You can’t download illegal media content anymore

How many of us download illegal media contents these days? I guess there are most of us. :D Well, the recent news published by Online.wsj.com says that we can still download the illegal media content but you have to be ready that your Web connection will be downgraded – but not to be entirely cut off.

Your Internet service provider will be able to identify whether you are downloading illegal contents or not. If you are found guilty, there will be pop-up windows or email messages warning that you have violated the law. If you continue downloading the illegal contents, your Web connection will be made slower than ever as snail until you contact your ISP for clarification or, if you have enough time and resources, you may take an illegal action to suit your ISP.

There are several ISP and production houses that have joined this agreement. Among them are Verizon Communications Inc. and Film & Television Alliance. Of course this new agreement will benefit the entertainment workers who have worked hard to produce your entertainment media. It will also give the benefit – money profit – for the ISP too. The problem is how is the mechanism to consider whether or not you have violated the copyright law.

It is clear that slowing down the connection of alleged offender’s Web connection will mean a violation of the rights on Internet. Everybody has a right to have an Internet connection as long as they can afford it, right? Now, if your connection is slowed down because your ISP considers you had broken the law, what is the proof for that allegation?

The allegation is of course based on the data recorded by your ISP. But is the data legal? Is it stipulated in your contract with your ISP? Yes, may be it is. But the old contract must have not yet included that. It means that if tomorrow morning your Internet connection walks like a snail and you receive warning email message, you are considered an offender – but you are not guilty because the legal base for slowing down connection is not yet stipulated in your contract.

The allegation will not be fair and just also because it has not yet tested in the court. Without the court consent that agrees that you have done wrong, such slowing down the connection will be unlawful business.

Merged: GFW and Xbox.com

Microsoft on Friday merged its GWF Marketplace, the company's digital delivery store for PC games, with Xbox.com. There is no further details except the statement that "now you can get all your gaming needs in one place".

Tomshardware.com reported that the forum on Xbox.com surprisingly remains calm. Commenters only said that they hope the merge will provide more cross-platform compatibility.

Microsoft's PC games are less lucrative than Xbox 360 and Xbox Live service. The library for game videos, demos, downloadable contents and digital-only PC games, is small.

It is possible that Microsoft will make more mergers in the future and gather all of its diverse game marketplace into Xbox.com. Windows Phone 7 Apps/Zune Marketplace can be the next candidate.

If Xbox.com is really to become a one-stop-shop venue for all of Microsoft's games, there will be greater chance for cross-platform games. If such cross-platform capability is exist, then customers will be able to play the games on Xbox 360 console, a Windows 7 PC and a Windows Phone 7 device.

Facebook's awesome next week is Skype video chat

CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week teased journalists at the company' Seatte office to expect "something awesome next week". The guesses has been a Facebook app for the iPad and to desktop component pointing to a Skype video chat.

It is highly likley that the later will be the true guess. Michael Arrington reported via Techcrunch that Facebook's Seattle office are hiring desktop software engineers. The Seattle office probably has another job as their main task but a person close to the partnership said that next week Facebook will launch a video chat powered by Skype.

It is not yet clear whether the video chat will only work if the Skype had been already installed on the computer or the users should download the necessary app even if the user already uses Skype. Facebook and Skyp has been working together for some times. Skype has integrated several of Facebook's features into its service.

The new parnership will have significant effect for the general Inter-based industry. Facebook currently boasts of 750 million users while Skype only 170 million. Microsoft is a shareholder of Facebook and now having a pending FTC's approval to acquire Skype.

Google launches new anti-phishing attack feature

Google on Tuesday launched a new anti-phishing attack for the Gmail. The new feature will automatically display the address of the senders which previously have not yet made a contact with the user's email.

The launching of a new feature is a part of Google's effort to provide more security measure for the users of Gmail. Last month, Google was able to stop some spear phishing attack which have penetrated Gmail accounts of several high ranking U.S. officials as well as South Korean officials, Chinese political activists, journalists and military members.

If the sender of a message is not yet in the contact list of the user, or if the address of the sender has never been sent a message to, the user will see the address of that user on the message header. Third party sender such as email marketing bulk mailers sending messages for retailers will also be displayed automatically.

