all of these are actually fraudulent clicks.

Google, meanwhile, is beta testing a new way for US companies to pay for adverts. "Pay-for-action" allows advertisers to specify an action - like signing up to a newsletter, entering a competition, or even making a purchase - and pay Google on the basis of that action rather than just paying for a click-through to a website.

The search giant said the change would give advertisers more choice. The new scheme is designed to complement its current cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing models
c the register

Microsoft still dominating the market, commissioner says

European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes believes Microsoft is still benefiting from abusing its dominant position in workgroup servers.

Kroes told the European Parliament that Microsoft was continuing to gain market share despite being found guilty by the European Court three years ago.

Kroes said: "Microsoft is constantly gaining market share and that is what is worrying me in the work group server operating market. As a consequence of your abusive behaviour you are getting positive results for the company - that's not acceptable in my opinion," according to Reuters.
As part of the original verdict, Microsoft was ordered to sell a version of Windows without a bundled media player and open up access to its protocols.
Microsoft appealed the case in the Court of First Instance last year and is still waiting for a verdict. In court it insisted that it had done more than enough to open up access to the protocols needed by rivals to make products which interact effectively with its servers.

Kroes has taken a firm line with the software giant - earlier this month she said Microsoft was charging too much for access to its protocols which are not innovative enough to justify the high price.

c the register.com

US Patent Office says P2P threatens national security

The US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has launched a stinging attack on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing services, publishing a report (pdf) from its Office of International Relations earlier this month.

"A decade ago, the idea that copyright infringement could become a threat to national security would have seemed implausible," said USPTO director Jon Dudas, introducing the document. "Now, it's a sad reality."

The report examines popular P2P platforms BearShare, eDonkey, KaZaA, LimeWire, and Morpheus. The central thrust of the authors is that the programs are designed to get users to share files inadvertently, thus incriminating themselves. They conclude that “the distributors of these five file-sharing programs have repeatedly deployed features that had a known propensity to trick users into uploading infringing files by accident.”

The USPTO writers admit, however, that “in each case, an obscure mechanism appears to allow sophisticated users to avoid the coerced-sharing feature and stop sharing.” They go on to speculate that “schemes that targeted young or unsophisticated users would also ensure that attempts to enforce copyrights against those infringers who upload hundreds or thousands of infringing files would tend to target young or sympathetic users.” This would cunningly make the people doing the enforcing look bad, as they hauled the P2P distributors’ youthful dupes into court.
The threat to national security comes in when people with sensitive information install P2P software. Dudas said the “government employees or contractors who had installed file-sharing programs on their home or work computers … repeatedly compromised national and military security by sharing files containing sensitive or classified data.”

Sensitive materials have appeared on file-sharing networks for years, but typically viruses or intentional leaks have been blamed. In this case, the USPTO is pointing the finger squarely at the P2P designers.
“There will almost never be a legitimate business or governmental justification for employee use of file-sharing programs,” says the report.Many might ask exactly why the patents office felt the need to weigh in here. However, Dudas’ full job title is Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, and the USPTO makes no secret of the fact that it sees itself with a big role in copyright protection and even enforcement. The patent authorities aren’t concerned with protecting national security. They are acting here mainly to protect copyright

c the register.com

Microsoft opens XBox Live to the PC platform

Microsoft this week extended the Xbox Live network to the Windows PC platform, as it launched a Windows Vista version of the Halo 2 game.

Microsoft plans in June to launch Shadowrun, which is the first game that will allow Windows gamers and Xbox 360 players to get involved in cross-platform match-ups and play each other online

The unification of Xbox and PC gaming seems like a big thing for Microsoft, although it is probably technically trivial. Still, the gamers have to be recognised and call up the same gamertag and friends lists as if they were playing on an Xbox.

Microsoft Interactive Entertainment corporate VP Peter Moore said: "The benefits of expanding Xbox Live to Games for Windows titles is twofold: we're bringing together two communities that share a passion for playing online games, and we're enhancing the online experience for PC gamers who have long desired seamless game and voice connectivity."

Gold membership cost $49.95 per year and other Live membership is free, but cross-platform gameplay and matching you against players of the same skill level is only available to Gold members.

