S2T4W8 Friday: New iPhone has a Little More Bling, The Cost of Illegal Downloading, iPhone makes it into The Guinness World Book, Trust No One, Microsoft Aquisitions

1.

Analyst: New iPhone to Have More Bling, But Not Much

By Daniel Ionescu, PCWorld    May 14, 2011 9:30 AM

More bling is expected from the next iteration of Apple's popular iPhone, but not the type that will stir a revolution.

That's the assessment in a recent research note by industry analyst Peter Misek of Jefferies & Co. that was picked up by several news organizations.

The proof is in the name. Misek said the name of the handset is expected to be the iPhone 4S, instead of iPhone 5.

Some of the incremental improvements, according to Misek, include Sprint and T-Mobile selling the device, better cameras from Sony and HSPA+ support. He expects Apple to put the A5 chip from the iPad 2 tablet into the new iPhone, giving it dual-core processing power.

The research note doesn't mention anything about NFC capabilities in the new iPhone, which were widely speculated earlier this year. Such short-range wireless connectivity allows data and images to easily be transmitted between two devices such as a cell phone and a computer by touching one to the other.

At least more carriers are set to have the new iPhone this year. That would mean Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S. joining AT&T and Verizon. A look inside the Verizon iPhone revealed its radio chip could handle radio frequencies from all top four U.S. carriers.

But if you were keeping your hopes up for a 4G LTE iPhone though, Misek said Apple is not happy enough with the technology to include it in the new model expected in the next few months. Instead, it will feature HSPA+, which is what AT&T calls 4G. This could be explained by recent reviews of 4G Android phones, where abysmal battery life was noted--a trade-off Apple probably wants to avoid.

2.

LimeWire Agrees to Pay $105 Million to Record Labels

By Grant Gross, IDG News    May 13, 2011 10:50 pm

LimeWire has agreed to pay record labels US$105 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the file-sharing service allowed its users to infringe copyright, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced late Thursday.

Thirteen record labels, in a lawsuit filed in August 2006, alleged that LimeWire was "devoted essentially to the Internet piracy" of music. Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered LimeWire to stop distributing its peer-to-peer software in October of last year.

The out-of-court settlement came after a jury trial that focused on damages to be paid by LimeWire and CEO Mark Gorton began in New York last week.

"We are pleased to have reached a large monetary settlement following the court's finding both LimeWire and its founder Mark Gorton personally liable for copyright infringement," RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol said in a statement. "As the court heard during the last two weeks, LimeWire wreaked enormous damage on the music community, helping contribute to thousands of lost jobs and fewer opportunities for aspiring artists."

Bainwol called the settlement a "reason for celebration by the entire music community."

The settlement reinforces the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling against P2P vendor Grokster in 2005, Bainwol added. The court ruled that Grokster and StreamCast Networks can be held liable for copyright infringement committed by users.

The settlement and the Grokster case show that "designing and operating services to profit from the theft of the world's greatest music comes with a stiff price," Bainwol said.

LimeWire's lawyer, Joseph Baio of Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York, wasn't immediately available to comment on the settlement.

LimeWire.com's home page has a note about the injunction issued by Wood. "We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal," the note said.

3. 

Guinness Awards Gaming Records to iPhone 4, App Store

By Ed Oswald, PCWorld    May 14, 2011 2:03 PM

The Guinness Book of World Records has bestowed the honor of fastest-growing gaming system uponApple's iPhone 4, as well as noting that the App Store itself and several games in it also have set records.

An estimated 1.5 million iPhone 4s were sold on launch day, far eclipsing any other gaming system. Guinness noted that the PlayStation Portable only sold 200,000 units in its first day, and it was a full week until the Nintendo DS pushed 500,000 consoles out the door.

"The release of the iPhone has not just changed the mobile industry, but the video game world too," Guinness' gaming editor Gaz Deaves says in a statement. The organization also noted that Apple's App Store holds the record for the largest downloadable video game store with 37,362 titles available.

Guinness did not provide numbers from the Android Market for comparison purposes, but noted the App Store was well ahead of other competitors including Xbox Live Arcade (around 1300) and Wii's Virtual Console service at 576.

Angry Birds is also receiving honors for being the "Top Paid-For App Store Game in Most Countries." The title is the top paid download in 67 countries on the App Store with an estimated 6.5 million paid downloads.

Other records for iOS games include Tap Tap Revenge for the most popular App Store game in history with 15 million downloads, and Plants vs. Zombies set two records in the strategy category. It was the highest grossing launch with $1 million in revenue for developer PopCap in the first nine days, as well as the fastest selling with 300,000 downloads in that same period.

