News about Facebook shutting down on March 15 from a fake news site known for joke headlines, not a hoax

The news about Facebook shutting down on March 15 was not a hoax as some publications have reported. It came from the fake news website Weekly World News (WWN), which made the bogus announcement over the weekend. WWN, known for "(covering) events that seem to occur in a parallel universe," even posted fictitious quotes from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "The stress of managing this company has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness... I don't care about the money... I just want my old life back."

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$1.5 Million Fine for Downloading 24 Songs

What's the value of a song? Jammie Thomas-Rasset has spent the last few years in court debating that question. The Minnesota mother of four is being penalized for illegally downloading and sharing 24 songs on the peer-to-peer file-sharing read more

Twitter outage caused due Hacker attacks

The outage that knocked Twitter offline for hours was traced to an attack on a lone blogger in the former Soviet republic of Georgia — but the collateral damage that left millions around the world tweetless showed just how much havoc an isolated cyberdispute can cause.

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Google adds video and audio chat to gmail

Google announced Tuesday it is adding video and audio chat to its free e-mail service, joining Microsoft and Yahoo in a race to make communication on the Web a more social experience.

Both Microsoft and Yahoo offer video with their instant messaging services, but have not integrated it into e-mail.

"I think it's a nice addition and some people will use it, but I don't think it will drive huge adoption of gmail, " said Greg Sterling, of Sterling Market Intelligence, referring to Google's free e-mail service.

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source:

http://www.mercurynews.com

Veoh wins copyright suit, sets precedent

In a decision that should bode well for larger video sharing sites that are in legal trouble such as YouTube, a federal judge has absolved Veoh of any responsibility in the unauthorized posting of copyrighted video clips.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd threw out the copyright infringement lawsuit brought forward by Io Group, the adult video maker. Veoh is a site that streams ad-supported shows but the porn company sued the site in 2006 after they claimed they found 10 clips of their films posted without authorization.

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Google Gmail, Google Apps Are Not Enterprise Ready

Google Gmail and Google Apps went dark this past week, creating a firestorm of fury among those using the messaging and collaboration software to communicate or use one of their key enterprise applications. What does it mean when your hosted infrastructure collapses? Analysts from IDC, Forrester Research, Ferris Research and Burton Group weigh in with their thoughts on what the outages mean for Google and the SAAS/cloud computing space at large.

In light of the latest Google Gmail and Google Apps outages, I asked several industry analysts whether Google's software is dependable enough for enterprises and whether or not the Web is reliable enough as a business platform.

continues....

HP, Intel and Yahoo study ways to make Web a utility

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three tech giants -- Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Yahoo -- said on Tuesday they are teaming up on a research project to help turn Web services into reliable, everyday utilities.

The companies are joining forces with academic researchers in Asia, Europe and the United States to create an experimental network that lets researchers test "cloud-computing" projects -- Web-wide services that can reach billions of users at once.

continues......

Google's StreetView Protects the Identity of the French

Earlier this week, the French StreetView edition was launched; it is part of Google maps and it allows an Internet user to browse through the maps at street level. The French edition though has a long way to go
as only the route for the Tour de France has been covered by Google. Out of privacy reasons, the faces of all the people caught on camera by the Google StreetView team will be blurred, just as the license plates on cars.


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SANS solves mystery of mass Web site infections

The SANS institute has just revealed as what they've called the "rare gem"since january there are large number of websites has been hacked ,based on computer security investigation.

read more info here

Google Inc.'s first-quarter profit climbed 30 percent to surpass analysts' predictions in a performance that alleviated some of the economic worries that have hammered the Internet search leader's stock this year.

The news, released after the stock market closed Thursday, lifted Google's recently drooping shares almost 18 percent.

