32563325
submission
suraj.sun writes:
The filesharing website The Pirate Bay has been blocked to millions of UK internet users following a high court ruling earlier this week. Customers of the country's second-biggest internet service provider, Virgin Media, were on Wednesday denied access to site. Other internet providers, including BT and Sky, are expected to follow suit within weeks. Virgin Media has 21.5% of the market share, behind BT with 27.5%. The provider said in a statement: "Virgin Media has received an order from the courts requiring it to prevent access to The Pirate Bay in order to help protect against copyright infringement.
32541621
submission
suraj.sun writes:
In a blog post, Steven Sinofsky, and Chris Jones details the cloud services integration that will be featured in Windows 8 and Windows Phone and will serve as an update to Microsoft's Windows Live platform, which has not met Microsoft's expectations of "a truly connected experience." At the forefront of the company's cloud services will be a Microsoft account, which creates an identity to be used across Microsoft services, from the Xbox to SkyDrive and beyond. Microsoft accounts were previously known as Windows Live IDs. In Windows 8, a user's account settings will roam across PCs via the user's Microsoft account.
Windows 8 and Windows Phone will make use of the following Microsoft cloud services: Microsoft accounts, SkyDrive, Mail/Hotmail, Calendar, People, Messaging and Photos. According to Sinofsky, Windows Live services are currently used by more than 500 million users a month. Additionally, Hotmail has 350 million, Messenger has 300 million and SkyDrive has 130 million, active users.
32533785
submission
suraj.sun writes:
The Guardian is reporting on the thorny issue that emerges whenever a game involving in-app purchases shuts down. People who own the game have been reporting a pop-up message titled "Dear Rockers", which continues thus: "On May 31, Rock Band will no longer be playable on your device. Thanks for rocking out with us!" Yes, and thanks for spending money via in-app purchases on songs to play at 69p a time, too.
EA is also shutting down iOS social game Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition on 29 June and Outside EA, social games firm ngmoco – nowadays owned by Japanese social games company DeNA – is also closing one of its first ever freemium games on iOS, Eliminate. All this is a reminder that virtual items and currency are just that – virtual.
32532967
submission
suraj.sun writes:
According to TheVerge, Microsoft is planning to launch a $99 Xbox console package with a monthly subscription as early as next week. The company will offer the 4GB console with a Kinect sensor at its range of Microsoft Stores in the US, subsidized with a monthly cost of $15. We're told that the two-year subscription will provide access to the Xbox Live Gold service and possibly some additional streaming content from cable providers or sports package providers. Customers who sign-up for the deal will also be covered under a two-year warranty. With E3 2012 on the horizon, and Microsoft working on a "Woodstock" music service — it's clear that the company wants to ensure as many people as possible have an Xbox in their living rooms.
32532701
submission
dubme writes:
Ever wanted to play tic-tac-toe was a friend in another city? Now you can, thanks to a camera & projection system from Microsoft. It's called IllumiShare & looks like a desk top lamp.
The in-built cameras allow users to capture images of their desks or any other surface and project it onto friend's or colleague's via Skype.
The clever bit is the system can tell the difference between projected images and recorded ones, so it doesn't record the projections — which would otherwise cause a sort of video echo.
The system makes it possible to collaborate on physical objects — whether that be a tic-tac-toe grid or a whiteboard or whatever. It might also be used for tutors to remotely help schoolkids with their math homework.
32528401
submission
suraj.sun writes:
An executive from Sony said Monday that concerns about Comcast's discriminatory data cap are giving the firm second thoughts about launching an Internet video service, that would compete with cable and satellite TV services. In March, Comcast announced that video streamed to the Xbox from Comcast's own video service would be exempted from the cable giant's 250 GB monthly bandwidth cap. "These guys have the pipe and the bandwidth," he said. "If they start capping things, it gets difficult."
Sony isn't the first Comcast rival to complain about the bandwidth cap. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has also blasted Comcast's discriminatory bandwidth cap as a violation of network neutrality. Comcast controls more than 20 percent of the residential broadband market, which means that Comcast effectively controls access to one-fifth of any American Internet video service's potential customers.
32526517
submission
suraj.sun writes:
In a massive lawsuit campaign against HTC, RIM, and Viewsonic, Nokia has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission against HTC, and a host of lawsuits across the U.S. and Germany against RIM and Viewsonic, in addition to HTC. Nokia argues that the firms are violating a total of 45 patents. "Nokia proprietary innovations protected by these patents are being used by the companies to enable hardware capabilities such as dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios, as well as to enhance software features including application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device," Nokia wrote in a statement today.
Although Nokia hasn't been the most litigious company in the mobile space, it has enforced its intellectual property in the past. Last year, in fact, the company inked a deal with Apple that saw Apple license a host of mobile patents from Nokia. The licensing deal came nearly two years after Nokia sued Apple for infringement.
32427457
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Barnes & Noble has found a new, major partner in its fight to get an edge over Amazon and Apple in the market for e-books and the devices being used to consume them: it is teaming up with Microsoft in what the two are calling a strategic partnership, name yet to be determined. It will come in the form of a new subsidiary of B&N that will include all of its Nook business as well as its educational College business. Microsoft is making a $300 million investment in the subsidiary, valuing the company at $1.7 billion in exchange for around 17.6 percent equity in the subsidiary.
The new company, referred to for the moment as Newco, will contain B&N’s digital business, as well as its College division. While Microsoft will take 17.6 percent, B&N will own 82.4 percent of the venture. And there is a legal twist to the deal, too: the two companies say they have definitely sorted out their patent litigation now: “Moving forward, Barnes & Noble and Newco will have a royalty-bearing license under Microsoft’s patents for its NOOK eReader and Tablet products,” the two write in the release below.
