Snoop Dogg and Norton Announce 'Hack is Wack' Video Contest To Raise Cybercrime Awareness
Think you can bust out some silly fresh rhymes on the subjects of hacking, identity theft and computer viruses?
In a somewhat untraditional partnership, Snoop Dogg and Symantec’s Norton want you to show off your lyrical skills on the subject of cybercrime and enter the "Hack is Wack" cybercrime rap contest.
The contest, which runs through Sept. 30, 2010, asks participants to create and upload a two-minute rap video at www.HackIsWack.com.
Snoop is going make the initial call for entries through his Facebook account, Twitter and YouTube page.
If you have the skills and bust out the phattest rap, you’ll receive round trip airfare for two to Los Angeles along with two days and two nights hotel stay to meet with Snoop's management and learn more about his business. You’ll also get two tickets to a Snoop Dogg concert and a new laptop pimped out with Norton Internet Security 2011.
The winner, to be announced on Oct. 20, 2010, will be selected based on overall creativity, rapping and performing skills, and delivery of a compelling anti-cybercrime message.
Could the SEO Rapper maybe make a career change over to the Cybercrime rapper? He does have some mad skills and can rap about technology related subjects. I’m a big fan of his “music” and I’m hoping he enters the HackIsWack contest!
If you’re on Twitter, use the hashtag #SnoopNorton to find and mark tweets about the contest. The contest begins Sept. 1 and ends Sept. 30. You can hear more about the contest direct from Snoop in the video below! Good luck, Yo!
This can't be real. Sounds like a job for @FranchICE06
The GENTOUCH78 is a sleek Android™ powered tablet with a 7” touch screen that connects you with hundreds of your favorite applications from Android™ Market.
The GENTOUCH78 has an 800 pixel wide resolution and a 7” screen, allowing web browsing in full width. Unlike the experience on other mobile devices( small screens and slow speeds), the GENTOUCH78 offers a true web browsing experience, with web pages displayed in full screen. No need of zooming in and out as the text is easily viewable on the 7” screen.
Product Features
•800x480 color TFT touch panel screen
• CPU: 800 Mhz
• Ram: DDR2 256mb
• Internal Memory: 2GB
• Expansion Slots: SD/MMC card slot up to 16GB
• Wi-Fi Connectivity with Full Web Browsing Capability
• Supports Ebook Formats: Text, PDF, E-PUB, HTML
• Supports Media Formats: MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC
• Supports most popular E-Book formats
• Picture Viewer in JPEG, BMP
• Video Player
• Rechargeable Lithium Battery
• Carrying case included
D'oh!!!!
Amplify’d from arstechnica.com
Only 0.3% of files on BitTorrent confirmed to be legal
The large majority of content found on BitTorrent is illegal, a new study out of the University of Ballarat in Australia has confirmed. Researchers from the university's Internet Commerce Security Laboratory scraped torrents from 23 trackers and looked up the content to determine whether the file was confirmed to be copyrighted. They found that 89 percent of the files they sampled were confirmed to be illegally shared, and most of the remaining ambiguous 11 percent was likely to be infringing.
The total sample consisted of 1,000 torrent files—a random selection from the most active seeded files on the trackers they used. Each file was manually checked to see whether it was being legally distributed. Only three cases—0.3 percent of the files—were determined to be definitely not infringing, while 890 files were confirmed to be illegal.
Read more at arstechnica.com
It's just a phone
Over the years, the thing that's bothered me most about the way Apple pitches its products is the idea, behind everything they say, that there is something exceptional about them and their products.
This used to be something said about the United States, we were the exception. The sole superpower. The good guys. The Yanks. Whatever. If we ever were, we're not that now, and neither is Apple.