Given that the PC is an open platform for development it makes sense that every network should include the PC, but only where the device has the power to play the game as well as the console can. It's unlikely that Sony can follow suit, given that it has more power in the PS3 than any PC, and it's unlikely to offer its modern games on PCs, but perhaps Nintendo might try a similar move.

Copyright © 2007, Faultline

 

 

Man hijacks 90 eBay accounts

An Australian man pleaded guilty to breaking into eBay and a local bank to steal AU$42,000 (about $34,000), in a case that demonstrates the problem of account takeovers on the auction site.

Dov Tenenboim, 21, of the Sydney suburb of North Bondi, stood accused of breaking into at least 90 different eBay seller accounts last year, mostly by guessing passwords. Tenenboim frequently figured out the credentials by matching usernames to passwords, prosecutors said. Other times he hacked into email accounts.
Following a familiar route, Tenenboim targeted users with highly favorable feedback ratings from their eBay peers. Posting under the guise of a trusted user with an established account makes it easier to dupe buyers.

After hacking the accounts, Tenenboim used them to advertise non-existent iPods, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. He also hacked into the Commonwealth Bank. He pleaded guilty to two counts of making a false statement to obtain money, two counts of obtaining money by deception and four counts of committing an unauthorized computer function. Tenenboim faces a maximum of 11 years in jail and fines of $9,900.
Account takeovers have been a persistent problem on eBay. Over the past several weeks, we've observed hundreds of fraudulent auctions being offered by users with unblemished records. Such hijackings are on the rise, according to a small but vocal group of eBay users, who also claim the breaches are the result of an unpatched security hole in the company's defenses.

eBay strongly denies such a hole and says the takeovers are the result of users having their log-in credentials snatched through lax passwords and phishing attacks. Tenenboim's methods appear consistent with such statements.
But eBay can't be let off the hook completely. The company employs lax password requirements that, for instance, allow a user ID of james34231 and a password of james34. (To be fair, Google Mail allowed the same combination, though the site warned it was only "fair.")

What's more, eBay, like the vast majority of online services, has no mechanism in place to allow account holders to log in using security keys that generate random numbers every minute or so. Such devices would render most current password attack methods ineffective.eBay has said it is in the early stages of testing such a system for its PayPal users, and a spokeswoman says the key will also work on eBay.

C by register

3/21/07

UK cops clamp down on midnight PS3 launch

ReniXDesigns
London's main Oxford Street Virgin Megastore will be the only shop to offer Sony PlayStation 3s at midnight tomorrow - thanks to the actions of Westminster Council and the Metropolitan Police. The reason? Local government and law enforcement officials fear they won't be able to cope with the crowds.
This means that anyone who pre-ordered a PS3 anywhere other than the Virgin Megastore, and was hoping to collect it tonight, is in for a big disappointment.

Retail chain Game has advised its customers to call their local branch to see if it's opening at midnight. But it warned you will have to have registered for your PS3 at the branch you visit. You can't collect from a different store.
Not one HMV store in London is opening its doors. However, beyond the capital approximately 50 shops around the UK will be opening as planned – but even this number is changing from hour to hour, a direct result from the reactions of police forces around the country as they act on the notion that lots of people will be roaming the streets late at night carrying brand new PS3s worth around £425 - all of them potential robbery targets.
So, come Thursday evening, it could be considerably less than 50 HMV stores that stay open for the launch. Again, HMV said customers should contact their nearest store to find out... what the heck is actually going on.

Whether the approach being adopted by the boys in blue will prove a sensible one in the long run remains to be seen. Either way, there are going to be a lot of disappointed PlayStation fans out tonight, all of them wondering why they didn't just buy an Xbox 360 or a Wii
By reghw

Some 3D Text


This is a 3D text made with CS2, I really love this effect, so cool!!!
To create this effect just find the right postition to apply the shadow and the overlight.
;)

IE7 phishing bug nets concern

Security researchers have discovered a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 7.0 that might lend itself towards the creation of more convincing phishing attacks.

