Australian Consumers Confused About HD

This survey released by Samsung found that, among other things, only seven percent of people surveyed could accurately identify what form of content was HD, and almost half believed DVD was a HD format.
This is similar to discussions I regularly have with people; many think DVD is already HD, and so on. I think the same third of the population that state they will never get internet access are the same people trying to hook up DVD players to TVs so old they do not even have composite video connectors.

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Radio Burst From Space Mystifies Astronomers

Astronomers who stumbled upon a powerful burst of radio waves said on Thursday they had never seen anything like it before, and it could offer a new way to search for colliding stars or dying black holes. They were searching for pulsars -- a type of rotating compacted neutron star that sends out rhythmic pulses of radiation -- when they spotted the giant radio signal. It was extremely brief but very strong, and appears to have come from about 3 billion light-years away -- a light-year being the distance light travels in a year, or about 6 trillion miles.

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Mystery eBay 'Hack' Exposes 1,200 Accounts

Folks, if you use eBay, get the $5 security key from Paypal and be done with this nonsense. Don't live in fear of your Paypal or eBay accounts being hacked. And learn to protect yourself from online scams! Here is a list of over 30 well-known eBay scams.
From arstechnica:

eBay is one of the most successful Internet-only ventures of all time, so it's not surprising that it has come under near-constant attack by fraudsters and hackers. In the latest attempt, a hacker logged on to the eBay Trust and Security forums and pretended to post as 1,200 separate users, making it appear as if he had actually logged in with each user's account. The posts contained the users' names, contact information, and credit card numbers.
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Video Professor Sues Anonymous Online Posters

The Video Professor is mad. You've surely seen the TV infomercial spots for his instructional CD-ROMs that "play on your computer, just like a VCR!" The commercials claim to give you the CD-ROMs free, you just pay for the shipping. In true infomercial style, when you call to order your "free" product, the upsell begins. Many claim the "free" product they order ends up costing them $89.95 on their credit card.
I truly hate this type of marketing, but it seems to be the business model used by the sellers of many sold-on-TV products. You call or go online to order said product at advertised price and through misleading upselling techniques and shipping (over)charges, the actual cost ends up being significantly higher than what you expected to spend.
So, in true internet fashion, angry consumers go online to vent their complaints at consumer activist websites like infomercialscams.com. If you go there, you see 143 total complaints against the Professor. Since Video Professor can't directly sue infomercialscams.com, they filed a federal claim in a Colorado court against 100 "John and Jane Does" who committed "unauthorized Internet disparagement of VPI and its products" on that site. Apparently it is their position that current/former customers have no right to anonymous critical speech against their company.
No kidding, this is an actual quote from Video Professor founder John Scherer:

"I personally do not believe that you can be anonymous and bash people and get away with it under the First Amendment. I will stay with this case, and I will get the names that I am requesting. I will pursue this until the Supreme Court tells me I can't get them."

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Mysterious Giant Hexagon On Saturn's North Pole

This nighttime movie of the depths of the north pole of Saturn taken by the visual infrared mapping spectrometer onboard Cassini reveals a dynamic, active planet lurking underneath the ubiquitous cover of upper-level hazes. The defining feature of Saturn's north polar regions--the spinning six-sided hexagon feature--is clearly visible.

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Amazon Launches DRM-Free MP3 Store

Way to go, Amazon. Digital Rights Management has long been the bane of media lovers everywhere that want to enjoy their legal digital content. If I PAY to download a song, shouldn't I have the right to play it on any device I want? With iTunes you can only play songs on an iPod. With Zune you have to buy songs from the Zune Marketplace. And what happens when I change brands of MP3 players? Or if I want to back up my music on a CD?
Now Amazon changes all that.

“Amazon MP3 is an all-MP3, DRM-free catalog of a la carte music from major labels and independent labels, playable on any device, in high-quality audio, at low prices,”“This new digital music service has already been through an extensive private beta, and today we’re excited to offer it to our customers as a fully functional public beta. We look forward to receiving feedback from our customers and using their input to refine the service.
Every song and album on Amazon MP3 is available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. This means that Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device, including PCs, Macs™, iPods™, Zunes™, Zens™, iPhones™, RAZRs™, and BlackBerrys™; organize their music using any music management application such as iTunes™ or Windows Media Player™; and burn songs to CDs. said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music.
Most songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the 2 million songs priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. The top 100 best-selling albums are $8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.
Every song on Amazon MP3 is encoded at 256 kilobits per second, which gives customers high audio quality at a manageable file size.

