Tech news by Rlslog

Woman guilty in case of teen MySpace suicide

A Missouri woman who posed as a 16-year-old boy on MySpace.com to woo and then rebuff a troubled teenage girl who later committed suicide was found guilty Wednesday of three misdemeanor charges, but no felonies, by a federal jury. The jury rejected felony charges against Lori Drew of accessing a computer without authorization to inflict emotional distress. Drew, 49, of O’Fallon, Mo., allegedly posed as the boy to harass a former friend of her daughter’s. The jury did, however, find her guilty of three misdemeanor counts of violating the terms of service with MySpace.

The verdict in the nationally watched cyber-bullying case comes nearly two years after the death of Megan Meier, 13, who is referred to in court documents as “M.T.M.” Megan hanged herself with a belt in her bedroom closet within an hour of being rejected by “Josh Evans,” the fictitious identity that Drew assumed on the popular networking Web site. During the five-day trial, they portrayed Drew as masterminding a scheme to humiliate Megan even though she knew that the girl — once her daughter’s best friend — had depression. Drew wanted to know whether Megan was spreading rumors about her daughter, prosecutors argued, and bragged about the hoax. Four weeks into the exchanges, Josh broke off contact with Megan, punctuated, her father said, by a message that “the world would be a better place without” her. Within an hour of receiving it, Megan committed suicide.

Source: Washington Post

Facebook won $837m fine against spammer

Facebook has won a $873m judgment against a Canadian sued for spamming users of the social networking site with “sexually explicit” messages after hacking into the profiles of its members. Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, who runs Atlantis Blue Capital and Ballervision.com, was ordered to pay exemplary damages by US District Judge Jeremy Fogel last Friday. Guerbuez did not contest the case, which also resulted in an injunction against him that effectively prevents him from accessing Facebook for any reason ever again. The damages levied were high because Guerbuez was ruled to have have illegally accessed Facebook user profile data in order to mount his junk message campaign, using tactics that violated the US federal CAN-SPAM Act.

Guerbuez allegedly bombarded Facebook users with four million messages punting male enhancement pills and other assorted tat. He tricked users into coughing up their login details using a variety of phishing tricks, then used these compromised profiles to bombard other users with invasive messages. Social networking sites are becoming an increasingly commonplace medium for the distribution of junk mail messages. Earlier this year MySpace won a $230m judgment against notorious junk mailer Sanford ‘Spamford’ Wallace and Walter Rines. The Facebook ruling is the highest payout ever ordered under the CAN-SPAM Act. Facebook have little hope recovering anything but a tiny fraction of the award but are still gunning for Guerbuez.

Source: Register

Sales of Xbox 360 doubled in Japan

Sales of the Xbox 360 have doubled in the space of a week in Japan, according to data from Media Create. Last week Microsoft’s box had sold 7,983 units in the region, yet new data shows that sales for this week have climbed to 15,474. This boost was in part due to the new Square Enix RPG Last Remnant, which scored a 38/40 in Famitsu and went on to sell 101,543 units in its first week. This week’s sales rate puts further consideration on how Microsoft is trying to invigorate its Japanese audience. Again, it is closing the gap between itself and Sony’s Playstation 3, which sold 17,436 units.

That PS3 sales figure is nearly identical to its sales performance last week, yet the brand’s handheld unit has soared in sales; climbing from 38,153 last week to reach 61,226 PSPs sold, helped by strong sales of new release Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam VS. Gundam. By comparison, the DSi largely sold the same volume as last week, climbing up by around 3,000 units to hit 88,843. Following news that the Nintendo Wii had surpassed 7 million units in Japan, the console’s weekly performance has taken a boost; up from 26,787 units to 35,298. This is largely due to sales of Animal Crossing: City folk, which sold 300,000 units and enters the software charts at number one.

Source: CVG

XboX 360 finally outsold original XboX

Microsoft has confirmed that the the Xbox 360 has now outsold the original Xbox, meaning that it has sold over 25 million units worldwide since its 2005 launch. “We’ve already surpassed the installed base of the original Xbox–which is a really significant milestone,” Microsoft entertainment VP Chris Lewis told MCV. “We’re at a price point that is uniquely placed–not least of which because we’re in somewhat of a challenging economic time,” he added. ” Ever since we dropped the price seven weeks ago, we’ve outstripped PS3 on a weekly run rate in all the territories we care about in EMEA–specifically the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Russia.”

Lewis did not provide an exact figure as to how many Xbox 360s have been sold worldwide thus far. As of September 30, Nintendo had sold 34.55 million units of the Wii hardware, with Sony’s PlayStation 3 sitting at 16.84 million units worldwide. Another survey discovered the three major video-game consoles needlessly add a significant amount to consumers’ electric bills each year, with much of the unnecessary energy use caused by people keeping their machines on when not in use. On average, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 use 150 watts and 119 watts of electricity, respectively, more than prior generations of the consoles.

Source: Shacknews

Apple releases iPhone firmware update 2.2

Apple launched a preemptive strike of sorts in the battle of the smart phones releasing the iPhone 2.2 softwaree-mail from POP and Exchange accounts; faster installation of third party applications; and a fix for bugs that caused hangs and crashes with a number of third party applications. upgrade at midnight, just hours ahead of the highly anticipated release of the Blackberry Storm. The move caught Apple fans by surprise, as the update appeared set for Friday. Users can access features using iTunes 8 and connecting the iPhone to a computer for download. The iPhone improvements include a decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls; significantly better battery life for most users; reduced time to backup to iTunes; better e-mail reliability, especially in accessing

Safari has also been upgraded on the iPhone and now has a new search-friendly user interface, better performance and more stability. The iPhone update also means that users now have access to millions of free podcasts on the iTunes Store via Wi-Fi or a cell network. The Maps feature has also been revamped, with Google Street View, which lets users take a virtual walking tour by navigating through street level-pictures of areas that have been located through Maps.

Source: CRN

Florida teenage commited suicide online

A Florida teenager who used a webcam to live-stream his suicide Wednesday was reportedly encouraged by other people on the Web site. Abraham Biggs, 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., had been blogging on an online body-building message board and had linked to his page on Justin.tv, a live video streaming Web site, where the camera rolled as he overdosed on prescription pills, according to Crane. Biggs, who had reportedly been discussing his suicide on the forums, also posted a suicide note. The video and blog postings have since been removed from the sites.

Crane said comments on the thread included an exchange about whether the image of Biggs’ motionless body was a still photograph or a video, and eventually resulted in one of the site’s visitors calling the police, who tracked down the teen through his computer IP address. Biggs was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 19 — about 12 hours after he had begun blogging about his suicide. The official cause of death was suicide combined with drug toxicity. Crane said that benzodiazepines and opiates were found near the body, but a blood toxicology to quantify just how much Biggs consumed is still under way. Crane said that at least one of the prescription drugs was in Biggs’ name. Biggs had struggled with depression, according to his father, and had been prescribed medication for bipolar disorder.

Source: ABC News