The cross-site scripting (XSS) bug creates a means to replace local page displaying a "Navigation to the webpage was canceled" message with a "Refresh the page" link. "This might be useful in a phishing attack, but it does sound rather complex and requires the user to jump through the hoops," the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Centre notes

The flaw is perhaps more noteworthy for been among the first to affect IE 7 rather than the immediate threat it poses. Microsoft is investigating reports of the bug.

Meanwhile SANS has added the flaw to its list of unpatched Microsoft security vulnerabilities, as a secondary concern. The most pressing flaw remains a Word vulnerability that permits remote code execution, discovered in February.

Google to anonymize user data

Google is to discard some of the information it stores about user search requests in an effort to address concerns by privacy watchdogs and defend itself against government demands for data.

The search giant will scrub personal information from cookies and remove some of the bits in IP addresses after that information has been stored for a set period of time, probably 18 to 24 months, a Google official wrote in a company blog. It expects to roll out the new policy by the end of the year.

Until now, Google has kept information that can link specific searches to individual users indefinitely, potentially providing a trove of data to prosecutors or rogue employees with the proper credentials. Google will continue to log and store user activity but will anonymize it after a period of time. Google said the plan would be altered if laws governing the retention of data required it.

The change is sure to be welcomed by privacy advocates, who have been aghast at the permeability of the walls containing search data that can easily identify those who make the requests. Last year, AOL touched off a firestorm when it published 19m search queries made by more than 650,000 users. AOL had taken steps to anonymize the data, but some searches contained intimate information that allowed readers to identify the requesters. AOL had revealed the data as part of a research project.

Prior to that, the US Department of Justice, working on a case involving child pornography, issued subpoenas demanding several search engines surrender huge amounts of information related to searches. While Yahoo!, MSN and AOL largely caved, Google fought the demand, arguing it would violate user privacy. (The search king, perhaps more transparently, also objected on the grounds that the disclosure would reveal proprietary algorithms.) Google lost part of its bid, and now wisely believes a better tack to take is to discard some of the vast amounts of information it collects.

Google said its decision to continue hoarding identifying information for as long as two years was an attempt to strike harmony among conflicting goals of personalizing its services, safeguarding user privacy, and complying with data retention laws throughout the world. by ®egister.com

How to find stolen laptops

Bad things happen online. Trade secrets are lost or stolen. Personal information is compromised. Copyrights and trademarks are infringed. Bloggers post confidential, defamatory, or just annoying information. Websites host stolen credit cards, hacking tools and techniques, or other things that you might not want.In the course of investigating these things, companies or law enforcement agencies frequently need to rely on information in the hands of third parties. An example of this is the various companies that offer data or computer locator services. A sort of "LoJack(tm) for stolen computers.

If a corporate computer is reported lost or stolen, these services use various means to identify the computer, or the data on it. When the target computer is then used - generally to get online - the computer essentially "phones home" with its location.

Here's the problem with this approach. The computer doesn't really give its location. At best, it can reveal the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the network it is on. While this information is helpful to the true owner of the computer, it is not sufficient to locate and/or recover the stolen hardware.

Imagine that your "On-Star(tm)" equipped car is stolen. OnStar is one of the various services that provides motorist assistance, including Global Positioning Satellite location data. If you report the car stolen, they can remotely turn the GPS on, track the car, and even turn the telephone inside the car on and listen into the thieves' conversations. All of this occurs on the network the real owners own and it reveals information about your vehicle. So, no problem, right?
Finding subscriber information

When it comes to network based investigations however, we cannot easily track where the computer went. Once we have the IP address, we would look up the network that was assigned that block of IP addresses. It might be an internet café in Riga, Latvia, or a giant Internet Service Provider in Dulles, Virginia.

What we really want is subscriber identification information. That is, what subscriber was assigned that particular IP address at that particular instant. Now of course, a lot of this information may be spoofed, and it is usually less than trivial to piggyback on a legitimate network (such as, a hacker using an open or insufficiently secured WiFi network). Nonetheless, tracking down physical location data or subscriber data from a raw IP addresses is the ultimate goal of the investigator.

