Teaser site reveals Motorola Droid Razr ahead of schedule

Last week we reported that Motorola had put up a teaser video indicating what their upcoming handset was about. The tagline of the video read ‘Faster. Thinner. Smarter. Stronger.’ Apart from the teaser video Motorola’s official website had a countdown clock showing the amount of time remaining for the next handset to be unveiled. No word was actually available as to which handset it was and many websites believed it to be the Droid HD. Motorola has since launched an online campaign to tease what they have scheduled for today’s launch.

It is soon going to be official

Website Mobile Burn received two cards one of which read, “Faster. Thinner. Smarter. Stronger. Unveil the story. You've got one piece of the exclusive puzzle pieces that will unlock the first official image of Motorola's next big innovation." The second card contained a code that changed one of the 16 images on the Reveal.Motorola.com website. Mobile Burn states that the image that was revealed when the image changed was of a handset with a ‘carbon fiber battery cover and a metal (or at least silver) body.’

According to a report by Droid-Life, the puzzle seems to be cracked and the image that appeared is the Droid Razr. We have already seen image as well as specification leaks of this handset but this is the first time we get to see an official image of this uber slim smartphone. From the image we can see an HD camera at the rear that is in all probability an 8MP shooter that is capable of HD video recording. There is also a front facing camera. Apart from that we see four capacitive touch keys.

With the announcement almost upon us, all this will finally become official and we can’t wait. Let us know your reactions about this handset in the comments below.

source:  http://tech2.in.com/news/smartphones/teaser-site-reveals-motorola-droid-razr-ahead-of-schedule/249792

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Posted in Motorola Droid Razr , Motorola Droid Razr announcement , Motorola Droid Razr event , Motorola Droid Razr image , Motorola Droid Razr launch , Motorola event

Accused hacker pleads not guilty in Sony breach

An accused member of the clandestine hacking group LulzSec pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of taking part in an extensive computer breach of the Sony Pictures Entertainment film studio. Cody Kretsinger, 23, entered not guilty pleas to one count each of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer during a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. U.S. Magistrate Judge Victor Kenton set a Dec. 13 trial date for Kretsinger, who spoke only in response to questions from the judge. Kenton also ordered that Kretsinger be represented by a court-appointed public defender.

It's been months since the Sony PSN hacking incident

Kretsinger faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted. He declined to comment to Reuters after the hearing. A nine-page federal grand jury indictment unsealed in September charges Kretsinger with obtaining confidential information from Sony Pictures' computer systems using an "SQL injection" attack against its website, a technique commonly used by hackers to steal information. Kretsinger, who went by the moniker "recursion," helped post information he and his co-conspirators stole from Sony on LulzSec's website and announced the intrusion via the hacking group's Twitter account, the indictment charges.

LulzSec, an underground group also known as Lulz Security, at the time published the names, birth dates, addresses, e-mails, phone numbers and passwords of thousands of people who had entered contests promoted by Sony. "From a single injection we accessed EVERYTHING," the hacking group said in a statement at the time. "Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks." Hackers previously had accessed personal information on 77 million PlayStation Network and Qriocity accounts, the vast majority of which were users in North America and Europe, in what was then the biggest such security breach in history. Other high-profile firms targeted by cyber attacks included Lockheed Martin and Google Inc.

source:  http://tech2.in.com/news/playstation-3/accused-hacker-pleads-not-guilty-in-sony-breach/249772

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Posted in cody Kretsinger 23 , Cody Kretsinger 23 Of Phoenix Arizona , cody Kretsinger Az , cody Kretsinger Indictment , PSN Down , Sony PSN , Sony PSN Hack , Sony PSN Support

From a single hashtag, a protest circled the world

It all started innocuously enough with a July 13 blog post urging people to #OccupyWallStreet, as though such a thing (Twitter hashtag and all) were possible. It turns out, with enough momentum and a keen sense of how to use social media, it actually is. The Occupy movement, decentralized and leaderless, has mobilized thousands of people around the world almost exclusively via the Internet.

To a large degree through Twitter, and also with platforms like Facebook and Meetup, crowds have connected and gathered. As with any movement, a spark is needed to start word spreading. SocialFlow, a social media marketing company, did an analysis for Reuters of the history of the Occupy hashtag on Twitter and the ways it spread and took root.

The first apparent mention was that July 13 blog post by activist group Adbusters (http://r.reuters.com/suc54s) but the idea was slow to get traction. The next Twitter mention was on July 20 (http://r.reuters.com/tuc54s) from a Costa Rican film producer named Francisco Guerrero, linking to a blog post on a site called Wake Up from Your Slumber that reiterated the Adbusters call to action (http://r.reuters.com/vuc54s). The site, founded in 2006 "to expose America's fraudulent monetary system and the evil of charging interest on money loaned," is a reference to the biblical verse Romans 13:11 that reads in part: "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."

