Internet poker giants indicted in U.S. crackdown

Several founders of the three largest Internet poker companies doing business in the U.S. have been arrested as part of an indictment that includes charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and other online gambling-related offenses, the U.S. Attorney's office said today.
The three offshore companies--PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker--are accused of circumventing a 2006 U.S. law that prohibits financial institutions from handling transactions for online gambling sites. Prosecutors say they allegedly tricked U.S. banks and credit card issuers into processing billions of dollars in transactions that appeared to be legitimate sales on hundreds of fake online retail sites purportedly selling jewelry and golf balls.
One-third of the money allegedly went directly to the poker companies as revenue through a fee charged to players on each poker hand played, according to the indictment, which was unsealed today in U.S. District Court in New York.After U.S. banks and financial institutions detected fraudulent bank accounts and shut them down, the defendants allegedly paid a few small, financially troubled banks money as investments in return for processing the payments, according to the indictment. The deals allegedly included a $10 million investment in a private Utah bank that gave the poker companies more than a 30 percent ownership stake, prosecutors said.

Google denies Panda hit on rival

Google has defended recent changes to its search system that reduced the prominence of some popular websites. One of the worst hit by the "Panda" update was Ciao.co.uk, a Microsoft-owned company. Its web visibility fell by 94% according to analysis by Searchmetrics.
Google's head of search evaluation, Scott Huffman, said it was "almost absurd" to suggest that the results were rigged. Such updates are often done to weed out "content farms" - websites that copy material from other sites in order to get hits. Where a keyword search may previously have returned their site on Google's first page, afterwards it may be relegated to further down the rankings. Shopping and price comparison sites such as Ciao.co.uk sometimes suffer when Google algorithms change because they carry comments and reviews replicated elsewhere on the internet.

Laser Guns

The US navy have shot a laser gun from one of their ships for the first time recently. They used a high energy laser (HEL) to set fire to a boats engine rendering it disabled on the coast of California. The US navy have been experimenting with laser since the retro ages (1970s) and found that moist sea air reduced lasers power which was a major obstacle.
The original concept for these ship mounted laser was to exploded hostile missile whilst they were air born thus cause littlest damage possible.
This technology is restricted to military ships but merchant vessels are also interested in the tech. Other laser weapons being developed include a laser gun that can temporarily blind pirates to allow the attacked ship to escape.

Minority Report Ads a Reality?

Back when the Minority Report was first released in 2002, a lot of its contents set imagination racing. Back then it was just that, imagination.
In the film Tom Crusie's character walks through a shopping center when suddenly the seemingly normal advertising boards started to call him by name claiming he needed a Guiness to try to entice him to buy one. Adverts around the room did the same thing.
Whilst we are not yet in the age of minority report which was set in 2054 or something like that, we are close to encountering these personalised ads.
The report - commissioned by 3MGTG foresees the first step to be advertisements that adapt to our moods.
The tech has been dubbed 'Gladverts' by the report's authors.
They envision a world where emotion recognition software (ERS) can tell if you are happy or sad and then serve up an advert based on how you feel.
In Japan, technology company NEC has already developed a system which can work out a person's gender, estimate their age, and serve up adverts suited to that demographic.
In a world where we are advertised to constantly, whether we know it or not, these type of ads offer up some interactivity for us. But how the adverts know our details, interests, moods, likes and dislikes is scary stuff. If these ads know this information whats stopping them emailing or writing us directly.
Will the ads know if the start to annoy a target and will they stop if they do? These questions needs to be answered and a secure system that works well needs to be developed if I was to want these types of ads shouting at me when I walk through a shopping center.
For the meantime I see this type of advertising being somewhat annoying or even unwanted, no one really asked for this. But with time and proper development maybe they can work well and blend into to the shopping environment which I believe should prompt a calm relaxed atmosphere rather than one of being bombarded with ads as you walk for shop to shop.

Net Freedom

The right to a voice online, it seems, is of paramount importance all around the world. At Campus Party in Brazil last month, Al Gore called on the public to act in preserving what he believes is a system vital for democracy.  "Defend the internet," he said.  "Do not let it be controlled by governments or by large corporations. It is a network of people."
But there are signs that the web is becoming dominated by the few.
According to web analytics firm Compete, the top 10 websites were responsible for 31% of US page views in 2001, rising to around 75% in most recent estimates. Facebook alone accounts for around a quarter of all US internet traffic. "Al Gore's comments sound nice in theory but I just don't see how they will work out in practice," says Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of the Internet.  "It's inevitable that governments will be active online, simply because so much of public life happens online - and governments are there to enforce laws guiding public life.  "Likewise, I don't see how you can keep the corporations out - certain things can be done on the cheap and with the help of peer-to-peer alternatives but we surely can't expect that each of us will be laying internet cables to our own houses."
As seen at Campus Party, open source software that is free to use and for everyone to develop is a big part of web culture - "collaboration" and "openness" have always been big words for web enthusiasts.
But the internet is slowly changing, the internet has been flooded with the influx of apps. While often easier to use, apps contain content that is more easily controlled by the app's creator and creates a "walled garden" of information. This means more information is being selected and offered without users going out and searching for it.
This filter of information that is quite different from the free-for-all of the world wide web. And this shift in culture is having a big impact.

