Boot up: Microsoft Windows 8 tablets, interview with ex-Anonymous hacker, and more

A quick burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Raises all sorts of questions about how the Windows 8 desktop/hybrid behaviour will be managed. Intriguing.

Inspired by this XKCD strip.

The total BitCoin economy has a value of £39m. At current exchange rates, anyway. Unless someone finds the lost wallet.dat that someone left on an Amazon web instance which got restarted.

Quote from a speech (much more at the post): "What we're seeing in the cloud era is not just hundreds of millions but billions of new users and devices now coming into play. Three years ago over 95% of the devices connected to the Internet were personal computers. Three years from now that number will probably be less than 20%. More than 80% of the devices connected to the Internet will not be Windows-based personal computers."

Obvious, really (think: smartphones) but intriguing to see it put that way. Maritz's real point though is about what becomes important when that is true.

Well, it isn't streaming, except that you can listen to it while it's downloading. And it's only sort of downloaded, as it might be in a cache. Anyhow.

From the conclusion: " the stellar 9900 shows that when its back is against the wall, RIM can produce winners. This phone is the best BlackBerry RIM has ever produced, but against the gigantic technological and marketing forces of iPhone and Android, it's a whisper in the wind. Let's hope that there are enough BlackBerry fans left to support their favorite phone and that the company completes its reboot in time to prevent the 2013 headline, 'RIM R.I.P.'"

Interview with @SparkyBlaze, who is in his 20s and from Manchester (but wants to keep the rest under his to-be-white hat).

"Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you see out there?
"SparkyBlaze: In my mind social engineering is the biggest issue today. We have the software/hardware to defend buffer overflows, malware, DDoS and code execution. But what good is that if you can get someone to give you their password or turn off the firewall because you say you are Greg from computer maintenance just doing testing. It all comes down to lies, everyone does it and some people get good at it."

James Surowiecki, the New Yorker's financial writer, dissects the problem around the virtual currency in typically astute fashion: "many--probably most--Bitcoin users are acquiring bitcoins not in order to buy goods and services but to speculate. That's a bad investment decision, and it also hurts Bitcoin's prospects.
"True believers in Bitcoin's usefulness prefer to deny that speculation is driving the action in bitcoins. But the evidence suggests otherwise.":

And if hoarding, instead of trading, takes over, then nobody uses it, so it becomes useless - trapped in a deflationary spiral where the velocity of the currency is zero.

Ed Bott finds the same thing that we pointed you to a while ago: a real-life crackdown by Russian police, rather than any fiendishly clever piece of technology, is what killed off Mac Defender and various Windows workalikes.

Trouble is, that could mean that more will be along soon, depending on when the next gang gets its act together.

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"Boot-up: LulzSec hacker known as Foxconn, ', to replace workers with robots", and much more

Microsoft Bing looks an unlikely outsider of the Internet - such as Muhammad Ali before his break. Photo: Russell Boyce/Reuters

Quickly to chew over, as picked by the technology team burst of 7 links for you

Is in the Court on Monday.

Going toe to toe with Google Microsoft will cost $5 billion + * per year *, depending on the industry execs, who talked to the NYT. And who says that it should axe Bing?

"Taiwanese giant Foxconn cut some of their employees with one million robots in three years of increasing work costs and the efficiency will replace, Terry GOU, founder and Chairman of the company late Friday said technology."

Know eh, Apple?

Be not ridiculous! The US reserve operating balance was more than 40 times larger than some piffling private companies.

Hang, only 40 time?

"How is it in US law (and keep in mind, U.S. it have provisions in the world, even if it is legal, or you not in decades) is the creator of an image of the copyright holder." Even if the resolution fall, or reduce the number of colors of easier gray tones, it is still considered by many among the original copyright.
"So, what is, when you create each can possible image?" What if you took is a relatively low resolution (say 500 × 500) and a relatively low color mixing (say 256 colors) and try, each create a single image? What then would be the State of copyright? It is the Visual equivalent of infinite monkey theorem.
"If you could do it, it would still not protected own then all copyright for each image." "In addition, because it is an independent body without external reference on use, works and similar as those already copyrighted images do not violate."

Solution: Get a quantum computer to do it. Take care of now.

"Looks like would the administrator saves the wallet.dat and the backups on an ec2 instance and then it shut down while a RAM upgrade without knowing that he will lose everything on the disk."