The feature actually has been present in Gmail and the user can set it manually. In the email services' interface, the user must click "show details" to see the sender's address. With the feature turned on automatically, Google hopes to help users avoid being trapped by suspicious messages that will try to compromise the user's Gmail information.

Once the user has built a communication with a new address, either by adding the address into the contact list or by replying the message, the full address will not be shown.

HP lawsuit toward Oracle is a publicity stunt

A few times ago Oracle has announced that the company will stop the development for Intel’s software Itanium. HP, which is the largest customer of Oracle, filed a lawsuit against the company over the decision. In a court filing on Wednesday, Oracle’s lawyers retaliated by stating that HP lawsuit is a publicity stunt.

The publicity stunt is meant to lay the blame on Oracle instead of HP. This is because when the Itanium-based server business has been fully stopped, HP will have troubles from their existing customers who require continuous support.

Oracle also stated that HP will be the only one that retains the decades-old Itanium processor. HP also said to spread the myth that Itanium has a 10 years road-map while in fact there is no such thing in Oracle as the developer of the processor.

Another counter-allegation made by Oracles is that HP has told a lie when stating that there is an agreement between HP and Oracle that the later company will continue to support Itanium processor. There is no such agreement and HP makes use of the confidentiality feature to protect a document that practically does not exist.

HP’s former CEO Mark Hurd took a job as Oracle’s co-present a few times ago and this resulted in a kind of corporate hug between the two companies. But the cooperation in the porting department was never stated explicitly in any document. However, Oracle has the document in which it is stated that the company will port some of the sections of HP-UX Itanium-based database.

The agreement was directed for E-Business Suite which contained a potential asset of millions of dollars.

In conclusion, Oracle said that HP’s appeal to force Oracle continues support for the Itanium customers is baseless. Oracle has every right to stop the development of the processor but it has its own support plan for existing customers.

UPDATE: I submit this blog into a great blog directory to invite more readers reading this blog. I hope you will enjoy it. :-)

Sprint struggles to stop AT&T and T-Mobile merger

AT&T announced a few times ago that they want to merge T-Mobile into their management. Experts have been uttering worry about the possibility of the monopoly if the merger really takes place. The merger will make the AT&T and Verizon Wireless hold up to 79 percent of the U.S. market share.

Based on the market share, AT&T counts the second seat while the highest seat is occupied by Verizon Wireless.  Sprint sits on the third in the list so that unsurprisingly they struggle hard to block the merger. Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse has been running through the states and to Washington to convince legislators of 18 states to stop the merger.

While working hard to draw public opinion toward his side, Mr. Hesse is also trying to convince top tech companies that the merger will be disaster for the industry. Sprint recently filed a dissent amounted to 377 pages with the Federal Communications Commission. Sprints’ engineers even also tried to convince AT&T to cancel the merger by showing how AT&T is able to optimize its existing network resources.

AT&T was still convinced that it will have the greater benefits when the merger is successful. Last week, they stated that they are pursuing the way to fully merger T-Mobile USA in March 2012. They are now collecting the information for the second round hearing asked by the Justice Department. Meetings between the company and FCC have been also scheduled.

The merger, if successful, will worth about $39 billion. If it is failed, AT&T will have to pay a compensation of $6 billion in services, cash and assets to Deutsche Telekom.

Al-Qaida network is unsafe

While the organization itself is a danger for most countries, it does not have trusted channel to spread its propaganda and media. Evan Kohlman of Flashpoint Partners yesterday said that the terror group’s latest forum, Shumukh, has been offline since at least three days ago.

There are still many other jihadi forums online but Al-Qaida does not trust them. Some of these jihadi forums also has been mysteriously knocked offline, including the Ansar al-Mujahideen Network, a forum in Arabic. Some mirrors still available for Al-Qaida’s material like aljahad.com/vb.

However, Al-Qaida will need an entirely new route to have a direct relation with any new forum, or the broken forum Shumukh has to be totally restructured, said Mr. Kohlmann. He also suggested that the group must also have the backup copies of the knocked down forum.

