Many Turkish Internet users are very unhappy with the growing level of censorship online, particularly when it comes to the blocking of Google services. Earlier this month, services such as Google Translate, Google Docs and Google Books became inaccessible in Turkey following a request that Turkish ISPs block access to IP addresses associated with YouTube.

On Thursday, an Ankara Public Prosecutor asked Ankara's 1st Criminal Court of Peace to add 44 more IP addresses related to YouTube and Google, and after the court complied, users started complaining that Picasa and Google Maps had become impossible to use with more Google services malfunctioning.

As a response to the actions taken by Tuskish authorities, a group of hackers has been blamed for the inaccessibility of the websites of the Ministry of Transportation, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority and the Telecommunications Communication Presidency.

The group reportedly carried out a 10 hour denial of service attack on the websites of the three departments, all of which are responsible for Internet censorship actions. Such censorship is becoming more common in some countries, with YouTube being a constant target of such action because of user-uploaded content deemed "offensive" or dangerous by governments.

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Google is encouraging developers to work on the next incarnation of its now-open sourced VP8 video codec, acquired from On2 technologies last year in a $124.6 million deal and an integral part of Google's WebM project.

"To maintain codec stability while also allowing for quality and performance improvements in VP8, we have added an experimental branch to the VP8 source tree," said Google codec engineering manager Jim Bankoski.

"The WebM community can use this unstable branch to propose changes to VP8 that will produce the best video codec possible, but without the constraints of a frozen bitstream. At some point in the future, when the experimental branch proves significantly better than the stable branch, we will create a new version of the codec."

Mozilla and Opera have officially put their weight behind the WebM royalty-free format, while Microsoft has said Internet Explorer 9 will support WebM once a user installs VP8. Apple's Steve Jobs has hinted that Safari will stick to H.264 video content.

Various Google partners are currently working on hardware acceleration for VP8, and Bankoski said they are committed to providing the hardware sometime next year.

"Devices that use hardware acceleration for video are a very small percentage of overall web traffic today, but they are a rapidly growing segment of the market and our project must be mindful of these vendors' needs," Bankoski wrote.

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Microsoft Corp. is set to make improvements on the search results its Bing search engine displays for queries relating to music, television shows, movies and games. Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's Online Audience Business, is expected to give specific details at a press conference in West Hollywood California on Tuesday.

Television shows search results for example, will include local programming listings and for some shows, the ability to stream episodes from the search engine interface itself. Music searches will return extensive information about artists, concerts and tracks. A music player will let users play back some music content right from the search results too.

Movie queries will add information about local showtimes and critic reviews, while "specialized tools" to discover new games and other information will be provided for gaming enthusiasts. Some of the new search capabilities involve deals Microsoft has made with other companies.

The improvements are part of an effort by Microsoft to boost competition with Google and other search providers. The company will also be providing similar additional services for other popular areas such as Health, Travel and Shopping in the near future.

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President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono put his support behind proposals to censor the Internet in the country following the release of a sex tape featuring several popular celebrities. Nazril Ariel, a rock singer for the band Peterpan, along with Luna Maya and Cut Tari deny uploading the clips but could still face up to 12 years in prison.

Yudhoyono has steered clear of the scandal, dubbed "Peterporn", until he was asked for an opinion about it on Friday. "We have increasingly realized that our nation should not stay naked and be crushed by the information technology frenzy, because there will be many victims," he said.

"Other countries have already have regulations on this... The incident has made us think about the best thing that should be done. Negative impacts on our society should be avoided." Indonesian communications minister Tifatul Sembiring, chief of the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party, called for an Internet blacklist and got lawmakers support recently.

He has vowed to "save the young" from Internet pornography.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and The TOR Project have developed an add-on for Mozilla's Firefox web browser designed to simplify the use of HTTPS for web users. HTTPS combines the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) with SSL to provide encryption for web browsing.

The new Firefox extension (HTTPS Everywhere) was inspired by the launch of Google's encrypted search option. The EFF and TOR Project wanted to ensure that every search sent by a browser was encrypted, and that encryption would be enabled for a wide array of other websites including Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, PayPal and more.

"Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use," says the EFF. "For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site. The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by rewriting all requests to these sites to HTTPS."

Google's https version of its search engine is located at https://www.google.com, and with HTTPS Everywhere, even if you attempt to load the URL without the vital "s" included, the extension will automatically load the https link. The same goes for Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, New York Times and more. It also attempts to ensure that your traffic within the sites is encrypted as you move through pages.