Wow! Thats higher quality than I ripped my own CDs at!
Bummer note, you can't use any Amazon gift certificates you have for downloads.
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Germs Taken Into Space Come Back Stronger

It sounds like the plot for a scary B-movie: Germs go into space on a rocket and come back stronger and deadlier than ever. Except, it really happened. The germ: Salmonella, best known as a culprit of food poisoning.
The trip: Space Shuttle STS-115, September 2006.
The reason: Scientists wanted to see how space travel affects germs, so they took some along -- carefully wrapped -- for the ride.
The result: Mice fed the space germs were three times more likely to get sick and died quicker than others fed identical germs that had remained behind on earth. The researchers placed identical strains of salmonella in containers and sent one into space aboard the shuttle, while the second was kept on Earth, under similar temperature conditions to the one in space. After 25 days, 40 percent of the mice given the Earth-bound salmonella were still alive, compared with just 10 percent of those dosed with the germs from space. And the researchers found it took about one-third as much of the space germs to kill half the mice, compared with the germs that had been on Earth. The researchers found 167 genes had changed in the salmonella that went to space.

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Best and Worst 'Geek TV' Pilots this Season

Article from Wired discussing some of the new shows. I watched Chuck last night, it was fairly good, reminds me a lot of Jake 2.0 except with Chuck, he has enhanced brainpower instead of physical abilities. I thought it to be a satire on retail as well, check out the signs at "Buy More" in the background.

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When to Hold Off on the Latest Gadget

This Wall Street Journal article discusses the pitfalls of being the first on the block to get that great new product. As early adopters of the iPhone found out, waiting just a couple of months can add up to big savings.
Here's the article in a nutshell, how long to wait once a particular product is released...
Computers: Wait as long as you can -- even longer than a year. Last years models are this years bargains. Unless you have a highly specialized application, most people will have no problem with 1-2 year old computers.
Digital Cameras: Wait one year. Camera technology has stabilized to the point where you're no longer going to see huge benefits by upgrading your camera every year.
High-Definition Video Discs: Wait until the dust settles. There is much speculation as to whether either of the HD formats will really be the next universal packaged media.
Software: Wait one month until the patches and updates are released.
Televisions: Wait one year, prices are still dropping 25-30% annually.
Videogame Systems: Wait for cutting-edge videogames to be released, as buyers of the PS3 are still waiting for those killer games that take full advantage of Blu-ray technology.

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Study Says Parallel Universes Exist

The idea of parallel universes have long the subject of science fiction and comic book storylines, as well as some of the better episodes of Star Trek. Now some scientists believe there is some truth to the idea.

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science". The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed. In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe. It is a bizarre idea which has been dismissed as fanciful by many experts. But the new research from Oxford shows that it offers a mathematical answer to quantum conundrums that cannot be dismissed lightly - and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.

Do some additional reading on this subject and your head may explode. Quantum mechanics is not easily understood by many and there is no accepted unified theory explaining how it all works. Energy and matter at this subatomic level behave so differently that it is believed that the act of observing particles changes how they behave.
I'm just glad we live in Universe A.

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Simpsons Season 19 Intro Picks Up Where Movie Left Off

I can't believe I missed this last night. This is the intro for the first episode of The Simpsons Season 19. Bart writes on the board "I will not wait 20 years to make another movie." He keeps his shorts on, though...


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Forgotten TV- Tales of the Gold Monkey

The year was 1982 and a number of well-known or long-running tv shows began their run. Cagney and Lacey, Family Ties, Knight Rider, Cheers, Remington Steele, St. Elsewhere and Newhart are pretty well remembered. This show ran three unfilmed episodes short of a whole season before it was canceled by ABC.
A light-hearted adventure set in 1938 South Pacific, Stephen Collins played Jake Cutter, a pilot who flew a red and white Grumman Goose called Cutter's Goose. He is joined in his adventures by his trusty dog, Jack who would bark once for "no" and twice for "yes" (or the opposite if it suited him.) The gold monkey referred to a brass monkey statue Cutter went after in the pilot episode.
While many thought the show was meant to imitate Raiders of the Lost Ark, which hit it big at the box office the previous year, Donald Bellisario actually had been shopping the series back in 1979 and had no takers. TV executives thought no one would watch a show set in the 1930s.
For one brief season this show was the highlight of Wednesday night television.

