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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Unauthorized access hits Sony PlayStation accounts (AP) : Technet

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Unauthorized access hits Sony PlayStation accounts (AP) : Technet

Unauthorized access hits Sony PlayStation accounts (AP)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 09:31 PM PDT

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Tomoko A. Hosaka, Associated Press – 15 mins ago

TOKYO – Sony said Wednesday it has detected a large number of unauthorized attempts to access user accounts on its PlayStation Network and other online entertainment services.

The Tokyo-based company temporarily locked about 93,000 accounts whose IDs and passwords were successfully verified by the intruders. Sony has sent email notifications and password reset procedures to affected customers on the PlayStation Network, Sony Entertainment Network and Sony Online Entertainment services.

Sony said credit card numbers linked to the compromised accounts are not at risk. It has "taken steps to mitigate the activity" and is investigating any wrongful use of the accounts themselves.

The announcement follows an embarrassing data breach in April, which compromised personal data from more than 100 million online gaming and entertainment accounts and forced PlayStation Network to be shut for a month.

Sony confirmed the latest incidents after its security systems detected an unusually high number of log-in attempts that failed, said Sony spokesman Sean Yoneda. The company suspects that those responsible obtained large data sets from other companies or sources, which were then used to try to access Sony accounts.

"What happened in April was a breach on our servers as we said in our announcements," Yoneda said. "But this time around, there was no intrusion on our servers. This was ... taking someone else's identity and trying to use that to access our services."

The access attempts occurred between Oct. 7 and Oct. 10 and targeted accounts globally.

Sony's customer service centers around the world have not seen a spike in user calls related to the incidents, Yoneda said.

PayPal to announce online shopping login service (AP)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 09:10 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – 36 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – PayPal, eBay's online payment service, plans to announce a new service Wednesday that aims to make it easier to shop online by cutting down on the number of accounts consumers have to create with various Web retailers.

Called PayPal Access, the service will be unveiled at eBay's X.commerce developer conference in San Francisco. It will be launched with X.commerce, a new eBay Inc. business launching Wednesday geared toward developers and merchants that encourages developers to integrate eBay's technology into mobile commerce apps. X.commerce merges the software developer communities for eBay.com, PayPal and eBay-owned e-commerce software company Magento, which together include 850,000 developers.

EBay spokesman Anuj Nayar said PayPal Access will let users log on to participating retailers' sites and pay with their PayPal username and password, rather than creating a separate account as many online retailers currently require. As it stands now, shoppers on some sites have to set up an account even if they're paying with PayPal, the details for which they don't enter until near the end of the transaction. The service would keep a user's personal details within PayPal, Nayar said.

Also Wednesday, X.commerce plans to roll out a set of developer tools called X.commerce Fabric, which is intended to simplify the process for adding eBay-owned technology — such as that behind Milo, a local shopping engine eBay bought in 2010 — to apps for smartphones and tablet computers.

And the conference will be used to show off the upcoming version of eBay's smartphone app RedLaser, which currently lets people scan product barcodes and compare prices online and in local stores. RedLaser 3.0, which Nayar said will be out by the end of the year, will add PayPal for purchasing items directly from the app.

It's likely that X.commerce will announce some sort of partnership with Facebook on Wednesday, too. Though eBay wouldn't divulge any details, Facebook's platform and mobile marketing director, Katie Mitic, will be a keynote speaker at the conference.

Review: It's not an iPhone 5, but so what? (AP)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 06:37 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Oct 11, 9:37 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – To some people, Apple's new iPhone 4S isn't the complete overhaul they have been hoping for. Its model number, which doesn't include a "5," reeks of the status quo.

That's ridiculous.

Sure, the 4S doesn't render the iPhone 4 hopelessly obsolete, and on the surface they're nearly identical. But with a faster processor, new software, a voice-activated personal assistant and a souped-up camera, it's a major improvement over the current iPhone.

The 4S will be available Friday in black or white. It will cost $199 to $399, depending on storage space. It requires a two-year service contract with Verizon Wireless, Sprint or AT&T.

If you have an older model such as the 3GS or are thinking of making the move to the iPhone, it's an excellent excuse to buy one.

The coolest new feature on the 4S is Siri, a software-based personal assistant who responds to your voice in a somewhat robotic, yet soothing female tone.