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Disconnected from the Internet for Downloading Too MuchComcast restricts the Internet access for some users

Comcast, one of the largest ISPs in the US, took the decision to restrict the Internet access for some of its customers because they download too much. Although it might sound a little bit shocking nowadays that you can't download as much as you want, the company disconnected the users as they
were slowing down the entire network and increased the latency and the loading times for all the other users. AFP reported that in order to get a notification from the parent company you have to download 1,000 songs or four films from the Internet. However, every consumer has 30 days at disposal to resolve the matter and to avoid the disconnection.

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AdSense doesn't work with the latest version of Firefox

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5 was released a few days ago and it already causes problems for some of the Google users. According to the reports, Google's advertising platform AdSense is not working properly in the latest version of Mozilla's browser, the users encountering problems when trying to login into their accounts. Rajiv Sud, AdSense Publisher Support, said today that many of the
Firefox 2.0.0.5 consumers are seeing only a sign-up page instead of a login form that would allow them to login into their already created account.

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Google's Blog Service Is Dead!

Google officially announced that the old version of Blogger – the largest blog community on the Internet – was abandoned, the company aiming to improve only the newer edition.
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Google Angry with Viacom's Lawsuit

The story so far: Viacom, the owner of MTV and Comedy Central, sent a subpoena to the search giant, demanding to remove more than 100.000 clips from YouTube. The main reason?
Viacom considered that Google receives praises and money for the content provided by other publishers. Of course Google agreed and started the huge removal. After only one week, Viacom went even further and filed a complaint against Google, suing the company for copyright infringement. Since the lawsuit was officially confirmed, the battle was continued by other elements concerning the two companies. For example, the YouTube users wanted to sue Viacom because some of their clips were removed in the huge deletion process started at the MTV owner's request.

Today, a new important step is made by Google that decided to release a public response to comment on the lawsuits and the facts that caused the trouble. “By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression. Google and YouTube respect the importance of intellectual property rights, and not only comply with their safe harbor obligations under the DMCA, but go well above and beyond what the law requires,” the search giant started the response.

As you can see, Google aims to bring the online carriers and the users on its side, sustaining that Viacom's requests fight against all of them by trying to restrict the ways they use the Internet.

“Defendants admit that YouTube encourages users to upload video clips to the service that the users have the right to upload, and that clips uploaded to the service are typically available for viewing free of charge by members of the public who have internet access,” the search giant continued.

At this time, the case is quite weird as both companies are trying to accuse one another for infringing the rights. First, it was Viacom that sustained YouTube infringed the copyright and published videos without its authorization. Now, the Google product tries to accuse the MTV owner for infringing users' right with the intention of restricting some of the Internet functions.

source

Man gets 5,000 calls for YouTube posting

SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass. -- Ryan Fitzgerald is unemployed, lives with his father and has a little bit of time on his hands.

So, he decided to offer his ear, to anyone who wants to call. After posting a video with his cell phone number on YouTube on Friday, the 20-year-old told The Boston Globe he has received more than 5,000 calls and text messages.

Fitzgerald said he wanted to "be there," for anyone who needed to talk. "I never met you, but I do care," a spiky-haired Fitzgerald said into the camera on his YouTube posting.

He planned to take and return as many calls he could, but on Monday at 5 a.m., his T-Mobile cell phone payment will begin charging him for his generosity when he is no longer eligible for free weekend minutes.

"I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do about it," he said. "Come Monday, no way I'm going to just hang up on people and say, 'I don't have the minutes.'"

Fitzgerald, who said people consider him "easy to talk to," was inspired by Juan Mann. YouTube video clips of Mann offering "Free Hugs" to strangers became wildly popular on the user-controlled Internet site.

"Some people's own mothers won't take the time to sit down and talk with them and have a conversation," Fitzgerald said. "But some stranger on YouTube will. After six seconds, you're not a stranger anymore, you're a new kid I just met."

source

Valentine virus-beware

Beware of the Valentine virus

Mon, 12 Feb 2007

Security experts are warning PC users to be on guard against viruses masquerading as Valentine's Day messages, which could damage computers.

"Computer users should keep a wary eye on any romantic messages received by email, as many of them could contain malicious code," said US security firm PandaLabs after detecting an increase in a worm it dubbed Nurech.A.