4.

On the Internet, Trust No One

By Ted Landau, Macworld    May 15, 2011 6:00 am

On the Internet, trust no one. Or at least, as President Reagan famously said, "Trust, but verify." In particular, whenever an unusual and unexpected message appears on your computer, be suspicious of its authenticity.

The most recent example supporting this advice is the MAC Defender Trojan horse. As previously covered here at Macworld, after clicking a link to a site that comes up in a Google search, a message may pop up claiming that your computer is "infected." At the same time, a ZIP file is downloaded to your Mac. If you're using Safari, the file is automatically launched, unless you disabled the option to 'Open "safe" files after downloading' in Safari's Preferences. The downloaded file turns out to be an installer for a supposed piece of software named MAC Defender. You are asked to purchase this software so as to fix the "infection."

It's all a scam. There is no actual program to install. The goal of the creators of this con is simply to get your money and credit card number.

After reports of the scam began circulating on the Web, the package was modified with a new name: MAC Security. It's just as phony.

This is merely the latest in a series of similar scams. For example, as reported in an Apple Support Communities thread posted in January, Skype users may receive a false alert claiming: "ATTENTION! Security Center has detected malware on your computer."

How can you tell if these warnings are phony? What should you do if and when you receive one?

For starters, assume that all such unfamiliar messages are scams. Better safe than sorry. There are no legitimate error messages in Mac OS X or Safari (or any other Internet-connected software that I have ever used) that directly link to unrelated third-party sites. If the third-party site requests any personal information, from an email address to a credit card number, be even more suspicious (if that's possible).

Don't click on any links included in such messages. Don't install any software that accompanies the message. Don't provide any personal information at all. In fact, don't do anything that the message requests that you do. Just ignore it and discard it.

Similarly, beware of phishing scams in emails that you receive. If you get an email, even from a website that you frequent (such as Facebook or PayPal), that includes a link to login to the site: beware. It could be a fake message taking you to a phony site--all designed to trick you into giving scammers your username, password, and/or credit card number.

As a rule, whenever I receive any such messages from known vendors, if I think there is any chance that the message is legitimate, I separately log in to the site, ignoring the provided link. If I truly need to perform the requested action, I should be prompted to do so.

The same rule applies to e-mail attachments. Be especially suspicious of unsolicited attachments from unknown senders. In this regard, Microsoft recently posted Security Bulletin MS11-036, describing a vulnerability in Microsoft PowerPoint that "could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted PowerPoint file. An attacker... could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user." You could be at risk by opening a suspect PowerPoint file that you received in an e-mail. On a Mac, the danger is limited to Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008 (not the latest 2011 version). An update to patch the security hole is in the works, and should be available soon.

This is the world we live in--where being skeptical typically pays off and being trusting too often leads to disaster. Still, I suppose it's always been that way, at least as far back as when P.T. Barnum ispurported to have said "There's a sucker born every minute." The technology keeps getting updated; the dangers stay the same.

5.

To read this more closly go to:   http://www.coolinfographics.com/

S2T4W8 Wednesday: The 'Post-PC' Era Is Here -- But Don't Junk Your PC Just Yet, Former Hacker Comments on How PSN Attack May Have Gone Down, Microsoft: One in 14 Downloads Is Malicious, Should You Delete Your profile?

1.

The 'Post-PC' Era Is Here -- But Don't Junk Your PC Just Yet

By Jeff Bertolucci, PCWorld    May 17, 2011 3:31 PM

Has the much-discussed "post-PC era" finally begun? The term has been tossed about for years by industry executives and pundits alike. Its most recent high-profile use came during Steve Jobs' iPad 2 unveiling in March, when the Apple CEO/guru called the iPhone, iPod, and iPad "post-PC devices" that needed to be more intuitive and easier to use than conventional desktops or laptops.
Well, add Forrester Research to the list of industry watchers who believe the post-PC era has begun. In a new report released Tuesday, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps says that computing devices--and how we interact with them--are currently undergoing a dramatic shift to:
· Ubiquitous computing: Mobile devices with sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, and geolocators are freeing us from the stationary limitations of desktop PCs.
· "Casual" computing: Instant-on/always-on smartphones and tablets remove the formal boot up/shutdown process of the desktop.
· A more intimate experience: Tablets and smartphones are kept close to your body, whereas using a laptop or desktop is "arms-length activity," writes Epps in a blog post. This means that consumers are using computing devices in intimate places, including the bedroom. Sounds like a boon to couples' therapists to me.
· Physical interaction with devices: Touchscreens, voice input, motion-sensing devices such as Microsoft Kinect, and cameras with facial recognition allow your "body and voice" to control the machine. By comparison, the desktop's mouse/keyboard interface is more abstract and less personal.
What's it all mean? Certainly, the mobility and ubiquity of today's tech devices is changing the way interact with our digital assistants. But the laptop and desktop aren't going away anytime soon.
"So what does 'post-PC' mean, anyway? It doesn't mean that the PC is dead," Epps writes. In fact, Forrester forecasts that U.S. consumer laptop sales will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8 percent between 2010 and 2015, and desktop sales will decline only slightly.
And while 82 million American consumers will own a tablet in 2015, more than 140 million will own a laptop, Forrester predicts.
"In the post-PC era, the 'PC' is alive and well, but it morphs to support computing experiences that are increasingly ubiquitous, casual, intimate, and physical," says Epps.


