As of yesterday, Sony has made their PSN "Welcome Back" program available to all 100 million affected users, offering numerous games and services as "compensation" for the security breach.

The Welcome Back program offers users two free games (from a list), Ooblag's Alien Casino (PSN game), free 30 day subscription to PSN+ and virtual items for PS Home.

If you are a PS3 owner, the games are:

Dead Nation
inFAMOUS
LittleBigPlanet
Super Stardust HD
Wipeout HD + Fury

If you are a PSP owner, the games are:

LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
ModNation Racers
Pursuit Force
Killzone Liberation

To download the games, head to the PlayStation Store, "purchase" the tokens for "Free Game 1" and "Free Game 2" and then head over to the list and download the games of your choice.

If you own a PSP and a PS3 you get 4 games, simple as that.

Anyone having issues downloading? Sony has more info here: Welcome Back Program

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Earlier this week we reported that the hacking group that took down PBS had hacked Sony and posted the info online, adding another chapter to the long saga of security breaches that have plagued the company since April.

"LulzSec" posted that they had broken into the servers of Sony Pictures Entertainment websites and stole personal info for 1 million customers.

The group then posted names, addresses, emails and passwords for 150,000 customers on the Internet, bashing Sony in the process.

Sony Pictures has admitted the attack occurred, and apologized for the inconvenience.

Says CEO Michael Lynton:

The cybercrime wave that has affected Sony companies and a number of government agencies, businesses and individuals in recent months has hit Sony Pictures as well. We have confirmed that a breach has occurred and have taken action to protect against further intrusion.

The breach has also been reported to the FBI, says Sony Pictures.

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Media Create has said that Nintendo Wii sales in Japan have fallen dramatically for the week ended May 29th, ahead of Nintendo's launch of the "Project Cafe" Wii successor at E3 next week.

The console only sold 7438 units for the week, good for 4th in hardware sales.

Last month, the company announced it would show off the oft-rumored Wii 2/Project Cafe at E3 alongside playable demos.

Although unconfirmed, the controller will likely be able to stream content from the console, and the console will move to Blu-ray and 1080p support.

Sales (and profits) have been falling for Nintendo over the past year as the console reaches almost peak saturation worldwide. 86 million units have been sold since launch.

The rumored specs of the upcoming console are:

Graphics:
Custom AMD RV770 Chip "WOLF" @ 766Mhz on 32nm process
1398 Gflops

CPU:
Custom IBM Power 6 Chip "FOX" on 32nm process
4 cores, each two way SMT-capable and clocked at 3.5 GHz
175.9 GFLOPS theoretical peak performance (single-precision)
87.6 GFLOPS theoretical peak performance (double-precision)

Memory:
512 MB XDR2 DRAM main memory
+ 1024 GDDR5 video memory
+ 16 MB eDRAM

Storage:
2.5-inch SATA hard drive with 250 GB / 320 GB capacity
Expanded storage via SD and SDHC card memory (up to 64 GB)

Media:
Custom Blu-ray Disc, up to 50 GB
Compatible with 7 cm Nintendo GameCube Game Disc and 12 cm Wii Optical Disc

Display:
Video output formats
Composite video: 480i, 576i (PAL)
S-Video: 480i, 576i (PAL)
RGB SCART: 480i, 576i (PAL)
Component (YPBPR): 480i, 576i (PAL), 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
D-Terminal: 480i (D1), 480p (D2), 720p (D4), 1080i (D3), 1080p (D5)
HDMI: 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p

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According to security firm Trend Micro, Gmail isn't the only email service under attack, with Yahoo and Hotmail/Live users seeing some of the same issues that Google's users have in recent weeks.

Google claimed the attacks on its service, mainly to steal account details and emails of prominent US government officials, Chinese political activists and journalists came from China.

It is unclear whether the attacks on the other major email services came from China, as well.

Google contained the phishing campaign, accounts had their security beefed up and the authorities were notified.

The attacks on Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail showed "significant similarities," to the Google attacks, notes Trend Micro in its report.

While the attack on Yahoo seemed a run-of-the-mill attack to steal cookies, the Hotmail attack was much more malicious.

Says Trend (via IBT):

Unlike other email-based attacks that require users to open the message and to click an embedded link or to download and execute an attachment, this attack's execution merely requires users to preview the message in their browsers.

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Beginning next week, Nintendo will begin offering 25,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots for 3DS gamers, giving them a chance to download from the eShop or play online games even when not at home.

Thanks to a partnership with Simon Property Group, a massive real estate owner/developer, the free Wi-Fi will go live at 200 Simon shopping malls in the U.S. on June 7th.

With the new 200 hotspots, 3DS gamers now have access at over 25,000 spots, including 1000 Best Buy stores and 24,000 AT&T hotspots.

Notes Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aime (via 24/7):

With thousands of free Wi-Fi access points through our alliances, Nintendo 3DS users across the country can instantly enjoy one-of-a-kind entertainment experiences wherever and whenever they like.

In addition to a strong lineup of games and the ability to view 3D content without special glasses, the system makes it easy for people to connect with their surroundings and each other, even when they're away from home.

The eShop goes live in the U.S. the day before, June 6th, giving users a place to browse and purchase downloadable content.

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As the popularity of the drives increase, unsurprisingly more manufacturers are trying to get into the game, with Lite-On IT being the latest to join in.

The company says that beginning in the Q3 it will begin manufacturing SSD, starting with smaller 32-64GB internal models for PC OEMs.

Lite-On IT is currently a maker of optical disk drives but has factories that can be adapted to the now much more effective manufacturing processes of building SSD.

The company believes 70 percent of its revenue from the market will come from notebook PCs, with retail, server and industrial PC markets accounting for the rest.

Marvell HyperDuo tech will also be utilized for the drives, adds the company.

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Starting on August 1st, Google will drop support for old browsers.

Such browsers include Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Safari 3 and Firefox 3.5 (or lower).

If you choose to not upgrade (or cannot), Google says unfortunately:

In these older browsers you may have trouble using certain features in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites, and eventually these apps may stop working entirely.

Figures from StatCounter and NetApplications seem to imply that about 17 percent of the world will need to upgrade their browsers, mainly thanks to a huge number of IE6 users in China (over 25 percent).

Venkat Panchapakesan, VP of engineering at Google, says the move is necessary for the future:

These new browsers are more than just a modern convenience, they are a necessity for what the future holds. For web applications to spring even farther ahead of traditional software, our teams need to make use of new capabilities available in modern browsers.

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Malaysian social activist Fahmi Fadzil has agreed to apologize on Twitter 100 times after losing a defamation case brought by BluInc Media, a magazine company.

In January, Fadzil tweeted that one of his pregnant friends had been ill treated by her employers at the magazine.

Within a week, BluInc Media had sent a letter accusing Fadzil of defamation.

Settling out of court this week, the activist agreed to apologize 100 times over 72 hours, with the same message:

I've DEFAMED Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine. My tweets on their HR Policies are untrue. I retract those words & hereby apologize.

Fadzil tweeted his 100th apology this morning.

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Marking at least the 7th time now, Sony has had another database hacked, this time with 120 users having their info (including passwords and mobile phone numbers) compromised.

Lebanese-based hacker "Idahc" hacked a small database of Sony Europe and then released the data on all the users.

Each of those users now has their username, password (in plain text no less), mobile numbers, work emails and websites available for all to see.

Idahc says he used a very simple SQL injection to access the database, which housed the user's data completely unprotected.

The hacker also hit the Canadian Sony Ericsson site last month, using similar methods.

(Story, pic via Sophos)

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