Anonymous Bank Emails & Microsoft IE9

Anonymous Symbol

Anonymous has released a cache of e-mails which it claims show impropriety at Bank of America. The leak details plans to delete sensitive documents. Bank of America has denied wrongdoing and called the claims "extravagant". The e-mails were initially posted online at http://bankofamericasuck.com. That website has only been available intermittently, having been overwhelmed by requests. Sites mirroring the content have appeared, which proves the rule "once on the internet its always on the internet". Anonymous members have engaged in a campaign of action against websites and companies that assisted the United States government in its attempt to isolate Wikileaks.

Microsoft has launched the finished version of its Internet Explorer 9 web browser. The company said IE9's graphics handling, security and privacy features put it on an even footing with Firefox, Chrome, Safari and others. Microsoft said one key feature in IE9 was tools to stop people being tracked as they move from site to site. This information is often gathered by commercial firms to tailor ads to the specific habits of web users. IE9 also has hardware acceleration built in so it can call on the power of a PC's graphics card to display sites in more detail. Microsoft said the 40 million test, or beta, versions of IE9 that had been downloaded made it the most downloaded of all time. Already, it said 2% of Windows 7 users were running the latest version. IE9 does not run on Windows XP and can only be used with Windows 7 and Vista.

Clearer Broadband Speed, Skiver and Iphone bug



Skiver app

 New code of practice will force ISPs to be clearer about how they shape traffic and slow down users' speeds. Broadband providers have promised to make the way they slow down network speeds more transparent. ISP's have signed up to a new code of practice which means they will provide information about their traffic management policies in a way that is easily comparable. Video services such as the BBC iPlayer and YouTube have put pressure on broadband providers, who are struggling to keep up with the need for new investment in infrastructure. Restricting broadband speeds allows them to manage demand without crippling their service. ISPs insist that some network management is necessary, but proponents of ‘net neutrality’ – who say that all web traffic should be treated equally - say the practice risks promoting a fast lane on the internet.

Twitter, Facebook and blogs have been full of reports of US users' iPhones going back an hour rather than forward, in an apparent recurrence of the operating system bug that has struck several times before.

Earlier this year, a clock glitch prevented alarms from sounding on New Year's Day, and the devices also struggled to adjust to the end of daylight savings time back in November. On the previous occasion when American clocks moved, although the time on the iPhone 4 automatically went back, the alarm function didn’t for many users.

In other news, a new app has been developed which helps people invent reasons for not showing up to work. Skiver is a free app with the boast that "lying to your boss has never been so easy thanks to Skiver". Skiver allows the user to enter the number of days they want off and Skiver will provide a plausible illness along with symptoms and a cover story. You can also email this excuse from the app to your boss if required. But the cherry on top about Skiver is that it will suggest cool things for you to do on you day off like cinema listings and other events.

Kinect & Nintendo 3DS



Xbox 360 & Kinect controller



First thing in the news is that Microsoft's Kinect entered the Guiness World Record Books as the fastest selling gadget ever. The Guinness Book of Records has hailed the Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect gaming system as the Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device ever after it flew off the shelves, with consumers going Kinect-crazy this Christmas. Guinness comments that 133,333 Kinects were acquired per day in its first two months of commercial availability. That's a complete total of 8 million sold worldwide between 4 November 2010 and 3 January 2011.



Next item I'd like to talk about is the Nintendo 3DS which is released in the UK on 25th March.

Priced at around £220, can this glasses-free 3D darling sock its rivals in the guts?

In terms of construction, the 3DS is similar to its predecessors, rocking a folding, clamshell design. When closed, the console measures roughly 135 by 20 by 74mm, which makes it almost exactly the same size as the DS Lite and DSi. It's reasonably lightweight too. The console is the first to include full stereoscopic 3d graphics without glasses. A built-in 3D Depth Slider allows you to immediately adjust the intensity of the 3D settings on the Nintendo 3DS system to your liking. The 3D effect can also be turned down completely—all Nintendo 3DS games and applications can be played in 2D.A built-in motion sensor and gyro sensor can react to the motion and tilt of the system. Although I'm looking forward to playing the 3DS I probably won't be buying one as the games are likely to be expensive and there is something you just don't get with handheld console that you do get with other platforms.

