michael

CNET got a few minutes on the phone today with Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at online payment processor PayPal, and asked him his opinion on some current events in the world of security. Here are edited excerpts of the interview with the man responsible for making sure the personal and financial data of millions of PayPal customers and thousands of employees is secure.

Q: Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) targeted at a specific organization and typically seeking to steal data have been in the news a lot lately. Has PayPal been hit by any such attacks?:: Barrett: I do … Read more

Amazon shot past Apple and Google into the cloud and generated a lot of buzz by launching a new service last night that lets people store their digital media on the company's servers.

What the company didn't do was license the rights to do this from the major Hollywood film studios and top record companies. Certainly, many from the film and music camps believe that without obtaining the proper permission, Amazon's new service violates their legal rights, multiple sources from the entertainment sector told CNET.

Cloud Drive, announced late Monday, is a hard-drive backup service accessible via … Read more

Famed German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." Little did Johann know that a cell phone would shape the fashion world.

Designer Michael Kors has a hot accessory for gadget-loving girls: the $79.95 iPhone Wristlet, one of the first tech-meets-fashion accessories of its kind from a major fashion brand. The clutch leather wallet protects an iPhone (3G, 3GS, and 4) and has three slim pockets designed for ID and debit/credit cards.

Surprisingly, the protective space for the iPhone is well designed; it allows the fashionable to … Read more

Today we're talking about the music industry and how the Internet has affected it. But mostly we're doing this particular episode since I got Michael Robertson to be a guest. He's has made a career out of attacking old, established industries, first by starting the digital music company MP3.com, which CNET actually acquired in 2003. Michael also started Lindows, a Linux operating system company clearly targeting Microsoft; Gizmo5, a VoIP company aimed at the telcos, and most recently DAR.fm, launched during the Demo conference. It's TiVo for radio.

Also on today: Greg Sandoval, CNET reporter and Media Maverick blogger. Greg covers digital media disruption.

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Some of our discussion points… Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--In 2008, when TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington told CNET that the venerable Demo conference "needs to die," he ushered in an era of extreme competitiveness in the tech start-up-oriented conference world.

Arrington issued his sinister words as part of a conversation about why he had scheduled his own conference--the TechCrunch 50--directly against Demo that year, and his general argument was that shows that charged well into five-figures to let start-ups present their wares to investors and press needed to be dispensed with.

Flash forward three years later, and the TechCrunch 50, or TC 50 as … Read more

Shortly before the calendar struck 2011, gamers and movie fans alike were treated to something special: a new "Back to the Future" adventure for PC and Mac. It was, by most accounts, a terrific game.

Now it's time for iPad owners to get their, er, McFly on: Back to the Future: Episode 1 HD ($6.99) has arrived. And it's the best thing to grace my tablet in recent memory.

Time (heh) didn't permit me to check out the PC version, so this represents my first look at the game. Ironically, it's something of … Read more

The next Air Jordan 2011 sneaker drops in stores tomorrow, but Californians lucky enough to live near the Culver City Footaction store in the Westfield Mall, you'll have a chance to pick up the latest Skullcandy/Jordan Brand collaboration featuring the Jordan 2011 and the Air Jordan 3.

The pack isn't cheap, but it's definitely rare. Priced at $500 per pack, the headphones are based on Skullcandy's "Aviator" model with an exclusive alternating blue-and-red earcup colorway to match the sneakers' interchangeable "quick" and "explosive" insoles.

The package will include one pair of the new MJ signature shoes and a set of headphones, but the Culver City Footaction also pays tribute to the recently released Air Jordan 3 cement gray with an elephant-print headphone that goes with the pattern on the toe and heel rands of the shoe.

Both $500 sets will go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. PT, so get there early and get in line!

More images after the jump.… Read more

Even the basic driving directions from New York City to IBM Research's headquarters in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., make the whole thing sound like an arm-twisting inconvenience worthy of the difficulty that the city's metro region has had in fostering Silicon Valley-style innovation: "Take the Sprain."

That'd be the Sprain Brook Parkway, a squiggle of highway that reaches up from the northern end of the Bronx into the small towns of Westchester County, which turns into the Taconic Parkway a few minutes before the exit onto Kitchawan Road that leads to IBM's Thomas J. … Read more

After a high-profile search that began over six months ago, New York City has hired new media entrepreneur Rachel Sterne as its first "chief digital officer."

It's the latest major move made by the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself a billionaire entrepreneur, to shove the establishment-heavy Gotham into the 21st century.

Sterne's job won't involve wrangling the scores of small tech start-ups that have popped up like mushrooms in the city over the past few years. Rather, her focus will be to help the city government use digital technology to better communicate with residents, … Read more