Last year, Al-Qaida’s forum Al-Faloja was down but the group immediately replaced the forum with the currently broken Shumukh. Kohlman assured that the group will form another forum once they have found the safer channel. He also listed several suspect, from the Jester to government-sponsored in the U.S. and U.K.

The Jester did not confirm to hack Shumukh.

Six hackers that go to establishment

They were still very young when they made digital-based companies upset. Most of them have incredible skill with codes. But now these six famous hackers are known to confirm the establishment. Georgo Hotz, or Geohot, the hacker that hacked Sony's PlayStation Network protection, is know at Facebook, working as software engineer.

Gotz is not the only one. Ian Paul of PCWORLD has listed at least five other ex-hackers who now converting their skills into 9-to-5 legitimate job on several Internet-based companies -- employed or as the employer. They are Chris Putnam, Michael Mooney, Owen Thor Walker, John Lech Johansen and Kevin Mitnick.

They surely reminds people of young geniuses when the computer-and-Internet age was started in the 70s. Bill Gates, Vint Cerf and Mark Zuckerberg, though, did not started like them: these computer-Internet personages were practicing their art through legitimate ways -- read: not violating existing regulations associated with the technology.

1. George Hotz, Facebook Software Engineer

Hotz first drew attention when he posted jailbreak for iPhone. However, his fame came when he became a part of the team that the jailbreak tools for hacking Sony's PSN 3. As a result, Sony sued him. The court prohibited him to have any connection with Sony while he himself announced a boycott toward Sony's products. He is know working for Facebook, working as a software engineer. Some people believe that he is the man behind Facebook app for iPad.

2. Chris Putnam, Facebook Software Engineer
Chris Putnam, together with two friends, created a great worm in 2005 that can make the Facebook page looked like MySpace. The team at the social network giant was exhilarated and tracking back the worm and they find Putnam. Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz immediately admired him and a few month afterwards Putnam went to California for beginning an employment at Facebook.

3. Michael Mickeyy Mooney, Web app developer
Michael Mooney was only 17 years old in 2009 when he created a worm that posted spam messages to the entire Twitter environment. He stated that he created the worm "out of boredom". Chief executive at exqSoft Solutions Travis Rowland shortly afterwards contacted him. Now, he works 9-to-5 for the Oregon-based Web application company as a security analyst and programmer.

4. Owen Thor Walker, Security consultant
The 18 years old Owen Thor was targeted by FBI investigation when he was suspected to be the creator of a botnet that affected 1.3 million computers. New Zealand Herald wrote that the botnet was responsible for millions of dollars loss in the computer economy at that time. Australia telecom Telstra hired him for a 12-month contract. He was invited to speak about security on seminars and board meetings. But Telstra had not given him the access  to its internal network.


5. Jon Lech Johansen, Co-founder of doubleTwist

DVD Jon is a Norwegian programmer that helped created DeCSS, a program that can remove the digital copy protection in DVDs. He was only 15 years when he created the software. Motion Pictures Association of America filed a complaint which was followed shortly afterwards with a police arrest upon Jon. In 2004, He again breached into Apple's DRM technology and enable users to bu songs iTunes much easier. In 2007, he went 9-to-5 after co-founding a mobile app development company called doubleTwist.

6. Kevin Mitnick, not a hacker but security professional

Before he was arrested in February 2005, Kevin Mitnick was the most-wanted computer criminal in the USA. He was charged with theft over the proprietary software of Motorola, Fujitsu, Novell and Sun Microsystems. In 1999, he was charged with two counts of computer fraud, one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication and a four counts of wire fraud. He spent 46 month in prison. After five years in jail, he was released in 2000. But he was not granted permission to access the Internet until 2003. He is now a consultant in his own information security firm.

All images are taken from PCWORLD.

Two new clean technology alternatives for consumers

Electricity produced with fossils is diminishing while nuclear reaction has proven to impose danger for the environment. Cleaner, greener technology have been researched for a very long time by scientists but, while hailed by general public, these alternatives are not yet accepted by industries.

Piezoelectricity for laptops.

However, this might change some times in the future -- but not too far away. Citing Advanced Journal Material, Gizmag reported on June 26, 2011 that scientists from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia, has been able to demonstrate that a technology called piezoelectric, perform in nano-scale, indeed has a chance to convert mechanical stroke into electricity power.