This is where technology and the law intersect - and not in a good way for either of them. While you can do a traceroute or a WHOIS search in a couple of seconds, in order to get subscriber data from an ISP requires some form of legal process (usually). ISP privacy policies legitimately protect this data, but they generally contain a provision (and one would be implied by law even if it wasn't in the policy) that the information may be disclosed if there is a "valid legal order."

In the case of law enforcement agencies, there are many legal avenues for obtaining this information from ISP's. First, they can just ask for it - obtain consent. In extreme situations (imminent threat to health and safety) the promise of a later subpoena may be sufficient. In the United States, for example, they can also use various legal processes - a grand jury subpoena, a formal investigative demand, an administrative subpoena, a discovery order, a search warrant, a Title III wiretap order, an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Or, as recently revealed in the New York Times, various agencies including the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency (and of course the FBI) can issue what is called a National Security Letter (NSL) on their own authority to get this information.
by the register.com

Apple TV goes on sale

Apple has at last confirmed what pre-order customers already knew: its Apple TV set-top box is flying out of the warehouse doors straight to buyers. It'll arrive in Apple's offline stores in the US this week, it said.

Pitched as a device for the HD era, the Apple TV is also capable of pushing video content onto the screens of standard-definition TVs, provided they have component-video inputs, though we're sure there will be plenty of third-party converter cables and adaptors for s-video and composite-video, maybe even SCART, in due course.

And while Apple's been touting the Apple TV's support for pre-standard 802.11n wireless networking, the box will also communicate using 802.11g, 802.11a and even 802.11b, though you'll need 802.11a/g for video streaming.

In addition to video - the application the Apple TV has been most touted for - it will play back MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV audio files, and display a range of photo formats. So it's a handy digital music box for those who're fed up that their Squeezebox doesn't play iTunes-downloaded songs. It has RCA stereo jacks to connect it to a hi-fi.

The box also has a 40GB hard to cache streamed content on, so you don't have to keep your PC or Mac turned on all the time. And it has good old fashioned Ethernet on board for folk with plenty of CAT5 around or a powerline link in place.

The Apple TV costs $299/£199 inc. VAT

by the reghd

3/20/07

Google's Next-Gen of Sneakernet

How do you get 120 terabytes of data -- the equivalent of 123,000 iPod shuffles (roughly 30 million songs) -- from A to B? For the most part, the old-fashioned way: via a sneakernet. It's not glamorous, but Google engineers hope to at least end the arduous process of transferring massive quantities of data -- which can literally take weeks to upload onto the internet -- with something affectionately called "FedExNet" by the scientists who use it.

Chris DiBona, the open-source program manager at Google, just returned late last week from Washington, D.C., where he met with Hubble researchers at the Space Telescope Science Institute to set the stage for what will be the largest data transfer for the project ever: The near totality of all the astronomical data and images that Hubble has ever collected -- about 120 terabytes.

The project comes out of DiBona's efforts last fall to put together an informal system in which Google acts as both a repository and courier for large data sets between teams of scientists. Now, he leads a team that sets up small form-factor PCs, hooked up to drive arrays that can store up to 3 terabytes of data.

The process lightens the load, but it isn't simple: DiBona ships both the PC and array to teams of scientists at various research institutions, which then connect their local servers to the array via an eSATA connection. Once the data transfer is complete, the drives get sent straight back to Mountain View, where DiBona and others copy the data to Google's servers for archival purposes. The idea then is that if other scientists around the world needed access to such a large quantity of data, Google would simply reverse the process.
"Right now, we're just acting as a conduit," DiBona says. "We make a copy of it, and then we can use the hard drives for something else. They'll get banged around a little bit too much (to store the data directly on the drives). They're not intended to be a long-term storage medium -- they're like envelopes to us."

For now, the program is only working in one direction -- data being sent from the field straight back to Google. But that should change later this year. Also, for the time being, the data is largely limited to astronomical data, such as Arizona State University's nearly 6 terabytes of thermal infrared images of the surface of Mars.

Christian also said she has been working with Google to help the company create a new way to access their astronomical data -- simply typing in a star's name into a traditional search field simply won't do. And this raises the question of what Google intends to do with such a large amount of data, beyond just lending a helping hand. While the company remains cagey about its future plans, it's conceivable that it may be working on a more science-oriented search engine, along the lines of Google Scholar.

