0 Sony Rolly [Digital Robotic Music Player Made by Sony]

Sony Rolly on display at a trade show in Japan

Rolly was an egg-shaped digital robotic music player made by Sony, combining music functions with robotic dancing. It has two wheels that allow it to rotate and spin, as well as two bands of colored LED light running around its edge and cup-like "wings" (or "arms" according to the Sony sonystyle USA website) which can open and close on either end, all of which can be synchronized to the music being played.

Rolly has several operating modes, including Bluetooth functionality. Rolly can play music streamed directly from any Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, computer, or mp3 player. Rolly is able to dance along to streaming music, but the Rolly Choreographer software produces far better results when it analyzes tracks and creates motion files before loading them onto Rolly. The Rolly player uses .mtf files to store motion data along with a particular music track. Pre-made motion files can be downloaded and uploaded from Rolly Go.

Rolly also has a G force sensor (accelerometer) which detects if the player is laying horizontally or being held upright. When held upright, the track next/previous can be controlled by the top wheel and volume up/down can be controlled by the bottom wheel. Tracks can be shuffled by holding the unit upright, pressing the button once, then shaking the unit up and down (light color changes to purple). You can return to continuous play (light color blue) by simply repeating this process. Rolly has 2 gigabytes of flash memory to store music files.

On August 20, 2007, Sony launched an initial teaser advertising campaign for the product.. The product was unveiled on September 20, 2007, and went on sale in Japan on September 29, and was for sale at the Sony sonystyle USA website for $229.99 USD, down from $399.99 USD. It is available in black and white. Sony offers the "Engrave it." option for this item, and a number of accessories, including "arms" in different colors.

The Rolly itself is currently out-of-stock, and all accessories are listed as "clearance". According to a Sony Style assistant, the Rolly has been discontinued in the US. Sonystyle.com confirms this, as well as Sony's UK online store.

 

Wikipedia

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0 PayPal Sues Google Over Mobile Wallet Technology

Google is being sued by PayPal, which claims that the internet search giant stole its technology for turning smartphones into digital wallets. PayPal alleges that Google obtained trade secrets from Osama Bedier, a former PayPal executive who is now Google's vice president of payments. The lawsuit came hours after Google unveiled its plans to allow people to pay for shopping with their mobiles. Google said it had not yet seen the complaint.

Google has yet to respond to PayPal's allegations

"We have not yet received a copy of the complaint and won't be able to comment until we've had a chance to review it," a Google spokesperson said.

Google intends to launch its mobile wallet technology in the US in the summer. It plans to offer the service on mobile phones that use its Android operating system. Payment processor PayPal, which is owned by online auction site eBay, also claims in its lawsuit that Mr Bedier was in job talks with Google at the same time as he was leading negotiations to make PayPal a payment option on Android.

The technology that allows mobile phone users to pay with their handsets in shops is called near field communications or NFC. It is already used in Japan, and is predicted to become popular around the world. PayPal says it spent three years trying to secure a deal under which it would create an NFC system for Android, only for Google to end the talks.

In its court filing, PayPal said: "By hiring Bedier, with his trade secret knowledge of PayPal's plans and understanding of Google's weaknesses as viewed by the industry leader, Google bought the most comprehensive and sophisticated critique of its own problems available."

"Google put Bedier in charge of its mobile payment business, virtually ensuring that Bedier would misappropriate PayPal's trade secrets concerning planning and competitive assessments in mobile payment."

Mr Bedier was hired by Google in January of this year.

BBC News

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0 BlackBerry Playbook (BlackBerry Smartphone)

BlackBerry Playbook

The Playbook makes a great first impression, but it's too reliant on a BlackBerry smartphone for my liking. We’re drowning in a sea of 10-inch tablets, so it was a relief to slide the BlackBerry Playbook out of the box to discover a petite 7-inch slate that’s even lighter than the iPad 2. I think the 7-inch form factor is more practical for road warriors, so it makes sense that business-focused RIM should design a 7-inch tablet as a companion for its high-end BlackBerry smartphones.

