Consumers Turn To Prepaid Phones In Economic Downturn

According to the New York Times more and more consumers are dumping their cellular phone plans for prepaid phones in order to save a few dollars. "Although prepaid phones remain a fraction of the overall mobile phone market, sales of the category grew 13 percent in North America last year, nearly three times faster than traditional cellphone plans, according to Pali Research, an investment advisory firm. For the first time in its history, T-Mobile has been signing up more new prepaid customers than traditional ones." Depending on your calling habits, prepaid phones might very well be the way to go, they certainly take the element of surprise out of the billing and can save you considerable compared to what you'd pay over the life of a phone contract.

Xbox Live Gamers Targeted

Using a traditional denial of service style attack, hackers are seeking revenge on players who pown them during game play on the Xbox Live network according to Chris Boyd the director of malware research at Facetime Communications. "They get your IP address, put it in the booter tool and they attempt to flood the port that uses Xbox traffic," said Mr Boyd. "Flooding that port prevents any traffic getting out." The tool doesn't attack the Xbox live network but idividual gamer's Xbox's because many of the games played on the network are actually hosted by the players themselves. In order to carry out the attack the hacker might interconnect their PC and Xbox and then deploy packet sniffing software to sift through the traffic flowing in and out of their consoles for IP addresses. Microsoft promises to ban the offenders.

Source: BBC

Recording Artists Just Don't Get The Internet!

Representatives from the Canadian Independent Record Production Association (CIRPA) and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) are urging the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to regulate internet and new media. "We don't want to force Canadians to watch anything. We want to make sure they have access to Canadian content," says Paul Spurgeon, SOCAN's vice-president, legal services and general council. For their part CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein said that the hearings must "respect the principles of openness and individual choice that govern the internet while maintaining access to, and for, Canadian stories, opinions and ideas," adding "It's different than traditional media ... We are not in that universe anymore, yet you are asking me to regulate based on that old model," At least someone gets it...

Google Street View Privacy Suit Thrown Out

A law suit by a Pittsburgh couple against Google for invasion of privacy over images of their home that appeared on Google Streetview has been thrown out by the court. Aaron and Christine Boring sued Google last April alleged that "significantly disregarded (their) privacy interests" by taking photos of their home from a road that was clearly marked as private. They claimed that the images caused them "mental suffering" and devalued their home. The U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania ruled however that the Borings "failed to state a claim under any count."

Source: Cnet

Nokia and Skype Strike Deal

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is about to get a big boost into the world of cellphones. Starting with the release of the N97 in June, Nokia is going to embed Skype into it's devices allowing users to make VoIP calls either on a 3G network or while connected to WiFi. According to Cnet's Marguerite Reardon "Adding Skype to smartphones is a great benefit for consumers, especially people who travel internationally or have friends and family overseas. While pricing on domestic voice services has been dropping like a brick from a third-story window, international rates have remained high."

My Tracks For Android

If you are into running, hiking, or biking, you're going to love applications like My Tracks for the Android phone. My Tracks takes advantage of the built in Global Positioning System (gps) of your Android Smartphone to follow your movements, track your time, calculate your speed and altitude. Check out the video:

God of War III Trailer

God of War III trailer released... awesome! According to G4's The Feed "While the events in the trailer are scripted, this is all in-game footage. The game looks this good."

Microsoft Going Ahead With Retail Store Plans

Microsoft said on Thursday that it had hired former Wal-Mart exec, David Porter, as corporate vice president for retail stores, a sign that the company is going ahead with plans to open company retail outlets despite the current economic turmoil that has many retailers in trouble. According to the New York Times, Porter "... is charged with improving the PC-buying experience. The company said his first task would be to set the timing, locations and design of Microsoft-branded retail stores, which will sell computers installed with Microsoft software as well as other company products."

The strategy worked for Apple, in better times, but only time will tell whether the move makes any sense for Microsoft.

Microsoft Offers Reward For Worm Creator's Identity

George Stathakopulos from Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group has told the BBC that a $250,000 reward is being offered by the company to find who is behind the Downadup/Conficker virus. "Our message is very clear - whoever wrote this caused significant pain to our customers and we are sending a message that we will do everything we can to help with your arrest," said Mr Stathakopulos. One estimate has as many as 12 million computers being affected globally by Conficker/Downadup since it appeared in October.

On three other occasions Microsoft has offered such rewards. Rewards of $250,000 were offered for information leading to the creators of Blaster, MyDoom and Sobig worms. The perpetrators of those threats have never been caught.

Russian - US Satellites Collide

A pair of Russian and US satellites collided some 780 km (485 miles) above Siberia on Tuesday leaving a trail of debris. The Russian civilian space agency, Roscosmos, confirmed the collision of the defunct 950kg (2,094lb) satellite, which was said to have launched in 1993. "Spokesman Aleksandr Vorobyev was quoted as saying the satellite had "in all likelihood... belonged in the past to the military", and was therefore not the responsibility of Roscosmos." according to this BBC report. NASA is tracking hundreds of pieces of debris from the incident and says there is little chance of incident between this debris and the International Space Station or Shuttle flights. The ISS is in orbit 435 km below the debris and has the capability to maneuver away from space junk if necessary, it has done so on 8 occassions in it's 60,000 previous orbits.