Hasta La Gadget!

Sony’s PlayStation Network has been down for over a week, and it’s a royal mess for all involved — as you’ve no doubt heard, an external intrusion by unknown hackers compromised the personal information (supposedly including everything but credit card numbers) of potentially millions of users. This morning, Sony VP Kaz Hirai (formerly of the PlayStation division) will address the world from the company’s headquarters in Japan, and our friends at Engadget Japanese are on the scene to bring us first-hand details in just a few minutes. Additionally, there appears to be an official livestream that will begin at 1AM ET, so keep it locked right here and potentially find some video at our source link.

Update: We’re hearing that Sony’s “goodwill gesture” may not be an incredibly significant one — affected users can expect a free 30-day subscription to PlayStation Plus and a free software download of some sort, while Qriocity customers will get an extra 30 days of service on the house.

Update 2: As many as 10 million credit card numbers may have been exposed, though Sony says it has no proof that any actually have been compromised, and claims that it’s received no reports of credit card fraud thus far. It is, however, working with the FBI to investigate the hack.

2:00 JST: The show’s begun — following a little bit of Mozart, Sony has trotted out three solemn-looking executives. More updates after the break.

Continue reading Sony’s Kaz Hirai addresses PlayStation Network hack, we’re liveblogging

Sony’s Kaz Hirai addresses PlayStation Network hack, we’re liveblogging originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 00:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on March 28, 2011 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

NASA Demonstrates Photoshop Process for Hubble Images
Those jaw-dropping photos that come out of the Hubble Space Telescope takes hours for someone to assemble before they are posted for you to enjoy. The process involves combining images from Hubble (taken in grayscale), assigning colors to them, and repairing any artifacts that would detract from the overall beauty of the image. This video will give you some idea of what’s involved.

BlackBerry Playbook Will Be Compatible with Android Apps
There were murmurs a few months ago of RIM introducing Android app compatibility on their Playbook tablet prior to its release in April, and it looks like those rumblings came to fruition with this official announcement.

Firefox 4 Delivers 7.1M Downloads in First 24-hours
The big Firefox 4 release happened early last week, and it was met with success as 7.1 million people rushed to try out the new browser in the first 24-hours of availability. There were also another 3 million users that were running the release candidate, and were upgraded to the final version during the same time period.

Yahoo! Search Direct Provides a Better Search Experience
Yahoo! is working on a new way (currently in beta) to present users with results before they actually execute a search. In some of my brief tests I have to admit they did a nice job with the way you can get things like weather, sports scores, and many other tidbits of information as you are typing your query.

Windows Phone 7 “NoDo” Update Released
Microsoft started rolling out the “NoDo” update for Windows Phone 7 that brings copy and paste, faster resume times, improved Marketplace search, and more to the Windows Phone platform.

Amazon Launches Appstore for Android
Amazon’s new Android Appstore has a leg up on the competition because they will be offering a paid app every day for free, and will pay the chosen developers 20% of the normal retail price out of their own pocket.

Sprint Integrating with Google Voice
I was really happy to see that Google is now working directly with carriers to bring Google Voice to the masses, and they are starting with Sprint. Their direct integration, which will be rolling out soon, will let Sprint customers use their existing phone number with Google Voice without having to port the number over. Alternatively you can also replace your Sprint number with your Google Voice number.

AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile for $39 Billion
AT&T has officially confirmed that they will be acquiring T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. The deal is expected to close within the next year if all necessary approvals go through.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Increase Windows 7 Taskbar Previews
Are the Windows 7 Taskbar thumbnails a little too small for you? This free (and portable) tool will let you increase the size to something a little more useful. Unfortunately the size is not customizable.

Google Spreadsheets Adds Filtering
It has taken a little while, but Google Spreadsheets will finally let you filter columns of data. This is a feature that I use in large Excel spreadsheets all the time, and was frequently something I found Google Spreadsheets lacking. This could very well be the stepping stone that gets me entirely moved over to online document management.

Use Bing Maps to View 148 Mall Maps
Have you ever gone to a mall and wondered where you should park to optimize your path from the car to that one store you are heading to? Bing has integrated 148 US mall maps directly into Bing Maps so that you can zoom into mall and see the actual store layout. You can then use that information to figure out where the best place is to park. It even works if you switch to a non-angled satellite view making it even easier to see exactly where the parking spots are.

How to Make Ubuntu Look Like Windows 7
This guide walks you through installing a Windows 7 theme on Ubuntu, and the end result looks pretty good.

Lifehacker Launches Free Video Podcast
Lifehacker rolled out a video podcast last week that serves as a nice way to see some of the tips they cover on the site demonstrated by their own staff.

–Downloads–

• Adobe Air 2.6.0.19120 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• BurnAware Free 3.1.6 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• CCleaner 3.05.1408 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Dropbox 1.1.5 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.4.0 ^RC1 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Firefox 4.0 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Flash Player 10.2.153.1 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Foobar2000 1.1.6 ^{Beta 1} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Foxit Reader 4.3.1.0323 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 12.0.712.0 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Miranda 0.9.18 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Opera 11.10.2064 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• SeaMonkey 2.0.13 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• uTorrent 2.2.1.25130 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• VLC Media Player 1.1.8 [Homepage] [Mirror]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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In a mysterious turn of events, everyone’s least favorite talking paper clip cum animated software assistant appears to be the star of a new Microsoft initiative–despite the fact that he’s supposedly dead.

This article was written on December 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

When was the last time that you checked your Task Manager for potentially dangerous files? I’ll admit that I don’t do it all that often because I put a lot of faith in my antivirus software, but I have been known to Google apps that I don’t recognize. I’m sure you’ve done your fair share of Googling filenames, right?

Today I finally decided that there had to be a good site out there that I could use to lookup unknown files, in particular I wanted something that wasn’t popup infested! I went through dozens of sites before I came across WhatIsThatFile.com. It has a somewhat slick interface that shows matching filenames as you type in the search box. It will highlight files that are potentially dangerous, such as a virus or malware, and give a brief description of each. It will even let you know if an application is a prime target for infections, such as Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe).

Right now it is home to information on over 3,000 files, which is a rather large selection. Anyone can edit the information for a particular file, or add a file themselves, but they are subject to the approval of the admin. In a way this is like the Wikipedia of filenames!

Let us know in the comments below where you go to lookup unknown files on your computer!

What Is That File Homepage

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Remember when you took your driving test and and had an inspector second-guessing your every stop, turn, signal and lane choice? State Farm’s new Driver Feedback app is like having said individual with you all the time. Simply put, it uses your smartphone’s accelerometer and GPS to gauge your acceleration, braking and cornering habits (sound familiar?) and spit out a score, letting you brag to your (parents / significant other / stranger / the family dog) just how safe and secure you are. State Farm claims it doesn’t collect any information and won’t adjust your insurance rates based on your score, which is a bit of a bummer if you ask us — wouldn’t it be nice if you could earn some cash back for perfecting your heel-toe? Either way, you’ll find it for free in the iTunes App Store.

Continue reading State Farm app uses iPhone sensors to grade your driving habits, oh joy

State Farm app uses iPhone sensors to grade your driving habits, oh joy originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Autoblog, CNET  |  State Farm  | Email this | Comments