TechBlog

The good news is that overseas hackers apparently did not change the grades of more then 100 thousand University of North Florida students when they broke into the computer system in September. The bad news is that personal information like names and social security numbers for those students may now be in the hands of those hackers. The FBI is investigating the attack, which was discovered by the university in a routine check of the server. According to University officials, the hacker had access to the system between September 24th and September 29th, but the University did not say when the breach was discovered. The Florida Times-Union newspaper said the university learned of the attack in September but did not notify potential victims because they were still investigating ...

Google found a nice way to wish you Happy Birthday. If you visit Google’s homepage when you are signed in and it’s your birthday, you’ll see a special doodle that links to your Google profile. When you go to your profile, you’ll find colorful confetti and a Happy Birthday message, but that’s not new. “Because doodles are such a fun part of the search experience, we thought we’d share a fun little way Google will help celebrate your birthday. When you include your date of birth on your Google profile, you may notice a special treat on the Google homepage on your birthday (be sure to sign in). Click on the doodle for another birthday surprise,” informs the Google blog. ...

Skype is integrating with Facebook to make it easier to call and video chat with friends and family on the social network. The deal comes amid fevered rumors that Facebook plans to launch a phone of its own. Meanwhile Skype is gearing up for a $100m share issue.

Right now Adobe AIR is only officially available for 32-bit Linux. But it does work on 64-bit Linux with the 32-bit compatibility libraries. There are several ways to install Adobe AIR on Linux. My preferred way on Ubuntu is to use the .deb package. However the .deb package distributed by Adobe can only be installed on 32-bit systems. Good news is that this can be easily fixed! To install the Adobe AIR .deb package on a 64-bit system just follow these steps: ...

Nokia released its first major firmware for Nokia C7 (RM 675) for all Versions. The new firmware should be available in a few days via NSU or OTA. There is no changelog, because it’s the first and initial firmware. This firmware is for RM675 for all countries and regions. you can check here your product code, if it’s available for you, too. or start your Nokia Software Updater (NSU).

If you needed more proof that texting is on the rise, here’s a stat for you: the average teenager sends over 3,000 texts per month. That’s more than six texts per waking hour. According to a new study from Nielsen, our society has gone mad with texting, data usage and app downloads. Nielsen analyzed the mobile data habits of over 60,000 mobile subscribers and surveyed over 3,000 teens during April, May and June of this year. The numbers they came up with are astounding. ...

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced on their blog that the site will soon be offering new features and controls. The features include New Facebook Groups, a Dashboard for Applications, and the ability to Download Your Information. #1 — Why the “new” Groups? According to Zuckerberg, people frequently tell them: “I’d share this thing, but I don’t want to bother 250 people. Or my grandmother. Or my boss.” Now we thought that’s what Friends Lists are for… but then, even Zuckerberg has admitted that Friends Lists are too difficult for most people to effectively manage. So this “completely overhauled, brand new version of Groups” is really mostly the same old Groups that we’ve been using since early 2009, with some PR spin. ...

Some people didn’t like his comments about downloading… Two of Gene Simmons’ official sites were shut down after hacker attacks by a group called Anonymous, associated with the 4chan.org forum. The attacks were in response to comments by Simmons about how the music industry should have been tougher with illegal downloaders. Both SimmonsRecords.com and GeneSimmons.com were taken offline briefly due to the attacks. Simmons had made the comment, “The music industry was asleep at the wheel, and didn’t have the balls to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material. And so now we’re left with hundreds of thousands of people without jobs. There’s no industry.” ...

Variants of the infamous ZeuS cybercrime toolkit have begun using the tactics of the infamous Conficker worm in a bid to get ahead of security defences. The so-called Licat worm, which is “strongly linked” to ZeuS, represents a likely attempt to reinforce botnets following recent arrests of suspected bank fraud money mules, as well as hackers tied to ZeuS in the UK, US and Ukraine over the last month or so. ...

Very soon, the first build of Opera 11 will be released, and with it will come the long-awaited support for browser extensions. Yesterday at Up North Web, Opera Software’s global press day in Oslo, Norway, it was confirmed that Opera 11 will support browser extensions, the plug-ins that users can incrementally add to their browser to customize the experience. All of Opera’s competitors: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and now Safari, each offer their own extension architecture already. ...