twoheadedboy - Slashdot User

Submission + - Amazon Kindle Book Sales Surpass Print In UK (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Monday August 06, 2012 @07:52AM

twoheadedboy writes: "Book lovers are increasingly turning to e-books, and in the UK Amazon has announced it now sells more e-books than physical copies on Amazon.co.uk. Kindle books surpassed sales of hardbacks in the UK back in May 2011 at a rate of two to one and now they have leapfrogged the combined totals of both hardbacks and paperbacks. The same happened in the US not so long ago, largely thanks to the popularity of novels like EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey, which started out as an e-book before being released in paperback."

Submission + - Apple Support Duped Into Handing Over iCloud Login (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Monday August 06, 2012 @07:48AM

twoheadedboy writes: "It appears the Apple support system might need a rethink, after a hacker managed to dupe workers in the AppleCare department into handing over iCloud login details. The snafu came to light when a former Gizmodo worker, Mat Honan, had his account compromised. The hackers used the information they had from the iCloud to attack other accounts belonging to Honan. That included a Twitter account that was linked to the Gizmodo Twitter profile, which had bafflingly started sending out offensive messages last week. Now Apple is being called on to sort out its support team processes."

Submission + - More Firefox OS Images Surface (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Friday August 03, 2012 @09:51AM

twoheadedboy writes: "More pictures have leaked out of Mozilla HQ, showing us what Firefox OS is likely to look like. Many are hoping the open source operating system will challenge iOS and Android, but from these images it doesn't look as if it will offer anything radically different."

Submission + - RBS IT Fail Costs It £125 million (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Friday August 03, 2012 @09:46AM

twoheadedboy writes: "The cataclysmic IT failure at RBS last month has cost the firm £125 million. At least, that's how much it has set aside to pay for the epic cock-up, which saw millions of its customers unable to make or receive payments in June. "A charge of £125 million has been accrued in Q2 2012 in relation to the costs of this incident, principally covering redress to the Group’s customers," RBS said. "Additional costs may arise once all redress and business disruption items are clear and a further update will be given in Q3.""

Submission + - Iran Nuclear Agency Not 'Thunderstruck' By Virus (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Thursday August 02, 2012 @11:07AM

twoheadedboy writes: "Iran may have been hit hard by Stuxnet, but officials have said that reports of a virus infecting its nuclear facilities and forcing computers to play the AC/DC classic 'Thunderstruck' were rubbish. Last month, F-Secure's chief research officer, Mikko Hypponen, was sent an email that appeared to be from a scientist working at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), claiming nuclear systems had been targeted by cyber attackers. Whilst the chief of the AEOI has come out to deny those claims, the sender of that email still managed to get hold of an official aeoi.org.ir email address. That has left some onlookers baffled about what is going on."

Submission + - Yahoo Sued For Password Breach (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Thursday August 02, 2012 @08:30AM

twoheadedboy writes: "Yahoo is being sued by one of its users, who has claimed the US Internet company was guilty of negligence when 450,000 passwords of the members of the Yahoo Voices blogging community were posted online. Jeff Allan from New Hampshire has turned to a federal court in San Jose, California, after his eBay account, which used the same password as his Voices account, was compromised. The breach at Yahoo followed similar hits on LinkedIn and Nvidia, which together saw millions of passwords leaked."

Submission + - UK Gov's Open Data Work Slammed As 'Sloppy' (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Thursday August 02, 2012 @08:11AM

twoheadedboy writes: "The government’s open data initiative has been slammed for sloppily presenting information to the public. The Commons Public Accounts Committee published a report that praised the government’s efforts to make public sector information more transparent, but said more work was needed to truly tap into the scheme’s potential. The open data project is supposed to be empowering people with clear information, but it seems the Coalition is failing to live up to its promises."

Submission + - Crooks Impersonate Police In Widespread Ransomware Attacks (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Thursday August 02, 2012 @08:07AM

twoheadedboy writes: "Cyber criminals have managed to infect over 1,100 systems with ransomware that attempts to extort money from people by impersonating the Met’s Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU). In the UK, 36 have been duped into handing over £100 each, after they were infected with malware that locked people out of their machines until they paid a fine to the fake PCeU. But the problem is Europe-wide as Europol is also involved in the hunt for the criminals."