Actually “companion” perhaps isn’t the right word, as it’s more of a symbiotic relationship between the Playbook and BlackBerry phones. I’ll go into more detail later, but the cynic in me suspects that the Playbook is partially designed to lock-in BlackBerry users tempted by other tablets.

Perhaps RIM is worried that BlackBerry users might buy an Apple or Android tablet, fall in love with the OS and then ditch their BlackBerry smartphone (known as the halo effect).  In order to fight back, RIM is giving BlackBerry owners a tablet of their own.

Once you owned a Playbook you’d be much less likely to abandon your BlackBerry smartphone because you’d lose access to some Playbook features. Even if I was a BlackBerry user, this kind of customer lock-in would certainly make me consider the Android and Apple alternatives before taking the plunge with the Playbook.

The 16GB Playbook retails for $US499 and there are also 32GB and 64GB models. There’s no official word on Australian pricing although BlackBerrystore.com.au is taking orders for $696. I expect the official local pricing ot come in lower.

At $696 the 16GB Playbook is a little pricey but that’s easily forgotten when you get your hands on it. It’s a delight to hold, weighing in at a mere 400gm and only 9.7mm thick. The black button-less styling adds to the slimming effect and this sleek tablet certainly has a touch of elegance about it. The Playbook comes with a felt-lined soft cover which would easily slip into a small bag or perhaps even a large jacket pocket. There are two $68 cases listed on that BlackBerry store website - one is a journal-like leather case and the other converts into a stand.

The Playbook sports a bright 7-inch LCD 1024x600 display with bright whites, great contrast and decent viewing angles. Under the bonnet you’ll find a dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex power plant accompanied by 1GB of RAM, so it’s not short on grunt. There’s a 3 MP webcam embedded in the bezel (at the top in landscape mode), with a second 5 MP camera on the back. Discrete speakers are embedded on either side of the bezel.

Across the top edge of the Playbook is a power button along with play/pause and volume buttons and a 3.5mm audio jack. Across the bottom edge are micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports along with a charging point, but no micro-SD card slot.

About now one of the Playbook’s key drawbacks becomes apparent. There’s no SIM card slot, you can only access the internet via wifi (802.11g/n at 2.4GHz or 5GHz) or Bluetooth tethering. You can tether the Playbook to any smartphone via Bluetooth for internet access, not just a BlackBerry smartphone, but it’s a temperamental beast and I couldn’t get it work with an iPhone 4, HTC Desire or BlackBerry Torch 9800 even though they paired successfully. It’s easier just to generate a wifi hotspit with your phone.

RIM says it intends to offer 3G and 4G Playbooks "in future". Even if I was tempted by the Playbook, I’d seriously consider holding out for a 3G/4G version - especially if you want to use this tablet on the road. Perhaps the killer blow to the Playbook is that you can’t use the native mail, contacts and calendar apps unless you’re tethered via Bluetooth to a modern BlackBerry using a feature called BlackBerry Bridge.

Compatible phones include the Torch 9800, Bold 9780/9700, Curve 3G/8520/8900 and Pearl 3G. Setting up BlackBerry Bridge is also overly complicated, as I’ll get to later. Using it means you're chewing through the battery on both your phone and the Playbook. There is a Bridge Browser which supposedly works when you're in Bridge mode, but I found it so slow as to be completely useless.

You obviously lose access to these Bridge apps on the Playbook if you’re on a plane and can’t wirelessly tether to your BlackBerry. You also lose them if your BlackBerry is out of action - for example due to a flat battery, or you just left it at home. Now you’re stuck with using the Playbook’s web browser to access features such as email and calendar (assuming you’ve got wifi access).

Of course this depends on whether your corporate email system allows browser-based access. If a BlackBerry is the only way you can access your work email remotely then you’re screwed. If that’s the case then other tablets can’t access your work email either, so the Playbook still might seem an attractive option.

I know Apple and Android would get slammed if they introduced these kinds of restrictions to their devices, so I don’t see why RIM shouldn’t cope some flak for it. Native mail, contacts and calendar apps are supposedly coming to the Playbook in a future software update, but I’d say not including them from day one is a major stuff up on RIM’s part which plays into the competition’s hands.