Siri can do all sorts of things, from setting your alarm clock to finding a good local sushi joint to playing DJ with your music. She can't bring up specific websites, but she can search the Web for pretty much anything.

Once you let her know who you are and where you live, she can even do complex tasks such as reminding you to call your boyfriend when you leave your house.

She can understand conversational English, which is great because it let me speak as I normally would (though I did have to enunciate well). This means you can say things like, "what's happening today?" or "what's going on today?" and she'll let you know what's on your calendar.

She's also a dictation dynamo, transcribing emails and texts much better than a phone running Google Inc.'s Android software. It would be awesome if she could intelligently insert punctuation marks, but she does get them if you tell her "period" or "exclamation point."

For a particularly difficult test, I read a random paragraph from a copy of "The New Yorker" to the 4S and to an Android smartphone. Siri didn't get all the words correct, but she overwhelmingly beat the competition.

Of course, after spending all this time together, I wanted to know all about Siri. I asked her a bunch of personal questions, with mixed results. Her favorite color is something she doesn't know how to say in English — "sort of greenish, but with more dimensions." She changed the subject when I asked if she was seeing anyone.

Note for foul-language fans: Siri understands profanities, but she may chastise you. She did this to me, so I asked whether she had a problem with my language. She told me to get back to work. I apologized.

Beyond Siri, I was happy to see a better camera on the 4S, which has an 8-megapixel lens compared with 5 megapixels on the iPhone 4. My shots had sharper details as a result. The new camera can also take pictures faster, and a new lens gathers more light so pictures shot in dim lighting look better.

The addition of a camera icon on the phone's lock screen makes it easier to start snapping. Just double tap on the "home" button when the phone is asleep to bring up the icon, and tap that to open up the camera. Also, there's finally a physical camera button on the iPhone as the 4S's volume-up button does double duty.

You can even record high-definition videos in 1080p on the 4S — the best resolution currently available on a consumer camera.

The iPhone 4S has the latest version of Apple's mobile software, iOS 5, which seems geared toward making the phone even easier to use.

One of the best additions here is iMessage, which lets you send texts, photos or videos to other Apple devices over Wi-Fi or your wireless carrier's data network. That makes it easier send texts to iPads and other devices that aren't phones. It also saves you texts, if you're not on an unlimited text plan.

With the iOS 5 upgrade, swiping the top of the screen now brings up a handy notification page, which shows you things such as appointments, reminders, weather and stock quotes.

IOS 5 also gets points for allowing you to step away from your computer: You can set up your iPhone and receive software updates on the device itself, without plugging it in.

In addition, it includes Apple's new iCloud content-syncing software, which can store your content online and push it wirelessly to your devices. If you buy lots of digital content from Apple, you'll like how it can automatically add songs, apps and e-books from Apple's iBookstore to all your iCloud-connected devices. Unfortunately, it doesn't do this with TV shows or movies, so you'll have to go into iTunes on the device to download them or sync the content from a computer.

The iPhone 4S's performance is helped by a new dual-core A5 chip, which is the same processor in the latest iPad. With this chip, the phone can process graphics and complete other tasks much faster. Web pages, especially graphics-heavy ones, loaded faster than they do on the iPhone 4.

Call quality was decent over Verizon Wireless' network, though it sounded a bit flat. Calls are supposed to be improved on the 4S with the inclusion of two antennas that it can use to receive or send data.

With location services on and using a combination of Wi-Fi and 3G cellular service, I got about six hours of copious texting, websurfing, video-watching and calling out of the 4S. Given this, it should hold up fine during a day of normal use.

If you're not on the market for the latest gadget, you're not entirely left out: iOS 5, which includes iCloud, will be available Wednesday as a free update for the iPhone 4 and 3GS, both iPad models and later versions of the iPod Touch.

If you are lusting after the iPhone, however, the 4S is a great one to get, even if its name doesn't include a "5."