Heckler at OJ Press Conference

This is the same guy that was at press conferences for Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson. Tony Barbieri, a regular on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show, is best known for insinuating himself into major news stories, as the fictitious character "Jake Byrd." Segments on the Kimmel program are called : Jake Byrd... Celebrity Avenger! He has successfully fooled major media outlets, including The New York Times, Fox News and Court TV. Real or fake, he's just funny.

The Hard Science of Making Videogames

Interesting article over at PopSci about the science behind videogame design. Something for you to read while you wait for Halo 3 to be released...

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No $199 HD-DVD Player at Wal-Mart This Year?

Although Canada’s Venturer Electronics is set to release Chinese-manufactured HD DVD players priced below $200, some retailers are hesitant to carry them. Venturer's SHD7000 will be priced at $199, according to a company representative, which would make it the cheapest stand-alone HD DVD player available today. Interestingly, Wal-Mart, Ultimate Electronics, and Bjorn's have no current plans to carry the player, citing consumer desire for branded electronic products this early in the life of a new format.
That's ok, it's easy to find brand-name Toshiba HD-DVD players on the web for around $200. A quick search on Pricegrabber or Amazon shows new and refurbished players available, if one wanted to purchase one.
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Bizarre Object Found Circling Star

An object recently detected orbiting a neutron star is among the strangest planet-mass bodies ever found, astronomers say. Instead of circling around a normal star, the low-mass object—likely the "skeleton" of a smaller star—orbits a rapidly spinning pulsar, or neutron star.
The neutron star spins hundreds of times a second—faster than a kitchen blender. The odd mass, which was spotted on June 7 by NASA's Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellites, orbits the bigger star in a little under once an hour.
The body is located about 230,000 miles (370,149 kilometers) away from the star—slightly less than the distance from Earth to the moon.

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Insane Star Wars Home Theater

This home theater was made up to look like the control deck of the Death Star. It was designed by Doug Chiang, the lead designer for the first and second episodes of Star Wars. Features include a fiber-optic star field, a life-size Boba Fett and C3PO, and even a full-size slab of Han Solo frozen in carbonite.
More pics if you read more | digg story

Firefox Sports Car

Because the IE car must have crashed...

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Strangest Things In Space- Neutrinos

Neutrinos are electrically neutral, virtually mass-less elementary particles that can pass through miles of lead unhindered. Some are passing through your body as you read this. These "phantom" particles are produced in the inner fires of burning, healthy stars as well as in the supernova explosions of dying stars. Detectors are being embedded underground, beneath the sea, or into a large chunk of ice as part of IceCube, a neutrino-detecting project.
From Space.com

Mystery Illness Caused By Meteorite?

News agencies are reporting about a meteorite that crashed Saturday near a remote village in the Andes near the Bolivian border.
Residents have since complained of headaches and vomiting supposedly caused by a strange odor since the impact. Seven policemen have reported to have become ill after investigating the impact area.
Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide, 20-foot-deep crater.
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30 Free, Open Source Programs You Need

If only PC makers would include some of these great programs instead of the crapware that come with most computers now out of the box. If you are hesitant to use an open source operating system like Ubuntu, you can get your feet wet in the open source movement by trying some of these applications. I use Firefox, Thunderbird, Clamwin and VLC media player. VLC will play almost any type of media file you throw at it.
So read more for a list of thirty pieces of software that are the cream of the crop of open source applications for Windows. Not only are every one of them free, almost all of them directly replace expensive software packages.
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GameStop Manager Suspended Over 'Good Grades' Policy

A few days ago this Dallas GameStop manager made the news for his interesting store policy requiring proof of good grades before he would sell a game to a student. Now it seems he has been suspended by his corporate employer for his policy, which was not created by the company. In interviews, Brandon Scott said he has refused about 24 sales.
While well intentioned, the policy would get him in less trouble if he simply rewarded grades with a discount or free game, like he has been doing, and just forget about refusing sales which was only going to lead to trouble with his company.
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1970s Computer Still Running Soviet Doomsday Device?