As soon as I held the Playbook I wanted to like it, but RIM has gone out of its way to make that difficult. At this point, even if I was a BlackBerry owner, I’d be tempted to wait for the 3G model and a standalone mail app so the tablet wasn’t so dependent on my smartphone. Meanwhile I’d want to spend some time with a 7-inch Honeycomb tablet such as Acer’s A100 before pledging my allegiance to the Playbook. On Friday I’ll take a look at the Tablet OS interface and apps, then next week I’ll wrap up with a look at the Playbook’s integration with BlackBerry smartphones. 

English - KOMPAS.com

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0 Toyota Technology Used to Detect Brain Bleeding

A scientist makes a demonstration of a wheel chair controlled by brain wave readings during the media presentation of the Guardian Angels project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Ecublens, near Lausanne May 16, 2011.

Toyota Motor Corp. has begun offering its car-design and simulation technology to help medical institutions predict the onset of subarachnoid hemorrhages--bleeding in the area between the brain and the tissues that cover the brain, The Nikkei reported in its Sunday edition.

The technology runs simulations of blood flows and the condition of blood vessels in the brain to help doctors discern whether a cerebral aneurysm--a major cause of the bleeding--is likely to rupture.

The University of Tokyo's Institute of Industrial Science noted possible medical applications for the carmaker's simulation technology for production and chassis design. Working with the automaker, the institute has modified the computer-based simulation process originally developed to measure the safety of cars while moving and during collisions.

The developers say the new technology can shorten the time needed to assess the condition of brain aneurysms from about 70 days at present to just several hours. 

English - KOMPAS.com

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0 Lightbulb Buying Guide (Output, Shape, Color Temperature, and Energy Star Rating)

What to Look For

Although there are other options, including LEDs and halogen bulbs, when it comes to cost, availability, and savings, compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) still offer the best value for lighting. You can now find LEDs for around $20, while CFLs average from $2-$10.

• Lumen output: To maximize energy savings, choose the product that provides the most lumens at the lowest wattage. Energy Star lists common lumen equivalencies for CFL and incandescent wattages.
• Shape:
  
  • Triple-tube bulbs provide high light output in small spaces, ideal for desk and reading lamps.
  • Flood lamp CFLs work well for recessed and track lighting.
  • Globe shapes work well in bathrooms and above vanity mirrors where aesthetics are important.
  • Torpedo-shaped candelabra bulbs fit nicely in small light fixtures such as sconces and designer lamps.
  • Dome-shaped CFLs, similar in look to conventional incandescents, are a better fit for lamps whose shades clip onto the bulb.
• Kelvins: A CFL’s color is indicated by the Kelvin (K) temperature (listed on the package). Higher Kelvins, 5000K or 6000K, correspond with cooler, bluer colors, while lower Kelvins, 2700K or 3000K, give off a warm, cozy glow similar to incandescents. If the package doesn’t list the Kelvin temperature, look for descriptive phrases like “warm white” and “soft white.”
• Energy Star rated: Energy Star CFLs use 75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs.
  
  
  National Geographic - Buying Guides

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0 Fake Security Software Catches Out Apple Owners

A fake security program for Apple computers called MACDefender has racked up a significant number of victims. Hundreds of people who installed the software have turned to Apple's forums for help to remove it. The program's tactic of peppering screens with pornographic pictures has made many keen to get rid of it. 

MACDefender seems to have been successful because of the work its creators did to make it appear high up in search results. The number of people seeking help was uncovered by ZDNet journalist Ed Bott. In a blog post, he wrote about finding more than 200 separate discussions on Apple's official forums about MACDefender.

The volume of reports about the problem was "exceptional" in his experience, he said. The fake Mac anti-virus software, which goes by the name of both MACDefender and Mac Security, began circulating in early May and has steadily racked up victims.

Such programs, often called scareware, urge people to install software that then pretends to scan a machine for security problems. It then fabricates a list of threats it has found and asks for cash before it will fix these non-existent problems.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said the scareware's creators had turned to search engines to get the program in front of potential victims by linking it with innocuous phrases such as "Mother's Day".

