General Gaming Article |
- Comic Con 2011: A Video Tour
- Researcher to Demo Apple Hack That Destroys Batteries
- Second Winklevoss vs Facebok Case Dismissed by Judge
- Comic Con 2011: 20 Photos From Day Two
- Cool Site of the Week: Stolen Camera Finder
- PayPal UK Joins British Copyright Enforcement Coalition
- Linus Torvalds Releases Linux 3.0 Kernel
- Google Dumps Toolbar Support For Firefox
- Microsoft's Windows Revenue Falls Flat, Still Posts Record Quarter
- Remember Jammie Thomas? Judge Reduces Verdict from $1.5 Million to $54,000
| Posted: 22 Jul 2011 05:07 PM PDT Just in case you haven't noticed--Maximum PC is at Comic Con 2011, giving away our awesome Star Trek PC. Not sure what Comic-Con is all about? Here's a quick video look at what you're missing! |
| Researcher to Demo Apple Hack That Destroys Batteries Posted: 22 Jul 2011 02:46 PM PDT
The problem discovered by Miller is that modern laptops use some very smart batteries, and Apple was being a bit lax. There are controller chips that monitor the battery state and tell it when to stop charging, when to turn off, and so on. Apple ships these chips with their passwords set to the default. So if an attacker gains access to this part of the system, they can ruin the computer at will. The battery could even be sabotaged to explode. Malware could also be left on the chip to infect the computer over and over again. Miller discovered the vulnerability by dissecting a 2009 Apple MacBook update file. Many security analysts have asked Miller to stop his work, as it could prove too dangerous, but Miller is forging ahead. he plans to release a program for Apple to implement called Caulkgun that changes the firmware password on the chips to a random string of numbers. Do you think Miller should back off, or should the information be public? Image credit: everymac.com |
| Second Winklevoss vs Facebok Case Dismissed by Judge Posted: 22 Jul 2011 02:25 PM PDT
The Winklevii filed suit a few years back claiming that they were the ones that came up with the idea for Facebook and simply hired Zuckerberg to do the coding of the site. They believe that he took the idea, then put them off until Facebook was founded. The 2008 settlement was supposed to be the end of it, but the Winklevii claim they were misled about the value of Facebook. However, their original $65 million share has ballooned to several times its initial value. This is the second case the Winklevii have brought, having abandoned the first before is could reach the US Supreme Court. The judge on the new case accepted Facebook's assertion that the twins' case had already been heard and rejected by the courts. The lawyer for the Winklevii made a few noises about a post-judgement motion, but it is not clear if they will continue to push their luck. |
| Comic Con 2011: 20 Photos From Day Two Posted: 22 Jul 2011 12:47 PM PDT The madness called Comic-Con continues to rage in San Diego, with brave field agents Alan and Nathan reporting live from the chaos. This first batch of Comic-Con 2011 pictures went live yesterday afternoon, and already we're already back with another helping of photographic evidence. Read on to check out the crazy costumes and crowds of Comic-Con! |
| Cool Site of the Week: Stolen Camera Finder Posted: 22 Jul 2011 12:38 PM PDT While cellphones might be the go-to photographic device for many people these days, Many of us choose to stick with a mission-specific device to capture the moments of our lives. Whether it's a fancy DSLR that cost us more than our first car or Stolen Camera Finder is a site dedicated to--you guessed it--locating stolen cameras. Users are invited to drag and drop a photo taken with their missing camera to the website's interface. Once the image has been uploaded, Stolen Camera Finder will attempt to read the camera serial number information stored in the photograph, matching it against the serial numbers of images found elsewhere online. If you're lucky, a serial number match may lead back to user name or image service account, giving you some vital information to feed to the authorities for investigation. If you've no photos to submit to the service, Stolen Camera Finder also allows for manual input of your camera's serial number--provided you're lucky enough to have it on file.
Straight forward and easy to use, Stolen Camera Finder is a must bookmark site for all shutterbugs. Be sure to check back every Friday for another edition of Cool Site of the Week.