By Cyrus Farivar

The Torvalds Transcript: Why I 'Absolutely Love' GPL Version 2

On March 6,
Linus Torvalds responded to e-mail questions on GPL version 3 sent by InformationWeek editor at large Charles Babcock.
InformationWeek: Can you comment on why you oppose moving the
Linux kernel from GPL 2.0 to GPL 3.0?

Torvalds: First off, I don't even know what the GPLv3 will look like. I would be totally crazy to accept a license for my code sight unseen. I think people who just say "version 2 or any later version" on their code probably don't care about the license of their code enough. Before I say that "yes, you can use my code under license X," I'd better know *what* that license is.

So that's an issue totally independent of any particular GPLv3 details. The reason Linux has that "GPLv2 only" language is exactly that I simply don't want to be at the mercy of somebody else when it comes to something as important as the license I choose for my code.

So I can't even imagine why anybody would ever expect me to do anything but "v2 only." It's just stupid to do anything else.

Now, totally independently of that, I'm doubly happy that I long, long since made that decision because at least the drafts of the GPLv3 have been much worse than the GPLv2 is. They've had glaring technical problems (license proliferation with not just one single GPLv3, but "GPLv3 with various additional rights and various additional restrictions"), and while I certainly hope that the final GPLv3 won't have those obvious problems, I've been singularly unimpressed with the drafts.

Finally, the real basic issue is that I think the Free Software Foundation simply doesn't have goals that I can personally sign up to. For example, the FSF considers proprietary software to be something evil and immoral.
Me, I just don't care about proprietary software. It's not "evil" or "immoral," it just doesn't matter. I think that Open Source can do better, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is by working on Open Source, but it's not a crusade -- it's just a superior way of working together and generating code.

It's superior because it's a lot more fun and because it makes cooperation much easier (no silly NDA's or artificial barriers to innovation like in a proprietary setting), and I think Open Source is the right thing to do the same way I believe science is better than alchemy. Like science, Open Source allows people to build on a solid base of previous knowledge, without some silly hiding.

But I don't think you need to think that alchemy is "evil." It's just pointless because you can obviously never do as well in a closed environment as you can with open scientific methods.

So the FSF and I really don't agree on some very fundamental things. I absolutely love the GPLv2 -- because it embodies that "develop in the open" model. So with the GPLv2, we had a thing where everybody could come around it, and share in that model.

But the FSF seems to want to change the model, and the GPLv3 drafts have not been about developing code in the open, they've been about what you can do with that code. To go back to the science example, it's like saying that not only should the science be peer-reviewed and open, but you also add the requirement that you cannot use it to build a bomb.

And that's just stupid and not a direction I want to follow in. I don't want to limit what people can do with my code. I just want their improvements back. But if they do something stupid with it, that's their choice.

Now, I certainly hope that the final GPLv3 will simply not have those kinds of restrictions, so I'm not totally against it. But to re-iterate:

-- I'm against "blind trust." I will not sign on to a GPLv3 until I see what I'm signing up for.

Skype to offer money-transfer system via PayPal

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Web telephone calling service Skype will shortly begin allowing users to send money to other Skype users via the PayPal online payments system, Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom said on Tuesday.Speaking at a technology conference in Silicon Valley, Skype Chief Executive Zennstrom said the company is working with PayPal, but declined to say exactly when the service would be made available to Skype's tens of millions of global users.

Both Skype and PayPal are units of online auction leader eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY - news). PayPal is already the most popular way that Skype users pay for long-distance Skype phone calls to other phones.
"You can send money over Skype," Zennstrom said of the upcoming service plan. "This is basically connecting the Skype community over PayPal. All the user needs is a PayPal account."

A Skype spokesman said following Zennstrom's remarks that the service should be formally unveiled within a month.
Skype had 171 million registered users worldwide at the end of 2006. A year ago, PayPal began limited experiments allowing users to send money to other cell phone users via text messages, but has done little to promote that service so far.

Skype-PayPal can function as a money transfer service for transactions as simple as sending a friend money to split a restaurant bill.

"A lot of people using Skype are people who have friends and family on the other side of the world," Zennstrom said.