"You search for something on Google Images, and when you click on an image you are taken to a webpage which serves up the attack - regardless of whether you are running Mac OS X or Windows," he said.

One trick the software uses to make people cough up cash quicker was to fire up the browser of unattended machines and call up one of several different pornographic websites. Mr Cluley said the vast majority of malware that Sophos and other security firms see is aimed at Windows users. About 100,000 novel malicious programs for Windows are detected every day, he said.

"Although there is much less malware in existence for Mac OS X than there is for Windows, that's no reason to put your head in the sand and think that there are no Mac threats out there," he said.

BBC News

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0 Sony Faces Further Security Woes

A website set up by Sony to allow users to reset their passwords following last month's hack attack is itself subject to a security alert. A Sony user discovered an exploit on the site that could have been used by hackers to impersonate users.

Password resets have been necessary following the exposure of 77 million Sony PlayStation users' personal details. Sony admitted the sites were insecure but said no hack had occurred. In its blog it said: "We temporarily took down the PSN password reset page. Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. 

In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed," Sony said in a statement. It will be further embarrassment for the gaming giant and more inconvenience for its users.

"Anyone who has already reset their password is still able to gain access to the PSN but for those who haven't they wont be able to reset it until the servers go live again, which will be shortly," said a Sony spokesman.

Wesley Yin-Poole, news editor of gaming website Eurogamer explained what had happened.

"There was an exploit that allowed anyone to reset your password using just your e-mail address and date of birth, effectively locking them out of their own PlayStation account," he said.

E-mail addresses and dates of birth are some of the personal details thought to have been stolen by hackers last month.

"This is just another embarrassment hot on the heels of the hack attack. It is nowhere near as serious but will be another headache for Sony," he added.

The majority of PlayStation users are able to reset their password through their consoles rather than by going online. On 20 April the Japanese electronics giant was forced to shut down its PlayStation network, after what has been described as the biggest hack attack in history.

Yesterday, Sony boss Howard Stringer said the firm did act quickly enough to tell users about the problems.

Sony has offered users a year's free identity protection and free games in order to persuade them back to the network.

BBC News

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0 Laptop Computer Buying Guide

The Energy Star program, run by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), evaluates a wide range of consumer products for their energy efficiency, awarding the Energy Star label to those that top the list.

In July 2009, EPA announced a new class of Energy Star ratings for desktop computers and laptops. The standards were set so that only the most efficient 25 percent of today's computers would be able to qualify for Energy Star status. Energy Star-approved computers will, on average, be 30 percent more efficient than those that don't make the cut.

Laptops that qualify for Energy Star 5.0.approval can be in one of three categories, depending on the computational power of the laptop. The categories are based on the average number of kilowatt hours (kWh) a computer consumes over a typical year of use. kWh is the number of watts of electricity that an electronic device uses in an hour. A 50-watt laptop, for instance, used for an hour, has consumed .05 kWh.

Category C, designed for those powerful laptops with two or more cores per processor, designates laptops that use computers use 88.5 to 543 kWh over a year. Category B laptops, those with a separate graphics processors for rendering displays, consume 53 kWh to 41 kWh; and Category A is for all other laptops that use 40 kWh or less.

Energy Star also measures the efficiency of the computer's power supply (which converts alternating current into direct current) as well as how much energy the unit leaks when not being used.

EPEAT Ratings

While Energy Star has helped consumers identify more energy-efficient machines, it doesn't address the issue of recyclability. EPA and the nonprofit Greener Electronics Council have created the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) as way to gauge how environmentally friendly electronic components are, in terms of materials they are built from and the manufacturer's recycling plans.

EPEAT requires that computer manufacturers meet 23 mandatory conditions, such as providing a statement of how much recycled material was used in the product and providing an additional optional three-year warranty to keep the laptop in use longer. EPEAT also has 28 additional criteria, such as requiring the laptop be built from at least 90 percent recyclable materials and that that laptop use batteries that are entirely free of lead, cadmium and mercury. 

