Man arrested over Nintendo hack

14 February 2011 Last updated at 13:44 ET

Police in Spain have arrested a man who allegedly stole details on thousands of Nintendo users and tried to blackmail the company.

The unnamed individual obtained data on 4,000 gamers, according to Spain's Interior Ministry.

It is claimed he threatened to contact the country's data protection agency, accusing the firm of negligence.

When Nintendo did not respond, he began leaking some of the information online, said police.

The man was arrested in the southern province of Malaga.

Authorities say he had been planning to release the full contents of the user database onto the internet.

It is unclear if the alleged theft was from Nintendo's own computer system or that of a third party.

Nintendo said it was unable to comment on the case as is was the subject of of an active investigation by the Spanish authorities.

Powered By WizardRSS

Image site hits back at spammers

14 February 2011 Last updated at 10:58 ET

Spammers are being thwarted by finding that their junk messages unexpectedly contain warnings urging recipients to delete the e-mail.

The alerts are issued by ImageShack, in an effort to stop spammers using its services.

It is replacing pictures, known to have appeared in spam, with warnings such as "Do not buy".

Spammers often use image hosting sites so they can include fake logos, intended to make the mail look genuine.

The aim is raise users' awareness of the problem and to make life difficult for those sending the spam, Alexander Levin, president of ImageShack told BBC News.

"The net effect is that the spammers lose customers and see a decrease in revenue."

Spam warning

ImageShack's system is capable of swapping thousands of the spammers' images for warnings within an hour of them being reported.

The company works with anti-spam groups to identify any files that have been uploaded to its servers and are being used in junk emails, he said.

It then scours its web logs to uncover other images that have been uploaded from the same web address.

This allows it to identify images "not previously reported to the anti-spam communities", Mr Levin added.

The move was welcomed by Paul Wood, senior analyst at security firm Symantec.cloud.

However, he warned that if image hosting sites are serious about tackling spam, they should consider their registration processes.

"Users often don't need to register to use these sites - making them highly disposable and open to abuse," he said.

According to security firm McAfee, the global volume of spam is at its lowest level since 2006.

That follows one of the largest group of spammers, known as Spamit, deciding to cease its activities last August.

Even so, spam accounts for nearly 80 per cent of all email traffic, McAfee reported.

Powered By WizardRSS

Android launches lead mobile show

14 February 2011 Last updated at 04:26 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter, Barcelona <!-- Embedding the video player --> <!-- This is the embedded player component -->

<!-- embedding script -->

<!-- companion banner --> <!-- END - companion banner --><!-- caption -->

Sony Ericsson launch phone aimed at fans of the PlayStation

<!-- END - caption -->

<!-- end of the embedded player component --> <!-- Player embedded -->

As Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona, a host of mobile firms have launched new devices, many featuring Google's Android operating system.

Headline grabbers include Sony Ericsson with its smartphone-cum-gaming device, dubbed the Xperia Play.

Rival Samsung has unveiled a new tablet, the Galaxy 10.,which as the name suggests features a bigger 10.1 inch (26cm) screen.

Meanwhile LG will be showing off the first mobile phone with 3D capability.

Sony Ericsson's launch attracted a big crowd as it unveiled it not-so-secret PlayStation phone, which it is hoping will appeal to the widening mobile gaming market as well as to more hardcore gamers.

The device - dubbed the PlayStation phone - has a pull-out control pad and will feature a catalogue of games, from Electronic Art's Fifa series to Assassin's Creed, the Sims and Dungeon Defender.

It is launching with 20 gaming partners and will be available from March.

Sony Ericsson has signed up Verizon as its US partner while in the UK the Xperia Play will be carried by all operators.

Sylvia Chind, head of branded devices at network operator Three, said the handset was a "step change in the way in which consumers use data, merging mobile communications and entertainment".

Analyst Ian Fogg, from research firm Forrester, thinks it represents a real challenge to Apple's dominance: "It is an extremely competitive device and shows that Apple will not be the only player in the mobile gaming market," he said.

But just as Sony Ericsson has leveraged the PlayStation brand so others may follow, he thinks.