Hackers promise month of MySpace bugs

They won’t divulge their real names, they call their project a “whiny, attention-seeking ploy,” and they appear to take their fashion cues from Beastie Boys music videos.But two hackers going by the names of Mondo Armando and Müstaschio promise to begin disclosing security vulnerabilities in MySpace, News Corp.’s popular social networking site, every day next month.

“The purpose of the exercise is not so much to expose MySpace as a hive of spam and villainy (since everyone knows that already), but to highlight the monoculture-style danger of extremely popular websites,” wrote Mondo Armando in an e-mail interview.
“We could have just as easily gone after Google or Yahoo or MSN or IDG or whatever. MySpace is just more fun, and is becoming notoriously [obnoxious] about responding to security issues,” he said.
These “Month of Bugs” projects have become a way for hackers to bring attention to both themselves and to security problems in certain types of products. Well-known hacker HD Moore kicked off the craze last year when he published one browser bug per day for the month of July. His effort was followed by a “Month of kernel bugs,” a “Month of Apple Bugs,” and a “Month of PHP Bugs.”
The MySpace hackers launched their project late Thursday expressing simultaneous enthusiasm and disdain for the task ahead. “If it ends up being just as lame as the Month of Apple Bugs, then we haven’t really missed the mark. If it’s funnier, then great,” they wrote on their project’s blog. “If it kills this Month of Whatever fad, then hurray for everyone, it’s over.”

They intend to primarily publish cross site scripting bugs, which can allow an attacker to execute malicious script within a victim’s browser, but they may also publish bugs that affect browsers or technologies like Flash or QuickTime.

Though the project, which launches on April 1, has all the appearance of a practical joke, one well-known hacker said he’d been contacted by the Month of MySpace team with legitimate security questions. “Those guys and I have been keeping in touch,” said Robert Hansen, chief executive of Sectheory.com. “It’s funny but it’s not a joke.”

Online anonymity lets users gets nasty

When a California woman recently gave birth to a healthy baby just two days after learning she was pregnant, the sudden change to her life was challenging enough. What April Branum definitely didn't need was a deluge of nasty Internet comments
Postings on message boards made cracks about Branum's weight (about 400 pounds — one reason she says didn't realize sooner she was pregnant). They also analyzed her housekeeping ability, based on a photo of her home. And they called her names. "A pig is a pig," one person wrote. Another suggested that she "go on the show 'The Biggest Loser.'"

"The thing that bothered me most was, people assumed because I am overweight, I'm going to be a bad mom," Branum says. "And that is not one little bit true."

It was yet another example of how the Internet — and the anonymity it affords — has given a public stage to people's basest thoughts, ones that in earlier eras likely never would have traveled past the watercooler, the kitchen table or the next barstool.

Such incidents — and there are countless across cyberspace — also raise the question: Is there anything to be done about it? Or is a decline in civil discourse simply the price that we pay for the advance of technology?

"The Internet really amplifies everything," says Jeffrey Cole, of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "We have a lot of opinions out there. All of a sudden there's a place we can go to share them." Add to that the freedom that anonymity provides, he says, and it "can lead to a rowdy Wild West situation, with no one to filter it."

Some My Creations in CS2


Some comments if you like this style :P

Red Hat and Intel channels beat as one

Red Hat is fast-tracking reseller accreditation to anyone with an Intel Premier or Associate badge.

It's free of charge too and it means that system builders don't have to spend months to qualify for Red Hat approval. This is a long-tail, be-nice-to-the-little-guys initiative, supporting white-box builders who slap RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) onto standard-config Intel servers. Before today, Red Hat would request a fee from any builder who wanted certifying, but that comes across as a little short-sighted in days like these, when competitors seem to be fighting to star in Kill Red Hat first.

No channel program is complete without a name: this one is called the Global Channel Acceleration Program, and it requires free enrollment in the Intel Enterprise Server Acceleration Alliance (ESAA) and Red Hat Ready program.