2.

Former Hacker Comments on How PSN Attack May Have Gone Down

By    May 17, 2011 3:24 PM

The PlayStation Network is back up for most gamers around the world, but Sony has yet to give an explanation as to why and how the attack brought down the service for over a month.
Former hacker and lead architect at Mykonos Software, Kyle Adams, spoke with PCWorld about how the hack may have occurred. Adams suggests Sony may have left its doors wide open for attack by using outdated software.
Was the PlayStation Blog a Gateway?
Hackers likely gained access using an SQL injection attack, according to Adams. In other words, hackers inserted malicious code into the database, and the server erroneously executed the code. This allowed the hackers to gain access to the server.
Adams suggests that the attackers may have entered the server through Sony's blog. Sony's blog was using an outdated version of Wordpress, which has known SQL injection vulnerabilities.
"It seems likely to me that Sony got attacked through its web services first, such as the blog, and it opened up the doors to the rest of Sony's servers," Adams told PCWorld.
The attack on Sony's PSN was an "advanced persistent threat," which, as the name suggests, is a series of ongoing, planned attacks. Each planned attack opens up more and more doors, allowing the hackers to advance further into the server.
Hackers On Sony's Servers For Months
"The depths they went indicates that this hack wasn't arbitrary," Adams said.
He explains that these types of attacks can go on for weeks or even months without being discovered, and that APTs typically involve attempts to obtain valuable data.
"They perceive value in the site they're going after," Adams said. "There's a whole lot of value in the data Sony had. There's always a buyer out there."
Adams did stress that he believes Anonymous had nothing to do with the attack, and notes that the group has never hacked and taken personal information in the past.
Adams seemed to concede, however, that Sony's claim that Anonymous may have made the hacker's jobs easier with their DDoS attacks has some validity.
"It's possible for another group to go through an open backdoor," he said.


3.

Microsoft: One in 14 Downloads Is Malicious

By Robert McMillan, IDG News

The next time a website says to download new software to view a movie or fix a problem, think twice. There's a pretty good chance that the program is malicious.

In fact, about one out of every 14 programs downloaded by Windows users turns out to be malicious, Microsoft said Tuesday. And even though Microsoft has a feature in its Internet Explorer browser designed to steer users away from unknown and potentially untrustworthy software, about 5 percent of users ignore the warnings and download malicious Trojan horse programs anyway.
Five years ago, it was pretty easy for criminals to sneak their code onto computers. There were plenty of browser bugs, and many users weren't very good at patching. But since then, the cat-and-mouse game of Internet security has evolved: Browsers have become more secure, and software makers can quickly and automatically push out patches when there's a known problem.
So increasingly, instead of hacking the browsers themselves, the bad guys try to hack the people using them. It's called social engineering, and it's a big problem these days. "The attackers have figured out that it's not that hard to get users to download Trojans," said Alex Stamos, a founding partner with Isec Partners, a security consultancy that's often called in to clean up the mess after companies have been hacked.
Social engineering is how the Koobface virus spreads on Facebook. Users get a message from a friend telling them to go and view a video. When they click on the link, they're then told that they need to download some sort of video playing software in order to watch. That software is actually a malicious program.
Social-engineering hackers also try to infect victims by hacking into Web pages and popping up fake antivirus warnings designed to look like messages from the operating system. Download these and you're infected. The criminals also use spam to send Trojans, and they will trick search engines into linking to malicious websites that look like they have interesting stories or video about hot news such as the royal wedding or the death of Osama bin Laden.
"The attackers are very opportunistic, and they latch onto any event that might be used to lure people," said Joshua Talbot, a manager with Symantec Security Response. When Symantec tracked the 50 most common malicious programs last year, it found that 56 percent of all attacks included Trojan horse programs.
In enterprises, a social-engineering technique called spearphishing is a serious problem. In spearphishing, the criminals take the time to figure out who they're attacking, and then they create a specially crafted program or a maliciously encoded document that the victim is likely to want to open -- materials from a conference they've attended or a planning document from an organization that they do business with.
With its new SmartScreen Filter Application Reputation screening, introduced in IE 9, Internet Explorer provides a first line of defense against Trojan horse programs, including Trojans sent in spearphishing attacks.
IE also warns users when they're being tricked into visiting malicious websites, another way that social-engineering hackers can infect computer users. In the past two years, IE's SmartScreen has blocked more than 1.5 billion Web and download attacks, according to Jeb Haber, program manager lead for SmartScreen.
Haber agreed that better browser protection is pushing the criminals into social engineering, especially over the past two years. "You're just seeing an explosion in direct attacks on users with social engineering," he said. "We were really surprised by the volumes. The volumes have been crazy."
When the SmartScreen warning pops up to tell users that they're about to run a potentially harmful program, the odds are between 25 percent and 70 percent that the program will actually be malicious, Haber said. A typical user will only see a couple of these warnings each year, so it's best to take them very seriously.