This is a little more serious than what I usually post about, but I thought it was quite interesting because it reminded me of elements of several old TV show and movies.
A new book due to be released in the US in December, claims that a 'doomsday' mechanism was created in the Soviet Union years ago-and is still armed.
Reminding me very much of the 'Operation: Spoilsport' episode of the 1980s TV series Greatest American Hero, the system called Perimetr would launch strategic nuclear missiles automatically under certain circumstances.

Its codename was Perimetr. It went fully operational in January 1985. It is still in place. Its job is to monitor whether there have been nuclear detonations on Russian territory and to check whether communications channels with the Kremlin have been severed. If the answer to both questions is “yes” then the computer will conclude that the country is under attack and activate its nuclear arsenal...We all face the prospect that, if Russia were ever attacked, its strategic nuclear warheads could be launched by a computer system designed and built in the late 1970s.

Fortunately, it seems the system is not totally autonomous. A more detailed article at Slate reveals the final decision will lie with the human monitors of the Perimetr system.
In fact, much has been made in TV shows and movies about a 'failsafe' barrier to one lone guy out there launching a missile. From Slate:

We'd been told that to launch a missile, two keys must be inserted simultaneously into their slots by two separate launch officers, and that the slots for the keys were located at a sufficient distance from each other that one madman couldn't, say, shoot the other crewman and then use both his arms to twist both the keys simultaneously.
But the missile crewmen I talked to told me they'd figured out a way to defeat that impediment with a spoon and a string. Not that they were planning to do it, but that they knew someone could do it.
You just shoot the other guy and "rig up a thing where you tie a string to one end of a spoon," he told me, "and tie the other end to the guy's key. Then you can sit in your chair and twist your key with one hand while you yank on the spoon with the other hand to twist the other key over."

Remember when a drunken Richard Pryor did something just like that in Superman III? I don't mean to trivialize this subject by referring to pop culture, but the only reference points many of us have, especially if we grew up post-cold war, is what we've seen in TV shows and movies. In fact, movies and tv can be used as teaching tools when dealing with these subjects. Some teachers use the film Thirteen Days to teach students about the Cuban missile crisis.
I think much could be learned from the ending of WarGames, when the WOPR computer system decided regarding nuclear war, the only winning move was not to play.

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Robot Maker Makes Artificial Boy

While less creepy than the previous robot boy I blogged about back in June, honestly, what is the deal with robots being designed like children?

10 Most Disappointing Games Ever

What constitutes a colossal flop? After hours upon hours of research (thanks Google and Wikipedia!), the following games were selected from a pool of mediocrity due to their brazen use of hype, failed expectations, dismal sales, or all of the above. I remember playing the home Atari version of Pac-man and being horribly disappointed with the game compared to the arcade. What's #1? Atari's 1982 E.T. the Game. It was expected to sell millions, but according to Atari's CEO, "nearly all of them came back." So much excess inventory remained, that the company buried them in a landfill near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

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Google Teams With X-Prize To Back Private Moon Landing

Search giant Google is offering a $30m prize pot to private firms that land a robot rover on the Moon. The competition to send a robot craft to the Moon is being run with the X-Prize Foundation. To claim the cash, any craft reaching the lunar surface must perform a series of tasks such as shoot video and roam for specific distances. Firms interested in trying for the prize have until the end of 2012 to mount their Moonshot.
From the official google lunar x-prize page:

With the Ansari X PRIZE, we were able to demonstrate that personal spaceflight is possible. Now, a new industry is emerging making it possible for anyone to fulfill their dream of spaceflight. With the Google Lunar X PRIZE we hope to usher in an era of commercial exploration and development, in which small companies, groups of individuals and universities can build, launch and explore the Moon and beyond.

