Feed Roundup

Need to send money to California may puzzle locals

Apple will start selling fondleslabs in the Chinese cities where they are made, a job advert reveals.…

Companies are in talks for the Web pioneer to sell a large chunk of its holdings in the China e-commerce giant, sources tell All Things D. [Read more]

An anonymous reader writes "More than 1,000 UK government staff have been caught snooping on citizen data — including criminal records, social security, and medical records. From the article: 'The U.K. government is haemorrhaging data — private and confidential citizen data — from medical records to social security details, and even criminal records, according to figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests. Just shy of 1,000 civil servants working at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), were disciplined for accessing personal social security records. The Department for Health (DoH), which operates the U.K.’s National Health Service and more importantly all U.K. medical records, saw more than 150 breaches occur over a 13-month period.'"

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In other news - Pope actually Jewish

Most government websites will fail to comply with new laws on cookies when the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) begins formally enforcing them next week, the Cabinet Office has said, according to reports.…

Verizon Wireless subscribers are hopping mad about losing their unlimited data plans. But what are their options, and is there any way to keep those unlimited plans? Ask Maggie offers some advice. [Read more]

Confluence customers urged to upgrade

Atlassian has warned of a critical security flaw in its Confluence product.…

Hell’s bells

Review Back in 1997, I worked in a youth centre and some fool gave me the keys to the place. So I would sneak in every night to continue a degrading tryst with Diablo I, cutting down waves of monsters in anticipation of a loot splurge. It was a while before I worked out the portal system – I used to moan about the amount of walking – until someone pointed out I was a noob. Luckily, in Diablo III, the portal is shown as a small blue vagina on the user interface, so there's no risking sore feet now.…

US safe as global leader ... for now

China’s ascent to the top of every conceivable tech rankings list is set to continue in 2013 when it becomes the biggest IT spender in Asia, leapfrogging ailing Japan as it prepares to fork out $173bn (£110bn) on tech kit, according to IDC.…

snydeq writes "J. Peter Bruzzese sees a solution for organizations seeking to cut down employee time spent on social networks at work: treat social networking like a smoke break. 'Try as you might to keep social networks at bay, mobile devices let people be in constant connection to their social networking vices over the cellular networks, which you can't block. Still, it's not completely impossible to stop social time-wasting over mobile: You can establish policies that, if enforced strongly enough, eliminate social networks from being accessed on company time. Treat it like smoking: Let employees take a 15-minute coffee/smoking/Facebook break and make them go to a designated area to do it.'"

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Operators launch HSPA+, cheap deals to snare more punters

China may boast staggeringly large internet and mobile phone user numbers but the latest government figures show that the quality and speed of the services most are receiving still leave a lot to be desired.…

Small print refreshed after data-ignoring pledge

Twitter has signed up to the US Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Track (DNT) initiative and now offers its users the chance to avoid having their data shared with third parties.…

After Brazil's president took office, a law student urged the killing of people in the region of the country who voted for her. Now, a federal judge ruled a prison sentence is in order. [Read more]

NNUfergs writes "Sure, my smartphone can deliver just about any piece of information I could want in under 30 seconds, but I miss being able to just look at my wrist to get the time, date etc. I've been shopping around for a while and haven't come across anything particularly inspiring. There are loads of various features that have been incorporated into watches, but you usually only see a small, specialized set in a given watch. Budget is always a concern, but I am willing to invest in a quality time piece. In short, I'm not looking for a piece of jewelry; I'm looking for a gadget to wear on my wrist. Are there any neat, fun or just plain cool watches out there for techies? What do you have?"

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The late Apple co-founder is still leaving his mark on the company's future designs. [Read more]

New fund will focus on investing in digital consumer and enterprise, green tech, and life sciences startups. [Read more]

Takes out government, court and political party sites

Hacktivist collective Anonymous has turned its attention to India, taking down the web sites of the Supreme Court, the country’s two major political parties and several government sites in retaliation for a court injunction which led to the blocking of several video sharing and bit torrent sites.…

The "4G" branding skirmish in Europe is finally over as the tech giant switches the wording on its tablets for sale from "Wi-Fi + 4G" to "WiFi + Cellular." [Read more]

Each member worth about $115

Facebook has decided it is worth US$104b, valuing each of the shares that will go on sale early Friday US time at US$38.…

Experiment's recommendations will be based on accounts followed by other Twitter users and Web sites visited. [Read more]

MikeatWired writes "The malware business growing around Google Android — now the leading smartphone operating system — is still in its infancy. Today, many of the apps built to steal money from Android users originate from Russia and China, so criminal gangs there have become cyber-trailblazers. Sophos and Symantec on Wednesday released their latest Android malware discoveries written in Russian. While the language narrows the number of potential victims, the social-engineering tactics used to get Android users to install the malware is universal. The gang tracked by Sophos is using fake antivirus scanners, while Symantec is tracking cybercriminals using mobile websites to offer bogus versions of popular games. Sophos says the criminals are like other entrepreneurs launching startups. They're starting in Russia, but have far greater ambitions. 'I don't think we can say that they're necessarily using it as a testing ground — think of it more as a local business that as it grows may gain multinational ambitions,' Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said in an email interview on Wednesday. The cyber scam tracked by Sophos was reported this week by GFI Lab, which discovered links to the bogus antivirus software on Twitter. Sophos dug deeper and found that the .ru domains pointed to the same Internet protocol address hosted in Ukraine."

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