state

Kim DotCom, the flamboyant founder of the now defunct MegaUpload, made news today by announcing the coming of Mega, a new cloud storage service that is similar to MegaUpload.

But with the launch of a service similar to MegaUpload, set for the first of the year, officials in the United States said that DotCom will have misled a New Zealand court and possibly violated the terms of his bail and opened himself up to new charges.

Last January, DotCom and six others linked to MegaUpload were accused in an indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney of operating MegaUpload as … Read more

Kim DotCom is once again making news and thumbing his nose at authorities.

DotCom told Reuters today that he will launch Mega, the son of MegaUpload, near the first anniversary of the police raid on his home and the shutdown of MegaUpload, a storage service accused of hosting millions of pirated movies, music and other digital media.

Police in New Zealand arrested DotCom last January at the request of the U.S. government, which has alleged in an indictment that DotCom and six associates are guilty of criminal copyright violations, conspiracy, and money laundering. DotCom and the other defendants deny … Read more

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today that hackers are "actively" attacking some of the country's largest financial institutions.

According to a report in The Hill, America's top security official issued the warning at a Washington Post event today, but didn't specify the nature of the attacks.

"Right now, financial institutions are actively under attack," The Hill quoted Napolitano as saying. "We know that. I'm not giving you any classified information... I will say this has involved some of our nation's largest institutions. We've also had our … Read more

A number of hurdles must be overcome for Apple to be able to sell the iPhone 5 in China. Today, one of those barriers has been conquered and it's looking more likely that Chinese users will soon be able to get their hands on the device.

A Chinese regulatory agency named State Radio Management announced that two models of the iPhone 5 -- the A1429 and the A1442 -- have been approved to run on China's mobile networks, according to Chinese blog Sina Tech. Reportedly, the A1429 supports China Unicom's 3G network and China Mobile's 2G … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- CNET goes hands-on with the iPad Mini: $329, 7.9-inch screen.

- Apple updates 13-inch MacBook Pro, adding Retina Display, for $1,699.

- Hands-on: Apple updates iMac with gorgeous new display.

- Peeved? Apple will exchange your 3rd-gen iPad for the newer model.

- To Apple: Thanks for making my 'new iPad' obsolete.… Read more

Apple announced at its October 23 event its first hybrid drive, called Fusion Drive, initially available as an option in its new iMac and Mac Mini.

Apple's Fusion Drive combines 120GB of solid-state storage and a regular platter-based hard drive of either 1TB or 3TB. Apple says the operating system and software will be installed on the flash memory part while all other data, such as media and documents, stays on the hard-drive part. However, users can move apps and files between the two sides of the drive to improve performance.

Apple claims that the Fusion Drive will offer … Read more

It's official: solid-state drives are awesome-sauce.

They're fast, shock-proof, battery-friendly, cooler-running than traditional hard drives, and, finally, affordable.

Case in point: Today only, and while supplies last, TigerDirect has the OCZ VTX3-25SAT3-120G Vertex 3 120GB SSD for $59.99 shipped. That's after redeeming a $20 mail-in rebate (PDF).

That's one of the lowest prices I've seen on a 120GB SSD, especially one with this pedigree. The Vertex 3 is a 2.5-inch SATA III drive that would make a mighty fine replacement for the pokey old HDD in your pokey old laptop. Of course, because … Read more

U.S. Marines may have a reputation for persevering in primitive conditions and dealing with whatever comes their way, but they like their electricity just like everyone else.

Yet bringing fuel-guzzling generators with them when on forward deployment is inefficient work, requiring carting around heavy loads of diesel and taking a toll on the local environment.

But not for much longer. Today, the Office of Naval Research awarded Raytheon a contract to develop a hybrid power generator for the Marines, a system that when completed should help Marines in the field consume as much as 40 percent less fuel than … Read more

If you were paying attention last month, you might remember alarming headlines reporting an anti-Islam YouTube video "sparks violence in Libya," is "inciting violence," and caused "U.S. embassy workers' deaths."

One problem: those reports were untrue.

A flurry of disclosures in Washington, D.C., this week revealed that the Obama administration's blaming of the YouTube video for prompting a military-style attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi was wrong. And those revelations have reignited a long-running partisan debate over national security and security funding.

Republicans suggested that the White House's efforts … Read more