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Nintendo Wii a Hit With Seniors

Articles are popping up all over the web that have a recurring theme. It seems seniors enjoy playing games on the Wii.
And Nintendo is not ignoring the trend, even sponsoring AARP's last Life@50+ event.
These 'gray gamers' are said to comprise 25% of all game players in the US.

Mirror Particles Form New Matter

Fragile particles rarely seen in our universe have been merged with ordinary electrons to make a new form of matter. Di-positronium, as the new molecule is known, was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science. Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons.

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Voyager Still Plugging Away 30 Years Later

Voyager 1 was launched Sept. 5, 1977 atop a Titan rocket with a Centaur-6 upper stage. Still operational for 30 years, Voyager 1 is more than 103.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. Astronomers believe it has now entered the solar system's heliosheath -- the termination shock region between the sun's solar wind and interstellar space. Signals from Voyager 1 take 13 hours to reach Earth, traveling at the speed of light. Follow the link for 24 pictures from and about Voyager 1.
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Meet the Palm Treo 500V

For those of you in overseas markets, Palm officially announced the Treo 500V. Co-branded with Vodaphone, this runs Windows Mobile 6; includes a 320x240 color non-touch screen and 256 Mb of onboard memory, and will be available October 1.
A few things I thought were interesting:
No touchscreen-this would drive me batty after owning previous Treo models, but undoubtedly this reduces cost and thickness, and this phone is obviously aimed at new smartphone users. Having no touchscreen means two softkeys are included underneath the screen, Nokia-style. I personally hate this method of navigation, but many worldwide are quite used to it.
Palm has eschewed the regular Treo dock connector for a standard mini-USB port.
Notably, I see no silent switch which has been a mainstay of Treo models since the beginning. This seems to reinforce that Palm is not going after adult business users with this model.
Photo courtesy of Engadget

New Seven Wonders-Great Wall of China

The New 7 Wonders of the World have been announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007.

The history of Great wall of China goes back to the 5th century BC. It was built between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire.

How long is the Great Wall of China?
The great Wall is the worlds longest building structure approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles)long.
view the panorama

Lackluster Palm Centro Pics

Some site in the Netherlands is posting pre-release photos of the new Palm device. Looking like something right out of a 1980s sci-fi show, two amazing colors are displayed! I know this is thought to be aimed at the youth/bargain smartphone market, but the screen should really be bigger. The white one looks like a Zen mp3 player. My 755p looks far better. Anyway, Palm has some new device for overseas markets to announce tomorrow, so we'll just have to wait and see. They say it's not centro, we know it's not the Foleo, so what is it?

Unbelievably Lame MS-DOS 5 Upgrade Promo Video

So hilariously, unbelievably lame...


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Dump Dangerous Diacetyl by Making Your Own Microwave Popcorn

Doesn't microwave popcorn smell great? It should: it's chemically engineered to do so. Think that delicious smell is fresh butter? Think again. Many conventional microwave popcorns use diacetyl, an additive, to simulate real butter. And that's a problem.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has long suspected diacetyl vapor's connection to a medical syndrome known as Popcorn Lung. It's a serious lung disease which, until recently, has only been known to effect popcorn factory workers. But now doctors believe it is also turning up at the consumer level, after a Colorado man was diagnosed with symptoms of popcorn lung. Industry officials are looking to replace diacetyl in commercial popcorn. But you needn't wait to eliminate this pollutant from your home.
One way is to simply pop real popcorn with oil and a little salt in a pan the way it's been done for hundreds of years. However, this article will show you how to do it in the microwave with a brown paper bag. Why didn't I think of that?

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Blogger Killed In Traffic, Identified Using His iPod

This goes to show you should always bring along your ID with you when you leave the house. In my retail experience, I have seen that there are many people out there driving with no drivers license. What if the worst happens, and nobody can identify you?
Adam Finley, a blogger on TV Squad, was out riding his bike two blocks from his apartment and was killed when a school bus hit him. He was only carrying his keys and his iPod. Creatively, investigators went to an Apple Store, where the company's corporate security office was able to cross reference it against their serial number database. (Now tell me you can't track stolen iPods, Apple.)
In honor of Adam, TVSquad is republishing his previous blog posts all day today.

