Digital Zone 199: A Better Mouse Trap

Posted by Patrick Wiscombe on March 1, 2010 under Digital Zone Podcasts | Be the First to Comment

In this edition of the Digital Zone, we talked about:

Playstation 3 network data loss
News on the go
Apple suing HTC
Apple sells it 10 billionth song
Event ticket hackers indicted
Choice of browsers in the E.U.

Sony said a glitch has knocked PlayStation 3 users off the game console’s online network and the company warned that data loss could occur if gamers continued using the machines. The company said in a blog post that the problem was likely caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system an affects the older PlayStation 3 models, but not the newest slim version that went on sale in September. The company urged customers not to use the older PlayStation 3 systems until the problem is resolved, warning that doing so could cause errors and make it impossible to record gaming achievements and restore some data. Sony would not say how many users were affected by the problem. According to the NPD Group, 276,900 units of the system sold in January in the United States, up from 203,200 a year earlier. In December 2009, meanwhile, nearly 1.4 million PlayStation 3 consoles were sold in the U.S. Errors that PS3 users started seeing Sunday include the date of the systems being reset to Jan. 1, 2000. Sony said that it hopes to resolve the problem within 24 hours.

Just over a quarter of American adults now read news on their cell phones, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. The study found that 26 percent of Americans get news on their phones. Younger cell phone owners are more likely to look for news on their phones. About 43 percent of those under 50 said they are mobile news consumers, compared with 15 percent of older respondents. Readers’ No. 1 concern when they look for news on their phones: the weather. Of the 37 percent of cell phone owners who said they use the Internet on their phone, 72 percent said they check weather reports. Current events came in second with 68 percent. The research also showed that people are not relying on one medium. Just shy of 60 percent of respondents get news from both online and offline sources. And 46 percent said they use four to six different types of media on a typical day. The Web is also helping to turn the news into more of a social experience: More than 80 percent of respondents get or receive news via e-mailed links.

Apple is suing HTC saying the handset maker has violated patents related to the iPhone. HTC is the company manufacturing Android based phones including the Nexus One phone Google is selling directly to consumers. Apple says HTC has infringed on 20 of its patents covering aspects of the iPhone’s user interface and hardware. Apple said they won’t stand to watch competitors steal their patented inventions.

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PODCAST SPONSORS: Please support the companies that make the Patrick Wiscombe podcast network go and take advantage of the special offers only available to our listeners.

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Apple announced last week they had their 10 billionth song downloaded from the iTunes store. The winner of the $10,000 gift card was Louie Sulcer from Woodstock, Virginia. The 10 billionth song was Guess Things Happen That Way by the late Johnny Cash. Apple said there are 125 million iTunes accounts worldwide.

Four California men were charged with using sophisticated computer programs to fraudulently obtain more than a million tickets to concerts and sporting events and reselling them for a profit estimated at $29 million. Although the tickets they bought and resold were authentic, prosecutors say the group used the programs to bypass safeguards meant to restrict the number of tickets that each customer can buy. According to a 43-count indictment, Wiseguy Tickets, devised software that impersonated individual ticket buyers to bombard online ticket services such as Ticketmaster and Major League Baseball which meant the company got the tickets instead of individuals. According to the indictment, the defendants worked with computer programmers in Bulgaria to create a computer network that was able to fool mechanisms that ticket sites have in place to make would-be buyers prove they are humans. The defendants bypassed the system by having employees and agents create databases of answers ahead of time by manually going through tens of thousands of CAPTCHA challenges. The company was able to get the tickets for the best seats as soon as they were made available online because the programs were able to complete transactions more quickly than humans. Wiseguy bought nearly half the 440 available floor tickets for a Bruce Springsteen concert at Giants Stadium in 2008. Individual buyers are restricted to a maximum of four tickets. The defendants are accused of using hundreds of credit card numbers from ticket brokers and friends, along with thousands of fake Internet domain names and e-mail addresses, to disguise who actually was purchasing the tickets. Wiseguy then would sell the tickets to brokers for an average markup of $30 apiece although the markup reached as high as $1,000 per ticket. The company made an estimated profit of $29 million from 2005 through 2008.

About 100 million Europeans using Microsoft software will be asked to choose among rival Web browsers by mid-May under a deal the company struck to settle antitrust action, according to the European Union. Microsoft is starting this month to send updates to Windows computers in Europe so that when computer users log on, they will see a pop-up screen asking them to pick one or more of 12 free Web browsers to download and install, including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The EU’s executive commission said giving consumers the chance to try an alternative to Explorer would “bring more competition and innovation in this important area.” The top five browsers — Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox, Google Inc.’s Chrome, Apple Inc.’s Safari and Opera, will be given prominent placement on the pop-up choice screen. The selections will rotate from computer to computer, so none of the five browsers will always be first. Far smaller competitors such as Avant Browser, Flock, and Green Browser, will be displayed, if the user scrolls sideways. The EU said greater browser choice also would boost the use of open Web standards. Microsoft could be fined 10 percent of its annual revenue if it doesn’t stick to its commitment to distribute the browser screen as agreed and to avoid any retaliation against computer manufacturers who install other browsers as a default on the computers they sell. Users in the U.S. and elsewhere won’t see any change.

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PODCAST SPONSORS: Please support the companies that make the Patrick Wiscombe podcast network go and take advantage of the special offers only available to our listeners.

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