IT News HeadLines (HardOCP) 27/07/2010

New Gov't Rules Allow Unapproved IPhone Apps
Wow. This is some pretty big news. The Library of Congress' Copyright Office has released a statement that says, among other things, that it is now okay to jailbreak / root your phone. Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset. Comments
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Home Theaters Are Overrated Home Projects
I don't care what these guys say, there is nothing like having a home theater for gaming and watching movies. For some reason the article seems to think these rooms have to tacky and expensive. Personally, I think they can be done tastefully and on a budget too. What do you think, is a home theater room a plus or a minus? With so many nice home-theater packages containing surround-sound speakers, amplifiers, bass modules, media centers and other controls and costing $3,500 or less, you can turn your flat screen in any family room into a home theater, instead of shelling out $20,000 or more for the whole shebang, including cinema seating, tacky red carpeting, projector, Blu-ray player and big screen. Comments
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UAE Says BlackBerry is Security Threat
According to the United Arab Emirates, the Blackberry is a threat to national security. Really? Are they honestly trying to claim that a phone is a threat to national security? In the latest flap, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority voiced fears that the BlackBerry manages data in a way that could allow it to be misused. BlackBerry devices were singled out because they are the only phones operating in the country that automatically relay users' information to privately managed data centers overseas, the regulator said. Comments
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UK Launches Computer Security Training Exercises
Registration for the UK Cyber Security Challenge opens today. Top candidates will be invited to attend the Cyber Security U.K. Masterclass in January 2011. The Cyber Security Challenge is a nonprofit group designed to foster more awareness of computer security as a career field and raise awareness of job opportunities. It is supported by organizations such as the Institute of Information Security Professionals, the Information Assurance Advisory Council, the U.K. Cabinet Office, commercial vendors and others. Comments
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Just Say No to Fake Net Neutrality
Say no to fake net neutrality? Wait, there is fake net neutrality? What happened to the real net neutrality? Real Net neutrality is when phone and cable companies cannot pick winners and losers on the Internet. Real Net neutrality is when new innovators with good ideas have an equal chance at competing against Google and Yahoo because they don't have to pay ISPs for preferential treatment. But what's being floated in Washington, dubbed "paid prioritization," is fake Net neutrality. Comments
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Do Identity-Theft Protection Services Work?
Are identity-theft protection services worth it? Do they actually work as advertised? What do they actual do that you can't do on your own? One method of identity theft that you can't directly guard against is a data breach against a company--such as a bank--that you do business with. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, 498 such breaches occurred in 2009. Often criminals will sell personal information harvested from data breaches to other crooks on online black markets. Criminals could use your identity for anything from opening bank or credit card accounts to seeking medical care using your name. Comments
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Ford to Unveil 2011 Explorer on Facebook
It looks as though Ford has decided to unveil its new 2011 Explorer on Facebook instead of traditional media outlets. Ford Motor Company is breaking with tradition in a big way. The company has been leaving digital breadcrumbs on the Ford Explorer Facebook Page, and in just a few days they'll take to the web — instead of an auto show — for an all-day Facebook event to unveil the redesigned 2011 Ford Explorer. Comments
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GeForce GTX 460 SLI Performance vs. AMD GPUs
Our first look at the GeForce GTX 460 showed it to be an impressive product with excellent all-around performance for the price. Next our SLI follow-up showed that a GTX 460 SLI rig was competitive with NVIDIA's own flagship DX11 products. But how does GTX 460 SLI compare with AMD's HD 5850, 5870, and 5970 cards?
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Foxconn Employees Treated for Nausea
About 150 workers from the Foxconn factory in Chennai, India were treated for nausea and breathlessness yesterday after inhaling pesticide fumes. Thousands of workers sat out in protest, asking for the factory premises to be checked, the daily said. Comments
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Zombie Movie Stars
Is it possible to have a zombie be the star of a movie? I don't really see how that would be possible, given how zombies are mindless and pretty shallow beings. Dialogue? Emotion? What would the movie have besides them running around? Honestly, if there can be vampires, werewolves, witches, wizards, and even giant apes that are portrayed as heroes, why are zombies the one group being left out? Comments
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GitHub Hits One Million Hosted Projects
GitHub is a site that offers unlimited hosting and collaborative tools to anyone who is willing to make their code open source. The site is now hosting one million projects, confirmed Scott Chacon , VP of Research and Development at GitHub. Approximately 60 percent of these projects are full repositories – that is, shared folders with code spread across multiple files – while the remaining 40 percent are "gists", or short code snippets contained in a single file. Comments
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Microsoft Wants Free Testers
While Mozilla offers up to $3,000 for bugs, Microsoft will thank and name them on the security bulletin where the bug fix is posted. Microsoft's Jerry Bryant says, "While we do not provide a monetary reward on a per-bug basis, like any other industry, we do recognize and honor talent. We've had several influential folks from the researcher community join our security teams as Microsoft employees." So perhaps the free work that you give to Microsoft is just your ticket to a job in Redmond. Then again, perhaps not. Comments
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Dell Axes the Penguin
Dell has dropped Ubuntu-loaded machines from their online store due to poor results. One reason why consumers might not be snapping up Linux-based systems is that Dell's own advice page warns anyone other than open-source developers to stick with Windows. Comments
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Building a $200 Linux PC
Ever find yourself in need of a cheap computer? Yeah, me neither. But if you do, here's a writeup on the building of a $200 rig and testing it against a $300 eMachines. We weren't expecting our sub-$200 computer to be an outstanding performer. But that doesn't mean we wanted it to be slow, either—building a computer yourself that can't do what you need well is a waste of time and money. We wanted to know exactly what we had so we'd know what we could expect from it. That meant benchmarking it—and comparing it to another, similar system. Comments
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