Internet & Communication - Internet News

Monday 11th April 2005

Training a new breed of hacker
The traditional approach to fight hacking is to ban it. In Barcelona however, the war against the hackers has taken a new turn.

Barcelona is home to an innovative new project designed to combat hacking.
The Hacker High School is at the University of La Salle, in the same department that churns out some of the best of Barcelona's designers.
The scheme is not the "devil's workshop" it might sound but, say its organisers, aims to tackle a modern-day taboo.

Likening current attitudes to hacking to old repressed notions of sex, they say many are doing it, but few are talking about it.

Pete Herzog, managing director of the organisation that set it up, says: "If you go back 50 years ago what was sex education? Sex education was 'sex is out there, don't do it, you'll get diseases'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4423351.stm

MTV to launch internet 'channel'
MTV is launching a free "channel" on the internet that will show some of the station's TV programmes, including reality hit The Osbournes.

The MTV Overdrive website will let users with high-speed computer connections watch music videos and extended programmes on demand.
The website is currently being tested and will launch fully on 25 April.
Other companies, including Walt Disney and Microsoft, already provide content for online viewers.

Jason Hirschhorn, MTV's senior vice president of digital music and media, said the channel was being launched in response to the high number of young fans with broadband.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4419939.stm

Google to gather personal video clips
Co-founder outlines search expansion plans

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. plans to put out a call for personal video clips as it moves to further expand the reach of its Web search business, company co-founder Larry Page said Monday.

"We're going to start taking video submissions from people," Page said at the annual cable industry convention in San Francisco.
Google in January rolled out the test version of its video search service that allows users to find content in television programs from such providers as Fox News, the NBA and PBS.

The service, called Google Video, allows users to see still images from the video clips and associated closed-captioning.

Monday 4th April 2005

Anti-spam laws bite spammer hard
The net's self-declared spam king is seeking bankruptcy protection.

Scott Richter, the man behind OptInRealBig.com and billions of junk mail messages, said lawsuits had forced the company into Chapter 11.

OptInRealBig was fighting several legal battles, most notably against Microsoft, which is pushing for millions of dollars in damages.

The company said filing for Chapter 11 would help it try to resolve its legal problems but still keep trading.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/4400335.stm
www.OptInRealBig.com

Sony wants an 'iTunes for movies'
Sony is to make its top 500 films available digitally in the next year.

Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, said at a US Digital Hollywood conference that it wanted to create an "iTunes" for films.

Films will be put onto flash memory for mobiles over the next year, said Mr Arrieta, and it will develop its digital download services for films.

Movie studios are keen to stop illegal file-sharing on peer-to-peer nets and cash in on digital the download market.

Movie piracy cost the industry £3.7bn ($7bn) in 2003, according to analysts.

The movie industry body, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has started a campaign of legal action against operators of BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect peer-to-peer networks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/4396481.stm

Laptops compete with home PC

Dual processors, improved battery life and bigger screen sizes all mean that the laptop is becoming a viable alternative to the PC, as Chris Long discovers.

In 2004 there were approximately 180 million PCs sold around the world, of which nearly 50 million were notebooks.

Traditionally, notebooks are the problem child of the computer industry.

Making them as powerful as a desktop is physically impossible, and trying to get them to run for longer than five hours is wishful thinking.

This is not to say that they have not been getting better.

Emily Campbell, from Dell, says: "There have actually been a lot of changes in the notebook environment in the last five years.

"One of the key things that we've seen in notebooks is the price of one to the average consumer - it's come down dramatically.

"At the same time as costs have come down so the performance has improved significantly."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4398507.stm

Mobiles and petrol stations do mix

It is well known to regular Register readers that mobile phones very dangerous pieces of equipment. If they aren't mashing your mojo, they'll be causing brain tumours or enticing you to plunge ten floors to your death in search of a better signal. Just. Plain. Evil.

Or so we thought. But it turns out that they are not quite so diabolical as all that. There is at least one place your mobile phone will not kill you: the forecourt of a petrol station.
We know, we know: a spark from the phone will ignite the fumes bringing all life as you know it to a fiery end. You've read about it, the petrol stations have those nice clear warning signs and you might even have seen it happen on an episode of CSI.

But researchers at the University of Kent now say this is not so. In the last eleven years there have been 243 petrol station fires worldwide attributed to mobiles. But according to a paper by Dr Adam Burgess, not a single one was actually caused by a spark from a mobile.

Quench your thirst for knowledge

At Google our mission is to organize the world's information and make it useful and accessible to our users. But any piece of information's usefulness derives, to a depressing degree, from the cognitive ability of the user who's using it. That's why we're pleased to announce Google Gulp (BETA)™ with Auto-Drink™ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.

Think fruity. Think refreshing.
Think a DNA scanner embedded in the lip of your bottle reading all 3 gigabytes of your base pair genetic data in a fraction of a second, fine-tuning your individual hormonal cocktail in real time using our patented Auto-Drink™ technology, and slamming a truckload of electrolytic neurotransmitter smart-drug stimulants past the blood-brain barrier to achieve maximum optimization of your soon-to-be-grateful cerebral cortex. Plus, it's low in carbs! And with flavors ranging from Beta Carroty to Glutamate Grape, you'll never run out of ways to quench your thirst for knowledge.

How to get Gulped?
You can pick up your own supply of this "limited release" product simply by turning in a used Gulp Cap at your local grocery store. How to get a Gulp Cap? Well, if you know someone who's already been "gulped," they can give you one. And if you don't know anyone who can give you one, don't worry - that just means you aren't cool. But very, very (very!) soon, you will be.

http://www.google.com/googlegulp/

PodGear™ PodShave
A crisp white shaving clip on for iPod™ 3rd & 4th Generation, iPod mini™ (PodShaveLady) and iPod™ Photo.

No battery required - simply plug and shave!

The launch of the PodShave enables iPod users to free their stubble whilst listening to their favourite music, not only this but as the shaving device runs directly from the iPod battery, hairy friends are able to shave almost anywhere - be it in the high street, on the Tube or just relaxing at home. PodShave's superb design simply clips on to the top of the iPod and gives instant shaving delight, not only this but it collects all loose hair via its vacuum like stubble collector!

Also available: PodShaveLady ­ exact specifications as above, but for iPod mini™

Woman rebrands as GoldenPalace.com

Golden Palace Casino announced today that it has added the latest acquisition to its manifest of preposterous eBay purchases by paying a 33-year-old US woman $15,199 to legally change her name to GoldenPalace.com.
Hot on the heels of the online gambling outfit's branding of a Glaswegian woman's cleavage, and its eager consumption of a likeness of the Virgin Mary in a toasted cheese sarnie, Golden Palace has secured the lifelong advertising services of Terri Ilagan.

The mother of five explained: "I was driving one day and I told my husband, I don't think anyone's tried to sell their name on eBay yet. So I put it up for auction and I got all kind of responses within 24 hours of it being listed."

http://www.theregister.com/2005/03/31/golden_palace_rebrand/