4.

S2T4W8 Monday:Sony PSN Update, Mobiles Killing Bees, Sitting All Day is Killing You, Exam Revision

1.

Sony Resuming PlayStation Network, Qriocity Services

By Martyn Williams, IDG News    May 15, 2011 8:10 am

Sony will begin a phased resumption of its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services on Sunday, more than three weeks after a cyber attackthat resulted in the loss of personal information on more than 100 million customers.

The two services will initially be available for users in North America (where the service could resume late Saturday), Europe, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. Service in Japan and Asia will return at a later time yet to be announced.

First services to return will be online gaming, playback of already rented video, "Music Unlimited" online audio streaming, access to third-party services like Netflix and Hulu, PlayStation Home and friends features such as chat. Full service is expected to resume by the end of May.

Users Must Change Passwords

PlayStation users will be prompted to download a software update when they first connect to the network. The version 3.61 update will ask users to change their password. Once changed, users will be able to sign in to their accounts.

The login password for each account was among the data stolen when an unknown hacker or hackersattacked Sony's San Diego data center on April 19. Other information leaked included the names and addresses for registered PlayStation Network and Qriocity users, along with their birth dates, e-mail addresses and other personal information.

Later, Sony discovered a similar attack on its Sony Online Entertainment network, which serves PC users. That service will also resume worldwide on Sunday.

The entire attack netted personal information on more than 100 million users, making it one of the largest ever known leaks of consumer data.

Three Weeks to Rebuild

Sony has spent much of the past three weeks analyzing the hack and rebuilding its network to better guard against future attacks.

The upgrades have brought "considerable enhancements to the data security, including updating and adding advanced security technologies, additional software monitoring and penetration and vulnerability testing, and increased levels of encryption and additional firewalls," Sony said in a statement. It has also added software to provide an early warning of system activity that could indicate an attack has taken place.

Throughout the period the PlayStation Network has remained offline,depriving console owners of the ability to play online.

"I can't thank you enough for your patience and support during this time," said Kaz Hirai, executive deputy president of Sony and head of its gaming division, in a statement. "We know even the most loyal customers have been frustrated by this process and are anxious to use their Sony products and services again. We are taking aggressive action at all levels to address the concerns that were raised by this incident, and are making consumer data protection a full-time, company wide commitment."

2.

Is the Cellphone Killing the Honeybee?

By Jeff Bertolucci, PCWorld    May 13, 2011 3:16 PM

Pity the poor honeybee. Since 2003, bee colonies around the globe have declining at an alarming rate. And since bees play a vital role in agricultural production, that's bad news for us humans. Scientists suspect many factors may be responsible, including pesticides, viruses, the varroa mite, genetically modified crops, and even exceptionally cold winters. Now we can add cellphones to the list of possible culprits.

A study by Swiss researcher Daniel Favre shows that mobile phone-generated electromagnetic fields may contribute to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a condition that causes worker bees to desert the hive. In most cases, the queen bee is left with eggs, immature bees, and a lot of honey. The colony survives for a short time, but soon dies out without its workers.

"Recent efforts have been made to study another potential cause responsible for bee losses: manmade electromagnetic fields," Favre writes. And while the results obtained to date have been "highly controversial," they suggest a connection between the growing use of cellphones and a declining bee population.

