Author Archives: Leslie Poston

The UK made noise across the Internet this week when it moved to outlaw tools used by hackers. The fear in the software community world wide is that sales of their legitimate software in the UK will suffer if the blocks have tangential effects.  Read more... (278 words, 1 image, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

One fake URL and some detective work later, Adobe and Omniture’s run at customer privacy is at an end. Until the next time they get caught, that is. That’s right, Adobe was busted over the holidays for using a fake URL relay in its CS3 series of applications to gather data on its users.  Read more... (425 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

In recent years, people have argued against solar energy as a main source of power because of the expense of setting it up and maintaining it. Thanks to a recent breakthrough by the Nanosolar company, solar power may soon be cheaper than our current number one source of energy, coal. What’s the cost savings? A huge drop from $3 USD per watt to less than 30 cents per watt.  Read more... (257 words, 1 image, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

This week a federal appeals court in the United States dealt a blow to online behemoth Google, Inc. In a lawsuit brought against Google by Hyperphrase Technologies LLC, a summary judgement had been reached by a lesser court in Google’s favor regarding the use of technology behind their AdSense and AutoLink. The patent decision by the federal court reversed a portion of that summary judgement, dealing a blow to Google.  Read more... (288 words, 1 image, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

Learning from America’s mistake in enacting the Real ID Act that has American citizens in an uproar, Australia has wisely decided to abandon its own proposed National ID Act. Their version of the Act called on government to issue an Australian Access Card. This card would have then been required to use any state services, including Medicare and social security payments, to travel and get health care, among other things.  Read more... (252 words, 1 image, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)

In the news today are two stories that should grab the attention of any analog cable and cell network user, including people who have OnStar and analog cable television (think rabbit ears, or television that works without a cable box). The analog network that has been in place for nearly 25 years is shutting down by order of the FCC in February 2008. What this means is a lot of unplanned expense for a significant segment of the population.  Read more... (359 words, 1 image, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

The University of Maine’s Law Clinic plans to tackle the RIAA on behalf of its students. This is a first in the long onslaught recently perpetrated by the RIAA against college students everywhere. With this unprecedented show of support, the University of Maine is making history.  Read more... (308 words, 1 image, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

The metropolis of Chicago is under fire from its citizens for cell phone tickets. The offenders that were caught are claiming that the city didn’t enact the law properly. In short, these people want to get off on a technicality.  Read more... (252 words, 2 images, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)

Google has been hit by a trojan before, in 2005. That trojan targeted Google ads and inserted obscene ads in place of regular ads. This new trojan targets Google’s Adsense text ads.  Read more... (222 words, 1 image, estimated 53 secs reading time)

Last week MOG, social music networking site, announced a collaboration with Rhapsody. This collaboration would place Rhapsody downloads on their site and make them available to MOG users. You’d think that was good news.  Read more... (289 words, 1 image, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)