World’s biggest virus discovered in ocean depths near Chile (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 06:36 PM PDT

Virgin Atlantic promises to help develop eco-friendly jet fuel (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 06:19 PM PDT

Giftiki: The Social Gift For the Facebook User Who Has Everything (Mashable)

Posted: 10 Oct 2011 04:42 PM PDT

Jennifer Van Grove Jennifer Van Grove – Mon Oct 10, 7:42 pm ET

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Giftiki

[More from Mashable: A Twitter Client for Budget Shoppers]

Quick Pitch: Giftiki provides friends a free and social way to pool small monetary gifts together so givers don't have to break the bank and recipients can get what they really want.

Genius Idea: Group gift-giving for cheapskates.

[More from Mashable: Meet Pinterest: A Private Social Pinboard That Collects Your Online Memories]

Group gifting sites add social and digital convenience to the tedious task of combining funds for a friend's gift. San Francisco-based Giftiki launched Monday with a few interesting twists on the online collaborative gifting paradigm.

Giftiki, for starters, is less about recruiting folks to add big sums of money to a pool for some predetermined gift, and more about using the power of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to get several people to chip in small amounts -- givers are limited to adding $1 to $10 to a Giftiki pot -- for a gift of the recipient's choosing.

Here's how it works: After signing up, you're prompted to send a Giftiki. Pick a Facebook friend, add a monetary contribution (up to $10), pen a personal (but still public) message, select digital gift wrapping and enter your credit card information. Voilà. You've just sent your Facebook friend a few bucks. Plus, because the Giftiki is posted to the recipient's Facebook Wall, your friend's Facebook friends can see it and chip in to make the pot size grow.

The lucky Giftiki recipient can opt to cash out funds to a prepaid American Express card or transfer them to a partner gift card. At launch, partners include retailers such as Macy's, Starbucks and Sports Authority.

The idea behind Giftiki first started to take shape after he celebrated a prior birthday, says Giftiki CEO Justin Stanislaw. "I got a lot of unwanted gifts, plenty of Facebook messages and text messages, but really nothing of substance."

Stanislaw then reached out to friend and future co-founder Bryan Jowers. "We were just fed up with getting gifts we didn't want," Stanislaw says. They weren't the only ones fed up. The Giftiki idea found favor with The Brandery, a consumer marketing accelerator program, and the startup later went on raise $1 million in funding.

We like it too. It's easy on the eyes, quirky in all the right ways, simple enough to not make gifting a chore and cheap enough (who doesn't have an extra dollar or two to spare?) that it might actually work.

That's not to say Giftiki is perfect -- but there does seem to be promise.

Look for an iPhone app, gamification incentives and member wish lists in the near term, and maybe even wedding registries in the more distant future.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Sony: third party tried to access 93,000 online accounts (Reuters)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 07:38 PM PDT

– 2 hrs 8 mins ago

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony said on Wednesday that a third party had tried to sign in to 93,000 active accounts on its PlayStation and other networks this month.

The company said it had frozen the accounts and informed affected customers by e-mail, adding that it believed only a few of the accounts were actually accessed.

The illicit attempts to access online accounts come after Sony was hit by massive hacking attacks this year, affecting about 100 million accounts on its PlayStation Network, Qriocity and Sony Online Entertainment networks. The company was forced to shutter the PlayStation Network for almost a month.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

Zynga hopes to ward off rivals with games barrage (Reuters)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 04:20 PM PDT

By Alexei Oreskovic and Liana B. Baker Alexei Oreskovic And Liana B. Baker – Tue Oct 11, 7:20 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Zynga is betting a new crop of games and a self-run Internet service will help it fend off rivals and reduce its reliance on Facebook as it prepares to mount a hotly anticipated IPO.

The company, which now dominates social gaming with aging titles like FarmVille, announced a slate of games on Tuesday to get into fresher territory from casinos to medieval landscapes. And it introduced "Project Z," a code-named fledgling service that will let gamers play through a Web browser without launching from Facebook.

Zynga hosted the rare media event at its San Francisco headquarters just weeks after the company showed a steep drop in quarterly profit.

Chief Executive Mark Pincus steered clear of discussing the IPO, but Zynga's first-ever large media presentation was a signal to analysts the company is taking Wall Street seriously and on track to go public.

"Zynga wants to let the world know they have a pipeline of games. The fact they are doing the press event and have never done one before is a harbinger of things to come," said Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia. "It's good these Zynga games are different, so players don't get a burn-out factor."