Bronze status is awarded to products that meet all mandatory requirements, silver status goes to products that meet the mandatory requirements, plus 14 of the optional criteria, and gold rated means the machine meets all mandatory requirements and at least 21 optional criteria. All EPEAT-certified products must also be EnergyStar approved.

Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)

In Europe, laptops must meet standards for not exceeding the maximum level of toxic substances, such as lead, cadmium and mercury. Meeting RoHS is one of the requirements for basic EPEAT certification.

Greening Efforts of Laptop Manufacturers

Spending dollars on the greenest models sends a message to computer makers. The message seems to be sinking in with laptop makers, who are starting to produce models that are energy efficient and built from recycled material, or at least made from material that could be recycled. Check the manufacturers' Web sites for details of their efforts. Companies such as Apple and Dell have pages dedicated to explaining their efforts at building more eco-friendly computers.

When Shopping for a Laptop:

• Evaluate your needs: What you plan to use your computer for will help you purchase the most efficient one for your needs. If you plan on using the device mostly for simple tasks such as checking e-mail, surfing the Web, or watching a DVD, then take a look at netbooks, or tablet computers, which not only cost less, but have processors that sip less energy. Using a tablet could also help you consolidate, eliminating the need for a separate e-reader. The above tasks don't require a lot of computational muscle, so a lower-power processor would run them without problem. If you use resource-intensive applications, such as photo editing software, then a laptop with a dual-core processor would be more appropriate. And if you plan to use the unit in extreme environments such as use in moving vehicles or outdoors in damp climates or extreme temperatures, then paying for a rugged model may be the greenest choice because they'll last longer.
• Look for low-power components: The computer industry is starting to learn that in order to make more power-efficient computers, they need to be made with more power-efficient components. Solid-state drives, although more expensive, consume less power than standard hard-drives (and are a lot more rugged and can be faster as well). Also, look for computers with the new generation of low-power chips. Chips consume up to half of all the power a CPU draws. Intel has released a line of low-power chips, code-named Atom, that consume less power and provide nearly the same performance, as has Via, with its Nano line of processors that are used in numerous netbooks. Look for the names of these processors in the specification sheets. 

National Geographic - Buying Guide

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0 Google Planning Privacy Controls

Google chairman Eric Schmidt has promised that the firm will simplify the process by which Android phone users agree to share their data. It follows questions in the US Senate about how much location information is stored by mobile handsets. Speaking in the UK at a conference on privacy, he also revealed that Google plans to offer web users more control over their online profile.

Mr Schmidt insisted that the company took the matter "very seriously". He told attendees at the Big Tent debate in Hertfordshire that his firm was working on "a series of projects" aimed at increasing transparency. Those include a revised Google Dashboard, where users can see what data they have shared with the search giant.

"It is worth stressing that we can only do this with data you have shared with Google. We can't be a vacuum-cleaner for the whole internet," he said.

Mr Schmidt stressed that Google was on the side of consumers when it came to privacy. "In general we take the position that you own your data and should be able to opt in or out of a service," he said.

But he added that if users gave consent for sharing data, it would help Google improve its services.

"If you choose to give us that information we can do a better job. If we know a little bit more about you we can offer better targeted search," he explained.

Super injunctions revealed

A recent hearing in the US Senate quizzed Google on the amount of data stored on Android handsets. The company argued that it allows people to opt out of location-based services. But Mr Schmidt conceded that the terms and conditions whereby users sign up to services needs to be simplified. "We intent to do that," he said.

He predicted that such services would be more heavily regulated in the future. During a lively debate on the issue of privacy, it was revealed to the Big Tent audience, alongside several names of current super-injunction holders, that more data has been collected in the last seven years than in the whole of previous human history. Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, said it was a mistake to see privacy and the needs of corporations as conflicting.

"There is this myth that privacy stifles innovation. It helps to reassure consumers, therefore encourages innovation," he said.

Meanwhile media executive Peter Bazalgette argued that people should have the right to delete data to give them a clean slate from, for instance, compromising pictures on social networks.

At the same time, some would choose to share more information. "Individuals will sell personal data in return for content," he said.