More info here. ®

Bootnote

As is so often the case with these types of things, the hosting company for the marketing material does the vendors involved few favors. According to the ever-helpful Netcraft, RedHatonIntel.com runs on FreeBSD.

by register.com

China jails writer for six years

A Chinese writer who published essays questioning the Beijing regime online has been sentenced to six years imprisonment.
Zhang Jianhong, who wrote under the pen name Li Hong, was arrested and charged with "incitement to subvert state power" last September in a crackdown on cyber-dissidents. The punishment was handed down on Monday by a court in Ningbo, in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Zhang, 48, was founder and editor-in-chief of Chinese language humanitarian website aiqinhai.org, and a frequent contributor to The Epoch Times, a New York-based news organisation which publishes independent reports from inside China in multiple languages. He spent two years in prison for his part in the 1989 student democracy movement which was crushed by the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

The Epoch Times reports that authorities cited 63 articles written by Zhang, many highlighting the plight of jailed lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who had spoken out against Beijing's treatment of followers of the outlawed spritual movement Falun Gong. Campaigners accuse authorities of harvesting organs from imprisoned Falun Gong followers.

Confirming that he will appeal the conviction, Zhang's lawyer told Reuters: "The accusations that Li Hong attacked the government through his essays is total nonsense. All he did was to exercise his freedom of speech guaranteed in China's constitution."

September's arrests included Zhang's fellow dissident writers Yang Maodong and Chen Shuqing, whose fates are unknown.

According to government-controlled news agency Xinhua, via free journalism campaign Reporters Without Borders, the court "showed clemency" in sentencing Zhang to six years because he "expressed remorse" for his writings. The Paris-based charity says China abuses free speech more than any other nation, with at least 32 journalists and 50 other internet dissenters in custody.

by register.com

Google goes to Africa

Google has done a deal to offer students in Kenya and Rwanda access to Google Apps - its online selection of products including Gmail.

Lecturers and students at Rwanda's National University, the Kigali Institute for Education, and Kigali Institute for Science and Technology will all get access to Google's online applications - Google Docs, calendar and spreadsheets. In Kenya some 50,000 students and staff at the University of Nairobi get a Gmail account

Google is trying to sell its online apps package to small businesses for an annual per seat charge of $50. The company offers an education version of the package free to schools and colleges.

Google Apps does not support local languages like Swahili or Kinyarwanda.

Debian founder crowned Sun King of OS

Ian Murdock, the father of Debian, is joining Sun Microsystems, to head up the company's operating systems platform strategy.
He says in his blog that "everything I know about computing I learned on those Sun workstations" in the computer science building at Purdue University in Indiana.

Murdock is leaving the Linux Foundation for his new billet and is giving broadbrush hints for what he'll be getting up to:

"You can probably guess from my background and earlier writings that I'll be advocating that Solaris needs to close the usability gap with Linux to be competitive; that while as I believe Solaris needs to change in some ways, I also believe deeply in the importance of backward compatibility; and that even with Solaris front and center, I'm pretty strongly of the opinion that Linux needs to play a clearer role in the platform strategy."

We guess that usability crack means getting a Solaris install down from a day to about an hour.
The fresh Solaris blood will be welcomed after Sun lost a number of top execs, who we understand had a smashing going away party last week.

Founded by Murdock in 1993, the Debian Project in 1993 is probably the most significant non-commercial Linux distro in use today. And the name? Murdock's wife's name is Deb and he is Ian, so ...

by ®egister.com

German Gmail blocker wouldn't sell up for millions

The German businessman behind trade mark cases that could wreck Google's email branding across Europe would refuse millions of dollars for the G-Mail trade mark he owns, according to his lawyer. The man has already turned down a Google offer of $250,000.
Daniel Giersch is a venture capitalist who also owns and runs a physical and electronic postal service in Germany called G-Mail. In an exclusive interview with weekly technology law podcast OUT-LAW Radio his trade mark lawyer Sebastian Eble said that money would not be able to buy Giersch's compliance with Google's wishes.

"The German lawyers of Google contacted me and respectively Daniel in order to ask what was his aim and if he was ready to sell his trade mark for $250,000," said Eble. "But Daniel made it clear from the beginning that he had never had the goal to sell his trade mark."