The company, which rose to prominence with "Mafia Wars" and "Farmville", filed for an initial public offering of up to $1 billion in July. But rough market conditions spurred by the weak economy have forced it to delay its debut, according to media reports.

Now, rivals ranging from the Walt Disney Co to Electronic Arts are making strides in social gaming, or casual games on the Internet that involve playing with a group of friends.

On Tuesday, Pincus unveiled several new titles including mobile game "DreamZoo" where players collect animals, a medieval-themed Facebook game called "CastleVille", and a bingo game set in Las Vegas. Another game, "Hidden Chronicles" allows players to search for concealed objects.

It also released games based on Facebook's new HTML5 technology that can be played on several devices, from smartphones to tablets such as Apple's iPad.

PROJECT Z

Apart from a dependence on "FarmVille" type games -- Cityville, released last year, is essentially an urban version -- investors worry Zynga is too beholden to Facebook, the main platform for its games and which takes 30 percent of revenue earned on that platform.

With 262 million monthly active users on Facebook, it has been adept at herding current players to new games but some analysts question how it can keep adding users on Facebook, where Electronic Arts and other rivals are coming out with successful games. EA's "The Sims Social" Facebook game now has more players than FarmVille, according to Appdata.

To help wean itself off, the company unveiled an online platform for players that executives said will be a direct-to-consumer experience called "Zynga Direct."

While Zynga did not provide many details on the embryonic Zynga Direct concept, it showed glimpses under the code-name "Project Z." The browser-based service will connect to Facebook, but games will not necessarily be always played on that social network.

"You can start a game on Facebook and can continue it on Project Z or vice versa, never losing your progress and continuing wherever you drop off," said John Schappert, Zynga's chief operating officer.

Zynga declined to comment on whether the platform would support Facebook credits, the social network's virtual currency in games.

Zynga is already trying to publish games for other platforms. Mafia Wars 2 -- the sequel to its popular Facebook game --debuted this week on Google Inc's Google+ in addition to a version on Facebook.

Like Hollywood studios, the publisher also needs to keep releasing new hits to sustain its growth.

After a months-long dry spell for new games, Zynga said in September that its profit dived to $1.4 million from $14 million a year earlier. Its sequential quarterly profit also fell more than 90 percent, from $16.8 million in the three months ended March.

Analysts expect the company to release its financial results for the September quarter in the next few weeks.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco and Liana B. Baker in New York, editing by Robert MacMillan, Matthew Lewis, and Bob Burgdorfer)

Ultraviolet soft-launches with Horrible Bosses (Digital Trends)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 07:19 PM PDT

Geoff Duncan Geoff Duncan – 2 hrs 27 mins ago

Ultraviolet Horrible Bosses

More than a year ago, major Hollywood studios all got in line behind Ultraviolet, a project designed to meld the world of retail DVD and Blu-ray sales with streaming content. Now, the first title to be distributed with Ultraviolet support is hitting the streets in the form of Warner Bros. Horrible Bosses—but very little of the promised infrastructure to support Ultraviolet is in place, and, for the the time being, the studios are handling it on their own.

The idea behind Ultraviolet seems simple: when customers by a DVD or Blu-ray disc at retail, it comes with a code for that enables customers to tap into a streaming digital version of the same content from virtually any device, whether that be a TV, a tablet, a smartphone, an Internet-connected TV, game console, or set-top box. Enter the code into an online Ultraviolet library, and users can get their content in whatever format works best for whatever device they're using. Up to six people in a household can access a single Ultraviolet library.

There's just one problem: all that back-end support doesn't exist yet. Warner Bros., the first studio out the door with Ultraviolet support, will be directing users to Flixster, an online movie sharing database company it acquired earlier this year (along with Rotten Tomatoes). Flixster is available for PCs along with Android, BlackBerry, and iOS devices—there's no support for consoles, Internet-connected TVs, or set-tops. Sony Pictures is due to start shipping its first Ultraviolet titles in December with The Smurfs, but customers won't be able to redeem those codes at Flixster—instead, they'll have to go to a separate service operated by Sony. And if customers just want to buy titles for their Ultraviolet account and eschew the discs entirely? They can't. Not yet anyway—Ultraviolet doesn't have any retail capability.