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| PayPal UK Joins British Copyright Enforcement Coalition Posted: 22 Jul 2011 10:30 AM PDT
Paypal joins MasterCard and Visa as part of the team working with the London Police and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (the global equivalent of the RIAA) to combat the illegal sale of music online. The IFPI's press release outlines the process: "IFPI anti-piracy investigators are able to supply the City of London Police's Economic Crime Directorate with evidence of illegal downloads made from an infringing site. Once the police have verified the evidence, they are able to notify the payment providers who can then take action... PayPal will require the retailer to submit proof of licensing for the music offered by the retailer. PayPal will discontinue services to retailers in cases where licensing appears to be inadequate. " The alliance started in March and has bagged 24 websites so far. The targets, for the most part, come from the Wild Wild Western hemisphere, namely illegal Russian and Ukrainian download sites. The announcement of PayPal's involvement came the day after police in the US and Britain rounded up 15 alleged Anonymous hackers who supposedly were involved in the PayPal bruhaha back in December. Funny timing, no? |
| Linus Torvalds Releases Linux 3.0 Kernel Posted: 22 Jul 2011 10:20 AM PDT
Don't pick it up looking for the next big thing, though. When Linus Torvalds introduced Linux 3.0 RC1 a couple of months ago, he said the name change was more for laffs and a milestone effect in celebration of Linux's 20th anniversary. He stayed true to his word; the new changes are mostly tweaks and technical details, like improving the Btrfs filing system, introducing a new implementation of the Berkeley Packet Filter and allowing Xen hypervisor Dom0 priveleges. No KDE-4 here. Linus' Google+ announcement of the release was so brief, we almost missed it: "3.0 pushed out." He went into more detail in the lkml.org group. You can check out Linux 3.0 yourself by heading over to kernel.org. |
| Google Dumps Toolbar Support For Firefox Posted: 22 Jul 2011 10:13 AM PDT
In a word, no. Google's dropping the support because Firefox already offers most of the benefits of Google toolbar, either natively or through the staggering number of add-ons offered for the browser. Google's being very gracious about the drop; it's continuing to offer Google Toolbar for older version of Firefox, and even set up a Web page designed to help former Google Toolbar users find similar functions in Firefox 5 and above. Check out the Google Toolbar blog for the full announcement. |
| Microsoft's Windows Revenue Falls Flat, Still Posts Record Quarter Posted: 22 Jul 2011 09:41 AM PDT
"Throughout fiscal 2011, we delivered to market a strong lineup of products and services which translated into double-digit revenue growth, and operating margin expansion," said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "Our platform and cloud investments position us for long-term growth." Disregarding the flat Windows revenue, these are strong numbers for Microsoft, whose Entertainment & Devices Division picked up the slack with a whopping 30 percent growth in the fourth quarter, and 45 percent for the full year "due to the ongoing momentum of the console, Kinect, and Xbox Live." Strong, but not strong enough to beat Apple, which posted $28.57 billion for the quarter, and according to TechCrunch is now a $100 billion-a-year company. Image Credit: rob.crapples.net |
| Remember Jammie Thomas? Judge Reduces Verdict from $1.5 Million to $54,000 Posted: 22 Jul 2011 08:53 AM PDT
"Court in Jammie Thomas-Rasset case reduces 3rd verdict from $1.5 million to $54,000, from $62,500 to $2,250 per song," Ben Shefnnner, a lawyer and copyright blogger who first broke news of the verdict, wrote in a Twitter post. This is a case that dates all the way back to 2006. Found guilty of illegally sharing 24 songs, Thomas-Rasset was first ordered to pay $222,000 in statutory damages in a trial that ended in 2007. She was granted a request for a new trial over an error in jury instructions over what actually constitutes copyright infringement when it comes to sharing files, and subsequently nailed with a $1.92 million dollar verdict ($80,000 per song). In 2009, Thomas-Rasset convinced a court that the damage award was disproportionate and unconstitutional. It was subsequently lowered to $54,000 after Judge Davis found the original damages "monstrous and shocking." Following the verdict, the RIAA's lawyers proposed a $25,000 settlement, which she rejected. Yet another trial bumped up the damages to $1.5 million, or $62,500 per song. And so here we are again with Thomas-Rasset once more legally on the hook for $54,000. "The Court is intimately familiar with this case. It has presided over three trials on this matter and has decided countless motions," Judge Davis wrote in his decision. "It has grappled with the outrageously high verdict returned in a case that was the first of its kind to go to trial. The Court is loath to interfere with the jury's damages decision. However, the Constitution and justice compel the Court to act." Judge Davis went on to the call the "award of $1.5 million for stealing and distributing 24 songs for personal use" as "appalling," calling it "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable." The $54,000 award is "punitive and substantial" and intended to act "as a potent deterrent." You can read the rest of the decision here (PDF). |
At the upcoming Black Hat Security conference in August, a researcher by the name of Charlie Miller plans to completely ruin a MacBook. The way he's going to do it is the real story, though. Miller will demo a new attack that can be used to take control of the battery in Apple laptops and completely 
And just like that, our long national nightmare is over. The Winklevoss twins have seen their second case against Facebook 
a trusty point-and-shoot that simply gets the job done, the investment of time and money that a photographer outs into their camera is substantial enough that seeing it lost or stolen is unthinkable. Should such a crisis ever arise, you can curse the gods of photography for not equipping your shooter with GPS transmitter, or you can attempt to track it down using 
As law enforcement and content associations alike slowly recognize the fact that trying to track down and prosecute millions of illegal file sharers is nothing more than a high-tech game of whack-a-mole (that they're losing), they're turning to commercial help in combating the threat of piracy. 
Once in a lifetime events don't happen very often – you could even say they happen once in a lifetime. When one of them sneaks up and bites us in the butt, it tends to be something that sticks with the group consciousness; think the moon landing, Princess Diana's death or the first time you played Doom. Another milestone event landed in our laps last night, though no one but the staunchest of geeks probably noticed it. Yes, the Linux 3.0 kernel is here. 
Firefox is walking an awkward rope with Google. Mozilla receives – and has always received – a lot of funding for Firefox from the Big G, but analysts have expected Google to drop its sugar daddy status ever since the launch of the Chrome browser. So far those analysts have been disappointed, but on Thursday, Google announced it would no longer include support for new versions of Firefox with its Google Toolbar. Was it the first volley fired in a new browser war?
Windows and Windows Live Division revenue dipped 1 percent for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2011, and was down 2 percent for the year even though Windows 7 sold more than 400 million licenses, Microsoft 
Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the woman who made numerous headlines for taking on the RIAA in a losing battle over file sharing, may want to heed the advice of Kenny Rogers. Among his more notable lyrics, Kenny Rogers sang "You got to know when to hold 'em, known when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run." Now that a federal judge has again lowered Thomas-Rasset's verdict, this time from $1.5 million to $54,000, it might be time to run.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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