Category: Intellectual Property
Microsoft offers $250,000 reward for information leading to capture of Conficker worm virus creator
If you happen to inhabit the same deadly underground hacking world (forum) as the creator of the “Conficker” virus that’s been wreaking havoc on PCs since last October and even left France vulnerable to aerial invasion, you might be in luck.
Microsoft has put up a $250,000 reward for information leading the the capture of the creator of the worm/virus, hoping that some of the man’s internet friends might be a bit keen on grassing him up and bringing him to justice…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: The alleged last bag of Woolworths Pic 'N' Mix can be yours
If you missed out on the thrilling, frenzied, staff-assaulting, dignity-sapping, blatant and aggressive looting of the once-proud Woolworths brand over Christmas and the New Year, there’s still time to get yourself a bit of Woolies history.
Enterprising store manager Ed Adams, of the Petts Wood branch in Orpington, London, decided to nick/liberate the last remaining scraps from his branch’s Pic ‘N’ Mix display counter – an 800g selection of “delicious nostalgia” he’s now put up for sale on eBay…
Speak Swedish? Speak English? Want to help The Pirate Bay live-blog its imminent copyright trial via Twitter?
Then step right up! The Pirate Bay, the mega piracy portal which always goes to great lengths to point out it doesn’t actually host the files it catalogues, is going to court very soon – charged with, well, you can probably guess. Letting the world watch Quantum of Solace without having to go to the cinema or HMV.
A live audio feed of the Bay’s trial will be made available online, but the problem is it’s all being conducted in Sweden. In Swedish. And with the best will in the world, Swedish could never be described as the language of the internet. We’d imagine it’s only the third most popular language even in Sweden…
D-Link opens up home Big Brother options with its DCS-910 and DCS-2121 wireless network cameras
D-Link has invented a niche it’s calling the “home security market” – and has released a couple of webcams to help you discover who it is that’s eating all the biscuits.
The DCS-2121 Megapixel Wireless Network Camera is the hottest of the pair, coming fully loaded up with wi-fi connectivity…
Kindle was such a… success… Amazon is pushing ahead with Kindle 2
It was, as everything always is, leaked on the internet a couple of weeks ago, now Amazon’s finally detailed the specs of Kindle 2 – ideal if you’re just starting to get in on the hot new book-reading scene.
Kindle 2 will feature a 25% longer battery life, according to Amazon, will turn the pages 20% quicker if you’re an amazingly impatient person for whom TIME is MONEY and you can’t waste TIME waiting for PAGES to BLOODY TURN, will be thinner and…
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to star on US version of Dancing with the Stars
Now, to us lot, The Woz is a true star. He started up Apple with Steve Jobs in the 1970s, designed and built the original Apple and Apple II computers, before officially leaving the company in 1987 – but remaining a popular commenter on Apple issues to this very day.
But is he really famous enough to become a reality star? Apparently so, with the bearded Wozniak signed up to appear on the US treatment of Dancing with the Stars, the latest in abysmal TV shows to feature famous people literally DANCING FOR OUR AMUSEMENT…
The UK's identity card scheme has one fatal flaw – no one's bought any card READERS yet
EDITOR’S NOTE: Please read this update while playing the theme tune from Benny Hill in the background.
The UK government may well be pushing ahead with its scheme to start rolling out ID cards to airport staff and other key workers in the security sector, but there’s one rather sizeable problem – the card readers. There aren’t any.
The government apparently failed to budget for the thousands upon thousands of card readers that…
Oxford Junior Dictionary ditches "beaver" and "budgerigar" for "blog" and "biodegradable"
The Oxford Junior Dictionary has been slowly removing loads of boring old nature and science words from its recent editions, replacing the likes of “guinea pig” and “monastery” with modern things kids need to know about like “MP3 player” and “broadband”.
This deeply shameful activity by the newly edgy and urban word-explainer has mainly seen numerous nature terms and animal names dumped, but plenty of Christian and other religious words have been removed too – to make way for the likes of “database” and “chatroom”. Ideal if you’re currently hot-housing your kid for a future career in IT…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: DJ selling "famous" 867-5309 number, from Tommy Tutone's 1982 hit
If you’re old enough to remember the news, current events and popular culture of the year 1982, we would firstly like to enquire how your joints are holding up in this cold weather. And your knees OK? How about that dodgy shoulder? And your neck? You might want to start taking some cod liver oil, you know. It really works.
Secondly, we’d like to alert you to this eBay auction – in which a US DJ is selling his business as a way of also getting rid of the New Jersey phone number 867-5309 – made famous by Tommy Tutone’s 1982 hit…
Oscars screeners appear online in six days, on average
Six days. That’s all it takes for most Oscar screeners to make it onto the internet after they’re sent out to Academy members. Andy Baio at Waxy.org has compiled a massive spreadsheet of the dates at which different films appear online.
This year, on nomination day, 23 out of 26 films were already available in DVD quality. Australia and Changeling leaked shortly after. Only one film – Rachel Getting Married – still remains unavailable at the time of writing. I suspect that the pirates are only going to see that as a challenge. Definitely check out the full list, because it’s shocking how quickly some of these movies leak.
Waxy.org (via Crunchgear)
Related posts: Virgin’s P2P music service scrapped amidst labels’ anti-piracy concerns | Digital Copy arrives in the UK with hopes of ending piracy. Pah!