Here's a list of things to take as given:
1. The Mac is just a computer.
2. The iPod is just an MP3 player.
4. The iPhone is just a phone.
Until Friday, Apple would have been consistent, over the years, in denying all five of those things. They've made all kinds of escalating claims for themselves and their products. The Mac is the computer For the Rest of Us. Think different. For the crazy ones. Culminating in the ultimate hubris, repeatedly saying the iPad is "magical." It's nice, I use mine all the time -- but magical! Come on. (What's next -- Immaculate? Sacred?)
On Friday, Apple asked us to believe that the iPhone is just a phone. It's just like the phones that Nokia and RIM make, or Samsung or Motorola. Nothing special about it. That may be the single most important thing they said, and I'm not even sure they know they said it.
They want this to be over, they want to put it behind them. They want to, presumably, return to Apple as The Exceptional Company. But that's not going to happen. They're a big successful American company (who does all their manufacturing in China, btw), and they blow smoke up everyone's asses like all American companies do.
They are not exceptional. Their products are premium products, luxuries like BMWs or Cuisinarts. I buy Macs because I like premium products. I'm not planning on returning my iPhone 4. But I know they're a shit company like American or United Airlines (and yes, BMW too). You have to count your change, and don't expect them to do the right thing, unless you twist their arm real hard, and usually it isn't worth the trouble (which is why most of us don't call you Steve).
PS: Thanks to Farhad Manjoo, whose story in Slate last night helped me piece this together.
There have been OS wars for a long time now. Mac vs PC vs Linux. These religious type wars have spilled over to the mobile phone market and are really heating up. I have to admit, I like to fan the flames. I love Open Source. I like freedom. I like choice. I understand that everyone has different views. What I see as open and free, others see as fragmented and complicated. To each, his own.
In the end, it is just a phone. It's just an operating system. One size does not fit all. I'll be the first to admit that Apple has done some great things with the Mac and iPhone. However, I work (think) differently. Their design doesn't fit with the way I like to do things. I need the freedom to use things the way I want to use them. I like having the choice of different applications to install without being limited to what the manufacturer thinks I should have.
I'm loving my Android EVO but it isn't perfect. I loved using the Blackberry for years but it also was not perfect. I hope that the iPhone users can admit that it's not perfect either without making excuses. You can be loyal while admitting that there are flaws, it's ok.
It doesn't have to be a holy war. Hopefully Jobs realizes it is just a phone.
Amazon Wins e-Reader Patent, How Will This Affect the nook?
A new ruling grants Amazon the patent ability to have an e-ink display and an LCD display on the same e-reader.
The battle for the future of the e-Reader market may have just taken a dramatic shift. A recent patent granted to Amazon will give them the patent rights to create e-readers similar to the original Kindle, which featured two parts – one area for the text, and the other for a scrollable wheel. More importantly though, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, also features an e-ink display, and a smaller LCD which could be a violation of the patent.
The actual patent reads:
A handheld electronic book reader device is equipped with dual displays. The device includes a first display for presenting visible representations of textual or graphic content related to the electronic book. The device also includes a second display positioned alongside the first display. The second display includes a plurality of graphic elements that correspond to portions of the first display. Also, the second display is responsive to user input to one of the graphic elements to perform an action on the content that is shown in the portion of the first display that corresponds to the one element.
It is a fairly broad patent that covers several possible applications, including the Nook’s current design. No word on whether or not Amazon will purse the Nook legally, but the patent ruling gives them the option, and a costly legal battle would likely ensue.
The website Go Rumors was the first to break the story, which might seem odd with two such huge companies involved and such potentially massive repercussions from the patent, but Amazon was careful with its filing; it agreed to not file corresponding foreign-patents- that require up to a four year wait- which means that it was not required to publish the patent application. In other words, no one saw this coming.
This story is just getting going. Even if Amazon magnanimously decides not to go after their bitter rival’s competing e-Reader, it could hamper any future development for Barnes & Noble’s e-Readers. If that happens, or if Amazon attempts to stop the Nook, expect some serious lawsuits. More on this as it develops.