A powerful tool to rally the masses

Guerrero's post was retweeted once and then there was silence until two July 23 tweets -- one from the Spanish user Gurzbo (http://r.reuters.com/wuc54s) and one from a retired high school chemistry teacher in Long Island, New York named Cindy tweeting as gemswinc. (http://r.reuters.com/xuc54s) Gurzbo's post was not passed along by anyone but Cindy's was, by eight people, including a Delaware-based opponent of the Federal Reserve, a vegan information rights supporter, a Washington-based environmentalist and an Alabama-based progressive blogger. Again, there was relative silence for nearly two weeks, until LazyBookworm tweeted the Occupy hashtag again on Aug. 5. (http://r.reuters.com/zuc54s) That got seven retweets, largely from a crowd of organic food supporters and poets.

The notion of Occupy Wall Street was out there but it was not gaining much attention -- until, of course, it did, suddenly and with force. Social media experts trace the expansion to hyper-local tweeters, people who cover the pulse of communities at a level of detail not even local papers can match. In New York, credit goes to the Twitter account of Newyorkist, whose more than 11,000 tweets chronicle the city in block-by-block detail. His was one of the first well-followed accounts to mention the protests in mid-September. Trendistic, which tracks hashtag trends on Twitter, shows that OccupyWallStreet first showed up in any volume around 11 p.m. on Sept. 16, the evening before the occupation of lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park began.

Within 24 hours, the tag represented nearly 1 of every 500 uses of a hashtag. The first two weeks of the movement were slow, media coverage was slim and little happened beyond the taking of the concrete park itself. But then a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge prompted hundreds of arrests and the spark was ignited. On Oct. 1, #OccupyBoston started to show up on Twitter. Within a couple of weeks, #OccupyDenver and #OccupySD and others appeared. The Occupy Wall Street page on Facebook started on Sept. 19 with a YouTube video of the early protests. By Sept. 22, it reached critical mass. "Newcomers today, welcome! Feel free to post. Advertise your own pages of resistance. Network until it works," read one posting meant to inspire protests elsewhere. For young activists around the world, who grew up with the Internet and the smartphone, Facebook and Twitter have become crucial in expanding the movement. They are pioneering platforms like Vibe that lets people anonymously share text, photos and video over short distances for brief periods of time -- perfect for use at rallies.

"No one owns a (Twitter) hashtag, it has no leadership, it has no organization, it has no creed but it's quite appropriate to the architecture of the net. This is a distributed revolt," said Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at City University of New York and author of the well-known blog BuzzMachine. Some reports say the protesters have raised as much as $300,000 in donations to cover everything from pizza to video equipment but others put the figure much lower. The Alliance for Global Justice, which calls itself "the fiscal sponsor for Occupy Wall Street," has raised $23,200 via WePay.com.

As of Monday afternoon, Facebook listed no fewer than 125 Occupy-related pages, from New York to Tulsa and all points in between. Roughly 1 in every 500 hashtags used on Twitter on Monday, all around the world, was the movement's own #OWS. The websites keep proliferating -- We Are the 99 Percent, Parents for Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Together, even the parody Occupy Sesame Street (concerned mostly with the plight of monsters living in garbage cans). Online streaming video has also been a huge resource for the protesters, using cheap cameras and high-speed wireless Internet access. Supporters, opponents and the merely curious got the chance last Saturday to watch the Occupy Wall Street protesters decide whether to occupy a major public park, Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village area.

They saw warnings the police were about to arrive in riot gear and with horses, vans and buses to take away protesters if there were mass arrests. Local media reported about 10 arrests among the 3,000 or so people in the park. As the seconds to a possible confrontation ticked down, the tension led to various reactions from those watching online. "Anyone arrested is a political prisoner," said one. "Here comes Tsar Bloomberg's Cossacks," said another, in reference to New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the appearance of the mounted police. There were "we are watching" messages of support from cities across the United States and some who found it the best entertainment going on a Saturday night. "So much more exciting than a TV show" was one comment.

 source:  http://tech2.in.com/news/social-networking/from-a-single-hashtag-a-protest-circled-the-world/249782

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Posted in #OccupyBoston , #OccupyWallStreet , Hashtag , Social Networking , Tweets , Twitter , twitter feed , Twitter Hastags , Twitter Log in , twitter Searchtwitter trends , Twitter.com

Sesame Street YouTube channel gets hacked and filled with porn

Many people have grown up watching popular television series Sesame Street. These are the loveble animated characters that kids from the last few decades have grown to love. The series had started its YouTube channel so that kids of all ages can watch this TV show whenever they please. However as of Sunday, when viewers accessed their YouTube page, they were greeted by something other than these furry muppets.

Adult content found on Sesame Street YouTube channel

According to a report by Naked Security, the Sesame Street YouTube channel was hacked; all their videos were deleted and replaced by porn. The hacked website had adult content viewable for the entire world to watch. The channels information had also been changed with a summary that read, “WHO DOESN'T LOVE PORN KIDS? RIGHT! EVERYONE LOVES IT! IM MREDXWX AND MY PARTNER MRSUICIDER91 ARE HERE TO BRING YOU MANY NICE CONTENT! PLEASE DON'T LET SESAME STREET TO GET THIS ACCOUNT BACK KIDS :( PLEASE...LET ME AND MRSUICIDER91 HAVE IT AND WE GONNA MAKE ALL THE AMERICA HAPPY!”

