Internet & Media

Google has plugged a hole hackers used Sunday morning to festoon YouTube videos with off-color pop-ups and adult-site redirects, according to a news outlet.

Hackers took advantage of a cross-site scripting vulnerability that enabled them to insert code onto the popular video site's viewer-comments pages, IDG News Service said in a report. The hackers apparently had it in for Justin Bieber, focusing on clips related to the teen pop star, who's set to appear Sunday night on an NBC television celebration of the Fourth of July and who's reportedly one of the most popular attractions on YouTube. … Read more

I have met one or two spies over the years. I think of it as the law of averages. And beverages.

Live in enough places and get involved in enough businesses and bars and, well, someone must have a hidden agenda, right?

So the story of Anna Chapman, the alleged Russian Mata Hari with a wickedly inviting mien, has naturally been one of the more captivating elements of the week.

Chapman is accused, among other things, of taking her laptop to coffee shops and transmitting all sorts of secrets to fellow Russians who might not have had American fellowship as … Read more

NEW YORK--Grabbing a little pick-me-up for those late-night code-writing sessions or World of Warcraft marathons might be about to get a little easier.

The ubiquitous coffee house chain Starbucks started offering free Wi-Fi on Thursday, so I went to go check out the new service. A few people here, at the Starbucks located at the intersection of East 96th Street and Madison Avenue, were trying to log on to the Web with mixed results.

When Web access was actually up and running, pages sometimes took minutes to download. And it's not as if the network appeared overwhelmed. This is … Read more

Blockbuster's stock will no longer be available on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) starting next week, the company announced in a statement Thursday.

The issue, according to Blockbuster, started in November, when the NYSE contacted the company and informed it that because its shares had an average price of less than $1 over a consecutive 30-day period, it was in danger of being delisted from the market, if it couldn't find a remedy at its annual meeting in May. Since then, the company's stock price has stayed below $1 per share.

In an attempt to save … Read more

The powerful array of talent behind "The Social Network," the upcoming movie about the origins of Facebook, continues to grow larger: Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor has announced that he is composing the film's score.

"It's really f***ing good. And dark!" Reznor wrote in a post on the Nine Inch Nails Web site on Friday. "I'm happy to tell you we're nearing the completion of this and I couldn't be happier with how it's turned out. The level of excellence that (director David Fincher) operates on … Read more

Led by hot demand for the Xbox 360, the video game industry scored its third best-selling May, trailing only 2009 and 2008. Revenue was down compared with a year ago due to lower console prices, according to the latest figures released Thursday by The NPD Group.

For the month, total revenue from gaming consoles, hardware, and software slipped 5 percent to $823.5 million, compared with $865.7 million a year ago. Video game hardware took the hardest hit, dropping 20 percent to $241.5 million from $303 million a year ago. Though sales were strong, lower hardware prices added … Read more

An article about Apple's plan to "soon" launch a cloud service featuring music and movies stirred up a great deal of speculation on Thursday. "Soon," however, is a relative term because Apple has yet to snag licenses from the top four music labels, sources tell CNET.

The Boy Genius Report's article cited an anonymous source who declared that the Apple service will offer "streaming music and movies from Apple's servers to your computers," will sync iTunes with devices, and will stream content from a home computer to other Web-enabled gadgets.

While … Read more

The first day of July brings the first real-world glimpse of Apple's foray into mobile advertising.

As planned, iAds debuted on iOS 4-based devices on Thursday, with the first examples of Apple's program enabling advertisers to present interactive ads directly within iOS apps. Engadget has Dove's entry, starring Major League Baseball's Albert Pujols and Andy Pettitte.

There's also a YouTube video of Nissan Motor's interactive campaign for the new electric Leaf. It's essentially the same as the Leaf ad Steve Jobs demonstrated at its Worldwide Developers Conference last month. As promised, the ads … Read more

Anyone interested in Sex.com will find an eager seller for the right price.

The domain name, considered to be the Internet's most valuable, is now on the market, domain broker Sedo announced Thursday. Sedo is peddling the hot domain name on behalf of its client and current owner, Escom, which scooped it up in 2006 for an estimated $14 million. Along with the domain name, two related trademark registrations are also included.

Escom CEO Del Anthony said he chose to sell the domain through Sedo because of its experience brokering high-value domain names and its global network of … Read more