Update: Microsoft Says It’s Not Fair

By | November 24, 2011
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  Microsoft is pretty upset about a plan by Japan, China and South Korea to develop an alternative operating system to Microsoft’s Windows software, saying it would raise concerns over fair competition, Reuters reports. “We’d like to see the market decide who the winners are in the software industry,” Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s Tokyo-based director for government affairs in Asia, told Reuters in a telephone interview. “Governments should not be in the position to decide who the winners are,” Robertson said.
 
Um, sure.

Update: Worms Still Worming

By | November 24, 2011
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 Viruses still plague many networks and not everyone is taking it lightly: U.S. colleges are getting tough on students with infected PCs, unplugging them and fining them, Associated Press reports.
 
Back-to-back waves of devastating infections that spread quickly across the Internet during August crippled some college and high school networks just before the start of the fall semester. At the University of North Texas, technicians are removing viruses from roughly 16 computers every 90 minutes — plus assessing a mandatory $30 cleaning fee. Vanderbilt University found infections in computers of roughly one-fourth its returning 5,000 students. Stunned technicians shut off connections to nearly 1,200 computers they determined were infected and gradually restored service over the next several days after ensuring each machine was clean.

Update: An RIAA Amnesty?

By | November 24, 2011
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 Associated Press reports that the Recording Industry Association of America, which has promised to file hundreds of infringement lawsuits across the U.S. as early as this week, may announce an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music files across the Internet, promising not to sue them in exchange for their admission and pledge to delete the songs off their computers.
 
But the amnesty offer could serve to soften the RIAA’s brass-knuckle image once the earliest lawsuits are filed, giving nervous college students and others an opportunity to avoid similar legal problems if they confess to online copyright infringement.

News: Beware Your GSM Phone

By | November 24, 2011
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 Pointed out by OnlineJournalism.com, the daily news Weblog of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review, there’s a problem with your GSM phone. An Israeli scientist and his team, Reuters reports, have found a way to break into mobile phone calls, enabling them to know the calling party’s identity and even listen to the conversation. The call could be zeroed in on, even at the ringing stage and overheard from that point on.
Yikes. Mind you, I always assumed the spooks were monitoring my phone calls anyway. What a boring life they must lead.

Software: Retrieving CD Data

By | November 24, 2011
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 Here’s an option to recover data from unreadable CDs. (I haven’t tested this.) CD/DVD Diagnostic “works to retrieve a consumer’s damaged files corrupted by a defective drive, bad software or from user error”. It works on unreadable, scratched, or corrupt CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW discs. Unlike programs that use Windows’ file system to access bad files, CD/DVD Diagnostic bypasses Windows and ignores the original software that created the lost data file. No attempt is made to repair the damaged disc. Rather, the unreadable files are repaired and written to your hard drive. It sounds intriguing. CD/DVD Diagnostic costs $70. CD Rx Data Retriever costs $40.