Ultraviolet first releases

Although Amazon, Apple, Sony, Wal-mart (via Vudu) and others have jumped into the online video arena, so far consumers haven't strongly embraced the idea of buying digital video, while subscription streaming services like Netflix have resonated, especially for content like TV episode that consumers are less likely to want to own forever. Interoperability is seen as a key feature for digital video purchases: most consumers don't want to buy a digital version of a movie and have it work for a few years on a few devices, then have to buy it again to work for a few more years on a few other devices. They'd like to buy it once and have it work on everything forever. Ultraviolet holds the promise to bridge that gap—but only if it can get its infrastructure operating and convince consumers the service is worth their money. And Ultraviolet will have plenty of competition from cloud-based services from the likes of Apple and Amazon, and Disney is reportedly working on its own platform-agnostic digital content locker.

Watch or create the news with ChannelCaster: Social News for Android (Appolicious)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 02:30 PM PDT

Gilad Shalit Freed, Hostage Deal Trends on Twitter (NewsFactor)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 05:54 PM PDT

Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com – Tue Oct 11, 8:54 pm ET

As a five-year-old international hostage drama wound to a close today, it quickly became one of the fastest trending topics on Twitter. The hostage deal involves the long-awaited release of Gilad Shalit, a young Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas for the past five years, in exchange for Israel releasing more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

News of Shalit's release and the controversial agreement spread quickly around the world, creating a stream of tweets. The hashtag #GiladShalit moved along computer screens almost as quickly today as #SteveJobs did last week, following the death of the Apple co-founder and former CEO. A few days before that, #iPhone5 topped Twitter, when Apple released a new phone that turned out to be the iPhone 4S, not an iPhone 5, as expected.

As of 5:30 pm Eastern time today, #GiladShalit tweets were appearing about every 10 seconds.

Tweets from Netanyahu

Shalit had been held by his captors since a June, 2006 raid at the border of the Gaza Strip. Sporadic 'proof of life' was sent to Israel, but he was not allowed any visits from the International Red Cross to check on his condition. A multi-year, international campaign has been waged to pressure his captors into releasing Shalit, who was kidnapped and held hostage, simply as a bargaining chip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his official Twitter feed, told the world on Tuesday afternoon (evening, Israel time), "We have concluded arduous negotiations with #Hamas to release #Gilad #Shalit. He will be coming home in the next few days."

Other updates from IsraeliPM included, "Earlier today I have updated Aviva and Noam #Shalit about the upcoming developments," referring to the soldier's parents, and "especially thank the #Egyptian government and its security services for their role in mediation & concluding of the deal #Shalit.

Among tweets in response to the news were, "the heart is happy, the mind is worried," from Shiran01, who lives in Israel. The worry presumably refers to the serious concern shared by many that the thousand prisoners released will pose a dangerous threat to the safety of Israel.

Another tweet reads,"May #GiladShalit be returned safely to his family after 5 years in captivity. More than 1000 prisoners for 1...," from AmyinCapetown.

Indeed, there were and are many critics of the deal: "Don't let em do it, [one] thousand killers released for one single soldier?? no f--ing way," tweeted TheKingRoberts.

Social Media Built Awareness

Facebook also offered an opportunity for people around the world to share their thoughts. The Free Gilad Shalit group, which has 107,112 members, featured posts from the U.S. to Israel and Norway, where Terje Akselsen posted, "Hope everything goes according to plan now..."

Rabbi Jason Miller, who writes extensively about the intersection of Jewish themes and technology, said he learned about the deal Tuesday from a New York Times Breaking News alert, and quickly Tweeted it to his 2,357 followers. It was, in a way, coming full circle, as social media have been used extensively to raise awareness of Shalit's plight.

"The hashtag #FreeGilad is one that I have been using for at least three years now," said Miller. "In fact, it was one of the first hashtags I ever used on Twitter. I've also been asked by leaders of the 'Free Gilad' movement if I would tweet certain statements at certain times of the year, on the anniversary of his captivity."

"It's not just news for Israelis or Jewish people, but an international story."

Susanne Goldstone Rosenhouse, who tweets "Juicy Bits of Judaism" under the handle Jewish Tweets, recalled that Shalit was captured when Twitter was only three months old.

"I was just thinking how much the Tweet4Shalit Twitter campaign did to raise awareness," she said Tuesday.

