Geek.com’s Guide to the new Xbox 360 Dashboard – Microsoft pushed a major update to the Xbox 360 this week and Geek.com has all the details. The new interface comes with a Metro-derived interface, cloud storage, social hooks, voice integration, the a shiny new App Marketplace. Microsoft needs to walk a fine line between keeping its fanboys happy and attracting more mainstream users that could use the Xbox as a family-friendly home entertainment system. Find out how they are doing.
Lifehacker: Most Popular How-To Guides of 2011 – We handle a lot of different topics throughout the year, and our how-to guides come in a wide range of sizes and subjects, but the goal is always the same: to make it easy for you to accomplish something awesome. Here’s a look back at our most popular how-to features of 2011.
Microsoft Unveils New Windows Defender Offline Tool – Microsoft has released a beta version of a new tool that can help victims of malware attacks recover from ugly infections, even if they don’t have the ability to reach the Internet. The Windows Defender Offline tool enables users to clean their systems of malware from a CD or other removable media.
Reports Emerge of New Flash Vulnerabilities – There are multiple reports emerging of two new vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash that could lead to remote code execution. There’s little information about the exact nature of the bugs available right now, and Adobe has not released any advisories or information about them either.
PDroid Gives You Control Over the Personal Information Your Android Apps Can Access – PDroid is a free Android utility that allows you to see and block access by apps on your Android phone to your personal data and individually identifying information. The tool shows you which apps have access to information like your phone number, your Device ID (IMEI/MEID/ESN), SIM serial number, and more, and lets you disable access without breaking the apps in question.
Telstra privacy blunder reveals account details of some 1m customers – Personal and account details of over one million customers of Australian telecom giant Telstra were accessible to any Internet user – and may have been taken advantage of – for an unknown period of time. This is not the first time Telstra has made a mess by inadvertently leaking private information about their customers – they had three separate incidents happen in 2010. But the questions that need to be answered now are for how long was the site available to the greater public and was the access misused?
The Best Video Player for Linux – Linux has some great video players available, and while many could arguably win the title of “best”, SMPlayer is our favorite for its sheer number of options and easy to use interface.
Company News:
webOS goes Open Source – This week HP announced that their mobile operating system webOS will be contributed to the open source community. While HP assures us that they will be active in the development and support of webOS in the future, they’re now offering the operating system up to the “development power” of the open source community where they’re sure both applications and web services will be developed en masse for the next generation of mobile devices.
Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad – A German court has imposed a preliminary injunction on Apple’s 3G-enabled iOS devices across Europe for infringing a Motorola-held patent.
IBM Launches Enterprise Tablet Apps – IBM announced eight new social networking and collaboration mobile apps designed to address enterprise-class requirements on tablets.
StealthBits’ Free Data Loss Prevention Tool – Security and IT management solutions specialist StealthBits announced the release of DLP Lite for File Systems, a free, regex data loss prevention (DLP) tool.
Off Topic (Sort of):
Publish an Ebook Now – I self-published a book 10 years ago using iUniverse and I was amazed at how easy it was. It still took three months and we sold only 300 copies, but it it only cost me $300. With the advent of ebook readers, you can now publish within hours and reach an audience of millions. Check out our How To story to find out everything you need. Just remember, the writing takes time.
EU wants firms to stop selling surveillance tools to repressive regimes – We are all aware of the fact that some regimes have no qualms about spying on their citizens in order to keep tabs on dissenters. Nevertheless, last week’s revelation by WikiLeaks about the myriad of technology firms that sell their mass surveillance and spying products to a variety of government and law enforcement agencies around the world created quite a stir.
Video - Fascinating 1936 footage of a car assembly line.
Removing CarrierIQ Is A Really Bad Idea For Most Mobile Phone Users – The controversy over stealthy monitoring software by CarrierIQ has raised important questions about user privacy and business ethics in the Brave New World of smart phones, tablets and the like. In the uproar over CarrierIQ’s surreptitious monitoring of mobile phone users, various tools have appeared that claim to be able to detect the software. However – removing CarrierIQ from your phone is another matter entirely. And,while some sites have offered instructions on doing so, Kaspersky Lab researcher Tim Armstrong said that, for all but a few mobile phone hardware experts, doing a CarrierIQ-pendectomy is a bad idea.
Ten gadgets that died in 2011 – With the release of devices like the iPad 2, Kindle Fire, and countless powerful Android smartphones, 2011 was a big year for technology. But with the success of some comes the failure of others, and this year showed that not all devices had what it took to last forever. While some devices were phased out and others outright killed, they all share one quality: they are all dead. Welcome to the gadget graveyard of 2011.
Today’s Quote:
“You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”
- Wayne Gretzky
Today’s Free Downloads:
Glary Utilities – Glary Utilities is an indispensable friend for your PC, with its 100% safe, thorough, and quick cleaning and worry-free restoration. Glary Utilities is freeware with registry and disk cleaning, privacy protection, performance accelerator, and amazing multifunctional tools.
SlimCleaner – Installing and uninstalling programs, browsing the Web, and just everyday computer use can take its toll on your PC’s performance. That’s why it’s important to find the right cleaning utility to keep your computer running on all cylinders. SlimCleaner is a unique program in that it uses crowdsourcing to provide active feedback for the software installed on your computer. Its speedy scans and all-inclusive features make it a must-have system utility.
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