The worm hides in emails with subjects like: "Together You and I" or "Til the End of Time Heart of Mine".

People who open an attached file such as postcard.exe can end up infecting their computers.

Security firm Symantec said it had detected "large-scale spamming" of emails including a Trojan horse, a program that contains or installs a malicious program.

Symantec said the malware was a new version of Trojan.Peacomm or the "Storm Trojan".

"With Valentine's Day approaching, this time around the authors are attempting to tug on the heartstrings of unsuspecting users with romantic subject lines such as 'My Heart belongs to you,'" said Symantec's Orla Cox.

"The Trojan is much the same as we've seen before, the only difference being that the authors have used a modified packer in an (unsuccessful) effort to evade detection by antivirus vendors."

"As a general rule, don't open any suspicious email, regardless of what is says it contains," said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs.

"Instead of going on instincts, let a security solution decide whether it's safe to open it or not," he said, urging users to scan any suspicious messages with an antivirus program.

Corrons said events like Valentine's Day and Christmas are often exploited by cyber-criminals to try and spread their creations by disguising infected emails as e-greeting cards.

This use of "social engineering" was used in the LoveLetter virus, which caused one of the biggest epidemics in computer history.

http://cooltech.iafrica.com/technews/625094.htm

Mobile giants plot secret rival to Google

Europe's biggest telecoms groups are aiming to create a mobile phone search engine that could challenge Yahoo! and Google, the US giants.

Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are among the companies that will come together for secret, high-level talks at the mobile industry's biggest annual trade show in Barcelona next week.

Declining call revenues are driving network operators together to compete against Google and Yahoo! search engines

Faced with declining revenues as calls become cheaper, network operators are determined to secure a large slice of the lucrative search advertising market.

In the UK alone, more than 20 per cent of subscribers are expected to have access to mobile internet at broadband speeds by the end of 2007, which should prompt a dramatic increase in the use of search engines via mobile phones.

The initiative will come as a surprise to Google and Yahoo!, which have lost no time in striking deals with mobile operators and handset makers. But the mobile industry believes it can retain a greater share of advertising revenues by developing its own service.

A joint approach is essential, because mobile networks will need to offer advertisers a large audience if they are to challenge the US search giants. The four big operators in Britain - Orange, owned by France Telecom, O2, part of Spain's Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Vodafone - will all be represented at the meeting next week. The groups involved have a combined customer base of 600m mobile phone users worldwide.

The networks may decide to go with an existing search engine and use their combined might to secure a majority slice of the income. Another idea up for discussion is the creation of a white label service, with a single advertising sales house and technical team, to which mobile networks could then apply their own brand.

A UK executive at one of the companies involved said: "There is a big play in mobile search that we need to be part of, and we are exploring those options at a very high level."

It is not clear what the implications are for existing deals between networks and the big US search companies. Google has already signed up Vodafone and T-Mobile, as well as Hutchison's 3 and China Mobile. Its service also comes pre-loaded on handsets made by companies including Samsung. The Google mobile search engine does not make money because it hasn't started selling sponsored links to advertisers. However, trials are underway and the service should become fully commercial this year.

Yahoo! has so far signed up Vodafone and 3, and is already featuring sponsored links. Mobile search is seen as potentially more valuable to users and advertisers than the service currently provided to desktop computers because results can be made geographically relevant.

On Yahoo!'s service, for example, users can type in their location and receive local information on weather, travel or entertainment.

Mobile internet will be given a further boost at Barcelona when Far Eastern manufacturer LG Electronics is announced as the winner of a competition to produce an affordable, mass-market handset capable of accessing the web.

Twelve of the leading mobile operators spanning six continents and more than 620m subscribers have agreed to sell the 3G (third generation) phone to their customers. This will allow economies of scale sufficient to bring its price in well below existing 3G handsets.

The deal will also be a massive boost for LG, allowing it to challenge the dominance of the four largest handset makers: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola.


By: Juliette Garside