Ben Duchac: "my mother needed a new phone and she play for an Android - they had was my HTC incredible for about a year below and their aging function phone was tired." It is quite tech savvy – Gmail used has a Tumblr, most of their e-Mail to a iPad - so after some discussion, we decided that Android was the way to go. The integrated Google search Gmail, gChat and she seemed much richer maps functionality UI to outdo functionality and app selection of iPhone 4 for their needs. A trip to the Verizon store later, we came up with Samsung-free home. The huge screen was brilliant. 4 G was blisteringly fast. The camera had more megapixels was adequate. "The phone was an absolute nightmare to use."

He's like the Samsung phone won't work as the HTC incredible and is frustrated at a loss by his life of the battery and intransigence. Yup, sounds familiar.

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Boot-up: Hacker fool on LulzSec and privacy, Google + 1s are sold, and much more

NET tightened to hacker group LulzSec. Photography: Reuters

Quickly to chew over, as picked by the technology team burst of 8 links for you

"Hacktivism for good", which calls itself the jester comments about the difference between data protection, privacy and anonymity online after the arrest of anyone claimed to LulzSec Member Topiary on Wednesday.

The jester identity is not publicly known.

"A Crusader from Attrition.org has determined that an alarmingly high number of books written by computer security experts almost 100% from other sources are copied." "What says about the industry?"

He..., that his power can have learned their craft, by copying others? (We have the link of Kevin Mitnick, by the way.)

"A report by the Atlantic turned a light on a new"social media service"which allows users, Google + 1 purchase?" s in bulk. "The site in question, Pluseem, has a variety of different Google + package sizes by 50 points to 2,000, the prices range from $0, 18$ 0.38 per plus."

Breaking, Google quality guidelines, as you might guess. But the presence of spam shows an ecosystem that spammers to think in the value of hunting.

"Strange the error in iOS one was far widespread errors in the Web Kit and Microsoft's CryptoAPI nine years ago." It can sign purchased from a certificate authority, a different certificate valid certificate which then the client device considered valid.
"This enables who to win, can from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with man-in-the-Middle techniques to catch traffic and read all encrypted SSL traffic in the background, and without notice to the user."
"This patch should be applied immediately when you sign up for a service on your device, in particular things your bank or PayPal like." Users are especially vulnerable to these attacks, often using public/open WiFi.
"The really bad news?" If a generation of iPod touch a or you'll be constantly susceptible to two, or an iPhone, that use older than the 3GS. "Owners of these devices use it for a particular purpose, for the security or privacy is required."

A developer who is specialized in the digital currency, that he was sent back to China last week says, after he came to the Sea-Tac Airport with only $600 in cash and not in a position to convince US Customs and border protection agents that he would be able to finance his two months, visit bit coin with bit coin."
"The developer which alias"Doctor Nefario"by the, identifies Exchange itself as founder of the global bit coin."

Would have loved, during this interview be a fly on the wall.

"It turns out it is a method behind the FBI raids of suspected anonymous members of the country." The Office works from a list of handles under the condition of PayPal, 1,000 Internet IP responsible for the most protest traffic during anonymous' DDoS attacks against PayPal in December last year.
"FBI agents served 40 search orders in January on persons suspected, threaten PayPal during"Operation Payback"-anonymous ' retaliation against companies, on the black WikiLeaks list." "On 19 July the Feds charged the first 14 defendants under the computer fraud and abuse Act, and raided an additional 35 suspected for evidence."

So, just 960 to go. "" Also: "it was easy to distinguish the packages from the '" low orbit ion Cannon "-anonymous ' fire-and-forget DDoS tool-strings such as"Wikileaks,""goof", and in lieu of oath notes include"Goodnight,"insurance."

Oh love.

"We hold on one of the 10 things are true, that here is on Google, that quickly better than slow." We speed note in all things we do, and the button "+ 1" is no exception. Since the button start we have hard, improving your load time. "Today we are proud to announce two updates, the button" + 1 "and it, load the page more quickly make."

File under "almost immeasurable improvements to your life".

"We thought it would be interesting, a Microsoft Xbox Kinect work include association with our control maps on screen with simple gestures." "This video that reveals how we have and all I'll say is that with movements as follows, the GeoDoctor have a real girls on the dance floor..."

Clever, clever, clever.

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