Submission + - Microsoft Signs Off On Windows 8 (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Thursday August 02, 2012 @05:29AM

twoheadedboy writes: "Microsoft has opened up Windows 8 to manufacturers, as it gears up for its most significant launch in years. Windows 8 will be made available to the general public on 26 October, but Microsoft has finished its work on the operating system, handing the final code to OEM partners, who will now work on mass producing devices running the software. Developers will also be able to start charging for apps, whilst app submissions are open to any company in a "supported locale"."

Submission + - Huawei Routers Contain Multiple Vulnerabilities, Experts Claim (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Thursday August 02, 2012 @05:17AM

twoheadedboy writes: "Security experts claim Huawei routers lack modern security measures and contain multiple vulnerabilities. The two researchers – Felix “FX” Lindner and Gregor Kopf, both of Recurity Labs – analysed two small-office routers made by Huawei and found a number of vulnerabilities. The ease with which the flaws were exploited shows that the company appears to have a security process reminiscent of the 1990s, complete with a lack of response to bug reports, Lindner said."

Submission + - Facebook Shares Carbon Footprint Data For First Time Ever (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Wednesday August 01, 2012 @12:29PM

twoheadedboy writes: "Facebook has opened up on its environmental impact. Following pressure from campaign group Greenpeace last year, the social network today revealed its carbon footprint figures for the first time. The data showed that Facebook has a lower carbon footprint than Google, which produces 1.5 million tonnes of carbon annually. In 2011, the social networking giant produced 285,000 metric tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent, which includes greenhouse gases CO2, CH4, N2O, and hydrofluorocarbons). Greenpeace praised Facebook's move, saying it was an important milestone for the company and “for an industry that needs to be more transparent about its energy use”."

Submission + - Could Batman's 'Clean Slate' Identity Deleter Work? (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Wednesday August 01, 2012 @08:00AM

twoheadedboy writes: "How would you like a piece of software that could erase your identity so you could start all over again? That's what the 'Clean Slate' software in The Dark Knight Rises film does by scouring all databases containing data on an individual and deleting that information. But could 'Clean Slate' work outside of Batman's fictional world? Most likely not, given the way databases are dispersed across the world, but similar pieces of technology could be created. But what would that mean for data and what dilemmas would such software create? This article explores those questions..."

Submission + - Open Cloud Amazon Challenger Launched (techweekeurope.co.uk)

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twoheadedboy

on Wednesday August 01, 2012 @07:54AM

twoheadedboy writes: "Rackspace has launched the biggest cloud based on the open source OpenStack technology, as it looks to offer competition to the proprietary model of Amazon. Amazon Web Services is by far the most popular public cloud service on the planet, but Rackspace thinks it will gain popularity by allowing people to hook their OpenStack clouds up to other OpenStack clouds from different vendors. You can see where Rackspace is coming from, but will people really want to leave Amazon given how much it offers?"

Submission + - Dropbox Admits Accounts Hacked For Spam Campaign (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by

twoheadedboy

on Wednesday August 01, 2012 @07:51AM

twoheadedboy writes: "When Dropbox customers started seeing a load of spam in their Dropbox-associated email accounts, it was clear something was up. After calling in outside help, Dropbox has now confirmed that a number of accounts were hacked. A “small number” of accounts were compromised, whilst one stolen password was used to access a Dropbox employee’s account, which contained a project document with user email addresses. The cloud storage company has now apologised and promised to improve security."

Submission + - Could Batman's 'Clean Slate' Identity Deleter Work? (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by

twoheadedboy

on Tuesday July 31, 2012 @12:54PM

twoheadedboy writes: "The latest Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, features a piece of software called ‘Clean Slate’. What does it do? It erases identities, purportedly by trawling every database containing information on a specific person and deleting that data. But could it work in the real world, given the way databases are managed now? TechWeekEurope takes a look..."

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