Dr. Madhu Bhaskaran, leader of the Australian researchers, stated that they focused on the thin film coatings which they believe "hold the only practical possibility of integrating piezoelectrics into existing electronic technology". She also insisted that the technology can be applied for a wide range of consumer goods, from running shoes and mobile phones battery to laptop.

In the case of laptop, Dr. Bhaskaran said that piezoelectric technology enables laptops to be powered through typing.

Samsung NC215S.

Shortly before the news was made public, Gizmag also reported that Samsung's Russian branch has been able to produce laptops which are powered by the solar power. Samsung NC215S is expected to be shipped in Rusia in August and the U.S. in July 3. The price tag for each market is, according to Liliputing.com, $500 and $399, respectively.

The Samsung netbook features, according to Clean Technica, are as follows:

• 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel matte display
• 1GB of RAM
• 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 dual core processor

The netbook will be powered by a solar panel which is embedded in the lid. The panel charges a 6-cells battery. To extend the running times, the battery is equipped with PowerPlus technology.

To get 1 hour life for the battery, the lid needs to be exposed at full 2 hours. The overall life of the battery was said to be more than 14 hours. Since it the power source is the sunlight, the netbook's 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 pixels display is designed to perform best under bright lights, even in direct light. The display reportedly will be able to offer 300cd/m2 brightness. Anti-reflective coating is also embedded to provide clear and colorful images.

Pictures were taken from here and here.

Hackend: LulzSec disbands

After 50 days of uproar, hacktivists LulzSec on their Twitter account announced yesterday that they disband. The group released a full line of torrents containing around 750,000 users data stolen from several target, one of which is AT&T. The exact reason behind this disband is not clear yet but the group insisted that they knew that they would end after 50 days.

But they hope that their AntiSec campaign, a war against government and other high end establishments, shoulkd continue without them. The announcement said:

The support we’ve gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don’t stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve.

Zack Witthaker in ZDNet suggested four theories on the disband. The group may believe that fifty days is a set milestone. Topiary, the person ran the group's Twitter feed, is likely a British, judged by his/her writing of style and time zone. A politic-aware person must remembered George Orwell whose death was happened to be of this date. But Whittaker ruled out this possibility because the announcement was posted after midnight.

LulzSec is not immune from hacker attack which means that their identities have been compromised. A confrontation has developed with The Jester appeared to be able to take down LulzSec's main website on Friday albeit for a short while. They may be get bored too since press and media coverage for them have been below their target. Or, the movement has found its natural end. AntiSec campaign wants general population to revolt against their respective government. Considering how the majority of the public has voted for their current government, majority votes are unlikely in the hacktivists' favor.

Are You Confused with - + Icon in FF5?

Firefox 4 is dead and will not be supported by Mozilla for security and bugs fixings. General users now have safer and faster browser. But three days using the browser, and after adding necessary customization, I found a little confusion over the right corner of my browser window.

If you right click anywhere on your FF 5's tab, you will be presented with options like Menu Bar, Navigation Toolbar, Bookmark Toolbar, Add-on Bar and, just below the thin line, Tabs on Top and still further down you will see the "Customize". Click this "Customize". And you will be presented with the Customize Toolbar box.

The box contains icon like Paste, Separator, Flexible Space and others.

As you probably knew, when you scroll your mouse down, there will be a feature in this box called "Zoom Controls". The icon for this is the - and + signs. Now, if you drag this feature into your tab, you will have fast tool to make the webpage larger or smaller.

You only need to click appropriate icon.

- for making the page smaller
+ for making the page larger

In the previous version, you would have to press Ctrl and + to make the page larger and Ctrl and - to make it smaller.

If you have already dragged the Zoom Control, you can zoom in or zoom out the page without you have to raise your hand from your mouse.This of course will be greatly help for surfers as well as for people with poorer eyes and those who want to have closer look without having to lean on.

However, I found that the icons are rather easily confusing with the " + " for the add new tab function. To make it easier, I inserted some other icons between the two functions. However, there are still two " + " icons. Countless time I get wrong click: the browser opens a new tab instead of enlarging the webpage.

I think it is only a matter of habit though. You will get along with these icons after some time.

