filters

Kidtops: Best Buy to sell Toshiba Satellite L635

Whether you believe in a kid-oriented laptop probably depends on whether you have kids, and whether you like the idea of them fiddling with your own computer when you're out of the room. Accordingly, your reaction to the Satellite L635 will probably vary.

Toshiba's Best Buy-exclusive Satellite L635 feels at first glance like a larger-scale version of the education-oriented Netbooks we've seen from Intel and others. A ruggedized look, bright colors, and a easy-to-clean keyboard create that impression most of all, but in reality this is a full 13.3-inch-screen laptop that isn't much different under the hood from the low-end doorbusters you might see in retail circulars. We got to check one out recently, and it seemed pretty much like many entry-level Toshiba Satellites we've used before, except for its rubberized keyboard.

Besides size and capability, another key difference lies in its target audience: this is meant for home use, whereas many of the educational Netbooks we've seen, such as the Intel Classmate and HP Mini 100e are institutionally targeted, many of them never even seeing the light of a retail store. The Satellite L635 will be at Best Buy starting September 26. … Read more

Priority Inbox sorts Gmail

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded: Priority Inbox sorts Gmail MySpace gives into Facebook iTunes song previews double NASA signs up for Flickr 10-inch Android tablet arrives

Safe and sound

The Internet is a wonderful thing, but not all of the content available online is appropriate for every user. This fact can be particularly anxiety-inducing for parents who want to give their kids access to the fun and educational aspects of the Internet but are wary of adult content, online predators, and other dangers. Integard Home is an extremely powerful and customizable program that prevents all kinds of problematic content from being viewed.

We've seen programs like Integard Home before, but none of them have been quite so comprehensive. The program offers six preconfigured profiles--young child, young teenager, late … Read more

Microsoft: IE8 barred 1 billion malware downloads

Internet Explorer 8, with the help of its SmartScreen Filter, has "blocked 1 billion attempts to download malware," Microsoft product manager James Pratt said in a blog post Friday.

The SmartScreen Filter evaluates URLs and their associated servers. If the software recognizes a server as containing malicious content, it displays a warning, saying it's unsafe to browse to a respective site that could cause harm on the user's computer. The user is then given the option to continue to the page or go back to their home page without downloading any content.

According to Microsoft, the … Read more

China's Green Dam may be ready to collapse

China's Green Dam software-filtering project has been staying afloat without government funds for the past year, but the project may now be in danger of collapse, according to a story in Tuesday's Beijing Times as covered by BBC News.

The project was launched last year in response to demands from the Chinese government to block pornography and other Internet content considered objectionable. Beijing initially wanted the software to be installed on all computers sold in China, but it provided project funding only for the first year, from 2008 to 2009.

The lack of funding since then has forced … Read more

House votes to block Net porn on government PCs

A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives seemed straightforward enough: government computers must block viewing or downloading porn.

After all, a series of news reports have highlighted, in scandalous detail, how some financial regulators earning six-figure salaries were watching porn at work as Wall Street imploded. So, as it turns out, did employees of the National Science Foundation and the Interior Department--including ones who were supposed to be inspecting oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the exact wording of the legislation (PDF) that the House approved last week by a 239-to-182 vote could, civil libertarians … Read more

Lime Wire scrambles to avoid annihilation

The company that operates the LimeWire file-sharing software continues to maneuver in an effort to save the company from a potential court-ordered closure but time is slipping away.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood handed a major legal victory to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which filed a copyright lawsuit against the Lime Wire company in 2006. She ruled that Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton are liable for copyright infringement. Lime Group and Gorton could be required to pay hundreds of millions in damages and legal experts … Read more

Protect your privacy online and elsewhere

Facebook is taking a lot of heat — again — about failing to protect the privacy of its users. (See Caroline McCarthy's The Social blog for a recap of the service's most-recent security gaffes.)

No matter what safety precautions Facebook and other social networks and Web sites take, eventually somebody's private data will become public, whether due to human error or a successful hack attack. Either way, your Web activities and the personal information you post to an online profile may be viewed by strangers, regardless of the account's security settings.

There are ways to minimize the risk … Read more

Lucky numbers

Some people choose lottery numbers randomly, or they play numbers that are meaningful to them, like loved ones' birthdays. Other people are more methodical and calculating (no pun intended), and for those people, there are programs like PowerLotto5. This software allows users to perform a variety of different analyses on previous winning lottery numbers, ostensibly helping to predict the numbers that are most likely to win in the future.

PowerLotto5 is definitely geared toward people who have at least some familiarity with statistics and who like to geek out on numbers. There is a Help file with a glossary, but … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1190: Steve Jobs vs. Predator (podcast)

Announcing our very first not-even-remotely sanctioned by the legal department video creation contest: make us an awesome video in which Steve Jobs and the Predator work out who has prior art on swipe-to-unlock. We will reward the awesomest video with a Buzz Out Loud ceramic travel mug. Oh, and Google turns off its filters in China ... briefly.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1190

Google turns off filter in China http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-23/google-said-to-have-made-no-progress-in-two-month-china-dispute.html http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/interview-sergey-brin-on-googles-china-gambit/… Read more