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‘Indiana Jones IV’ Gets a Title

The title of the next Indiana Jones adventure, is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Shia LaBeouf announced the new title during last night's MTV Video Music Awards. If you remember, it was one of the titles registered about five weeks ago by Lucasfilm. Thoughts that Shia was pulling our collective leg were shattered with the official Indy site confirmed the announcement last night.

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Official IRON MAN Teaser Now Online

Surprise! Here's the official teaser earlier than promised, with some footage not seen in the Comic-Con bootleg. Click the link for multiple higher quality versions


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The New 7 Wonders of the World

This week I'll show you the new seven wonders of the world, announced at a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday July 7. These will be a series of 3-D images you can explore.
Petra-The Forgotten City
The City of Petra was hidden in the mountains of Jordan for thousands of years when a young Swiss explorer Johan Ludwig Burckhardt rediscovered it in 1812.
Temples, tombs, and other buildings are all carved out of the sandstone cliffs, wich also gives it the name the "rose red city."
In the last scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade the Treasury serves as a secret temple lost for hundreds of years.
And that is actually what it is. This place is impossible to capture in a normal still image. You have to visit it, or the next best - You can see it in a cubic QTVR as here in Greg Downings panorama made last year as an assignment for Intel.
Greg visited some of the most famous places in the world during this assignment, but he describes the visit at Petra as the most memorable.
view the panorama

Hundreds of Glaciers Melting Faster in Antarctica

Hundreds of glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster as the region's climate warms, a new satellite study has revealed. As the rivers of ice flow into the ocean, they could cause global sea levels to rise higher and faster than scientists had previously predicted. Satellite images of more than 300 glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula showed that they were flowing some 12 percent faster in 2003 than they were in 1993.
"It is increasingly apparent that glaciers can be sensitive on much shorter time scales than traditionally thought," said lead author Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey. "This is strong evidence for a big change in climate on a regional scale such as has been observed."

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Hollywood Physics

As we reach the close of the summer blockbuster season, two professors at the University of Central Florida, physicists Costas Efthimiou and R.A. Llewellyn, assert that movies are making their students dumber.
"Sure, people say everyone knows the movies are not real," says Efthimiou, "but my experience is many of the students believe what they see on the screen." Whether you believe them or not, it's always fun to take a scientist's eye to the silver screen to see just how ridiculous things can get when directors and screenwriters set poetic license against physical reality.
High-school physics teacher Adam Weiner does just that in his great new book Don't Try This at Home! The Physics of Hollywood Movies. Here, we take a look at a few of the worst offenders, and at the actual science behind them.

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eBay Under Attack

eBay accounts have evidently been under attack since Monday, according to Aladdin Knowledge Systems. The security company is stating that both email phishing schemes as well as botnets- networks of compromised computers working simultaneously- are being used to gain access to eBay accounts.
There has never been a better time to make sure you follow good computing practices.

• Make sure Windows is completely updated. Malicious websites take advantage of computers that have not installed the latest OS patches.
• If you have broadband, install a router even if you only use one computer. It acts as a firewall to block unwanted incoming traffic.
• If you have to use Internet Explorer, by all means make sure you have updated to IE 7. It is far more secure than IE 6. Again, malicious websites take advantage of known vulnerabilities in IE6.
• Do not click on links in email or respond to requests to 'update' your account information. The true url destination of that link can be masked and it could take you anywhere.
• Use a solid password on sites like eBay, Paypal, and your bank. Your pet or kid's name as a password is no kind of security. Some browsers such as Firefox, have extensions that can generate secure passwords. Better yet, order the security key available for eBay/Paypal.
  

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Pfizer Fails to Secure Computers, Sends Viagra Spam

In an ironic twist, malware-infected computers inside Pfizer's networks are spamming inboxes everywhere with unauthorized ads for it's own product. Pfizer's computers appear to have been infected with malware that has transformed them into zombie computers sending spam at the behest of a hacker. Rick Wesson, CEO of Support Intelligence says Pfizer computers have been spamming inboxes for the last six months and that he's kept 600 spam messages sent from company computers. He says 138 different Pfizer IP addresses have been blacklisted by various groups.