Android fever: Hulu's arrival

After Netflix arrival sometimes ago on Adroid platform, Hulu makes the news with the announcement that it now serves subscribers using Android devices. For its Android front, Hulu called the service Hulu Plus.
However, Hulu Plus is only able to stream movies and TV shows for six Android devices due to Android’s fragmented copy protection.

Hulu’s director of product management Rob Wong in the company blog said the company knows that a lot of people want premium content on their Android smartphones. Further, he stated, “We’ve been working hard to make that a reality, and today, we have begun our early rollout of the Hulu Plus application on Android smartphones.”

The six smartphones include the Motorola Atrix, Motorola Droid II, Motorola Droid X, Nexus S, Nexus One and HTC Inspire 4G. Hulu Plus expects to add more Android devices this year.

The Hulu Plus is available as a free app and available from download from Android Market. The company provides a one week trial for users to test the service and see if it is worth subscribing.

Hulu Plus was launched last year for iOS devices. The service charges indiscriminate rates of $7.99 monthly fee for viewing on a PC or on a mobile device. The free version is available but it cannot be viewed with tablets and smartphones.

Using the same subscription, Hulu Plus is accessible on PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, TiVo and several other products.

The limitation in terms of eligible devices is due to the copy protection in Android. The protection is designed to specific processor families. Sometimes, it is able to identify specific smarrphone models too. Developers expect the arrival of “Ice Cream Sandwich” will change the configuration.

Netflix chose to develop for Snapdragon processors while Hulu’s batch of compatible Android devices covers processors from Tegra 2 to 1GHZ Snapdragon.

Compared to Netflix, Hulu Plus has the competitive edge because it is able to present a THV show currently running. Hulu Plus also has richer and larger television library.

Hulu Plus is owned by investors like Disney, NBCUniversal and News Corp, among others.

Apple to bid Nortel

Nortel Networks Corp. has more than 6,000 patents and all of them are crucial to the future of tablets and smartphones. The company is bankrupt and will be auctioned on Monday. Google revealed that they had placed a bid of $900 million.

However, Apple was only given the clearance to place a bid by the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday. The approval was considered fast because normal waiting time for an appeal is 30-day for such potential purchases according to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.

Nortel’s patents cover a wide range of technologies used is tablet computers, cellular infrastructure, mobile phones, social networking and online search. Apple has much thicker collection of patents related to tech business than Google.

Google has lost some law suits regarding their Android and currently is facing other suits for the operating system.

Launched: Gingerbred powered Sony Ericcson Xperia Ray

If you love the way the smartphone Arc look, the newest member in the SE family must looked familiar. However, Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray features a smaller display. But it runs on the powerful Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

The device surely would fit well with standard grip since its frame is made of aluminum -- Arc's frame by contrast is made of plastic. The display may be smaller than its predecessor becuase it is only 3.3. inches -- compared to the Arc's 4.3 inches. But it boasts of a FWVGA Mobil BRAVIA. The measure is 480 x 854 pixel. It turns out that smaller LCD size gives an edge for the design. The device looked small and light. It weighs only 100g or 3.53oz and the physical dimension is 111 x 53 x 9.4 or 4.3 x 2.09 x 0.37 in.

The Gingerbread was powered by a 1GHZ processor. Storage is handled by a 300MB internal storage. Support is available for microSD cards up to 32GB. Upon purchase, a 4GB card is included. Interface is, as usual, pretty pleasant with the typical SE custom interface which has intregated Facebook Inside Experia application. Camera section is powerful with a 8.1MP at the back, capable of capturung HD 720 videos. On the front part, a VGA camera is available for video calls. Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray will be in the shelves in the third quarter of 2011 and available in gold, white, black and pink. ©

Verizon’s unlimited data plan to be killed in July

Consumers will have to pay more money for their future browsing when they choose to keep Verizon as their data carrier. Verizon Wireless announced that they will not provide the unlimited data plans options for new subscribers. There was not yet any exact word about the pricing but the plan will be effective starting on July 7, PCWorld reported.

