IT News HeadLines (HardOCP) 26/10/2010

eBay Instant Sale
eBay has launched a new program called eBay Instant Sale where you can get rid of your used electronics for cash. If the item is too old, you can simply recycle it at no cost to you. Aside from the fact I couldn't get the site to work for me at all (search was broken, regardless what I searched for), I guarantee that you are better off selling you hardware in our For Sale / Trade forums. Trust me, someone in there wants your stuff. Comments
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Melinda Gates: No Apple Products in our Home
During an interview with the NYTimes, Melinda Gates said that her family doesn't use any Apple products. Is it just me or did it seem a little odd the way they kept hammering on it thoughÂ…"got an iPod? An iPad? Does Bill use a Mac?" Do you own an iPod, which is made by Apple? No, I have a Zune. What if one of your children says, "Mom, I have to have an iPod?" I have gotten that argument - "You may have a Zune." Do you have an iPad? Of course not. Is it true that Bill works on an Apple laptop? False. Nothing crosses the threshold of our doorstep. Comments
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Mozilla Pays 12yr Old Kid $3k
Mozilla just paid a 12 year old kid $3,000 for finding a flaw in Firefox. Here comes the "bugs that are so obvious a seventh grader could find them" jokes. Alex is a bug hunter, but the bugs he's uncovering are unlikely to end up in any entomological reference book. Instead, the bug Alex found was a valid critical security flaw buried in the Firefox web browser. For his discovery, he was rewarded a bug bounty of $3,000 by Mozilla, the parent company of Firefox. Comments
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Samsung Boosts Efficiency With Windows 7
Microsoft Corp. today announced that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a Windows 7 Enterprise customer and the flagship company of the Samsung Group, has completed deployment of Windows 7 throughout its offices in South Korea, the global headquarters of the consumer electronics manufacturing company. Samsung Electronics' offices in South Korea house a majority of the company's 150,000 employees worldwide. Comments
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Team Fortress 2's Marketplace Flourishing
Within mere weeks of the Mann-Conomy update for Team Fortress 2, the first five people that released content have made between $39,000 and $47,000 each. There really is no doubt at this point that there's a huge demand for community-created content in TF2 and, hopefully, more games will start to tap into this demand." Comments
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Diablo 3 PvP Arena Preview
At BlizzCon this year some lucky people got a chance to play Diablo III's Arena PVP. Competitive gameplay that requires team strategy, but still has your classic Diablo elements where one skilled guy goes 3v1, nice! There is some crowd control, but each class has an ability--with a long cooldown--that will break any roots, snares, and other effects. Additionally, each class has an ability that helps them move quickly around the map be it teleporting or sprinting. The spells at my team's dispel worked well together and we could easily kill opponents if we caught them unaware in a stun. That isn't to say that a single player cannot defeat multiple opponents with careful skill use. Faced with a one-versus-three situation—I was the one—I used the Wizard's spells to defeat all three opponents. Comments
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Blame Vint Cerf for IPv4 Running Out
The Father of the Internet wants to let you know it's his fault that the internet is running out of IP addresses and having to switch to IPv6. Some researchers wanted a 128-bit space for the binary address, Cerf (recalled) ... But others said, "That's crazy," because it's far larger than necessary, and they suggested a much smaller space. Cerf finally settled on a 32-bit space that was incorporated into IPv4 and provided a respectable 4.3 billion separate addresses. "It's enough to do an experiment," he said. "The problem is the experiment never ended." Comments
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Kindle Gains Lending Feature
The Kindle is getting an update which will allow users to lend and share books. Users may lend a book to a fellow user, but just like with a real book, the original owner will not be allowed to view it while it's on loan. Amazon says that not all books will be eligible for lending, and also imposes a restriction (similar to the rival Barnes and Noble Nook) that the same book can not be loaned to the same person more than once. That is a limitation that hinders the value of lending in a business setting--since a user may need to reference the same shared title on more than one occasion. Comments
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Powerline Networking Standard Ratified
The IEEE Standards Association has recently ratified the Broadband over Powerline standard. Now that it's globally recognized, we should really see adaptation of the tech flourish; I'm anxious just thinking of the home networking possibilities. With a base router (wired or wireless) unit and a couple extenders (again, wireless or 1-4 port ethernet extenders) you have all you need. You simply use the router as you would any other, and plug a remote into whatever outlet is conveniently near where you want a PC or have bad wireless signal in your home. The technology sends out ethernet (up to 500Mbps) through your power line. The Wi-Fi extender is just as simple. Bad signal in a corner bedroom? Not anymore, with just a little remote box plugged into the wall outlet. Comments
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Windows 8 Roughly 2 Years Away
Microsoft's Dutch subsidiary stated on a blog post that Windows 8 is about two years away from hitting the market. So that means to look forward to a 2014 or so release. Windows 7 was released in October 2009, two and a half years after the Windows Vista went on sale for most customers. Microsoft officials, including CEO Steve Ballmer, had promised that after Vista's many delays that the company would never again go so long between Windows releases. Comments
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244,000 Germans Opt Out of Street View
2.9% of the 8.5 million households in Germany have opted out of the Street View service. Google agreed to blur the photos of a person's house or apartment if requested due to Germany's personal privacy laws. "This shows that 97 percent of German households have no problem with Street View," said Kay Oberbeck, a Google spokesman in Hamburg. "We have gone out of our way to make sure everyone's concerns have been addressed." Comments
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Future of Groupon
Groupon is testing a new feature by the name of Groupon Stores in which local business will create pages where fans can follow them and access deals. Groupon is typically thought of as a new customer acquisition channel, where businesses pay heavily in discounts and commission to get a new customer to walk through their door. With this new feature, Groupon hopes to engage in the other half of local marketing – convincing current customers to come back and spend more. Comments
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MySpace Admits to Sharing User Data with Advertisers
MySpace has been sharing, with advertisers, data which can be used to identify user profile pages. Myspace says this isn't a problem, partly because MySpace doesn't require members to use their real names. Nice reasoning! The social networking site acknowledged transmitting information to advertisers that included a user ID and the last page viewed before a user clicked on an ad. Comments
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Antec High Current Pro 1200W Power Supply Review
Antec serves up "raw" power with its newest High Current Pro 1200 watt computer power supply. Antec claims 80 Plus Gold certification along with gold plated terminals and a special heavy-gauge 16 AWG CPU power cable. This is the new flagship PSU for Antec, let's see if possibly survives the HardOCP our gauntlet.
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