"Nokia, Microsoft, Apple and Google also have other assets they could bring to the mobile experience," he said.

Guy Cocker, the editor of gaming website GameSpot said the phone aimed to please both the casual and the more hardcore gamer.

Gaming, he said, was no longer a niche activity.

"People want to play games wherever they are...from fans of Angry Birds through to those who want to play more traditional games on their mobiles," he said

Not to be overshadowed by its rival, Samsung has put down its mark as a very real contender to the iPad, with its new version of the Galaxy Tab.

Announced just before the Samsung's official Mobile World Congress 2011 press announcement, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has a number of new features, the most significant being its bigger, 10.1 inch screen.

It will run on the latest version of Android, dubbed Honeycomb, and designed specifically for tablet devices.

LG's 3D tablet and phone are also powered by Android.

Both allow users to users to shoot 3D images and video, as well as upload their clips directly to YouTube.

Powered By WizardRSS

Supercomputer vs human on TV quiz

14 February 2011 Last updated at 04:31 ET By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

A supercomputer, designed by IBM, is to face two human contestants on the US quiz show Jeopardy.

Watson will pit its wits against two of the game's most successful players.

At stake is a $1 million prize (�620,000) and the reputation of the field of artificial intelligence.

The company said Watson signals a new era in computing where machines will increasingly be able to learn and understand what humans are really asking them for.

Jeopardy is seen as the greatest challenge for Watson because of the show's rapid fire format and clues that rely on subtle meanings, puns, and riddles; something humans excel at and computers do not.

"Watson has to come up with an answer based on what information it has in its brain just like any human has in his head," Rod Smith, IBM's emerging technology director told BBC News.

"Watson could be connected to the internet all the time, but it won't be because that is not the way to play Jeopardy. This really is about setting the bar and working through all the data it has in less than three seconds to come up with the right answer."

Jeopardy, which first aired on US television in 1964, tests a player's knowledge of trivia in a range of categories, from geography and politics to history and entertainment.

In a twist on traditional game play, contestants are provided with answers and need to supply the questions. A dollar amount is attached to each question and the player with the most amount of money at the end wins the game.

'Gladiatorial'

The technology behind Watson relies on analytics to understand what is being asked, to crunch through massive amounts of data and provide the best answer based on the evidence it finds.

That store of information adds up to 15 terabytes of memory, about the size of the total printed text in the Library of Congress.

Mr Smith said inside Watson's brain are around "a million different books and 200m pages of material".

The amount of power used for Watson is equal to that of a small university.

Watson's adversaries in the show are Ken Jennings, who won 74 games in a row - the most consecutive victories ever - and Brad Rutter, who scored the most money with winnings of more than $3m.

Mr Jennings told his hometown newspaper the Seattle Times that "it's nerve-wracking because you know a computer can't get intimidated. A human player might get frustrated. Watson has no ego, no consciousness".

The competition was held inside IBM's lab in New York and will be broadcast over the next three nights.

"The crowd is full of IBM employees cheering for human blood. It was an away game for the human race. It was gladiatorial," added Mr Jennings.

Prize money

Mr Smith said the end game is about equipping Watson to help us "solve world problems and neighbourhood problems".

"Think about today's government - it produces volumes of data and stuff that we don't even know what to ask. Think about health care or the fact that as we do drug evaluation, you would like to know the different reactions and the different relationships.

"Well Watson can do these types of things, analyse the data quickly and come up with information that is useful to answer these questions".

As well as practical business applications, Stephen Baker, author of Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, told NPR News that Watson also brings a bit of lustre to what is seen as an unsexy company.

"They need to do this kind of thing because they're not like Apple and Google. They don't have stuff that people want. So they have to show that they can do really fun stuff so that they can attract, you know, great PhDs to their programmes".

The winner of Jeopardy will receive $1 million. The second place receives $300,000 and third place $200,000. Mr Jennings and Mr Rutter have both said they will donate half of their winnings to charity, and IBM will donate all of its winnings to charity.

This is not IBM's first foray at taking on humans. In 1997 the company's computer Deep Blue beat chess champion Gary Kasparov.

Powered By WizardRSS