Get it at: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

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In the first hint of premium pricing for 3D versions of video games, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello talked about opportunities for additional growth at an executive briefing at E3. "3D may well be one of the next and most important drivers for growth. That's yet to be seen and I don't think it's a 2010 story in any way, shape or form... in a meaningful way," Riccitiello said.

"As we move through 2011, 2012, it's likely to be an opportunity both for additional growth and perhaps premium pricing for titles that better support 3D." Sony showed off 3D content at its E3 press conference this year, handing out 3D glasses to attendees, while Nintendo unveiled the 3DS handheld console.

Microsoft's Neil Thompson recently dismissed 3D, branding it too expensive for mass market adoption for the time being. He was referring to living room 3D gaming (so, PS3) which requires a 3D-capable television and suitable glasses for viewing the content.

Riccitiello's comments will probably not be well received by gamers who are thinking of upgrading their gear to enjoy new 3D titles on the PlayStation 3.

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An analysis of some of the payload data accidentally sniffed by Google's Street View cars reportedly shows the cars nabbed e-mail account passwords and e-mail contents from unsecured wireless networks. The report comes from the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL).

"It's still too early to say what will happen as a result of this investigation," CNIL told IDG. "However, we can already state that [...] Google did indeed record e-mail access passwords and extracts of the content of email messages."

On May 14, Google confessed that Street View cars operating in 30 countries had accidentally collected payload data from unsecured wireless networks, after previously asserting that they hadn't. Google had been scanning open Wi-Fi networks from the cars, collecting SSIDs and MAC addresses of network hardware. The information is used by Google for applications that rely on location data.

After admitting to the snooping, Google said that only fragments of information were collected and only from unsecured networks. It said its Street View cars were constantly on the move and that Wi-Fi equipment in the cars automatically changed channels about five times per second.

However, CNIL has confirmed that at least "some" usable personal information was retrieved accidentally. Since admitting to the Wi-Fi snooping, some countries have asked Google to delete the data retrieved within their borders, and others have asked for it to be retained as part of an investigation, including Spain, Germany and France.

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Three rapidly blinking red lights forming three-quarters of a circle on the Xbox 360's "ring of light" is unintentionally one of the most observed features of the Xbox 360 console, at least for units made before 2008. The "red ring of death", RROD/3ROL, represents a general hardware failure, but unlike the E74 error with a single blinking red light, there is no onscreen message to explain whats going on.

Instead users can only retrieve a secondary error code to give a clue to the problem. The problem is so widespread that Microsoft set aside $1 billion to address it, extending the console's warranty to three years for RROD (and E74). Even at that, stories of sending back consoles to Microsoft multiple times over these errors are commonplace.

While the new slim Xbox 360 console is, of course, capable of failure too, it will no longer present three blinking red lights. "Obviously if you look at the success rate of the original 360s, we're very proud of both the way the company stepped up to support the customers that we had as well as the success rate we have with the box today," said Microsoft Game Studios' corporate VP Phil Spencer.

"I think we've learned a lot. That learning has gone into the development of this new box. Now obviously, the box has a way to communicate to you if something has happened but yes, three red lights are not part of our sequence of telling somebody something is wrong."

If something does happen to the new Xbox 360 console, the green dot in the center of the power button turns red from its typical green. The error already has a name, "Red Dot of Death". Now let's hope we never get to observe it.

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According to a blurb posting by the BusinessInsider, Microsoft has only sold 500 Kin "smartphones" since the devices went on sale in May, a horrible number even by the lowest expectations.

The story says Verizon has sold only about 1 or less per store the phones are available in.

Each device sells for under $100 with contract, but both require data plans, which can be as expensive as $30 USD.

Kin One:


- Has a compact full QWERTY keypad
- Multitouch screen
- 5MP camera with LED flash
- 4GB memory
- "Media player powered by Zune."

Kin Two:


- Full QWERTY keypad
- Multitouch screen
- 8MP camera with LED flash, HD video recording
- 8GB memory
- "Media player powered by Zune."

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PCMag is reporting today that Samsung has sent out a press invite to "join Samsung Mobile as we unveil a new class of brilliant Android smartphones" on June 29th. The invite has a Galaxy S logo on it, which the company introduced in March.

Generically, the Galaxy S line devices all include Super AMOLED screens, which are 20 percent brighter, with 80 percent less sunlight reflection and 20 percent more battery life. Each model will have at least a 1Ghz processor, as well.