iPad 2, Android Virus and Cyber Attacks

Steve Jobs has come back from sick leave so he can release the second generation of iPads to the world. Apple has billed the iPad 2 as slimmer, lighter and faster than its predecessor. The iPad 2 goes on sale in the UK on the 25th March, fourteen days after the US.The new iPad features Apple's new dual core A5 processor which is claimed to be twice as fast as the original iPad. Along with the new hardware the iPad has included several new applications including video and music editors, iMovie and Garage Band. But some critics claim Apple is still behind Android when it comes to interfacing issues. One of the biggest issues is that notifications on the iPad force you to dismiss the notification before you can continue working. In essence this forces the user to do one thing at a time, which is slightly backwards.
While I have mentioned Android, it has been found that over apps available on the Android Marketplace contain a virus. Analysis suggests that the booby-trapped apps may have been downloaded up to 200,000 times. The malicious apps were copies of existing applications, such as games, that had been repackaged to include the virus code. But rest safe now because all the apps found to have the virus have been removed from the marketplace. The virus is known as DroidDream and sends sensitive data, such as a phone's unique ID number, to a remote server. It also checks to see if a phone has already been infected and, if not, uses known exploits to bypass security controls and give its creator access to the handset. This bestows the ability to install any code on a phone or steal any information from it.
In other news, South Korea has been hit by a series of cyber attacks which have targeted some of the country's leading websites. Government ministries, the National Assembly, the military headquarters, US Forces in Korea and major banks were among those hit.The web page of the Financial Services Commission, the country's financial regulator, was overloaded and an online stock trading system was shut down for a few minutes but both soon recovered.

Schrader Interview & Thunderbolt hits Mac

Intel has announced new technology for connecting computers and peripherals. Thunderbolt. It is promises to be twice as fast as USB 3.0 and offers two bi-directional channels that transfer data at a whopping 10Gb per second. However it won't reach its theoretical maximum because Intel has opted to use copper wires rather than fibre optic cables. Apple is the first manufacturer to adopt the new technology and its new range of Macbook Pro boasts the new Thunderbolt slot alongside ethernet USB and firewire slots.
Thunderbolt was developed by Intel who have been working on it for several years. It was first announced in 2009 under the codename Light Peak. Intel claim future versions could reach 100Gb per second most likely if they start to incorporate fibre optic cables.
In personal news I've just had my first placement interview on Tuesday. It was with Schrader Electronics in Antrim. They are the market leaders in the design and manufacture of remote tyre pressure monitoring systems. I think the interview went well even though I nearly messed up the programming question which is actually one of my strengths. Hopefully they will get back to me but if not there are plenty more companies to apply for.

Building A Website

It's been a while since I built a website. The last one I built was thrown together for an assignment for my Multimedia module last year. I used Dreamweaver to build that. But now Networks and Operating Systems module needs me to build another website, well an online CV but I decided to build a slightly bigger and better site than needed to show off my skill, after all I'll be referring some employers to this site.
I started by designing the layout of the site in Photoshop. It's coming along nicely. Here's a preview of the banner:
 

Website banner preview

 As you can see it will include the posts from this blog. I've used the slice tool to separate the layout into different images and saved them in my website folder.
Usually I would have used Adobe Dreamweaver to build the website but thanks to the generous people at Microsoft, who allowed me to download thousands of pounds worth of free software through the MSDN Academic Alliance, I've decided to use Expression Web to build the website. Expression Studio 4 was available to download but I used Web because it was pretty straight forward to become accustomed with.
I used Div tags (<div></div>) and CSS to build the website. The sites coming along nicely now but I'm only about half way through so I won't be providing the link in this post. The design and layout is probably the simplest part of this project. I find it hard to write about myself or to summarise my personality without waffling on and unintentionally making the content boring or coming across as cocky (I'm just confident). My CV is already wrote and the example code which I'm going to include in the site is already wrote so that's a matter of copy & pasting.
That's all for this post. I'll be back next week with the finished site and something else to talk about.

Kinect Hacks

Homebrew Kinect software just passed the "cool" threshold into "a little scary," making Microsoft's camera device do things we shouldn't reasonably expect out of controllers. In the two-plus months since the creation of open-source drivers for Microsoft's Kinect made it possible to hack the popular motion controller, the device has been used as a sophisticated piano, to add voice control to popular video games, to create 3D renderings of a car's path, and even for a demo of soft-core porn. Martin Szarski strapped a Kinect sensor to his car, hooked it up to a laptop and Nexus One phone (for location data) and set about creating a "point cloud" of his car's path. Using a phone with a gyroscope to better sense the car's movement, Szarski said, the cloud would appear clearer. But for a 3D space captured by a $150 game controller, it's pretty impressive, no? Imagine this cheap DIY tech in the hands of indie devs, who could create levels by exploring in real life. So far, hackers have figured out how to get the Kinect to do all kinds of things Microsoft never imagined. Here, we see a still from a video showing a hacker who rigged a Kinect to an iPod Touch in order to control the hit game Angry Birds with hand gestures.