"Daniel is a millionaire so you know, €250,000 is for Daniel not a big amount of money and on your other hand his aim or his goal is to do big business with this G-mail trademark. G-mail is a little bit like Daniel’s baby so it was never a question for him to sell his trade mark," said Elbe. "Even if they would, I do not know, offer him millions I do not think that Daniel would sell it because it is like his little baby, Giersch-mail, so it is named G-mail."

Giersch won a preliminary injunction then a full injunction to stop Google calling its web based email service Gmail in Germany, making it the only country apart from the UK in which the service is not called Gmail. A similar case in the UK has forced Google into branding the service Google Mail here.

The full injunction is being appealed by Google, which announced plans to launch its service in 2004. Giersch, though, registered his trade mark long before that.
"He applied for this trade mark in the year 2000 and the trade mark seeks protection for postal service on the one hand but also email services and telecommunications," said Elbe. "He then started using his trademark G-mail for email services and telecommunications in the year 2003."
"I think in November 2004 he heard that Google was starting email service named G-mail in the United States so his lawyers contacted Google, I think, in November or December 2005 but Google had at that time not shown any interest to talking to Daniel," said Eble.

Giersch also has trade marks in G-mail in Norway, Monaco and Switzerland, where he is pursuing action to protect his trade marks.

Copyright © 2007, OUT-LAW.com

AMD next-gen chipset roadmap leaked?

AMD's plan to introduce HyperTransport 3-equipped processors - the so-called 'star' line, thanks to their astronomy-inspired codenames - in the second half of this year is well known. So it should come as no surprise that the company is readying HT3 chipsets to the same schedule.

According to alleged roadmap information, published by Spanish-language site Chile Hardware, H2 2007 will see a trie of chipset releases: the high-end RD790+, the mid-range RX740+ and the budget RS740+. The plus suffix is almost certainly a reference to the use of the updated Socket AM2+ interconnect.

All three North Bridge chips will be accompanied by AMD's existing SB600 South Bridge. The RX740+ is described as a PCI Express 2.0 part supporting a single x16 connector for graphics - but without an integrated GPU, unlike AMD's current mid-range chipset, the RS690, shipping as the 690G.

Curiously, the top-of-the-line RD790+ - which will be a dual PCIe x16, CrossFire-enabled part - isn't described as supporting PCI Express 2.0, as you might well expect such a board to be. Certainly, Intel's upcoming range-topping X38 chipset will support PCIe 2.0. The RD790+ is also said to support four x8 PCIe connectors, suggesting a 'Quad CrossFire' option.

Moving into H1 2008, we should see the introduction of the SB700 South Bridge, the report indicates, appearing in the RS780 chipset. This mid-range part does incorporate a GPU, a DirectX 10 unit that also features AMD's Universal Video Decoder core, apparently. Again, the RS780 is a PCIe 2.0 part. It's said to be scheduled to be fabbed at 55nm.


The SB700 has ports for 12 USB 2.0 devices, two USB 1.1 add-ons, six SATA drives, parallel ATA and PCI add-ons. It also has the usual power management and HD audio support. Interestingly, the reference design also incorporates a Flash module on the ATA bus - presumably to support Windows Vista's ReadyDrive Flash cache technology.

by register.com

Yahoo! search! goes! mobile!

Yahoo! is extending its search service to US mobile phone users.

Called Yahoo! oneSearch the service claims to be easier and quicker for consumers to use. The press release uses the example of searching for a film title which should give consumers a link to the official site, a user rating for the film, and links to local cinemas showing the film.

The company claims results are optimised for mobile users to offer answers rather than just web links. The service was previously known as Yahoo! Go for Mobile.

The service does not use GPS or any other positioning software so the local results are dependent on you telling your phone where you are.

Paid-for results and display adverts are also included.

The service will be extended to other countries in the coming months.

More from Yahoo! here, or use the browser on your phone to go to m.yahoo.com. ®


By register.com

3/5/07

The Bigest Internet Mans

Eric Schmidt, Larry Page e Sergey Brin, Google


Steve Jobs, Apple





Bram Cohen, BitTorrent





Jimmy Wales, di Wikipedia


John Doerr


Craig Newmann, Craigslist


Mike Morhaime, di Blizzard Entertainment