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Saturday, May 28, 2011

Lockheed Martin hit by cyber attack (AP) : Technet

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Lockheed Martin hit by cyber attack (AP) : Technet

Lockheed Martin hit by cyber attack (AP)

Posted: 28 May 2011 08:58 PM PDT

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press – 50 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Hackers launched a "significant and tenacious" cyber attack on Lockheed Martin, a major defense contractor holding highly sensitive information, but its secrets remained safe, the company said Saturday.

Lockheed Martin, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon confirmed that the contractor's information systems had come under attack. Lt. Col. April Cunningham, speaking for the Defense Department, said the impact on the Pentagon "is minimal and we don't expect any adverse effect."

Still, the concerted attempt to breach the contractor's systems underscored the risk to the nation's critical defense data. Chris Ortman, Homeland Security spokesman, said his agency and the Pentagon were working with the company to determine the breadth of the attack and "provide recommendations to mitigate further risk."

Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it detected the May 21 attack "almost immediately" and took countermeasures. As a result, "our systems remain secure; no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised." The company's security team is still working to restore employee access to the targeted network. Neither Lockheed Martin nor the federal agencies revealed specifics of the attack.

___

AP writer Jennifer Malloy contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

Egypt's Mubarak fined for communications cut (Reuters)

Posted: 28 May 2011 10:24 AM PDT

By Shaimaa Fayed Shaimaa Fayed – Sat May 28, 1:24 pm ET

CAIRO (Reuters) – An Egyptian administrative court fined ousted President Hosni Mubarak and two former officials 540 million Egyptian pounds ($91 million) on Saturday for cutting mobile and Internet services during protests in January.

It was the first court ruling to be made against Mubarak since he was ousted on February 11. Mubarak faces more serious charges, including ordering the killing of protesters, a charge which could carry the death penalty.

A judicial source said the administrative court fined Mubarak 200 million Egyptian pounds, former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif 40 million pounds, and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli 300 million pounds.

The court ruled that Mubarak, Nazif and Adli were guilty of "causing damage to the national economy" and the fines would be paid to the country's treasury.

Political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah called the ruling "extremely important," saying it would change the way the Egyptian government deals with the communication revolution.

"This ruling will be a turning point for the standing and decisions of some Egyptian entities still living in an authoritarian culture regarding how to deal with communication services and the freedoms they offer," Abdel Fattah said.

The 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak was largely Web-based, and was organized by groups on Facebook.

MOBILE OPERATORS HAD TO COMPLY

At least 800 people were killed during 18 days of protests that toppled Mubarak, and more than 6,000 were wounded by live ammunition, rubber bullets, water cannon and batons.

Telecoms operator Vodafone said in January it and other mobile operators had no option but to comply with an order from the authorities to suspend services in selected areas of the country during the peak of the anti-government demonstrations.

In February, Vodafone also accused the authorities of using its network to send pro-government text messages to subscribers.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Maged Othman said his ministry planned to pay compensation estimated at around 100 million pounds to mobile telecoms operators for losses caused by the service disruption, the state news agency MENA said. It said the figure was reached by independent bodies.

Adli was sentenced earlier this month to 12 years in jail on separate charges of money laundering and profiteering.

Mubarak, who is detained in a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, was ordered on Tuesday to stand trial for the killing of protesters.

Mubarak, who is also accused of abuse of power and wasting public funds, was officially notified on Saturday of his referral to a Cairo criminal court, a judicial source said.

His two sons Alaa and Gamal, who have been held in a Cairo prison on charges of abusing public funds, have also been officially notified of their referral to the criminal court, the source said.

In a separate case, Egyptian prosecutors charged former Information Minister Anas el-Fekky on Saturday with "deliberately harming" funds of the state-run Radio and Television Union (RTU).

The prosecutor said that Fekky was referred to a criminal court for depriving the RTU, which he ran, from earning about $1.9 million in profits by exempting private television stations from the fees for live broadcast of the 2009-2010 football season and the start of the 2010-2011 season.