BlackBerry problems hit four continents (Reuters)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 05:23 PM PDT

By Georgina Prodhan and Alastair Sharp Georgina Prodhan And Alastair Sharp – Tue Oct 11, 8:23 pm ET

LONDON/TORONTO (Reuters) – Millions of BlackBerry customers across four continents are without email, messaging and browsing service on their smartphones after a series of failures in Research In Motion's private network.

Extensive delays hit Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India on Monday and the problems spread to Brazil, Chile and Argentina on Tuesday in the latest headache for the Canadian smartphone maker.

The disruption piles pressures on RIM, which is fending off investor calls for a management shake-up and possible sale or split of the company as it shifts its phone lineup to new software first used in the widely panned PlayBook tablet.

"The messaging and browsing delays being experienced ... were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure," the company said in an emailed update late on Tuesday afternoon in Toronto.

RIM's BlackBerry service has long been prized by executives and politicians who rely on its security and reliability to deliver email and other messaging to mobile workers.

But problems with the service may hasten corporate moves to allow rivals such as Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad and devices running Google Inc's Android software to access data kept behind company firewalls, one analyst said.

"The current situation with the BlackBerry outages couldn't come at a worse time for RIM, following some harsh criticism in recent months," Informa Telecoms & Media analyst Malik Saadi said in a statement.

"Some businesses may see this as a good reason to reevaluate

their reliance on centralized servers and instead look to investing in more corporately controlled servers.

"Not only would this enable IT departments to minimize the risk of unforeseen collapses, but it could also give employees more flexibility to use their own devices," he said.

The Canadian company manages its BlackBerry service via servers parked within enterprises and hooked up to a proprietary network carried by wireless operators.

"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested," RIM said. Failover refers to the automatic switching of service to a standby server in the case of a failure of a main system.

"As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible," RIM noted.

RIM hosts a number of network operating centers, including one at its headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, and another in southern England, which manage the massive amounts of data that flow through its system.

RIM has suffered outages before. Its BlackBerry Messenger service went offline in Canada and Latin America last month and a massive disruption hit North American customers in April 2007, but the disruptions are usually contained within one continent or region.

RIM has more than 70 million subscribers worldwide, with much growth in recent years coming from emerging markets.

At 10:25 p.m. Monday Eastern Time, RIM said it had resolved problems disrupting its services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). This was some 20 hours after users in EMEA and India first reported problems with email and BlackBerry Messenger.

In its latest update, RIM did not say when it expected the outage to be fully resolved or how many customers had been affected.

The outages are just another headache for RIM, which has less margin for error as rivals encroach on the corporate email market it once took for granted. Employees increasingly push to use their personal devices, typically iPhones and iPads and to a lesser extent Android devices, in the workplace.

It is also facing growing calls from investors for a break-up, sale or change of management following recent dismal results, slipping market share for its phones and a lacklustre reception for its PlayBook tablet, designed to challenge Apple's iPad.

Network operators and users in EMEA tweeted that email and BlackBerry Messenger services were not working from Monday morning in London. Network operator T-Mobile said on its website that the problems were due to a European-wide outage on the BlackBerry network.

It said: "RIM has apologized for the interruption to services and said it's working to restore normal operations."

Vodafone sent a message to its British BlackBerry customers on Tuesday evening that noted "you may still be experiencing issues with BlackBerry services" and saying RIM was working to resolve this urgently.

(Additional reporting by Paul Sandle in London and Devidutta Tripathy in New Delhi; Editing by Will Waterman, David Holmes and Richard Chang)

Verizon to add 4G LTE coverage to 35 cities through November (Appolicious)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 11:14 AM PDT

Verizon denies Clearwire talks, eyes LTE devices (Reuters)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 03:02 PM PDT

By Lisa Richwine Lisa Richwine – Tue Oct 11, 6:02 pm ET

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – The chief executive of Verizon Wireless denied on Tuesday the No. 1 U.S. mobile service is talking with Clearwire Corp about the possibility of using the smaller operator's wireless airwaves in high-demand areas.

CEO Dan Mead also promised several new devices for the fastest Verizon Wireless network by year-end and said the operator has plenty of airwaves for the high-speed wireless network that it is building.