Earlier studies have shown that cordless telephones placed at the bottom of beehives altered the behavior of honeybees that returned to the hive after foraging. However, other reports have failed to find a connection between mobile phones and colony collapse.

'Honeycomb' could be hurting honeybees.The Latest Buzz

Favre's 2009 study exposed honeybees to active cellphone radiation. "The goal of these experiments was to identify potential effects of mobile phone communications on honeybee behavior," he writes.

The researcher recorded sounds produced by bees in five healthy hives in two Switzerland locations between February and June 2009. The study recorded the bees' sounds with active mobile phones in the hive. Two mobile handsets (900MHz GSM) were chosen at random.

The bees were also recorded during their normal activities, both with and without inactive mobile phones.

With the active devices, the first handset was triggered to call the second phone in the hive. A connection was made after 5 to 10 seconds of ringing.

Sound analyst shows the bees weren't disturbed by inactive or standby mobile phones. However, active cellphones confused the bees, creating "worker piping," or a signal to leave the hive.

The findings suggest that "the behavior of the bees remained perturbed for up to 12 hours after the end of the prolonged mobile phone communication," Favre writes. "This observation means that honeybees are sensitive to pulsed electromagnetic fields generated by the mobile telephones."

More Study Needed

In real life, of course, you won't find mobile phones in beehives.   And further studies are needed--those that place cellphones at greater distances from the bees--to study the connection between odd honeybee behavior and mobile phone-generated electromagnetic fields.

Favre points to a recent experiment suggesting that cellphones and cellphone towers located near beehives hamper honeybee navigation.

"In one experiment, it was found that when a mobile phone was kept near a beehive it resulted in a collapse of the colony in 5 to 10 days, with the worker bees failing to return home, leaving the hives with just queens, eggs, and hive-bound immature bees," he writes.

3. SITTING ALL DAY IS KILLING YOU

4.

Remember your exam is in 2 weeks time and most of the revision you need to do is using the quizzes that you have had all semester and reviewing the information in

You are welcome to use some class time to do some revision.

5.

HTML PUZZLES

Continue working on these.  Depending on how they are progressing I think we will do a peer review on Friday as it appears many people are close to finishing.  Remember to consult the rubric in order to maximise your marks.

S2T4W6 Friday: Time for Reflection, Mobile Marketing, Green Cred Redux, device recycling, Quiz Review, Quiz

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1. Sony CEO Stringer Apologizes for Data Breach

Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer apologized for a massive data breach of the company's online game networks—the first public remarks by the top executive as Sony works to reassure its customers following the theft of personal data from more than 100 million online accounts.
"I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you," Mr. Stringer said in a blog post addressed to Sony customers late Thursday evening. "Let me assure you that the resources of this company have been focused on investigating the entire nature and impact of the cyber-attack we've all experienced and on fixing it."

More

• Digits: Read the Letter from Sony CEO Stringer

The intrusion, which occurred last month, resulting in the theft of names, email addresses and possibly credit card information from its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment gaming services. Sony took down the PlayStation Network over two weeks ago to investigate the intrusion and secure the network from future attacks.
On Thursday, Sony also revealed details of a plan to provide its customers with free identity theft prevention services for 12 months. Sony said the prevention service, provided through a company called Debix Inc., will alert Sony customers to unauthorized use of their personal information and a $1 million insurance policy if they become the victims of identity theft.
Sony executives have come under increasing pressure, including inquiries from legislators and government privacy officials, to provide a fuller accounting of the data theft and the amount of time it took for Sony to notify its customers. Members of Congress, the New York State attorney general and German privacy officials have asked for information from the company on the topic.
In his post, Mr. Stringer said he knows that some people believe the company should have notified it customers earlier about the intrusion, calling it a "fair question." Sony has said the attack on its network occurred between April 17 and 19, but the company didn't reveal the complete extent of the customer data that was stolen until April 26.
Mr. Stringer, echoing previous comments made by other Sony executives, said it took time for the company to figure out the full extent of the damage.
"I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process," Mr. Stringer said. "Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had—or had not—been taken."
Until the release of the letter, Mr. Stringer had remained surprisingly quiet on the problem, leaving the public handling to his trusted lieutenant and heir apparent, Kazuo Hirai, head of the company's videogames division. In March, Sony promoted Mr. Hirai and identified him as the frontrunner eventually to succeed Mr. Stringer, citing his deep understanding of integrating hardware, software and online services in a single product.
Since the network outage situation first emerged, Sony officials said Mr. Stringer was letting Mr. Hirai take the lead because Mr. Hirai is better versed in both the videogame and online services businesses than Mr. Stringer.
And yet Mr. Stringer remains the most prominent global public face of the company. In his post, he said Sony is still investigating the break-in and is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and "other law enforcement agencies around the world to apprehend those responsible." He said the company is upgrading its security systems so that "if attacks like this happen again, our defenses will be even stronger."
Sony hasn't yet disclosed the cost of the data breach on the company, including the investigation, which has involved hiring several outside forensic, security and law firms.
In early Tokyo stock trading Friday morning, Sony's stock was down more than 4%.