(Reporting by Shaimaa Fayed; Editing by Sami Aboudi and Louise Ireland)

Amazon Kindle Tablet Rumor Roundup (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 28 May 2011 11:50 AM PDT

Jared Spurbeck Jared Spurbeck – Sat May 28, 2:50 pm ET
Contribute content like this. Start here.

We should've known this was coming. The Kindle may have made it to the gate first, but pretty soon Barnes and Noble had the Nook, with its mini-color touch screen. Then came the iPad and Nook Color, and now more people are reading on color touch screens, and expecting games and apps and things like that.

Now the rumors are in, and it sounds like Amazon is planning to enter the tablet market "with a bang." So what does it look like the future Kindle tablet will be like?

Android under the hood

This one's a gimme, for several reasons.

First, the Android operating system is open source, which basically means anyone can take it and do what they want with it. Including, say use it to get a head start in making a tablet. (Want to look at the programming code? Knock yourself out.) The tablet version of Android isn't open-source yet, but that hasn't stopped Barnes and Noble, which stretched the smartphone version of Android to fit on the Nook Color -- not that you'd recognize it after all the streamlining that B&N did.

Second, and this is the big one, Amazon's already got a lot invested in Android. And I don't just mean its Amazon.com and Amazon MP3 apps in the Android Market. See, there's an Amazon Appstore for Android, which actually competes with the Android Market. And the new Amazon Cloud Drive service lets you get to the MP3s you buy from Amazon.com from anywhere -- like, say, your Android smartphone, from the app that lets you do that.

Google plays hardball with its competitors, and can block them from installing official Google apps (which aren't open-source) on their devices. I'm betting Amazon feels it doesn't need them, especially with its own app store and music store.

"Medium" and "Large" sizes

Boy Genius Report supposedly got a tip that says Amazon's working on dual-core and quad-core tablets, code named "Coyote" and "Hollywood." Coyote's supposedly a Tegra 2 device -- that's Android Enthusiast speak for "really powerful." Hollywood's supposedly going to use the upcoming Kal-El platform, and if the fact that it's named after Superman doesn't tip you off, BGR reports that it may be five times more powerful than Coyote's processor.

Price and release date

As with all of the rest of this, it's still up in the air and nothing but rumor. But PCMag's Tim Bajarin says a tipster told him that Coyote (probably not the name it'll sell under) will be a 7-inch tablet that'll cost $349, while Hollywood will be a 10-inch tablet that costs $449. Both will supposedly be available "before 2011 ends."

These prices could just be wishful thinking, but Barnes and Noble did manage to sell a 7-inch tablet for $249. Maybe Amazon's making these tablets minimalist, like the Nook Color? And the release date seems likely, as it gives Amazon plenty of time to prepare for the holiday season -- and hopefully, for them, to upstage whatever Nook that Barnes and Noble comes out with next.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Verizon woos Android lovers with Xperia Play, launches three other new phones (Appolicious)

Posted: 28 May 2011 06:00 AM PDT

Best Celebrity Twitter Pictures (The Daily Beast)

Posted: 28 May 2011 04:30 PM PDT

Sony confirms development of Playstation 4, hardware may be lighter (Digital Trends)

Posted: 28 May 2011 01:33 AM PDT

Jeff Hughes Jeff Hughes – Sat May 28, 4:33 am ET

sonySony seems to be showing signs of life again. The PlayStation Network will be switched back on in Asia this weekend and now we're getting hints about a PlayStation 4 in the works. This comes as no surprise with the constant stream of Nintendo's Wii 2 rumors and the probability of a new Xbox — Sony has to compete.

According to Eurogamer, Sony VP and chief financial officer Masaru Kato had to explain to investors about a spike in the research and development budget.

"For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life," Masaru Kato said during the conference call, "but this is a platform business, so for the future platform – when we'll be introducing what product I cannot discuss that – but our development work is already under way, so the costs are incurred there."

We already knew that Sony, along with Microsoft, was planning on milking as much out of the present consoles. We heard that we wouldn't see any thing new for a couple years, but that was because the companies' were supposedly developing magnificently advanced technology for the new consoles. Masaru Kato's may have confirmed development but according to Industry Gamers, the new system won't be packing anything big.