Not everyone felt that Google Dashboard went far enough when it came to protecting personal data. What people really need is a "dashboard for their lives", argued David Alexander, director of Mydex, a social enterprise that is designing a platform where people can manage all the data they share with others. Creating such a "personal data eco-system" would allow people "to stand on an equal footing with government and big corporations", when it comes to data sharing, he said.

Mr Alexander suggested that Google would be very welcome to sign up to it but that it would have to agree not to share information with advertisers.

BBC News

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0 Net Pirate Monitoring Firm Hacked

A firm employed by the French government to track down net pirates has been hacked. Trident Media Guard is believed to have exposed a range of data, including advice on how to avoid detection. TMG monitors peer-to-peer networks as part of France's efforts to find those guilty of copyright infringements. Eric Walter, head of the French anti-piracy unit, confirmed on Twitter that it had "temporarily suspended" links with TMG.

France's so-called HADOPI law has caused controversy since it was introduced in 2009. Suspected illegal file-sharers receive three official warnings, after which they are reported to a judge who can hand out a range of punishments, including disconnecting them from the internet. The UK is due to introduce similar legislation, although at this stage it has no plans to punish offenders with disconnection. 

But it will need to employ a firm similar to TMG. When anti-piracy firms monitor peer-to-peer networks for copyright infringements, they find IP addresses - the numerical code linked to a specific internet connection. Armed with this information, copyright holders can request that a judge forces ISPs to hand over the physical addresses associated with the IP address.

"Any firm that gets involved in this will need to make sure that its security is nailed down," said John Walker, professor at Nottingham Trent University's school of computing.

"This was the perfect storm waiting to happen. It was an instant target for hacktivists. You can't even call it a hack, it was a walk-in, a travesty," he said.

A similar attack was perpetrated by hacktivists from the loose-knit Anonymous group against ACS Law, a firm pursuing alleged net pirates in the UK. In the process of rebuilding his website, the firm's sole solicitor Andrew Crossley exposed thousands of names and addresses plus lists of pornographic films that people were alleged to have downloaded without paying for. He was fined just £1,000 after he claimed bankruptcy, but the UK Information Commissioner said the breach was so severe it warranted a fine of £200,000.

BBC News

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0 Image-Recognition CAPTCHAs

Some researchers promote image recognition CAPTCHAs as a possible alternative for text-based CAPTCHAs. Computer-based recognition algorithms require the extraction of color, texture, shape, or special point features, which cannot be correctly extracted after the designed distortions. However, humans can still recognize the original concept depicted in the images even with these distortions.

A recent example of image recognition CAPTCHA is to present the website visitor with a grid of random pictures and instruct the visitor to click on specific pictures to verify that they are not a bot (such as “Click on the pictures of the airplane, the boat and the clock”).

Image recognition CAPTCHAs face many potential problems which have not been fully studied. It is difficult for a small site to acquire a large dictionary of images which an attacker does not have access to and without a means of automatically acquiring new labelled images, an image based challenge does not usually meet the definition of a CAPTCHA. KittenAuth, by default, only had 42 images in its database. 

Microsoft's "Asirra," which it is providing as a free web service, attempts to address this by means of Microsoft Research's partnership with Petfinder.com, which has provided it with more than three million images of cats and dogs, classified by people at thousands of US animal shelters. Researchers claim to have written a program that can break the Microsoft Asirra CAPTCHA. The IMAGINATION CAPTCHA, however, uses a sequence of randomized distortions on the original images to create the CAPTCHA images. Their original images can be made public without risking image-retrieval or image-annotation based attacks.

Human solvers are a potential weakness for strategies such as Asirra. If the database of cat and dog photos can be downloaded, then paying workers $0.01 to classify each photo as either a dog or a cat means that almost the entire database of photos can be deciphered for $30,000. Photos that are subsequently added to the Asirra database are then a relatively small data set that can be classified as they first appear. 

Causing minor changes to images each time they appear will not prevent a computer from recognizing a repeated image as there are robust image comparator functions (e.g., image hashes, color histograms) that are insensitive to many simple image distortions. Warping an image sufficiently to fool a computer will likely also be troublesome to a human.

