This week was a relatively quiet week, as the technology world gets ready for the next wave of major expos and conferences in the next few weeks, Apples World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) and the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

No need to sign

Microsoft gears up for an online battle

If you do it they will find you

Make a game, get death threats

Free music that rocks

Monday 2nd June 2008 - 6th June 2008

No need to sign

Starting this week using a credit card should be a little bit easier.

Both Visa and Mastercard will be allowing people to use their credit cards by using a PIN instead of signing for their purchases.

The new method is not to increase the security but purely to allow for an easier way to pay for purchases. Increased security will be a new feature of credit cards in the future with smart card technology being used soon.

Source ZDNet

Comment 

With so many people using credit cards, and the large number of cashers that don't properly check signatures the ability to use PIN's to add some sense of security as well as speed up your travels trough the cash registers.

No word yet on any problems with businesses not allowing people to choose how to pay with a credit card. 

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Microsoft gears up for an online battle

October 2 years ago Microsoft released the latest version of their internet browser, Internet Explorer 7.

While the release of the new version of the browser fixed many security holes, it was still affected by problems, including heavy systems resources, non standard compliance and a new interface that lead to confusion.

In March this year Microsoft released an early version of the next version of IE.

This week Microsoft has announced they will be releasing a new test version of IE 8 in August.

Source Reuters

Comment

While IE7 was a step in the right direction for Microsoft in adding security to the troubled browser, it still lead to ways for hackers to gain access to computers through features that Microsoft has added to allow for more powerful websites.

Hopefully the new version will allow for better security, be a less demanding programme and allow website makers to make one version of their sites for all computers.

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If you do it they will find you

This week Australian police forces arrested over 70 people for viewing and downloading pictures of underage children.

Some of the people arrested have been teachers, a police officer, and a sports administrator.

The arrests took place after some one posted 99 illegal pictures on a European website, which eventually lead to 150,000computers users seeing the site, of which 81 percent saw every image.

Investigations are still under way with nearly 3,000 Australians tracked to visiting the site.

Source ZDNet

Comment

Everything you do on the internet leaves a trail. This trail can then be traced back to your IP address, the number that your internet provider gives you that identifies you. Even with out putting any personal details into a website, website owners and law enforcement officers can use those numbers to trace who is viewing websites.

While Newsthatmatters.com.au does have the ability to track who is viewing our site, unless we are forced to by a court order, we will not pass those details on to any one else.

There are services and programmes available that allow you to mask your connection details, these Proxy Services hide your identity but do slow down your internet connection. A free Proxy service is Tor 

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Make a game, get death threats

Melbourne based game developer Infinate Interactive has received death threats after a glitch in their game Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on the Playstation Portable caused a problem for the games party members.

CEO Steve Fawkner said "Most of them were people who were going to kill us who lived in the States, and we're in Australia, so unless they were actually serious enough to hop a plane flight over to Australia and gun me down." after being asked if he was concerned about the threats.

Source Eurogamer

Comment

Nearly every game that is made contains some programming flaws, so to do all other programmes.

When people become emotionally attached to games it can cause some strange behaviours and in this case has caused some people to feel so emotional that they feel the faults are serious enough to make threats to the game maker.

Puzzle Quest is a a puzzle based role playing game. Similar to a combination of Dungeon and Dragons and Tetris. 

The game is highly regarded by games reviews scoring an average of 85% in most reviews compiled by GameRankings.com

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Free music that rocks

This week News.com.au, the online arm of the News Ltd papers in Australia and MCM Entertainment, Australia's largest sydnicated radio programme maker have announced a partnership that will see the latest episode of the Take 40 Australia countdown programme, and 25 years of the most popular songs in the country available for free to listen to on the Entertainment page of News.com.au.

The new deal will see music videos and songs able to be played on any computer, but not downloaded or copied.

Source MCM Entertainment

Comment

Any service that allows Australians to listen, and even watch classic or new music is a good addition.

While there are plenty of services in America that allow for people to listen to music for free in America, they do not allow people from other countries to access their sevices.

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