It might be the $170 million in lost revenue, or the rising costs in development but Sony won’t be investing as much in the new console as they did with the PS3. It took a long while to bring Playstation 3 costs down from $599 thanks to the Blu-ray and the Cell processor; only recently is the company raking in its investment. The CFO says “It is no longer thinkable to have a huge initial financial investment like that of the PS3.â€

We're not sure if that means the PS4 won't have the power to compete with the upcoming Xbox or even Project Cafe. Hopefully we'll get a few more tidbits to go off of at E3.

Happy 500K, App Store, but what about these apps? (Appolicious)

Posted: 28 May 2011 10:00 AM PDT

When it Comes to Virtual Goods, Men Outspend Women 9 to 1 (PC Magazine)

Posted: 28 May 2011 09:16 AM PDT

Leslie Horn - PC Magazine Leslie Horn - Pc Magazine – Sat May 28, 12:16 pm ET

Women love to shop: it's a common stereotype but one study shows that it doesn't always prove true. As far as the purchase of virtual goods in mobile games goes, men outspend women nine to one, social gaming company MocoSpace has found.

Boston-based MocoSpace culled data from 1,500 anonymous gamers on its mobile platform to determine the different habits men and woman have when it comes to gaming. The study revealed that 53 percent of MocoSpace gamers are male and 47 percent are female. Men spend a bit more time playing games every day, with an average of 21 minutes versus an average of 19 minutes for women.

While men and women seem to spend similar amounts of time playing games, men spend much more on virtual goods. Sixty-nine percent of male gamers buy virtual goods while only 31 percent of women do the same. But men are responsibly for the overwhelming majority of virtual goods that are purchased, buying 90 percent of them.

MocoSpace games include such titles as Street Wars, Stage Hero, and Happy Farms. Founded in 2005, there are 17 million players on the MocoSpace platform.

According to AppData, MocoSpace averages 15,348 daily average users on Facebook.

Another social gaming platform, Zynga, is rumored to be filing for an initial public offering as early as next week. Zynga is behind such popular games as FarmVille and CityVille and has around 250 million users playing its games each month. While Zynga reportedly brought in $400 million in revenue last year, critics have said that the rumored IPO is more evidence of the hotly-debated tech bubble.

How Cellfish developed a slam dunk iPhone app for the NBA (Appolicious)

Posted: 28 May 2011 07:31 AM PDT

Facebook is Building a Desktop Software Team, Despite Lack of iPad App (PC Magazine)

Posted: 28 May 2011 06:43 AM PDT

Leslie Horn - PC Magazine Leslie Horn - Pc Magazine – Sat May 28, 9:43 am ET

Need a job? Give Facebook a call. The company is seeking engineers for a new desktop software team.

TechCrunch pointed out a posting on the jobs page titled "Software Engineer, Desktop Software" at Facebook's recently-opened Seattle office

The description reads: "The desktop software team is a new team at Facebook based out of Seattle, WA. We will be working on new products that we expect to deliver to millions of users' computers to help make their entire computing experience more social. Facebook is seeking experienced software engineers in Seattle to join this team."

The page says the other responsibilities of the job are to "create desktop applications for Mac and/or Windows, work closely with our product and design teams to define feature specifications, work closely with our Platform team to build server-side APIs and interfaces in support of these applications, [and] conduct design and code reviews."

Interestingly enough, Facebook is building this team for the desktop before it even has an iPad app. The lack of the iPad app is also curious considering Facebook's iPhone app is the most downloaded application of all time.

Could Facebook be building a desktop app? Possibly, but TechCrunch notes that it "doesn't seem to make a lot of sense given their stated (over and over again) commitment to HTML5 and that being the key driver for why they don't have an iPad app."

Last fall, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the absence of an iPad app.

"iPad's not mobile," he said. "I don't mean to be rude to Apple. iPad just isn't mobile in the same way [an iPhone] is."

It's unclear whether or not Facebook will eventually cave and build an official iPad app. For now it seems we might see an increased emphasis on the desktop.

at 9:49 PM

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