A big priority for the company now is to get the PlayStation Network up and running to avoid further damage to its relationship with customers, who rely on the service to play multiplayer games against each other over the Internet.
A Sony spokesman on Thursday said in a blog post that the company is in the final stages of testing its new security system, though he didn't say when its online gaming services would be available again to customers. Mr. Stringer suggested the company will meet its goal of bringing its game services back online by the end of the week.
"In the coming days, we will restore service to the networks and welcome you back to the fun," he said.

In other news.............

Privacy Concerns Stall Growth of Location Apps

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2. Password management firm faces possible hack

Irregular network activity caused cloud-based password management solution LastPass to issue a security notification this week. In addition to the security notice, LastPass is requiring users to change their master passwords as a precaution.
On its blog, LastPass notes that it noticed some strange network activity in several places in its system. Because the root cause for the traffic couldn’t be ascertained, LastPass is assuming the worst.

Advertisement: Story continues below

From its blog: 
"…We’re going to be paranoid and assume the worst: that the data we stored in the database was somehow accessed. We know roughly the amount of data transferred and that it’s big enough to have transferred people’s email addresses, the server salt and their salted password hashes from the database. We also know that the amount of data taken isn’t remotely enough to have pulled many users encrypted data blobs."
LastPass notes that the potential threat in this case is brute-force password attacks, likely using dictionary-based key generators. For that reason, LastPass says users who have strong, non-dictionary based passwords or pass phrases should be fine.
Understanding that not all users have a strict password, however, LastPass is requiring everyone to change their master password.
An unfortunate side effect of all this password changing, however, is overloading the LastPass infrastructure. In an update to its blog, LastPass posted this: 
"Record traffic, plus a rush of people to make password changes is more than we can currently handle. We’re switching tactics — if you’ve made the password change already we’ll handle you normally."
What this means is that LastPass users who have not already changed their passwords will be logged into offline mode. LastPass will work as usual, but the syncing of new passwords won’t be available.

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Understanding the real threat

---

Operating under LastPass’s worst-case assumption that email addresses, server salt and salted password hashes were lifted from the LastPass database, there is little reason to think that users face any substantial risk.
Although crackers may now be able to use brute-force methods to crack the passwords for some users, LastPass is taking major steps to prevent access to user accounts from nefarious sources.
First, the company is requiring that users change their master password. Because of the site’s server load, this process could take days. However, all users will be required to change their passwords before they can access their accounts.
Second, LastPass will be verifying that users are who they say they are, by requiring email validation or by having users enter the password change form via an IP block used in the past. In other words, if a request is coming from an IP range thousands of miles away from the last place a user logged in, the user won’t gain access without going through another verification layer.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/password-management-firm-faces-possible-hack-20110506-1eau0.html#ixzz1LXDt0GPP

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3. Telstra hits first with Motorola Xoom and Atrix

Telstra will be the first telco in Australia to offer the Motorola Xoom tablet - the first device worldwide to run the designed-for-tablets Android 3.0 OS - and the Atrix Android smartphone, billed as the most powerful smartphone in the world, with its dual 1GHz processors.

Telstra will launch the Atrix on 7 June and willhave an exclusive on it until the end of July. It has no exclusivity on the Xoom, which will go on sale on 24 May, but Motorola has yet to announce any other channels to market.

Both devices will sell for $840 outright. The Xoom will be available on a range of 24 month contract plans with a mobile repayment option that reduces the device price to $60 on $29 and $49 plans and to $360 on a $79 plan. It will also be available with prepaid services, but not details have yet been announced.

According to Andrew Volard, director of Telstra Mobile Products, "By harnessing the computing power traditionally reserved for a PC, Atrix makes it possible for customers to enjoy graphic-intensive games and HD video - plus fast mobile web browsing and multitasking…It is the first smartphone to seriously blur the line between phone and computer.

