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07 June, 2013

Google says it can guess movie box office hauls — with 94 percent accuracy

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-says-it-can-guess-movie-box-office-hauls-94-6C10233476

Hollywood movies and video game

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/06/game-over-man-video/

Microsoft Will Let You Resell Xbox One Games — But Publishers May Not

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/06/xbox-one-used-games/

NSA Is Wired Into Top Internet Companies’ Servers, Including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. The classified program, dubbed PRISM, has been in operation since 2007

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/nsa-tapped-internet-servers/

Is Nokia’s 41MP PureView camera finally coming to Windows Phone? full-res photos clock in at around 10MB each, which is really too big for sharing, there’s a second mode that provides 7:1 oversampling to create a very-high-fidelity 5MP image. (Oversampling is where the input from a number of pixels is averaged/combined to create a single superpixel).

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/157552-lumia-eos-is-nokias-41mp-pureview-camera-finally-coming-to-windows-phone

New sulfur-based battery is safer, cheaper, (4x) more powerful than lithium-ion

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157525-new-sulfur-based-battery-is-safer-cheaper-more-powerful-than-lithium-ion

Microsoft has successfully taken down one more botnet in collaboration with the FBI which was known to control millions of PCs across the globe and was allegedly involved in and responsible for bank fraud in tune of more than $500 million.

http://paritynews.com/security/item/1103-microsoft-fbi-takedown-citadel-botnet

Google has filed a patent suggesting users stick out their tongue or wrinkle their nose in place of a password. It says requiring specific gestures could prevent the existing Face Unlock facility being fooled by photos.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22790221

Angry Scrabble devotees worldwide are refusing to play their beloved word game after the Facebook version came out with an update - which erased high scores, deleted player contact lists, introduced ads at the end of each turn and changed other key features.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/scrabbles-facebook-update-spells-a-n-g-e-r/story-fnii5s40-1226658962628

Rotating solar house hot property. The home is designed to follow the sun in winter and avoid it in summer, operating at three speeds and powered by 24 photovoltaic cells on the roof

http://smh.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/rotating-solar-house-hot-property-20130606-2nsad.html

06 June, 2013

How Bitcoin Lets You Spy on Careless Companies, because all transactions are recorded publicly on the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network, once you know the Bitcoin address of the person you’re paying, it’s possible to track all other payments made to that address.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/06/bitcoin_retai/

CIA Releases Analyst’s Fascinating Tale of Cracking the Kryptos Sculpture (without computers)

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/analyst-who-cracked-kryptos/

Infographic: Here’s the Combined Area of Every iPhone Screen Ever Purchased

http://www.wired.com/design/2013/06/iphone-screens/

DC Announces Choose-Your-Own-Path Digital Comics. Lee says the ability to choose different paths through the story will “bring an aspect of gameplay to storytelling.”

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/06/dc-comics-choose-your-adventure-digital/

WORKING on the principle that it takes a hacker to catch a hacker, a French university is offering a degree in ethical hacking, counter measures and computer security.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/course-teaches-the-fine-art-of-hacking/story-e6frgcjx-1226656745868

CASINOS in the US are forbidding gamblers from wearing Google Glass, the tiny eyeglasses-mounted device capable of shooting photos, filming video and surfing the internet. Regulators say the gadgets could be used to cheat at card games.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/us-casinos-ban-gamblers-from-using-google-glass/story-fn7bfu22-1226658219379

04 June, 2013

Security researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have built a malicious USB charger that can inject persistent, undetectable malware onto your iPhone, iPad, or other current-gen iOS device. This USB charger, called Mactans, takes less than a minute to compromise a device once it has been plugged in.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157207-black-hat-hackers-break-into-any-iphone-in-under-a-minute-using-a-malicious-charger

In its current state, there are two main issues Google Glass faces — usefulness, and privacy concerns. Google has spoken out about the latter, banning any facial recognition software from hitting the device, which in turn, unfortunately, hampers the former.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157225-google-bans-face-recognition-apps-on-glass-lowers-ceiling-on-devices-future

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has unveiled a new code of conduct that forbids cellphone companies from charging customers fees to break their contracts after two years and makes it easier to unlock cellphones. Those are two of the biggest takeaways from a new code of conduct that the broadcast regulator unveiled on Monday and will come into effect for contracts signed after Dec. 2, 2013.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/06/03/business-crtc-wireless.html

IBM is plotting the temperature patterns in data centres to improve their energy efficiency, using robots based on an iRobot Roomba base – and it is not the only company using this approach.

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/ibm-roomba-data-centre-heat-emc-117925

ONLINE game maker Zynga says it is cutting 520 jobs, about 18 per cent of its workforce, and closing several offices. The San Francisco company is shedding costs in the face of a decline in the number of users of its games, which include Farmville and Words With Friends.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/struggling-gamemaker-zynga-to-cut-520-jobs-closing-offices/story-fn7bfu22-1226656606096

NEARLY 14,000 Queensland secondary school students will be the recipients of the largest deployment of Windows 8 tablets in Australia and one of the biggest in the world.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/queensland-schoolkids-kids-win-in-tablets-rollout/story-e6frgakx-1226656459953

THE SOS Mobile Watch for elderly users is another piece of wrist tech wizardry we've been trialling. Developed by Sydney brothers Peter and Paul Apostolis, the watch contains a SIM card and GPS chip.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/personal-tech/watching-over-the-elderly-the-sos-mobile-watch/story-e6frgazf-1226656421864

MOBILE phone pioneer Motorola says it's opening a manufacturing facility that will produce the first smartphone ever assembled in the US - its new flagship device, Moto X. Research firm iSuppli estimates that the components of Samsung's latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, cost $US229, while the assembly cost $US8.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/personal-tech/moto-x-to-be-assembled-in-us-says-motorola/story-e6frgazf-1226654230021

03 June, 2013

Fake votes mar France’s first electronic election

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fake-votes-mar-frances-first-electronic-election-8641345.html

In 2007 Rudd spun his education revolution into a broadband revolution, promising to spend $1 billion to provide a computer with high-speed internet access for every student in years 9 to 12. Microsoft Word and OneNote work OK, but Vignando says bundled multimedia applications like Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver and video-editing tool Premier Elements run at a crawl. Students needing to do more than basic text editing often give up and seek out faster (desktop) computers elsewhere.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/rudd-giveaway-gripes-students-slam-slow-laptops-20110812-1iq3w.html

Many schools will ask students to bring their own smartphones, tablets and laptops from home as a federal government program which gave every student in years 9 to 12 access to a computer expires at the end of this month. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/byo-laptop-to-school-as-funds-dry-up-20130601-2nig2.html#ixzz2V6gM8S9GMany schools will ask students to bring their own smartphones, tablets and laptops from home as a federal government program which gave every student in years 9 to 12 access to a computer expires at the end of this month.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/byo-laptop-to-school-as-funds-dry-up-20130601-2nig2.html