Researchers at Google used image orientation and collaborative filtering as a CAPTCHA. Generally speaking, people know what "up" is but computers have a difficult time for a broad range of images. Images were pre-screened to be determined to be difficult to detect up (e.g. no skies, no faces, no text). Images were also collaboratively filtered by showing a "candidate" image along with good images for the person to rotate. If there was a large variance in answers for the candidate image, it was deemed too hard for people as well and discarded.

Many users of the phpBB forum software (which has suffered greatly from spam) have implemented an open source image recognition CAPTCHA system in the form of an addon called KittenAuth which in its default form presents a question requiring the user to select a stated type of animal from an array of thumbnail images of assorted animals. 

The images (and the challenge questions) can be customized, for example to present questions and images which would be easily answered by the forum's target userbase. Furthermore, for a time, RapidShare free users had to get past a CAPTCHA where they had to only enter letters attached to a cat, while others were attached to dogs. This was later removed because (legitimate) users had trouble entering the correct letters.

Currently, CAPTCHA creators recommend use of reCAPTCHA as the official implementation. In September 2009, Google acquired reCAPTCHA to aid their book digitization efforts. However, this CAPTCHA has been cracked with 30% success rate, reported in August 2010.

 

Wikipedia

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0 What is a "CAPTCHA" ?

Modern Captcha

CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing as an attempt to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are supposedly unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human. 

Thus, it is sometimes described as a reverse Turing test, because it is administered by a machine and targeted to a human, in contrast to the standard Turing test that is typically administered by a human and targeted to a machine. A common type of CAPTCHA requires the user to type letters or digits from a distorted image that appears on the screen.

The term "CAPTCHA" was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper, and John Langford (all of Carnegie Mellon University). It is a contrived acronym based on the word "capture" and standing for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". Carnegie Mellon University attempted to trademark the term, but the trademark application was abandoned on 21 April 2008.

 

Wikipedia

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0 PlayStation Network Strains Under Restart

The deluge of gamers trying to get back on to the PlayStation Network has caused problems for Sony. The recently restored service had to be taken offline again briefly because of the sheer number of users trying to change their passwords. Sony was forced to close the network a month ago when hackers gained access to members' personal details.

Since then, the Japanese electronic giant has been working to improve its security systems. Limited service has now been restored in most countries, including the UK and United States. Users logging on again are asked to reset their passwords. They are then sent an e-mail confirming the new credentials. 

Those messages were taking time to reach some players, said a message posted on the Sony PlayStation EU blog, because the high number of resets meant that millions of e-mails were flying around the internet. The delay was caused by internet service providers (ISPs) "throttling the e-mails" said the message. Further problems were caused by the huge number of users trying to log on at the same time.

To clear the backlog, the PlayStation Network was turned off for 30 minutes at a time to let admin servers catch up. Sony apologised via Twitter for its struggle to cope with "extremely heavy traffic". Initially, the only services back online were online gaming, chat and music streaming. Users were still not able to use credit cards to buy games or other content. The Qriocity film and music services also started to be restored on 15 May in the US and Europe. The restoration of Japanese and Asian services would begin soon, Sony said.

'Aggressive action'

The company promised that its "new and additional security measures" would provide users with better protection. It has been working with a number of external security firms to increased encryption levels and add additional firewalls.

"I'd like to send my sincere apologies for the inconvenience this incident has caused you, and want to thank you for all the kind patience you've shown as we worked through the restoration process," said Kaz Hirai, Sony's executive deputy president.

He added the company was taking "aggressive action" to resolve the security issues and was making "consumer protection a full-time, company-wide commitment".

Sony will also offer users a "welcome back" package of "premium content", including a free game. The Japanese firm has been facing a barrage of negative publicity over the security breach, which led to the theft of personal data from around 77m accounts. Many users were upset about the company taking two days to contact the police and almost a week to inform those people affected.

Sony hired outside specialist cyber-security firms to investigate the attack, and earlier this month blamed the online vigilante group Anonymous for indirectly allowing it. The group has denied being involved in the theft.

BBC News 

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