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Another Video Store 'Killer' Released

A company called Vudu (very Web 2.0) wants to be your in-home video store with their new set-top device. Don't we already have in-home video stores with Netflix and Blockbuster Online?
This thing is going to face the same challenges all the set-top boxes that have come before have. AppleTV, Moviebeam, Xbox Marketplace, DirecTV PPV, etc. all face a number of hurdles to consumer acceptance. Movie title availability is important, online services usually only have content from some studios and not others. Bandwidth will be an issue, this device seems to need at least cable modem speeds to even work. Pricing of your device is important, $400 is a lot for a dedicated device that basically delivers the same thing your DVD player does.
People also like a physical item when we are talking about movies. While electronic music distribution has gained a lot of acceptance, that's not the case with movies. People like to hold a movie in their hand, keep it in a case, and put it on a shelf. Until the vast majority of people are no longer attached to packaged media (that day may very well come) we will have it in some form.
Don't get me wrong, some of the technical aspects of how Vudu works is very interesting. But I think it will be received by consumers with a collective yawn.

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Spaceport America: First Looks at a New Space Terminal

Architectural and engineering teams have begun shaping the look and feel of New Mexico's Spaceport America, taking the wraps off new images today that showcase the curb appeal of the sprawling main terminal and hangar at the futuristic facility. Last month, a team of U.S. and British architects and designers had been recommended for award to design the primary terminal and hangar facility at Spaceport America - structures that symbolize the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport. When the 100,000 square-foot (9,290 square-meter) facility is completed -- the centerpiece of the world's first, purpose-built, commercial spaceport -- the structures will serve as the primary operating base for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceliner, and also as the headquarters for the New Mexico Spaceport Authority.


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Apple 'Special Event' Recap

Apple fanboys sure have a lot to talk about today with several new products and updates announced by Steve today at the Apple event.
The iPod 'fatty' rumors were confirmed as the new third generation iPod Nano was revealed. Being positioned as an entry-level iPod, it will feature the new 'cover flow' interface and come with three games pre-loaded. A 4G model is $149; 8G is $199.
New sixth generation 'classic' iPods were rolled out; thinner, with the 'cover flow' interface, 80G model $249 and 160G is $349.
A totally new model was unveiled in the iPod Touch. With an iPhone form factor and interface, the built-in wifi allows you to surf the web with it's Safari browser and watch videos on YouTube.
The 8GB model is $299 and 16GB is $399.
To complement this wifi feature, iTunes will now have a wifi store. It'll let you search for anything in the regular iTunes Store, preview it, and download it directly to your iPod Touch, no computer needed. A Starbucks/iTunes partnership was announced...
Oh, and one more thing...
Apple dropped the price on the iPhones today by $200. So those of you that bought one yesterday are probably kicking yourself about now...
The 4G model is being clearanced out at $299; once existing supplies are gone, that's it.
The more robust 8G model will be $399.
The Apple store is back up, you can head over there and order away!

Palm Dumps Foleo

Stating that Palm needed to focus all attention on a new mobile platform for all their devices, Palm CEO Ed Colligan announced yesterday afternoon that they were dropping the Foleo smartphone companion as it was currently configured and designed. This is surprising, since they were almost ready to ship the device.
If you followed it, the Foleo was going to be basically a 10" notebook that worked with your Palm Treo. With a full keyboard, it would allow you to access email, spreadsheets, documents and surf the web but did not have a hard drive and did not run Windows. Critics questioned the need for such an "in-between" device, more than a handheld but not quite a notebook computer.
The most interesting aspect of this device to me was that it ran Linux, and was instant-on, with no boot-up time. Applications would have been easily developed by third parties just like they have been on the Palm OS. From the Palm blog:

Jeff Hawkins and I still believe that the market category defined by Foleo has enormous potential. When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category. We're not going to speculate now on timing for a next Foleo, we just know we need to get our core platform and smartphones done first.