Google had taken the video down and the person who allegedly hacked the site had put his name on the channel’s profile as Mredxwx. However, shortly after that, the alleged hacker had denied any such activity and posted a YouTube video indicating the same. The website states that there is no word on how the website was hacked.

Let us know your reactions on Sesame Street’s YouTube channel being hacked in the comments below.

source:  http://tech2.in.com/news/general/sesame-street-youtube-channel-gets-hacked-and-filled-with-porn/249552

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Posted in Sesame Street , Sesame Street hacked , Sesame Street YouTube channel hacked , Sesame Street YouTube channel hacked screenshot , Sesame Street YouTube hacked

Nvidia GeForce Lan recap

Here's what went down at Nvidia's first Indian GeForce Lan.

Nvidia has been organizing the GeForce Lan in the States for nearly six years now. The concept’s pretty simple; bring your own PCs to a pre-disclosed destination and game your freaking brains out for 48 hours. Now Nvidia’s turned their sights to India and at the Bandra Kurla complex in Mumbai, they held India’s very first GeForce LAN. This rather ambitious event was full of competitive gamers striving to make a name for themselves in a bunch of  multiplayer games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Counter-Strike 1.6, Need for Speed: Most Wanted and FIFA. We caught up with a few Nvidia representatives at the event and they seemed pretty happy with the turnout. In fact we were told that the number of entries greatly surpassed their expectations and many gamers actually had to be turned down. The war zone A sizeable chunk of the venue was relegated towards the competitive gaming zone where roughly 120 PCs were set up running some of the games mentioned above. On the opposite side, Nvidia had set up a demo zone where gamers could sample first person shooters like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Crysis 2 in 3D. Speaking of 3D, we were shown (behind closed doors) Batman: Arkham City in 3D running on Nvidia’s new 3D vision 2 kit and it looked freaking phenomenal. And this is coming from someone who really doesn’t care about the whole 3D gimmick. Experience the third dimension But this event was not just about the games. It turns out Nvidia’s technology has been used to create certain special effects for Shahrukh Khan’s upcoming flick, Ra.One and this synergy gave birth to two Ra.One themed graphic cards, the GeForce 560 TI and the entry level, GT 520. Shahrukh Khan and the cast of Ra.One made their presence felt at the event later on in the evening to felicitate the winners but we had left by then. Here’s the list of winners and the stuff they won: Counter Strike Team “Never Say Die (NSD)” – Rs. 1 lakh + Alienware M11X Laptop Call of Duty: MOdern Warfare Team “Orange E-Sports” – Rs. 1 lakh + Alienware M11X Laptop Need for Speed: Most Wanted Nishant Vasudev – Rs. 10k + AW 3D monitor Need for Speed: Most Wanted (Girls) Roshni.N.Tasi – Rs. 10k + AW 3D monitor FIFA Chaitanya Vadulekar – Rs. 10k + AW 3D monitor Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Girls) Dipika Jerome – Rs. 10k + AW 3D monitor At the end of the day I’d say the event was pretty successful and it looks like Nvidia may turn this into a yearly event for India as well. This goes to show that competitive gaming is really picking up some steam in our country and if companies like Nvidia continue supporting budding gamers, we definitely stand a chance in international competitions as well. LOL WUT source: http://tech2.in.com/features/pc/nvidia-geforce-lan-recap/249452

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Posted in Counter Strike , Counter-Strike LAN , CS , FIFA , GeForce , GeForce LAN , LAN Party , Need for Speed , NFS , NVIDIA , Ra.One , Ra.One The Game , Ra.One videogame , Shahrukh Khan , SRK

India will have to wait for fully functional Siri

Excited about using Siri in India? You might have to wait a couple of months/years (depending upon where India is in Apple’s priority list) if you want to get full functionality out of the voice-recognition based assistant. As reported by TUAW, Siri currently has extremely limited usage and practicality outside the United States and the only language Wolfram Alpha (the computational knowledge engine that helps churn out the answers) currently supports is English.

Not working? (Image source: Modmyi)

Don’t expect Siri to answer how to get to the closest McDonalds from where you’re currently situated, as map directions and traffic data are not available outside the US. Apple has given a little insight about Siri’s problems outside the US and they’ve mentioned that maps and local search support will be available in additional countries in 2012. In 2012, Siri will have support for additional languages including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish.

Apple has mentioned that Siri is currently Beta only, which pops up the question that it's roughly two years post the iPhone 4 and all Apple has come up with so far is a faster processor, a bunch of new integrated applications and features and a better camera with the exact same design? Sorry Apple, that’s definitely not impressive.

source:   http://tech2.in.com/news/smartphones/india-will-have-to-wait-for-fully-functional-siri/249512

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Posted in Apple iPhone 4S India , Apple iPhone 4S Siri problem , Siri , Siri errors , Siri for India , Siri in India , Siri limitations , Siri problems , what to ask Siri