eBay has rolled out WorldofGood.com, a new online Green marketplace offering products that are made from recycled or natural materials. The site also allows shoppers to buy products built in developing nations. Thus, eBay said, the site has a positive impact on people and the planet
Smartyhost, an Australian web hosting firm, has been adding Trojans to their clients websites for the past 6 months, potentially driving them off the web and out of business
It’s the success story to beat all internet success stories. Ten years ago, on 7 September 1998, two young graduate students at Stanford University incorporated a company with the (then) odd-sounding name Google
. Today, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are billionaires. Their company is hugely profitable; between April and June this year alone, it reported a turnover of $5.7bn (£3.2bn) and generated a net profit of $1.25bn (the first quarter was even more profitable). Not bad for a company that makes its money being a broker for and publisher of online advertising
Scientists have found that bumblebees learn from their near-death
encounters with crab spiders and adapt their future foraging strategies. They watched real bees in an artificial meadow — containing yellow flowers
and robotic crab spiders. Bees that had been captured
spent longer inspecting flowers during subsequent foraging trips. They may outwit the spiders — but at the expense of valuable foraging time
The summer saw a surge in the number of hijacked home PCs or zombies
, say security experts. The Shadowserver Foundation, which tracks zombie numbers worldwide, said it had seen at least a threefold increase in the last three months. More than 450,000 computers are now part of zombie networks, or botnets, run by hi-tech criminals, it said. The rise is believed to be linked to attacks that booby-trap web sites to try to infect the machines of visitors
Criminals can remotely destroy incriminating evidence by exploiting security features on the Apple iPhone, a leading digital forensics expert has warned. The head of the Serious Fraud Office digital forensics unit Keith Foggon cautioned that the ability to remotely wipe the iPhone and other smart phones used by enterprises could be exploited by lawbreakers
Spammers are abusing free Web services to make their spam links look more legitimate, according to e-mail security vendor MessageLabs
BBC Worldwide, Auntie’s commercial arm, is developing a music download service, offering streamed for free and paid download works from its archive of music that bands have recorded for TV and radio in BBC studios. The Beeb’s radio and television music shows frequently feature live sessions recorded at BBC HQ, often of current singles, acoustic versions of popular tracks, or cover versions of other artists’ work. Radio 1’s Live Lounge is a popular destination for pop artists, not to mention the John Peel Sessions. And don’t forget the BBC has exclusive rights to broadcast Glastonbury
Perth-based internet service provider Westnet has started trialling ADSL2+ services using its new parent iiNet’s broadband network, with a formal launch date likely to come before the end of the year
Mozilla has extended its search deal with Google for another three years. In return for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox, Google pays Mozilla a substantial sum — in 2006 the total amounted to around $57 million, or 85% of the company’s total revenue. The deal was originally going to expire in 2006, but was later extended to 2008 and will now run through 2011
Employees are failing to properly archive e-mails, according to research, because they are often too busy or too unsure of their IT skills. Over 75% of employees said they received no guidance on the requirements and methods for e-mail storage, and more than a third said their company has no e-mail policy
Google is developing a new web browser built from the ground up and based on WebKit, the same rendering engine that Safari uses. The browser, called Chrome, is open-source software built with security, compatibility and speed in mind. Each tab in the browser will be its own separate running process. For example, if JavaScript hangs in one tab, the other tabs will remain unaffected. The approach is similar to the way Mac OS X isolates applications in their own private areas to prevent one crash from taking down the whole system
In March, Microsoft announced that their upcoming Internet Explorer 8 would: use its most standards compliant mode, IE8 Standards, as the default
. Note the last word: default. Microsoft argued that, in light of their newly published interoperability principles, it was the right thing to do. This declaration heralded an about-face and was widely praised by the web standards community; people were stunned and delighted by Microsoft’s promise. This week, the promise was broken. It lasted less than six months
There is a new electronic capture device that has been developed primarily for law enforcement, surveillance, and intelligence operations that is also available to the public. It is called the Cellular Seizure Investigation Stick, or CSI Stick as a clever acronym. It is manufactured by a company called Paraben, and is a self-contained module about the size of a BIC lighter. It plugs directly into most Motorola and Samsung cell phones to capture all data that they contain. More phones will be added to the list, including many from Nokia, RIM, LG and others, in the next generation, to be released shortly. This device connects to the data/charging port and will seamlessly grab e-mails, instant messages, dialed numbers, phone books and anything else that is stored in memory. It will even retrieve deleted files that have not been overwritten. And there is no trace whatsoever that the information has been compromised, nor any risk of corruption
Most of us tend to assume that spammers focus on the right-hand side of our email addresses — the part after the @. That’s why big companies and webmail services have to filter out so much junk email: a spammer can try it on with zillions of potential victims in one swoop, simply by throwing everything they’ve got at any @hotmail.com address. However, it turns out that spammers could be more subtle creatures than we give them credit for. A paper presented by Clayton at CEAS 2008, the Conference on Email and Anti-Spam held last week at a Microsoft research facility in California, suggests that the text to the left of the @ also makes a serious difference to how much spam you’re likely to receive. Analysing email traffic logs from Demon Internet, one of Britain’s biggest ISPs, Clayton saw a marked difference between people’s spam load depending on their names: specifically, those with names higher up the alphabet were more likely to get spammed than those closer to the bottom. According to his statistics, someone called Alison may expect around 35% of the email she receives to be spam, while Zadie may only get around 20% — even if both use the same email provider
Google unveiled on Thursday its plans for a store where mobile users can find Android applications, a concept similar to the iPhone’s App Store. The first handsets running Android, expected to appear later this year, will include a beta version of the Android Market, Google’s Eric Chu wrote in a blog post. Initially, users will at least be able to find free applications there. After that, Google expects to update the Market to allow users to buy and download paid content. The Market will feature a feedback and rating system similar to that used in YouTube, Chu said
Microsoft agreed Friday to buy Greenfield Online, owner of the European price comparison Web site ciao.com, for about $486 million to boost its Internet search and e-commerce business in Europe. Microsoft, whose $47.5 billion bid to buy Yahoo this year failed after a protracted battle, said on the acquisition should benefit its Live Search platform
The ABC has forged partnerships with fellow public broadcasters in Britain and Canada to pool ideas on emerging broadcasting technologies as it seeks to cement its foothold in the rapidly evolving digital world. The national broadcaster’s next digital drawcard, planned for a November launch, would be a mobile interactive kiosk that would enable viewers to tape themselves talking about whatever they want
A man who chose Lloyds is pants
as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to no it’s not
. Steve Jetley, from Shrewsbury, said he chose the password after falling out with Lloyds TSB over insurance that came free with an account. He said he was then banned from changing it back or to another password of Barclays is better
. The bank apologised and said the staff member no longer worked there
Civil libertarians are up in arms over moves to give Queensland Police and the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) police phone-tapping powers
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