Today's round up of alternative tech news is brought to you by social networking faux-pas – from wannabe record breaking on Facebook to answering calls while in the privvy via a holiday ruined by Twitter jokes – and not even funny ones at that. [......]
The man Microsoft accuses of creating the Kelihos botnet has contacted the BBC to say he is "shocked and surprised" by the accusation and will prove his innocence. Read More: BBC , Ars Technica Read the comments on this post [......]
On almost any given day, Twitter receives a handful of requests to delete tweets that link to pirated versions of copyrighted content—and quickly complies by erasing the offending tweets from its site. That fact itself is probably unsurprising to people familiar with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown process, which gives sites like Twitter a "safe harbor" against lawsuits related to user behavior and uploads—so long as the sites don't knowingly tolerate pirated material or links to such material. [......]
The thinking heads at Redmond envision laptop users shaking their rumps and gyrating in front of their notebooks in the not-too-distant future. [......]
Over the vocal protests of opponents, 22 European nations signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on Thursday. A statement by the Japanese foreign ministry, which hosted the signing ceremony, indicated that the remaining EU member states were expected to sign the agreement "on the completion of respective domestic procedures." The United States, Canada, Japan, and several other nations signed the agreement in October[......]
From preview to stable, AMD put the finishing touches on its Catalyst 12.1 driver package and has made it available as a stable download. Curiously missing in the release notes is implicit support for AMD's new Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, or any of the other unreleased 7000 Series, and the same applies to the 12.2 preview release, which also just became available. In the release notes for the 12.2 preview package, AMD says Radeon HD 7900 users should keep using the 8.921.2 RC11 driver found here , and only 7900 owners[......]
One of the big draws to buying an XFX brand videocard is the modder friendly warranty that lets users swap heatsinks and overclock ther GPUs without voiding the so-called 'Double Lifetime Warranty,' which is marketing speak for a lifetime guarantee that's transferable to a second owner (provided you registere your card within 30 days of purchase). Now we're hearing that this awesome backing won't apply to AMD's new Radeon HD 7000 series[......]
Looking for some hot new O.S. action but skeptical of the volcabularific new HUD interface being introduced to Ubuntu ? That's the open-sourced beauty of Linux -- there are plenty of flavors available for the picky types out there[......]
Intel is to buy "a significant number" of patents (approximately 190 patents and 170 patent applications) and video codec software from RealNetworks for a purchase price of $120 million . Under the terms of the deal, RealNetworks says it retains certain rights to continue to use the patents in current and future products. [......]
According to a new security report from Sophos , "drive-by" download attacks now constitute more than half of malware attacks on Web users. And one drive-by exploit in particular accounts for 31 percent of the Web attacks detected by the company's security software in the second half of 2011—a package called Blackhole. [......]
In an interview with Reuters , former National Security Agency Director Mike McConnell claimed that the US has already used cyber attacks against an adversary successfully. And it's just a matter of time before someone unleashes cyber attacks on US critical infrastructure, he warned. [......]
It's not unusual for a high-end smartphone to command $300 on a subsidized contract, and there are certainly a great number of powerful devices priced at $200. Word on the Web is that Nokia's upcoming Lumia 900 smartphone will run just $100 at AT&T with a two-year service agreement, and if that's true, kudos are in order for both Nokia and AT&T for such an aggressive launch[......]
We have some bad news to relay to raucous gamers who were looking forward to running wild at BlizzCon this year. Blizzard Entertainment today announced there will be no BlizzCon 2012 because it's so "heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players' hands as soon as possible." BlizzCon will, however, return in 2013[......]
The soon-to-be-released Raspberry Pi stretches the definition of a PC: the ARM/Linux board is credit card-sized, capable of performing basic computing tasks, and only costs $25 (or $35 for a 256MB model, doubling the RAM of the $25 offering). Oh yeah, it plays 1080p HD video over HDMI, too[......]
The low-cost champion, evolved Frequent Maximum PC readers will have noticed our love affair with Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 Plus CPU cooler. The 212 Plus came out of nowhere and captured our hearts—and a spot on our Best of the Best list—with its excellent cooling power and rock-bottom $30 price tag way back in 2009. It’s not the best CPU cooler we’ve tested, but we’ve installed it in virtually every stock-clocked PC we’ve built since, thanks to its unbeatable price/performance ratio[......]