Experts predicted that the basic 2GB plan may cost $30 per month. For the same quote, AT&T charges $25. Verizon may also charges $50 per month for the larger 5GB plan while the 10GB may cost $80 per month. Per GB, the average cost will be around $10. An additional cost of $20 will be charged for tethering but an extra of 2GB can be expected.

Experts also suggested consumers to make use the shared data plans to respond the increasing price for data transfer. Verizon often talked about this but never yet giving any details.

With Verizon lifting its unlimited data plans, consumers are left with the service of Sprint if they still want to have unlimited data plans. AT&T has earlier abandoned unlimited data in July 2010 while T-Mobile’s charges higher fees toward customers after they have reached their caps although technically its tiered data plans are technically unlimited.

Another alternative is Virgin Mobile. The cost for a contract-free Android smartphone is $150. The unlimited data plans of this wireless carrier start with $25 per month. More voice minutes are charged with higher price tiers but.

But existing Verizon’s unlimited data subscribers can have relaxed time for their life because the new policy will be applied for new subscribers only. © is ©

Angry Birds in Chrome

Angry Birds is available in Chrome. Well, yes, I am really un-up-to-date Netizen. It has been around for sometimes, I guess. And the Chrome Web Store also showed me a figure of more than 1 million players already. Available here, I first play the game on my friend's iPad. I though that I would play it on my own computer someday and it has became a reality with this.

The version is unlocked. Some hackers has been able to unlock the levels so that a player does not have to complete one level in order to be able to continue to the next level. I had not been successful in opening the game though. There are two versions available when you have installed it into your browser, namely the SD version and the HD version. I've chose the HD version and it load very long time.

I googled some tips for playing the game and I found this tips. Cheating? Oh yes, surely. Not now but since I have to make myself accustomed to the game first -- and wait for the game to load. :-(

UPDATE: I have been able to play the game and it took my precious 1 hour!

Chrome Notepad

Today I tried to browse the Chrome Web Store and found this Chrome Notepad. This is a great tool because in a fast read I can be sure that the files will be store locally. It means that they will be in my computer once I click the "save" button at the right corner of the notepad page. I did not know yet where the files are located in my computer though but I hope I could find them another time.

But the most important thing for me from this app is that it is equipped with language support. Thus when I mistype anything, the spell checker will draw familiar red lines under the wrong spell. Of course you can't expect that this great feature will be highly sophisticated like the similar feature you find in Word. For example, you can't expect to have the grammar checker. But for a non-native English speaker, the available functionality is great for me.

Now I see where I can save the file. When I click the "save" button, the file will be saved with the way similar to the way when you save a new file in Word. I find it accidentally. :-) Just now I clicked the button and my computer offered me to save this note in specific location in my local hard disk. I guess I will have good times in the future with this app although I rarely used the Chrome for browsing.

PS: Wow, it enables translation too!

ICANN widens domain name variations

ICANN: abbreviation of International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Online-ing in the future can be more fun and creative since January 12, 2012 to April 12, 2012. OK, the lines of the numbers are symbolic -- at least if you regard them with the 2012 Judgment Day -- but technically, ICANN has decided that humankind is creative and as such it gives the people, of all nations and languages -- and script, to end their special webpage with names other than the popular .com, .org, .net and the like.

ICANN Board of Directors has approved the plan to ramp the domain names. The vote was 12 approving, 2 abstaining and only 1 opposed.  Such majority reflects the board faith that this "biggest changes ever to the Internet's Domain Name System" will benefit humankind. With the approval, now the generic to-level domain (gTDLs) are increasing. Currently, including the familiar .com, .info, .net, .org and the like, there are only 22 available domain names.

Reactions following the decision were various though. Stephen Shankland of CNet News noted that the spreading can cause trademark headache. Many corporations would struggles for the new, extended domain names. IBM, for example, want to secure IBM.think. But surely that'll conflict with Lenovo, who owns a line of product called -- correct me if I'm wrong -- ThinkPad.

Larry Dignan of ZDNet noted that the domain names can end in almost anything ranging from a city, to term like .eco or .green and natives scripts from around the world. Global companies also want to make sure that all of the related terms are covered -- and that'll definitely cause more struggles between corporations. For example, Pepsi want to secure the domain names in specific scripts. This will conflict with Coca Cola who wants to cover all countries on the planet.***