The Atrix is billed as "launching a new era of mobile computing." According to Motorola it is "designed to become a customer's primary digital hub to create, edit and enjoy documents, media and content."

Blurring the computer phone distinction it is less a phone than a pocket sized computer that, depending on which external docking accessories it iscoupled with fulfils different functions. These range from a basic dock ($59) that charges the phone and puts it into bedside alarm clock mode to a 'Lapdock' ($449) that looks like a laptop computer but is in
reality merely a screen and keyboard for the Atrix - with additional batteries.

There is car dock ($69), an HD Multimedia Dock ($129) with three USB ports and an HDMI port and an infra red remote control and a bluetooth keyboard ($79) that can also be used with the Xoom.

While not a computer in the sense that it is an Android device, the Atrix runs a full version (3.6) of the Firefox browser, not the Android mobile version, with support for Adobe Flash Player.

Full function Firefox

Support for Firefox, and a range of other functions, are enabled by Motorola's Webtop application that, according to Motorola "changes mobile computing forever by unleashing the power of the smartphone like never before...While using the Webtop application customers can run their Android applications in a window, browse their favourite websites with a full Firefox desktop browser, edit documents, send instant messages and make phone calls, all at the same time…Users can surf the web, view social networks and use HTML5 web-based
applications and supported cloud computing services."

For the corporate market the Atrix " allows people to easily work with corporate email, documents and media….Business people with an existing Citrix account will benefit from the integrated Citrix Receiver application that provides secure, high performance access to virtual desktops as well as Windows, web and office applications hosted on Citrix XenDesktop." Added security is provided by fingerprint recognition technology.

The Atrix has a 4.00 screen with scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass and "one of the highest resolutions available on any phone today," 5MP and 2MP cameras, 16GB of on board memory and the capacity for a 32GB microSD card.

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4. YouTube Jokes

PROVIDENCE, RI—According to a study released this week by Brown University's Department of Modern Culture and Media, it now takes only four minutes for a new cultural touchstone to transform from an amusing novelty into an intensely annoying thing people never want to see or hear again.
"The American populace experienced a genuine sense of enjoyment when initially exposed to phenomena as diverse as the Double Rainbow video, the actor Jon Heder, and the phrase 'Stay thirsty, my friends,'" lead researcher Irene Levinson said. "But what's remarkable is that these exact same things were rejected with an almost violent revulsion less than 240 seconds later."
"The results are the same for everything from TV news bloopers to professional ad campaigns, with only a handful of exceptions," Levinson added. "For example, it takes, on average, less than 90 seconds to go from feeling delight to active enmity for anything that involves talking infants."

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According to researchers, the unprecedented exposure afforded by the Internet is responsible for the speed with which such phenomena shift from eliciting joyous chuckles to provoking blind, undiluted rage.
"The average web user receives a dozen links and reads 60 mentions of a new meme or sensation within the first 45 seconds of being online," said Salvador Calder, a media studies professor. "During this period of peak popularity, individuals seem to derive a great level of satisfaction from endlessly repeating an entity's signature component, be it a contrived Kazakh accent or the words 'epic fail.'"
"However," Calder continued, "at roughly the 91-second mark, when the phenomenon has been remixed, set to a dance beat, and Auto-Tuned, that original sense of pleasure begins its inevitable, precipitous decline."
Calder's data indicate that between the second and third minute, the phenomenon is typically signed to a movie, book, or record deal, the news of which tends to trigger a "harsh and immediate reassessment" among most individuals as to whether the thing was ever legitimately amusing in the first place.
"A wide-scale backlash is initiated shortly after four minutes," Calder said. "This is usually the point when one is no longer able to turn on a TV or engage in a normal conversation without hearing someone make a clumsy reference to the now painfully stale entity."
"It's precisely at this moment when the subject starts to experience an unshakable and overwhelming desire to punch anyone making further allusion to the phenomenon right in the face," Calder added.
The study confirmed that 98.7 percent of attempts to capitalize on the public's annoyance with the phenomenon through mockery and spoofs also backfired, serving only to compound and intensify people's fury instead.
Using data collected over the past four decades, the research team determined that it used to take considerably longer for a cultural phenomenon to evolve from an entertaining diversion into the most reviled thing on the planet. In a particularly telling example, the study showed how the phrase "Yo quiero Taco Bell" sustained itself as an acceptable interjection for four years during the pre-broadband era. They then compared this to a modern-day equivalent, "Release the Kraken," which last year was angrily snuffed after only two days due to the "excruciating levels of irritation" that it inflicted on the population.
Researchers predict the time lag between novelty and utter hatred is likely to narrow further as technological advancements continue to increase and expand social connectedness online.
"We project that by 2018, the gap between liking something new and wishing yourself dead rather than hearing it again will be down to 60 seconds," Levinson said. "And by 2023, enjoyment and abhorrence will occur simultaneously, the two emotions effectively canceling each other out and leaving one feeling nothing whatsoever."
"I can't f**king wait," he added.

