John Lister

Verizon will issue refunds to around 15 million customers after mistakenly charging them for non-existent data use. But the company may wind up paying a bigger price for the error. Phone Users Victims of 'Technical Errors' in Billing In a statement ... attributed to deputy chief counsel Mary Coyne, the company said the mistaken bills were issued over the past several years. It said the customers did not have data plans, but were victims of technical errors, either with phone software sending and receiving "minor" data, or being billed for following web links that shouldn't have incurred data ... (view more)

Viruses get their name because, like human diseases, they can spread and multiply quickly. Now, Microsoft believes some of the tactics used to protect public health should be applied to the world of technology. Computer Virus Prevention is Key to ... Deterring Further Infections The idea comes from Scott Charney, a senior figure in Microsoft's security team. He's just published a paper named "Collective Defense: Applying Public Health Models to the Internet." In Charney's paper, he argues that while preventing individual machines from getting infected -- for example through security software -- ... (view more)

Analysis of a major worm virus that specifically targets industrial control systems shows that three-fifths of the infected machines were in Iran. There's now speculation that the country's nuclear program was the target -- and that a national ... government might have been the culprit. It has been known since July that the Stuxnet virus targeted Iran. Over a three-day period that month, 58.85 per cent of all Stuxnet-infected machines were in the country. (Source: symantec.com ) Infrastructure Under Attack The virus is carefully crafted to breach SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) ... (view more)

Microsoft has this week issued a patch for a bug in the system used to develop active web pages. In a change from the company's normal procedures, the update had already been made available for manual downloading before testing was complete. The bug ... affected ASP.NET (Active Server Pages), a Microsoft system for creating dynamic rather than static web pages. That could cover a journey planner site that created custom results for the reader, as opposed to a page simply listing bus timetables. Passwords Exposed by Flaw The security flaw meant hackers could bypass encryption and see information ... (view more)

In a surprisingly frank admission, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said the company's Kin phones were a mistake. Ballmer's comments were not so much about the handsets themselves, but rather the way they distracted the company's attention from the ... upcoming Windows Phone 7 system. Microsoft Kin Phone Fails to Catch On The company released two handsets, the Kin One and Kin Two, earlier this year after several years of development. Although the phones received positive reviews, they failed to catch on. The major problem: while they appeared to be aimed at teenagers and young adults, the Kins ... (view more)

A video on YouTube has recently surfaced that claims to be an iPad-style tablet computer running Windows 7. And while such a device is currently being developed by Hewlett-Packard (HP), it's far from certain whether or not the gadget in the video is ... genuine. HP Slate Production Speculative It's been known for some time that HP was working on such a device, codenamed the HP Slate, which has also been used in the past as a generic term for portable touchscreen computers that don't have a separate keyboard. There had been some speculation that the company was ditching the idea of using Windows, ... (view more)

Verizon has revealed it won't be stocking any handsets running Windows Phone 7 until next year. It means a big dent in Microsoft's plans to firmly establish the new mobile phone operating system this fall. Uncertainty over Windows 7 Phone Launch ... Date Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, said that not only will the network not carry any handsets when Windows Phone 7 launches, but that it won't have any devices until next year. Although Raney described the two companies' relationship as being solid, Bloomberg reports Verizon plans to support the system and will "probably" release a ... (view more)

Yahoo has announced the opening of a new data center that uses wind power to drastically improve its electric efficiency. The technology used is based on chicken coops and fowl smells. Data Centers Power Hungry for Electricity Data centers, which ... process information on a huge scale, are a huge problem when it comes to energy efficiency. That's because, as you'll probably have experienced by using a notebook computer on your lap or touching the case of a desktop computer after prolonged use, processors build up a lot of heat as they work. It also takes a lot of energy running fans to keep ... (view more)

Microsoft has urged business users not to let the wait for the next edition of Internet Explorer 9 put them off upgrading to the latest edition of Windows. The company insists that waiting won't make the process any easier. 3 Reasons Why Businesses ... Are Waiting for IE9 While reviews of Windows 7 have been positive, it's clear businesses are taking their time to upgrade for a variety of reasons. Reasons for not upgrading to Windows 7 include: keeping spending under control because of financial concerns during the present economic crisis, cautiousness resulting from bad experiences with Windows ... (view more)

Social networking giant Facebook has flatly denied a report that it is working on its own cell phone. But not everyone believes the rumors are false. Facebook Phone Story Leak by TechCrunch The first report came this past Sunday when TechCrunch ... founder and writer Michael Arrington claimed that Facebook was working on a program by which it would write the phone's operating system and software, while partnering with a manufacturer to physically build the handset. According to Arrington, two senior Facebook staff members have been working on the project. One helped create the Mozilla Firefox ... (view more)