Google Defends New Privacy Policy

In a letter sent to eight members of Congress, Google yesterday defended its decision to consolidate its privacy policies and users’ personal information.

The 13-page letter explains Google’s decision to change its privacy policies and answers specific questions from the legislators. In sum, Google contended that its approach to privacy remains the same, that users still have control over how they use the company’s various online services, and that private information stays private.

“Some have expressed concern about whether consumer can opt out of ourupdated privacy policy,” wrote Pablo Chavez, Google’s director of public policy, in the letter.

“We understand the question at the heart of this concern. We believe the relevant issue is whether users have choices about how their data is collected and used. Google’s privacy policy – like that of other companies – is a document that applies to all consumers using our products and services. However, we have built meaningful privacy controls into our products, and we are committed to continue offering those choices in the future,” he added.

Google stirred up something of a privacy firestorm last week when company executives disclosed plans to rewrite privacy policies and to meld user information across its various products and services.

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RIM’s Playbook Gets Jailbroken

Three hackers say they have taken advantage of a vulnerability in Research In Motion’s PlayBook tablet to gain root access to the device, a claim that could damage the BlackBerry maker’s stellar reputation for security.

Root access means a user has permission to change any file or program on a device and can control hardware functions.

In a response to questions concerning the issue, RIM said it is investigating the claim, and if a “jailbreak” is confirmed will release a patch to plug the hole.

The three hackers – who identify themselves as xpvqs, neuralic and Chris Wade – plan to release their data within a week as a tool called DingleBerry.

Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems are frequently attacked by users who want to run programs that have not been authorized by the manufacturers, but breaches of RIM’s software are more rare.

The PlayBook runs on a different operating system than RIM’s current BlackBerry smartphones. However, the QNX system will be incorporated into its smartphones starting next year.

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2TB USB Thumb Drive On The Horizon?

According to a video posting on YouTube of memory card maker Transcend and Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) have joined forces to produce a USB 3.0 flash drive with up to 2TB of capacity.

The drive, described as measuring as long as a human thumb and slightly thicker than a penny, was video taped at the Display Taiwan 2011 technology show. The model on display had only 16GB, but the display states that it’s capable of scaling to 2TB.

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Prank Website Offers $49 HP TouchPads

With technophiles still scrambling to get their hands on the remaining Hewlett-Packard’s $99 TouchPads, a $49 deal just seems too good to be true.

And, as the thousand or so people who tried to buy cheap TouchPads on an HP look-alike website Tuesday learned, one should think twice about seemingly unbelievable deals.

The prank site — registered Tuesday as Hewlett-packard.org.uk — looks legitimate. In fact, many of the links on the site go to real HP addresses.

But anyone who tries to purchase the $49 TouchPad gets Rickrolled. It’s a popular type of Internet prank where the victim clicks on a seemingly irresistible link — a $49 TouchPad, or a sneak copy of a Kim Kardashian wedding video — and ends up instead sitting through a YouTube clip of schmaltzy soul singer Rick Astley singing his 1987 hit, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

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Hacker Writes Trojan For Apple’s Mac

As Apple’s popularity continues to increase, so too does the malicious interest of hackers in their famed products. Researchers at Sophos say they’ve uncovered a new Trojan horse program written for the Mac.

It’s called the BlackHole RAT (the RAT part is for “remote access Trojan”) and it’s pretty easy to find online in hacking forums, according to Chet Wisniewski a researcher with antivirus vendor Sophos. There’s even a YouTube video demo of the program that details what its capable of doing.

Sophos hasn’t seen the Trojan used in any online attacks -it’s more a bare-bones, proof-of-concept beta program right now – but the software is pretty easy to use, and if a criminal could find a way to get a Mac user to install it, or write attack code that would silently install it on the Mac, it would give him remote control of the hacked machine. Read More….

YouTube Explodes

According to a study of over 16,000 mobile YouTube users conducted by Google, 75% of respondents said that mobile is their primary way of accessing YouTube. At first glance, that figure may come as no surprise – after all, how shocking is at that a survey of mobile users finds that they watch a lot of YouTube Mobile? However, it’s actually a rather telling number.

For some of us, watching YouTube on a mobile device is an additional way to watch video, not the primary way. But for a large majority of mobile video users, it’s completely the opposite.

The survey found that 70% of the respondents reported visiting YouTube Mobile at least once per day and, while there, 58% spent more than 20 minutes per visit. 38% even when as far as to report that they feel like YouTube Mobile is replacing their desktop video usage entirely.

As noted by the Google Mobile Ads blog post reporting this data, these figures aren’t really a surprise. It referenced a recent Nielsen survey that found that YouTube Mobile is the number one mobile video viewing site in the U.S., with more than 7.1 million uniques.

Of course, Google is revealing this news to pique the interests of mobile advertisers – the post mentions that advertisers can now buy a “daily roadblock” which allows them to own all available ad impressions for 24 hours. Those ads would run on the Search, Browse and Home pages of the mobile website.  Read More……

Lenovo To Launch LePad Tablet In June

In what appears to be the year of the tablet, Chinese PC maker Lenovo announced plans to sell its LePad tablet worldwide in June, but will first launch the device in China at the end of March, a company spokesman said on today.

The LePad, Lenovo’s first tablet computer, was unveiled in January during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The device is built with 10.1-inch screen that runs the Android 2.2 OS on a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. (See a video report on LePad’s CES unveiling on YouTube.)

Lenovo said the device would be priced between $399 and $449. But at the time, the company was still unsure whether it would sell the product outside of China.

While Lenovo now plans on selling the tablet overseas, company spokesman Jay Chen couldn’t say which markets will be targeted.  Read More…

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