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Storm Worm Adding Millions of PCs to Botnet

The storm worm has built a botnet of perhaps as many as 10 million PCs using a revolving strategy of current events and eye-grabbing "headlines" to lure victims into what may be the single largest operating botnet. The "Zhelatin gang"—named after the trojan it installed—was responsible for what started out as the "storm worm." First spotted earlier this year, the spread of the "storm worm" started via e-mails purporting to provide information on some dangerous storms in Europe at the close of January. Users who fell for it were directed to a web site containing malicious code aimed at turning Windows PCs into spam bots.
Bottom line: be wary of any unexpected email you receive that tries to link you to some website, even if it's from someone you know. You get virus emails from people you know, since the virus will use the email address book of the infected computer.
Here are some example headlines that have been used; the misspellings make them seem shady even at first glance:

• A killer at 11, he's free at 21 and kill again!
• U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has kicked German Chancellor Angela Merkel
• British Muslims Genocide
• Naked teens attack home director
• 230 dead as storm batters Europe
• Re: Your text
• Radical Muslim drinking enemies's blood
• Chinese missile shot down Russian satellite
• Chinese missile shot down Russian aircraft
• Chinese missile shot down USA satellite
• Saddam Hussein alive!
• Venezuelan leader: "Let's the War beginning"
• Fidel Castro dead

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MPAA Pays Hacker $15,000 For Stolen Emails

"Hello, MPAA? Yea...I've got some emails that you might be interested in reading. They're from this company you guys are suing...You can have 'em for 15G...of course they're legally obtained..."

With all the obsession over 'what's legal and what's not' on the post-Valenti MPAA home page, you would think they would have more sense than to pull something like this.

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'Clearest' Images Taken of Space

A team of astronomers from the US and the UK has obtained some of the clearest pictures of space ever taken. They were acquired using a new "adaptive optics" system which sharpens pictures taken from the Mount Palomar Observatory in California. The images are twice as sharp as those from Hubble Space Telescope. The new system, dubbed "Lucky", is the result of work by a team from Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image shows very fine detail in the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC6543).

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Final, Final Cut For Blade Runner...Finally

Over the years, five versions of this film have been released, including a director's cut in 1992. It all started when the studio forced some changes to the film, including a voiceover to 'explain' the plot to audiences and the infamous 'happy ending' was tacked on.

Twenty-five years after "Blade Runner" was panned by critics and pulled from theaters, British director Ridley Scott savors revenge with the final cut of the science-fiction film now considered a cult classic.Presenting the new version of what he considers his most accomplished movie, Scott recalled the difficulties he had when he first pitched the work to Hollywood.

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Google Patents Gpay Using SMS

Yes, it's been done before, but when the Google starts to get into something, people pay attention. I remember when PayPal was rolled out that it initially was a micropayment system that you used via your PDA. I used it on my Palm III. They had the right idea, only now the device carried by everyone is the cell phone.
While cell phone carriers in the UK are coming together to establish an industry standard for these micropayments, Google has patented it's own text message payment system.
Examples of payment scenarios given in the patent include paying for goods from a vending machine, as well as purchasing items directly from offline retailers. While this could be relatively easily implemented in newly produced vending machines, getting brick and mortar retailers to upgrade their payment systems may take a while.

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Another Sony Rootkit?

Sony can't catch a break after its infamous rootkit scandal back in 2005. In fact, we know from talking to security researchers and black hats alike that Sony is under the careful eye of many as a result of that major screwup. Now, a new story has come out involving Sony's biometric Micro Vault USM-F thumb drive, which apparently contains a rootkit that could potentially allow hackers to compromise users' PCs. The presence of the rootkit was first discovered by F-Secure, and was confirmed by Aditya Kapoor and Seth Purdy, researchers at McAfee, and posted on their blog.

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Weekend Box Office Report

Yet another Halloween sequel inexplicably debuted at #1 this weekend. Why they chose to release this film in early September instead of holding it until late October when it would make more sense to release it is not know. Powerhouse The Bourne Ultimatum broke $200 million in it's fifth weekend.

1		Halloween (2007)	$32.5M	$32.5M
2		Superbad (2007)	$15.2M	$92M
3		Balls of Fury (2007)	$14M	$17M
4		The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)	$13.1M	$202M
5		Rush Hour 3 (2007)	$10.1M	$122M
6		Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)	$8.04M	$21M
7		The Nanny Diaries (2007)	$6.6M	$16.8M
8		Death Sentence (2007)	$5.5M	$5.5M
9		War (2007)	$4.6M	$17.4M
10		Stardust (2007)	$3.81M	$31.8M