"We're not ... in any talks" with Clearwire about spectrum,

Mead told Reuters in an interview after speaking at the CTIA wireless industry conference in San Diego.

Clearwire executives said in September they were talking with U.S. wireless operators, including AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless about selling network capacity, as Clearwire looks to expand its wholesale business beyond its biggest client, Sprint Nextel Corp -- also Clearwire's majority owner.

Mead said Verizon Wireless does not see the need for a partnership with Clearwire.

"We have a very defined spectrum policy," said Mead. "We are going to cover 185 markets by the end of this year (with LTE). We are very pleased with where we are at," Mead added, also promising more LTE device news in coming weeks.

He said Verizon Wireless, would increase the number of LTE devices it is offering to more than 20 by year-end, up from the company's current LTE lineup of 14 devices, including phones, tablets and data cards.

It is possible one of the new devices is from Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc, as the companies are holding an event on October 18 to announce "the next big innovation" from Motorola.

At a recent investment conference, Verizon Communications Chief Executive Lowell McAdam was asked about which wireless spectrum bands could be of interest to Verizon and raised some eyebrows by including in his response the 2.5 gigahertz spectrum band in where Clearwire owns spectrum.

Clearwire Chief Executive Eric Prusch also told Reuters in an interview last month his company was talking to everybody in the U.S. wireless industry about selling capacity on a network Clearwire is looking to raise money to build.

A Clearwire representative declined comment on Tuesday.

Clearwire, which is majority owned by Sprint Nextel Corp, has said it needs about $900 million in funding, including $600 million to upgrade its network and up to $300 million to keep the business operating.

Clearwire has said the company is exploring the sale of network capacity while it also looks at raising new funding through equity, debt, vendor financing or a potential spectrum sale. Sprint indicated last week it has no plans to offer Clearwire future funding.

Mead declined to provide details on Verizon's sales of the new Apple iPhone 4S, which is now available for pre-orders before hitting stores on Friday.

"We're very pleased with our partnership with Apple," he said, declining to provide numbers on phone sales.

Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine in San Diego and Sinead Carew in New York)

The top 10 songs and albums on the iTunes Store (AP)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 12:31 PM PDT

By The Associated Press The Associated Press – Tue Oct 11, 3:31 pm ET

iTunes' Official Music Charts for the week ending Oct. 10, 2011:

Top Songs:

1. "Someone Like You," ADELE

2. "Sexy and I know It," LMFAO

3. "Pumped Up Kicks," Foster the People

4. "Moves Like Jagger (studio Recording from "The Voice" Performance) (feat. Christina Aguilera)," Maroon 5

5. "We Found Love (feat. Calvin Harris)," Rihanna

6. "Stereo Hears (feat. Adam Levine)," Gym Class Heroes

7. "Without You (feat. Usher)," Usher, David Guetta

8. "Strange Clouds (feat. Lil Wayne)," B.o.B.

9. "Party Rock Anthem (feat. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock)

10. "Yoü And I," Lady Gaga

___

Top Albums:

1. "Clear As Day," Scotty McCreery

2. "21," ADELE

3. "Cole World - The Sideline Story," J Cole

4. "Metals," Feist

5. "Mayday Parada," Mayday Parade

6. "People and Things," Jack's Mannequin

7. "Neighborhoods," Blink-182

8. "Torches," Foster the People

9. "Own the Night," Lady Antebellum

10."Tha Carter IV," Lil Wayne

___

(copyright) 2011 Apple, Inc.

Australia court to rule on Apple v Samsung case on Thursday (Reuters)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 09:12 PM PDT

– 34 mins ago

SYDNEY (Reuters) – An Australian court will hand down its judgment on Thursday on Apple's request to ban the sale of Samsung Electronic's latest tablet computer in Australia.

However, the Federal Court said in a statement that some parts of the judgment might be given confidentially to the two parties on Thursday and only released a day later, on Friday.

Apple is seeking a temporary ban on sales of Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablets, citing infringement of its touch-screen technology patent, pending a full determination of the patent dispute.

Apple says Samsung's Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets "slavishly" copied its iPhone and iPad and has launched an international legal battle which is expected to hurt growth at one of Samsung's fastest-growing businesses.

Samsung, whose Galaxy gadgets are seen as a major threat to Apple's devices, rejects the claims.

