Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

We see people doing it all the time.  Texting or talking on the phone while driving in their car.  The reality is, this is a very dangerous combination.  The New York Times put together a game having you test out that combo.  When you play the game, you have to quickly navigate in between six toll booths by using your number keys, while at the same time occasionally responding to text messages.

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Oh, Amazon.  What in the world is going on in the Kindle-world as of late?  First you are being the target of a class action lawsuit due to your “protective case” cracking it, and now this? 

It seems that Amazon caved to the pressure of a publisher, who decided that they no longer wanted their books available electronically.  So, what does Amazon do?  They remove them from their store, and remotely deletes them from the Kindles of anyone who had already bought a copy.  Thousands of customers already plunked down their money, legitimately paid for the e-books, and poof they are gone.  But, on the plus side, Amazon did credit their account back.

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We’ve all wished at one time or another for some magic delete button in our lives.  You know, like when you’ve said something incredibly embarrassing out loud that you thought you were just thinking to yourself.  Wouldn’t a delete or rewind button come in handy?  On the brand new internet series produced by NBC, the office geek “Stuart” (played by Tony Hale of “Arrested Development” and “Chuck”) finds himself in control of just such an item on his computer.

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The Kindle is once again making the news.  Only this time, not for a rave review and gushing praise.  This time the coverage is because of a $5 million class action suit being thrown at Amazon due to a number of Kindle 2 users finding the build quality of the reader lacking.

When purchasing the Kindle 2, consumers have the option of also purchasing the $30 protective case which fastens onto the plastic body of the Kindle with metal clips.  So, some of those Amazon customers, thinking they were being diligent about wanting to take care of their precious new baby did just that, they bought that optional protective case.  Their mistake, as it didn’t do much protecting.  Instead, so far it seems it caused more damage than it did good in lots of cases.

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The ‘net is currently all abuzz with speculation as to who might be the proud new papa to internet movie rental giant, Netflix.  We’re hearing Amazon being tossed about left and right as a suitor and a couple of people are even throwing Microsoft’s name into the ring.  There are obviously some pluses and minuses to either of those deals, should they occur.

Regardless, Amazon had to be happy with the fact that people are thinking they may be the winner, considering their stock prices took a nice jump yesterday after the rumor started going around about them possibly buying Netflix.  However, in this case, all that glitters isn’t exactly gold in regards to this potential buy-out.

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Although many previously thought that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks last week originated in North Korea, the latest reports indicate that the source was actually the United Kingdom.

This is according to a study done by a Vietnamese computer security company, Bach Khoa Internetwork Security (BKIS).  In a statement posted on the company’s website, senior security director, Nguyen Minh Duc, said that they managed to gain control of two of the eight servers involved in the attacks, and by doing so, were able to pinpoint the master server.  That server has an IP address in the 195.90.118.x range, which is registered to Global Digital Broadcast in the U.K.

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Illegal file sharing is down, and streaming is up, at least when it comes to teenagers.  According to new research, teens are changing their ways when it comes to piracy.  There has been a dramatic drop in the number of youth aged 14 to 18 who are illegally sharing music.  At the same time there has been a hike in the number who now regularly stream their music online with sites like Spotify or YouTube.

In December of 2007, 42% of 14 to 18 years olds admitted they shared files at least once a month.  That number has dropped to 26% as of January 2009.  65% of those teens regularly stream music and 31% are listening on their computer daily.

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Ah, summer.  Time to relax, go visit friends, vacation.  No worries, right?  Well, there may be a small one if you like to use public Wi-Fi on your travels.

The latest trend for the in hacker is what has become known as “vacation hacking.”  It works by the hacker setting up fake Wi-Fi hot spots where they can lure in unsuspecting travelers.  Some favorite locations are airports and hotels.  Vacationers think everything is safe, especially if it is set up to somehow include the name of the place they are currently in while trying to connect.  Little do they realize that instead, they are logging on to phony networks, and handing over all the information on their laptops.

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Gadgetell decided to do a Coke vs. Pepsi scenario, but with Google vs. Bing.  You know, put them head to head and search out the same material to see how they compared.  I admit that I am one of those people that is so used to going to Google to look everything up, that even if Bing is better, it is going to be a hard habit to break.  It’s like a cheesy 80s song.

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Netflix is adding another partnership to their stable.  Sony is coming aboard, planning to offer Netflix as a movie-streaming service for its Bravia line of Internet-capable high definition TVs, as well as their older TVs that are compatible with the “Internet video link” module.

Sony hasn’t done anything too earth-shattering on their own in the digital field lately, so this move at least shows they still want to stay in the game, even with rivals.  And Netflix is certainly continuing to expand their market, little piece by little piece.  No, this isn’t going to knock any major new numbers their way in terms of new subscribers, but when other services are streaming on a box, they want their name there as well.  Previous deals for Netflix have included partners like Microsoft, TiVo, Samsung, LG, Vizio, and more.

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