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5. Digital Life

 

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S2T4W6 Wednesday: Time for Reflection, Online Marketing, iPhone 5, Prof Teaches, Puzzle, Digital Life

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1. Time for Reflection

Before the end of the academic year it is time to reflect on this class. Your reflections will form part of your assessment so please give it some thought. The file can be found at  

Secondary/Curriculum/Computing/Semester2_WebDesign_Reflections.docx.

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2. The QUERTY Keyboard - Habits Die Hard

Quick -- look at the very computer you're reading this on. In order to communicate with this futuristic device you're still using an archaic system that hasn't been improved since it was introduced 130 years ago. We're talking about your keyboard.

Why It's Inefficient:

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Besides not being able to take a punch.

When you rest your hands on the "home row" like they told you in high school, check out what keys you're touching -- A, S, D, F, J, K, L and semicolon. Besides A and S, you're looking at a conga line of some of the least-used letters in the English language and possibly the least useful punctuation mark of all time. In fact, your right index finger, the dominant finger on most people's dominant hand, is sitting on goddamn J, which is worth 8 points in Scrabble for a reason -- it's the fourth-least-used letter, trumped only by the loser letters X, Q and Z.
How did we wind up with this intuition-defying random configuration? Well, back in 1868, when Christopher Sholes and a couple of other guys had just finished inventing the first typing machine, the keys were arranged in alphabetical order (our current middle row shows vestiges of this, with A, D, F, G, H, J, K and L still in order). But there was a problem: Before long, people were mashing away on these fragile early keyboards, which had a tendency to jam when two keys next to each other were pressed in rapid succession.

Early versions of World of Warcraft were almost impossible to play.

So Sholes consulted a buddy who had studied up on letter-pair frequency, and he moved the keys that were most often typed together away from each other. After a few other minor tweaks, like moving up the R key, allegedly so that salesmen could impress buyers by typing the word "TYPEWRITER" using only the top row, we had our current QWERTY arrangement. Never mind that the most commonly used letters (E, T, A, O, I, N and S, respectively) were randomly scattered all over, and that it took forever every time you wanted to type "ESTONIA." Sholes wasn't trying to make the most ergonomically sound keyboard; in fact, QWERTY is deliberately engineered to slow you down so you don't have to worry about pesky typewriter jams.

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And so you don't have to put "awesome typing skills" on your insurance claim.

Why We're Stuck With It:
The only reason we're still tying our fingers in knots more than a century later is simply because QWERTY got here first.
Since then, several more "scientifically" designed keyboard layouts have been introduced, including Dvorak, Colemak and XPeRT, which no one's ever heard of but which has an extra "E" on the keyboard.

And then there's the E-board. Yes, we just did.

Now, debate rages over how much faster these alternatives are than QWERTY. But the fastest typist in the world used Dvorak to set her record, and it's hard to imagine that a layout with a semicolon in the home row would be as fast as one with an extra freaking E.
Speed aside, countless studies show that Dvorak and others are far more ergonomically efficient, requiring fingers to move approximately a third of the distance that QWERTY requires. Oh, and QWERTY also discriminates against right-handed people. Thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using only the right hand. Maybe Sholes just wanted to hold his beer while he typed.

And yet, QWERTY shows little sign of going anywhere, all because of the "first mover" advantage -- everybody has already grown up knowing only one way to type, and nobody wants to completely relearn how to type for the possibility of slightly increased speed and comfort, at least until they get carpal tunnel

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3. Online Marketing

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4. iPhone 5 Rumours

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5. Professor Teaches HTML

  

We will do a brief quiz on Friday on the final Chapter of Professor Teaches Web Fundamentals. Please work through the chapter; its content will may feature in the exam. We will do the quiz once everyone is finished the chapter on Friday.

 

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6. HTML Puzzle  

Remember to consult the example as a reference for the basics of constructing your own HTML puzzle. I have created the example puzzle for you as a guide. You needn't follow it precisely, but it will help you if you are unsure of what to do. You can find the files under Secondary/Curriculum/Computing/Puzzle. You should aim to get 8 pages completed for a good score (see the rubric).

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7. Digital Life

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