(Reporting by Amy Pyett; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Microsoft competitor Box lands $81 million funding (Reuters)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 09:03 AM PDT

– Tue Oct 11, 12:03 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Business-software company Box has won $81 million in funding to expand its business, illustrating investors' continued appreciation for start-up companies that tap into the cloud.

The new funding almost doubles Palo Alto, California-based Box's previous round, $48 million raised in February. New backers included strategic investors salesforce.com and SAP Ventures, along with Bessemer Venture Partners and NEA. Prior investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Draper Fisher, also joined in the round.

Box, formerly known as Box.net, plans to use the funds for expansion, with a goal of doubling employees to about 600, Chief Executive Aaron Levie told Reuters. In a program dubbed the Box Innovation Network, it also plans to start funding and consulting developers working on applications that work with Box, much as apps from Google Apps, salesforce.com and others do now.

Box allows companies to store and access data in the cloud-- networks of servers often run and maintained by others, allowing for access from anywhere. Box also runs apps that perform common business tasks such as managing orders and production scheduling.

Levie said the company wants to take business from established players that overlap with Box, like Microsoft's Sharepoint or Oracle. About 77 percent of Fortune 500 companies already use Box, he said.

Similar players include San Francisco-based Dropbox, which is geared toward consumers and is raising its own new funding round. Domo, a startup based in Salt Lake City that offers business-intelligence services, raised an initial $33 million round in July.

Venture-capital backers are placing increasing chunks of cash in cloud-computing companies as businesses and consumers step up their use of remote storage. Major companies such as Amazon.com Inc, Google Inc, and Apple Inc are also making sizable investments in the area.

(Reporting by Sarah McBride, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

RSA SecurID data stolen by a "nation state" (Digital Trends)

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 06:39 PM PDT

Geoff Duncan Geoff Duncan – Tue Oct 11, 9:39 pm ET

RSA SecurID

Last March, infiltrators carried out a quiet cyberattack against RSA, obtaining information about the operation of its SecurID tokens, hardware devices used by corporations, governments, and organizations to establish secure VPN connections with remote employees. RSA admitted the breach in April and began replacing SecurID tokens last June, but now RSA is revealing a bit more about the attack. Speaking at a Q&A session at the RSA Conference in London, RSA chairman Art Coviello said the attack's methodology revealed that two separate teams were at work, and the company is very confident that the skill and resources required by the attack had to have been supported by a nation.

"We've not attributed it to a particular nation state although we're very confident that with the skill, sophistication and resources involved it could only have been a nation state," ZDNet quotes Coviello as saying.

RSA was apparently the victim of a targeted malware attack via a spreadsheet sent to a small number of employees, carefully worded to get someone to open the attachment. At least one did, and a malicious Adobe Flash object within the spreadsheet exploited a zero-day vulnerability that enabled the attackers to install a remote access Trojan horse. Once that was in place, hackers used the Trojan to explore RSA's internal network and look for information about how its SecurID tokens operate. And they found it: information gleaned from the attack was subsequently used in an unsuccessful attack against U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin.

SecurID tokens are used as an additional layer of security over-and-above standard username-password combinations as a way to secure VPN logins from untrusted networks—like the Internet. When users connect, they're prompted for an authorization key displayed on the SecurID token issued to them. These numeric keys change at a fixed interval (usually every minute)—the idea is that even if an attacker has a user's name and password, they'd still need a unique number to access the network—and that number constantly changes. The information stolen in the RSA breach apparently enabled attackers to generate SecurID keys without the physical tokens.

Some industry watchers have expressed skepticism that the attack was carried out by a nation, noting there's nothing in particular about the attack as subscribed that points to a government-backed operation. Yes, the information gleaned in the attack was used to go after a defense contractor, but the data could easily have been sold or changed hands numerous times after the attack—there's not necessarily a direct connection between the perpetrators of the breach and the attackers who went after Lockheed Martin.

"It seems very odd to me for a company to say that they have determined that a country had attacked them, but to not then name the country," wrote Sophos' Graham Cluley in its Naked Security blog.

RSA has not disclosed how many tokens it replaced in the wake of the breach, but indicated that replacement had been completed by August.

at 10:00 PM

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