News

The Phoenix New Times has reported that the CEO of LifeLock ID theft protection service of Tempe, Ariz., has had his identity used by rip-off artists 13 times since 2007. CEO Todd Davis advertised his social security number publically to assure customers that his service could protect their identity. The service cost $10-15 per month. In March we blogged the story when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and LifeLock reached a settlement in which the company would pay $12 million – $11 million of which would be refunded to consumers – for fraud. ...

Hewlett-Packard has announced it has expanded the May 14, 2009, recall of its laptop battery packs. The company will replace the defective batteries at no cost to customers. The notice on the HP site said “HP and the battery manufacturers believe that certain battery packs shipped in HP notebook PC products manufactured between August 2007 and May 2008 may pose a potential safety hazard to customers. The batteries can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard. ...

On the 2nd day at Google I/O 2010 developer event, Google has announced Android 2.2 with Flash along with Google TV, a new technology for television and Internet freaks. Watch the Introducing Google TV video below:

Not one to rest on its laurels, the Google Chrome team is hard at work on Chrome 6. The official move to the 6.0 designation in the Chromium developer builds officially started a few days ago. The move to a Chrome 6 branch for Chromium means that the final tweaks and polishes on Chrome 5 are almost complete. Chrome 5 is a big release — not only is it blazingly fast, it’s also going to be the first stable release for Mac and Linux users. ...

Video chatting is on the rise. Yesterday, we got to take a look at Qik’s mobile video chat client for the Sprint EVO 4G, and today, we get to take a look at Skype’s latest development: five-way video chat. Today, popular VoIP and chat client Skype launched a beta of Skype 5.0 for Windows, which includes a free trial of group video calling, a re-designed call view window, improved video snapshots gallery, and improved browser plugin performance. ...

Google today said it will stop collecting Wi-Fi network data from its Street View cars, after an investigation from the German Data Protection Authority (DPA) found the search company was also collecting personal data about user behavior on these public hotspots. Google’s Street View cars weren’t only taking 360-degree images of our streets for use on Google Maps, but they were also pulling publicly broadcast SSID and MAC information from Wi-Fi hotspots. ...

Google has announced the upcoming availability of the Chrome Web Store, an open marketplace similar to the Android Market or iTunes App Store that deals exclusively in Web Apps. This store doesn’t exist yet, but will open both to developers and to users “later this year.” The store will deal in the “installable Web apps,” that are expected to populate both the Google Chrome browser and the forthcoming Chrome OS. They can be run currently, but require a Windows Dev channel release of Google Chrome with a special command line flag. ...

Russian-based PROXIEZ-NET, which was known to allegedly host 13 Zbot command-and-control servers has been shut down by its upstream provider DIGERNET, according to the site The New New Internet (News story on Web Host Review here: “Alleged Russian Malware Host Cut Off By Upstream Provider”) Legitimate web sites hosted by PROXIEZ-NET many have been caught in the takedown, the Review said. Brick House Security said the Zbot-related servers on PROXIEZ-NET were used to collect PayPal, EBay and online banking passwords stolen by key logging malware. ...

The All Facebook blog (not an official Facebook site) is reporting that Facebook’s Public Policy Director, Tim Sparapani has said the company will install privacy settings that are easier to understand and control in the next few weeks. (“Facebook Preparing To Release Simple Privacy Settings” ) The 800-pound gorilla of the social media world has been taking increasing heat recently about its sloppy attitude toward securing users personal information and privacy policy that seems to permit it to do nearly anything with users personal info.. ...

I’m constantly reminded how slow email actually is. On the homescreen of one of my smartphones, I’ve got the official Twitter widget and the official Facebook widget which are pretty much constantly refreshing. Likewise, my email inbox is set to refresh just as frequently. Every day, when someone sends me a message in Facebook or replies to a Tweet, the widgets tell me first, and then five minutes later I get the email alerting me again. Because of this, I have an email account just for social network updates that is overflowing with unread messages. ...