Internet

Microsoft has confirmed the beta edition of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) will be available in September. The announcement comes alongside leaked screenshots of the new browser. Rumors have pegged the beta release for IE9 in September 2, 2010. Kevin ... Turner, who is in charge of Microsoft's day-to-day operations, wasn't that specific in describing the new Internet Explorer, but it's the first time Microsoft has publicly named the month. The revelation came during a meeting with financial analysts , and there's some speculation Turner used it as an opportunity to hype Microsoft's future outlook. ... (view more)

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has a new domestic surveillance project in the works called 'Perfect Citizen.' It's reportedly built to monitor and protect national infrastructures such as power grids and transport systems. Citing unnamed ... industry and government sources, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the NSA awarded Raytheon a "black" (classified) $100 million dollar contract aimed at installing secret monitoring equipment within U.S. networks of alleged national importance. Perfect Citizen Could Be Big Brother According to The Register, the Wall Street Journal quoted an ... (view more)

Prompted by questionable privacy features , the first "Quit Facebook Day" (May 31st) passed without much fanfare. However, the social networking site's critics might have more to work with now that a security consultant has released data for 100 ... million users on The Pirate Bay, a torrent-based website infamous for software piracy. Ron Bowes is the security consultant behind the massive leak. He told the BBC that he was able to compile an enormous bounty of Facebook user details as part of a test of the Ncrack network authentication program. (Source: crn.com ) 100 Million Accounts Searchable ... (view more)

Internet troublemakers, whether malicious or mischievous, often try to capitalize on interest in celebrities. That's the case with singer Justin Bieber, who has been the victim of at least three online hacker campaigns. The first incident took place ... when hackers discovered a recent flaw in YouTube's site design which allowed for a cross-site scripting attack . That's a potentially serious measure that allows a hacker to put their own malicious programming code into somebody else's website. In this case, the hackers were able to post code in the comments section and have that code run ... (view more)

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is the closest thing to a web-wide governing body, has made several key changes to the way website addresses will work. It's added Chinese character addresses, backed a dedicated adult ... domain, and taken a further step towards tighter Internet security. The addition of Chinese characters follows a similar move last month, when Arabic script was included. It means for the first time the entire address can be written in the script, including the part at the end which indicates a country. To avoid confusion, the system isn't used for ... (view more)

A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding 'closed-door meetings' with industry insiders to broker a deal on Net Neutrality -- controlling the Internet over the people that use it. ... Included in the meeting were a small group of industry lobbyists from AT ... (view more)

The seemingly unstoppable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a reoccurring public nightmare for the company at the forefront of the situation, BP (British Petroleum). As many continue to look for ways to repair the problem, others still are left ... asking why it took so long for news of the spill to reach the public. For many critics, BP's failing to use social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter was a huge mistake. It's been suggested that the company could have used these sites to spread awareness and more quickly develop solutions for the issue. (Source: computerworld.com ) BP does ... (view more)

According to a recent report, it appears Facebook had a very, very good year in 2009. It seems the social networking site saw revenue climb $100 million over its revenue plateau for 2008, reaching a figure listed at $800 million. Reuters cites ... unnamed sources in its report. These same sources also note Facebook net profits in the tens of millions of dollars, although more specific figures have not been made available. Facebook CEO: Little Motivation to Go Public Because it's a private company, Facebook doesn't reveal specific revenue figures. Pressure to sell Facebook shares publically hasn't ... (view more)

With almost a half-billion users worldwide, the popularity of the social networking medium Facebook is at an all-time high. In reflecting upon the success of her company, Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has made a rather bold ... statement, claiming that it is only a matter of time before traditional email goes the way of the floppy disk and cassette tape. Texting and Social Networks Outpace Email While it might be hard to imagine a world without Hotmail or Gmail, the demographics tell a different story. According to Sandberg, only 11 percent of teenagers continue to use ... (view more)

Hallmark has been forced to pull a popular graduation card from its store shelves this weekend after complaints that the card makes a racist reference. Given that the electronic greeting is a little fuzzy, opinion is mixed on the legitimacy of the ... complaint. The card is a space-themed greeting for graduates of high school, or -- given the card's fairly childish tone -- public/elementary school. There are two characters speaking in the message, one named "Hoops," the other "Yoyo". Their declaration is that the world should look out for the card's recipient, who is bound to do big things. Card ... (view more)