Archive for March, 2010

It figures. Leave it to the government to spark the fight, then back off into the corner because they don’t want to make the Chinese angry at them.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a major speech on Internet freedom two months ago, called on US technology firms not to support online censorship.

“I hope that refusal to support politically motivated censorship will become a trademark characteristic of American technology companies,” Clinton said. “It should be part of our national brand.”

Amid a host of trade disputes with China, however, Google’s decision last week to halt censorship there met with only a fairly muted response from the State Department — and virtual silence from other US technology giants.

Stay strong Google. Some of us are behind you in this fight, I just wish you would have started it before you moved into China in the first place.

I could line my walls with iPads, with each one serving as it’s own mosaic tile, if I could afford enough to do that.

Amazon has posted a preview of the future of e-books, its Kindle e-reader app for Apple’s forthcoming iPad. Amazon, the top e-book reseller, is teaming its e-book format with the most anticipated tablet device we’ve seen so far. Altogether, that will almost certainly make the iPad the world’s top e-reader when deliveries begin April 3.

If this all works out–and where Apple and mobile apps are concerned, you can never be too sure–this could make the iPad attractive to everyone who owns and Kindle but wishes they could do more with it. It also makes Apple interesting to people, like me, who want an e-reader but never seriously considered an iPad.

Yet another reason why an iPad would be perfect for me.

Google will be out of China completely, quicker than my local Chinese restaurant can prepare food.

Google Inc closed its China-based search service and began redirecting Web searchers to an uncensored portal in Hong Kong, drawing harsh comments from Beijing that raised doubts about the company’s future in the world’s largest Internet market.

Google said it intends to continue research and development in China, as well as maintain a sales staff there, even after closing Google.cn and rerouting traffic to the unfiltered search site in Hong Kong.

The decision comes amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington over a range of issues, from Internet freedom to the yuan exchange rate, economic sanctions on Iran and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

China reacted to Google’s move by saying the Internet search giant was “totally wrong” and had “violated the written promise it made on entering the Chinese market,” signaling a tough line over the dispute.

Seattle is #1, Atlanta is 6th. Although I hardly think “malware attacks” should be part of the ranking for “cybercrime”. Most viral and malware infections occur because people aren’t watching what they are doing. So does that mean cybercrime translates, at least partially, into cyberstupidity?

Ready the Bat-Signal, Seattle: You are officially the most dangerous city in America when it comes to cybercrime. According to the folks at Symantec, anyway.

Symantec — the security company behind the Norton line of virus-protection products — has just released its list of the 50 American cities most vulnerable to cyberattacks. And it turns out being close to Bill Gates isn’t enough to keep Seattle out of the number 1 spot.

The Riskiest Online Cities
Symantec’s “Riskiest Online Cities” report ranks Seattle at the top, followed by Boston, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Raleigh. Atlanta, Minneapolis, Denver, Austin, and Portland round out Symantec’s top 10 riskiest locations.

So, they finally pulled the plug. How long do you think it will be until the Chinese government puts the kabosh on that forwarding outside of their Great Firewall of China? Why not do something much more fun and click here instead?

Google Inc. stopped censoring the Internet for China by shifting its search engine off the mainland Monday but said it will maintain other operations in the country. The maneuver attempts to balance Google’s disdain for China’s Internet rules with the company’s desire to profit from an explosively growing market.

Google’s decision comes after an impasse pitting the world’s most powerful Internet company against the government of the world’s most populous country. It’s still not clear if Google’s solution will resolve a standoff that began Jan. 12. That’s when Google said it would no longer adhere to China’s requirement that it omit some Internet results.

Because so many pre-Columbians use the internet these days…

Internet giant Google is adding two native Central American languages — Maya and Nahuatl — to its universal search service, a company official said Thursday.
“Searches in these two pre-Columbian languages and mobile satellite-linked connections to the Internet are part of Google’s growth strategy,” Google’s Mexico marketing technology director Miguel de Alva told AFP.

2.5 million people. For real, how many of them use the internet?

For those of you needing some relief from jointsupplementreviews.net you may be interested to know that Internet Explorer is being updated again…

Microsoft’s next-generation Internet Explorer 9 browser may not be anywhere close to competition, but you can test drive a “platform preview” of the software that provides a taste of IE9’s capabilities. So what’s the deal with Redmond’s upcoming browser, and how does it differ from IE8 and worthy competitors such as Google’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera Software’s Opera, and Apple’s Safari? Here’s a quick primer.

They’re still making Internet Explorer? Who knew?

If you were hedging on making that purchase because of the sealed battery, you may be interested in this.

When your iPod battery dies, it’s time to get a new iPod. Never a popular strategy for Apple, the company is moving to avoid the backlash of potential battery failures with its self-described “magical” tablet device.

Apple has issued what appears to be a guarantee replacement policy that could help it instill consumer confidence in the pricey iPad. If the iPad’s battery doesn’t last as long as the device itself, Apple will send you a new device. So instead of replacing the failing battery, Apple will replace the iPad itself.

So, did you pre-order yet?

A Panda Security employee discovered three malware programs on a recently purchased HTC Magic phone when it was plugged it into a Windows computer.\

Upon further investigation, Panda found that the employee’s phone contained three malware programs: a client for the now-defunct Mariposa botnet, the Conficker worm as well as a password stealer for the Lineage game, said Pedro Bustamante, Panda’s senior research adviser.

There was no indication if the phone could actually make phone calls.

You can pre-order an iPad. I haven’t yet. I’m waiting for a development cycle or two. I have a bad feeling there are going to be kinks and I am not allowed to pay for kinks. The wife always tells me, no kinky stuff. You can probably work out those kinks if you read some supplement reviews before you take anything for them.

The availability of pre-orders isn’t the only new development in iPad-land. Apple also updated its site with a plethora of new details about its latest and greatest device, from information on the 3G networking capabilities to a more in-depth description of the iBooks application.

I am looking forward to getting one though.