InsideTech

LONDON - A leading climate change scientist whose private e-mails are included in thousands of documents that were stolen by hackers and posted online said Sunday the leaks may have been aimed at undermining next month's global climate summit in Denmark. Kevin Trenberth, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, said he believes the hackers who stole a ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Power-hungry TVs will be banned from store shelves in California after state regulators Wednesday adopted a first-in-the-nation mandate to reduce electricity demand. On a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission required all new televisions up to 58 inches to be more energy efficient, beginning in 2011. The requirement will be tougher in 2013, with only a quarter ...

Blind phone hacker's reign comes to a close On June 12, 2006, SWAT police stormed a house in Alvarado, Texas.  They had received a call from what appeared to be the phone number, from an individual who reported that he was holding hostages and had killed family members with an AK47 while high on hallucinogenic drugs.  The operation, which likely cost ...

MOSCOW - When a police officer posted a video on YouTube complaining of rampant abuse in Russian law enforcement, it seemed like a lonely voice in a sea of social media. Since then, three more officers have come forward with their own YouTube videos making similar accusations - and others are lining up to do the same. In a country ...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 - has been a massive international success selling over $310M USD in software in the U.S. and UK alone.  Developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, the first person shooter primarily puts you in control of a soldier in a multinational commando unit known as ...

WASHINGTON - Hackers are increasingly targeting law firms and public relations companies with a sophisticated e-mail scheme that breaks into their computer networks to steal sensitive data, often linked to large corporate clients doing business overseas. The FBI has issued an advisory that warns companies of "noticeable increases" in efforts to hack into the law firms' computer systems - a ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The most power-hungry television sets could soon be banned from store shelves in California as state energy regulators on Wednesday consider a first-in-the nation mandate intended to lower electricity demand. If adopted, the regulations will require televisions sold in California to be more energy efficient beginning in 2011. The requirement would be tougher in 2013, with only ...

AT&T's Christmas wish to take its main competitor's aggressive ads off the air has been met with disappointment. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten Sr. handed the telecom a lump of coal, denying their request for an injunction, commenting that while Verizon's commercials were "sneaky" they weren't misleading. Judge Batten Sr. commented that people might "misunderstand" the commercials, "but that doesn’t ...

WASHINGTON - With the technology industry looking on, the Supreme Court on Monday will explore what types of inventions should be eligible for a patent in a pivotal case that could undermine such legal protections for software. A ruling that sides with the Patent Office could bar patents on processes and methods of doing business, such as online shopping techniques, ...

The Obama administration has been more willing than previous administrations to implement open source technology, as the new WhiteHouse.gov content management software (CMS) system has been switched over to the open source Drupal. Open source is already used by the U.S. government throughout numerous websites and departments, according to tech guru Tim O-Reilly, but the White House using Drupal will only ...

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography. Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses - the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen. Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs ...

HAVANA - The U.S. State Department issued a statement late Monday decrying attacks on three Cuban bloggers, including one who has gained international attention for her searing observations about life on the communist island. "The U.S. government strongly deplores the assault on bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Orlando Luis Pardo, and Claudia Cadelo," the department said. Sanchez, who has won international awards for ...

Teenagers in China reportedly addicted to the internet can no longer endure physical punishment as "counselors" attempt to help them. The "treatment" centers located across China closely mimic military schools in the western world, and feature hours of rigorous exercise and counseling. "When intervening to prevent improper use of the internet we should... strictly prohibit restriction of personal freedom and physical ...

BAKU, Azerbaijan - A court in Azerbaijan sentenced two bloggers to prison Wednesday for a fight in a restaurant, but the defendants say the charges were a pretext to punish them for political dissent. The U.S. swiftly condemned the court decision, calling it "a step backwards for Azerbaijan's progress towards democratic reform." Emin Abdullayev and Adnan Hadzhizade were convicted of hooliganism ...

LOS ANGELES - Facebook said Thursday a California court has awarded the social networking Web site $711 million in damages in an anti-spam case against Internet marketer Sanford Wallace. Facebook sued Wallace for accessing users' accounts without their permission and sending phony posts and messages. The company said on its blog that in addition to the damage award, the San Jose, ...

NEW YORK - New York's attorney general hit Intel Corp. with an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday, claiming the company used "illegal threats and collusion" to dominate the market for computer microprocessors. Following a similar case in Europe, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo claimed that the world's biggest computer chip maker paid billions of dollars in kickbacks to computer manufacturers and retaliated against those ...

Jack Thompson, the disbarred crusader against violent video games, has sued Facebook, alleging site users posted violent threats against him. In a Facebook group called "I Hate Jack Thompson", one post in particular was singled out and mentioned in the lawsuit. The posting stated, “Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600.” According to the lawsuit, Thompson ...

President Obama is making good on several of his promises from his campaign and one of the big pushes is for cleaner power. Obama isn’t simply stopping at trying to get electric companies to find new sources of power including wind and solar power, the President is looking to help Americans monitor their energy consumption and reduce the amount of electricity ...

BRUSSELS - European Union regulators said Wednesday they were preparing to settle a long and costly antitrust battle with Microsoft Corp. with a deal to give Windows users a choice of web browsers. Microsoft promised the changes after the EU charged it with monopoly abuse for tying the Internet Explorer browser to the Windows operating system installed on most of the ...

WASHINGTON - There is no kill switch for the Internet, no secret on-off button in an Oval Office drawer. Yet when a Senate committee was exploring ways to secure computer networks, a provision to give the president the power to shut down Internet traffic to compromised Web sites in an emergency set off alarms. Corporate leaders and privacy advocates quickly ...