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Power utilities claim 'daily' and 'constant' cyberattacks, says report

Power utilities in the U.S. are under daily cyberattacks, according to report released Tuesday by members of Congress.

Of about 160 utilities surveyed in the 35-page report (PDF), more than a dozen reported "daily," "constant," or "frequent" attempted cyberattacks on their computer systems.

"Grid operations and control systems are increasingly automated, incorporate two-way communications, and are connected to the Internet or other computer networks," the report said. "While these improvements have allowed for critical modernization of the grid, this increased interconnectivity has made the grid more vulnerable to remote cyber … Read more

Yahoo rolls out six original shows and new TV partnerships

Working to fulfill Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's promise to make Yahoo a place where users will want to come every day, the company announced Monday that it will debut six new original Web shows in 2013.

The shows range from Ed Helms playing a miniature crime fighter to chef Megan Mitchell giving tips on outdoor grilling to actor John Stamos interviewing celebrities about losing their virginity.

"In the last year, we have more than doubled the original video programming on Yahoo! to become one of the Web's largest content publishers," Yahoo vice president and head of … Read more

Facebook and Gates Foundation join forces to promote education

Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have joined forces again to help develop more tech tools for education and learning. It's time for HackEd 2.0.

The tech giants will be hosting two all-day hackathons this month, a Facebook spokesperson told CNET. More than 20 teams of tech education enthusiasts, education experts, and top-notch developers will spend April 9 at Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters brainstorming, coding, and building apps. A similar event will take place on April 24 in Facebook's London office.

Those apps then will be judged by a panel of experts -- including … Read more

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee banks on tech startups

SAN FRANCISCO--"San Francisco is the innovation capital of the world," Mayor Ed Lee proclaimed to more that 3,000 techies gathered here at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. He was preaching to the choir as he previewed a map showing more than 800 startups located in San Francisco. The map is part of InnovateSF, a month-long series of events in October to promote tech innovation in the city.

Legendary angel investor Ron Conway echoed Lee's cheerleading for San Francisco as a capital of Silicon Valley. "When Pinterest moved to San Francisco (from Palo Alto, Calif.) a … Read more

Execs remember Steve Jobs as a tireless perfectionist

Two Silicon Valley executives who worked closely with Steve Jobs over the years shared some of their memories of the late Apple co-founder today, painting a picture of Jobs as a tireless perfectionist who learned from his mistakes.

"Steve would translate good ideas into a finished product unlike anyone in the industry," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said during an onstage discussion at the D10 conference in Palos Verdes, Calif. (See live blog.) Ellison likened Jobs to Henry Ford in the way he changed the industry. "That was Steve, until it was perfect. And then once it was … Read more

Live blog: Ellison, Pixar's Catmull talk Steve Jobs

Join us later this afternoon for live coverage of Pixar's Ed Catmull and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison taking the stage at the D10 conference to talk about "the lessons of Steve Jobs."

The two are being interviewed separately this afternoon, before coming back on stage to talk about the late Apple co-founder, who frequented the D conference series in years past, and had personal and business relationships with both executives.

Jobs has been the topic of much discussion at the conference, between last night's interview with current Apple CEO Tim Cook and today's talk with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, … Read more

New ticket to Harvard and MIT: An Internet connection

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today launched an initiative to make its education material available online for free.

Through an initiative called edX, the two storied learning institutions will develop an open-source software platform and offer some of their courses online starting this fall. Harvard and MIT will govern the not-for-profit joint venture and dedicate $30 million each in grants and institutional support.

With edX, Harvard and MIT are seeking to learn about online education to enhance how they offer classes online, both to remote students and students on campus, university officials said at a press conference … Read more

More drones take to the sky, like it or not

New documents shed light on which government agencies are experimenting with the domestic use of unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones.

Drone use isn't restricted to Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Air Force. Legal authorization to fly drones has also been extended to police departments including ones in Herington, Kan., (population 2,526) and Gadsden, Ala., (which touts the nearby Foggy Hollow Bluegrass Gatherin' on its town Web site).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation had to sue the Feds to obtain the lists of drone approvals, which the Federal Aviation Administration finally released this week. A second list … Read more

House votes down plan to block employers from Facebook snooping

The controversial -- if not exactly common -- practice of requiring job applicants to disclose their Facebook passwords briefly became ammunition for an unsuccessful Democratic effort to block an unrelated regulatory reform plan.

During the House of Representatives floor debate yesterday over a proposal (PDF) to reform the Federal Communications Commission, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Colorado Democrat, proposed that the bill be sent back to committee.

Then, Perlmutter proposed, the committee would be directed to send the bill back with a one-paragraph amendment allowing the FCC to prohibit telecommunications companies from requiring Facebook logins of prospective job applicants.

"If … Read more