32423115
submission
suraj.sun writes:
More than a decade ago, Microsoft execs, led by Chairman Bill Gates, were touting a future where .Net coffee pots, bulletin boards, and refrigerator magnets would be part of homes where smart devices would communicate and interoperate. Microsoft hasn't given up on that dream. In 2010, Microsoft researchers published a white paper about their work on a HomeOS and a HomeStore — early concepts around a Microsoft Research-developed home-automation system. Those concepts have morphed into prototypes since then, based on a white paper, "An Operating System for the Home," (PDF) published this month on the Microsoft Research site.
The core of HomeOS is described in the white paper as "a kernel that is agnostic to the devices to which it provides access, allowing easy incorporation of new devices and applications. The HomeOS itself "runs on a dedicated computer in the home (e.g., the gateway) and does not require any modifications to commodity devices," the paper added. Microsoft has been testing HomeOS in 12 real homes over the past four to eight months, according to the latest updates. As is true with all Microsoft Research projects, there's no guarantee when and if HomeOS will be commercialized, or even be "adopted" by a Microsoft product group.
32416147
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has always vehemently denied bringing cheap foreign labour into Canada. Employers had to pay foreign temporary workers “the prevailing wage,” he pointed out. That indeed is what the rules said – until Wednesday, when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley quietly changed them. Employers will now be allowed to pay foreign temp workers 15 per cent less than the average wage.
Business leaders, eager to recruit low-cost workers abroad, were delighted. Immigrant support groups, already fighting to protect temporary foreign workers from exploitation, were heartsick. And labour leaders warned that the wage cut would bring down the pay scale for all workers and make it harder for Canadians to compete for jobs in their own country. When Canada introduced its temporary foreign worker program in 2002, the governing Liberals vowed never to adopt the European model route in which “guest workers” are paid less than nationals and treated as second-class residents.
32415569
submission
suraj.sun writes:
The Russian antivirus company Dr. Web report that the latest version of Flashback, the backdoor malware targeting Macs through a Java exploit, is using Twitter as a backup command and control network. Dr. Web was the first to report on the rapidly growing Flashback botnet—the largest recorded malware attack ever focused on Macs.
In an analysis of current variants of the malware, Dr. Web’s team found that the Trojan initially configured with a list of servers through which it can receive additional commands and configuration updates. If the malware doesn’t get a correct response from one of the control servers in its own internal generated list, it will search Twitter for posts containing a string of text generated from the current date, and look for a control server address embedded in the posts. “For example, some Trojan versions generate a string of the ‘rgdgkpshxeoa’ format for the date 04.13.2012,” the Dr. Web team wrote in their blog post. “If the Trojan manages to find aTwitter message containing bumpbegin and endbump tags enclosing a control server address, it will be used as a domain name.”
32396295
submission
suraj.sun writes:
The Ahe is reporting on, Microsoft and Apple being asked to defend their pricing policies at a federal parliamentary inquiry into why Australians pay far more for music and game downloads than overseas customers. Labor MPs hope publicity generated by challenging the companies will result in lower prices and put an end to local consumers being ''fleeced''. The Minister for Communications, Stephen Conroy, has signed off on the inquiry, which will begin later this year, will also consider the pricing of software and other IT-related material.
The excuses overseas technology companies use to justify the higher prices, such as the small size of the Australian market, the cost of setting up support centres here and the imposition of local taxes and duties, were not acceptable to local customers, spokeswoman Ingrid Just said. The debate over pricing surfaced again last week when global software giant Adobe revealed Australians would pay up to $1400 more than US residents for the latest version of its Creative Suite software.
32364683
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Apple, the world’s most profitable technology company, doesn’t design iPhones here. It doesn’t run AppleCare customer service from this city. And it doesn’t manufacture MacBooks or iPads anywhere nearby. Yet, with a handful of employees in a small office here in Reno, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states. Braeburn Capital, an Apple subsidiary in Reno, Nev., manages and invests the company’s cash. Nevada has a corporate tax rate of zero, as opposed to the 8.84 percent levied in California, where Apple has its headquarters.
Apple’s headquarters are in Cupertino, Calif. By putting an office in Reno, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest the company’s profits, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains. California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada’s? Zero. Setting up an office in Reno is just one of many legal methods Apple uses to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions of dollars each year. As it has in Nevada, Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands — some little more than a letterbox or an anonymous office — that help cut the taxes it pays around the world.
Without such tactics, Apple’s federal tax bill in the United States most likely would have been $2.4 billion higher last year, according to a recent study by a former Treasury Department economist, Martin A. Sullivan. As it stands, the company paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8 percent. By comparison, Wal-Mart last year paid worldwide cash taxes of $5.9 billion on its booked profits of $24.4 billion, a tax rate of 24 percent, which is about average for non-tech companies.
32364389
submission
suraj.sun writes:
The Social Networking Online Protection Act, introduced by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel (N.Y.) and Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), would prohibit current or potential employers from demanding a username or password to a social networking account. "We must draw the line somewhere and define what is private," Engel said in a statement. "No one would feel comfortable going to a public place and giving out their username and passwords to total strangers. They should not be required to do so at work, at school, or while trying to obtain work or an education. This is a matter of personal privacy and makes sense in our digital world.”
The bill would apply the same prohibitions to colleges, universities, and K-12 schools. Facebook has already threatened legal action against organizations who require employees to reveal their Facebook passwords as policy. While Maryland was the first state to pass legislation, several states have taken up legislation to block the practice as well, following reports of the spread of the practice by the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times.