Samsung introduced the first Galaxy S phone, the Captivate, earlier in the week, with the phone headed to AT&T.

The Captivate has a 1Ghz Samsung Hummingbird processor, which the company says is comparable to Qualcomm Snapdragon chips at the same speed. Additionally, it has 5MP camera, and accelerometer and gyroscope for 3D motion sensing, 16 GB of built-in storage, HD video recording and surround sound.

When the company initially launched the line, it said it wanted the phones on all U.S. carriers, and the event in two weeks may be the announcement.

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Kobo, the company behind the Kobo eReader apps and supporting ebook store has announced the launch of an Android app, making the Kobo store now available for PC, iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry users.

The company also has a standalone eReader device.

Says Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis: "Now the fastest-growing mobile platform, many of the new Android devices are great for eReading and we're excited to deliver Kobo to the millions of Android users around the world. We've adapted the features our customers love and expect from Kobo to ensure that we provide the best reading experience for Android-enabled smartphones."

The app is free through the Android Market, and Kobo supports ePUB file formats that can handle rich text and images.

Kobo's ebook store has over 2 million titles, with some for free and best sellers for as low as $10.

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The Japanese Nikkei is reporting this week that the upcoming Nintendo 3DS will allow for game installs on the handheld's onboard storage, an important feature that was not disclosed by the company during the console's E3 launch.

The report says "multiple" games can be installed to the system off their original carts, giving users a way to take a bunch of games on the road without the need to bring the physical game card.

While the game carts are tiny and not to bad of a hassle to carry around, it will be nice to not have to worry about losing multiple games you have paid for, when you can simply carry them on the system with you, leaving the physical copies at home.

There was no word on how to install the games from the cartridges, and Nintendo has not commented on the report yet so it is still considered a rumor.

Gamers will be able to switch from the games they install through a specialized home menu, one that will likely look similar to the "Moonshell" main menu seen on flash carts used for homebrew.

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Media reports from Pakistan today are saying that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could face the death penalty in the nation, for allowing users of his site to run a "Draw the Prophet Muhammad" contest last month.

Pakistani penal code allows for the death penalty in certain cases of blasphemy.

The popular social networking site was banned in Pakistan when the contest started, but access was later restored, with all "offensive contents" removed.

While the police in the nation have already started formal proceedings, there is little chance Zuckerberg will be extradited to Pakistan to face his accusers.

Human rights watchdog Privacy International had this to say on the matter: "The move to prosecute Zuckerberg parallels the government's attempts to shut down a substantial spectrum of internet activity."

Additionally, PI says the Pakistani government is planning to increase its censorship in the nation, which is already one of the world's most censored in terms of Internet activity.

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The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of employers this week, in a case that will allow supervisors to read through employee's texts if they feel work rules are possibly being violated.

In the unanimous 9-0 ruling, the justices said they felt a police chief in California did not violate constitutional rights when he read the transcripts of sexually explicit texts sent from an officer's pager.

The ruling says the reading of the messages was reasonable, because it had "a legitimate work-related purpose." The chief was looking into whether officers were using their text pagers for police work, or for personal matters.

Police Sergeant Jeff Quon has sued the city of Ontario, California after he was told his messages were being read, and Quon had won in the Court of Appeals before losing this week in the highest court.

Quon had been sending sexually explicit texts to his wife and a girlfriend.

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Microsoft has filed suit against a group of spammers this week, accusing them of one of the "largest" spam attacks against Windows Hotmail, ever.

Making the case more insulting to Microsoft, was the fact that the spammers used Microsoft's anti-spam filtering technologies to start the spam campaign.

"The lawsuit ... alleges [the] defendants engaged in an elaborate scheme to evade Microsoft's filters by abusing Microsoft's Junk E-Mail Reporting Program (JMRP) and Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) to send vast quantities of spam each day," says John Scarrow, general manager of safety services for Microsoft.

The SNDS and JMRP features are free services for Hotmail users that want to report spam that breaks through filters.

As a way to get around the anti-spam filters, Microsoft says the defendants hired hundreds of people to open millions of Hotmail accounts, who then were sent the spam, and manually misidentified them as valid e-mails, thus destroying the accuracy of the filters.

"We take this abuse very seriously, and while Hotmail and our SmartScreen filter continue to work to block spam from this identified scheme, we'll keep investigating and pursuing spam attacks to protect our network and our customers," Scarrow added.

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