The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communication (They don’t represent us, just batshit vocal minorities, I assure you) have stated that all Australian’s should be forced to install anti-virus and firewall software on their computers before being allowed to connect to the internet under a ‘new plan’ to ‘fight cyber crime’. And if their computer did get infected, internet service providers could cut off their connection until the problem was resolved.

Those are two of the recommendations to come from a year-long multi-million inquiry into cyber crime. They spent all the money on K-Rudd’s crack and then did an all nighter the night the findings were due. Results of the inquiry, titled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime, were released last night in a 260-page report, there is no mention whether it met copyspace clearance however and may have been plagerised from first year ethics students at UWA.

In her foreword, committee chair Belinda Neal said cyber crime had turned into a “sophisticated underground economy”, before taking a rasping breath from the pipe under the table. “In the past decade, cyber crime has grown from the nuisance of the cyber smart hacker into an organised transnational crime committed for vast profit and often with devastating consequences for its victims,” Ms Neal said. I postulate whether she is referring to the ‘russian mobsters’ who ‘hacked’ a dentists website and ‘uploaded child pornography’ to ‘make money’ as Senator Conman Conroy stated when asked why a dentists office was on the super secret government black list.

During its inquiry the committee heard a growing number of Australians were being targeted by cyber criminals and that increasing internet speeds were likely to make the situation worse. Something we don’t inherently need to worry about in Australia given that we still pay several hundred dollars per month for speeds not exceeding ADSL1 technology branded as ADSL2+ with a lot of fine print that anything over 56k dialup ‘in their terms’ is ADSL2+ (forget international standards here folks).

It also heard the problem was costing Australian businesses as much as $649 million a year. Including dentists with large kiddy porn collections replacing their virtual store front. The committee looked at several different examples of cyber crime, including hacking, phishing, malware and botnets. They intently carried out this research by leeching torrents, using Back Orifice on inter-office computers, and asking each other for their banking details from fraudulent hotmail accounts, such as imnotsenatorconroy@hotmail.com.

Among its final 34 recommendations were:

• The creation of an around-the-clock cyber crime helpline. This, I agree with. I don’t pay for phone calls so I will ring them and chant “Cocks, cocks, cocks.” until the end of time.
• Changes to the law to make unauthorised installation of software illegal. What the fuck, seriously.
• Companies who release IT products with security vulnerabilities should be open to claims for compensation by consumers. This I agree with. Microsoft, give me moneys.
• Another of its recommendations was to create a new “e-security code of practice” that would define the responsibilities of internet service providers and their customers. Cocks, cocks, cocks.
• The code of practice would see companies like Telstra give their customers security advice when they signed up and inform them if their computer ever appeared to be compromised. More fine print we won’t read and will click yes to.

For their part, customers would have to install anti-virus and firewall software before their connection was activated and endeavour to keep the software up-to-date. It pisses me off enough as it is when they ask what kind of computer I’m using to access the net, when half the time I’m not even using a computer at all, nor any OS they’d have heard of. Find me anti-virus software for my xbox, or my iPhone hard-booted to run Lunix (yes, Lunix, no, it’s not a typo)  please K-Rudd.

If a customer’s computer was infected by malware, the service provider could introduce gradual restrictions and eventually cut off their internet connection entirely until the machine was “remediated”. This implies that the Government will not only be ‘filtering’ us, but also packet sniffing our shit in a clandestine way.

This entire thing just makes me want to pre-emptively ring that hotline, or maybe Senator Conroy’s office. In fact, brb, cocks, cocks, cocks time.

The new CoD will be out 11.09.10. Project Natal launched, being renamed Kinect (a play on kinetics and connect) with a world premier of new experiences promised. Kinect is a diminuitive set top addition that reads signatures of the attachments on the player.

This makes Nintendo seem as anachronistic as it’s lame mario franchises, which it always was as only tards bought them because they lacked any decent games and yes whilst it had some kinetic interaction the Nintendo Power Glove (for those old enough to remember if from the early 90′s) did exactly what Wii did and it flopped massively. Kinect seems to corner a multi-purpose application.

The stupidly named Metal Gear Solid Lightning Bolt Action Rising was launched by Konami with Kojima Productions where yaoi-to-be stars with oversized hair using their epic ninja skills can cut giant cyborgs ten times their size in half. I already want to scream at the head of anyone who’d buy something so stupid and lame.

Phil Spencer of Microsoft Game Studio lauded the industry defining multiplayer and graphics prowess of their Xbox platform before unveiling Gears of War 3, the gameplay looks fun but it’s definitely nothing that would be a blockbuster, except amongst teenage boys perhaps. One dynamic I liked was the fact you can use cover, like in Mass Effect 1 and 2, unsure whether this was in previous versions, as I said before, not my cup of tea due to it being too unrealistic / scifi fantasy.

Peter Molyneux, the creative director of MS Games Studios Europe announced another Xbox 360 exclusive, Fable 3, set 50 years after Fable 2. Loaded with choice and consequence, with action packed game play in a more immersive realm. Set to release 26.10.10, set in Albion you get to play a super awesome character that goes from revolutionary to emperor of win as per .. well, the other two. It’s very on-rails, but the graphics are very pretty albeit stereotypical of a fantasy game.

Microsoft’s newest partner Crytek revealed a very awe inspiring trailer for the dickily named Codename Kingdoms, look it up on YouTube, looks seriously cool from the trailer alone but don’t hold me to any promise of quality there.

After 34,000,000 games sold and 2b online hours Halo Reach was announced by Bungie, on the heels of the Halo Reach beta, citing it as the most ambitious game they’ve ever created. The unveiled world premier was of gameplay as opposed to cinematography, which makes the September shipping game look very impressive to the point where I’d say I may even jump in on the Halo franchise finally. That being said if they advertised it’s storyline better as zombies in space I would have been all over that shit. The music, ambience, cinematics, and dynamics of movement make it seem like it may very well be a blockbuster.

Kinect was explained as having an impact on more than just gaming, waving at Kinect will let it recognise who you are and sign you in simply by waving at it. Waving at it again will bring up a controller free menu, where you can interact using just hand gestures. There are no apparent things attached to the player, like we seemed to think, it just views the player optically. That does however mean that lighting will be an issue. It also enables voice commands, in a very in depth manner by addressing the device and following it with a verbal command. It really does look like Microsoft are trying to launch a tech-savvy household entertainment centre as part of the functionality of Kinect. To my chagrin they played Bustin’ Jeiber as a demonstration of how effortless it is to listen to music verbally.

An unexpected announcement was that on Windows Phone 7 Kinect and your Xbox will sync with it, allowing you to integrate your stuff in a more streamlined fashion. Using VideoKinect you can even watch movies with friends in other states, or even countries, online at the same time. Amusingly they chose Avatar Last Aidbender, with a comment about the ‘game about that’ and ‘boosting’ gamer scores. Lollip0p and Velveteen, two sisters, demo’d this but aside from the obvious potential of the technology were boring as batshit and so rigid in delivery.

My brain shut down when the ESPN logo came up, there was some rabble about some games based on sports, blah boring. Okay, sports aside, the USC graphics quality is AMAZING, it looks like you’re watching a sports match not playing a video game. It’s also interesting watching them interact with it through Kinect.

Kudo Tsunoda, the creative director for Kinect (Gamertag: Kudo) addressed his promise that Kinect would revolutionise the way you have fun, lauding the ‘it just works’ natural interaction system using your body and your voice–something that is usually reserved more for Apple products–Kinect promises to unite people socially, bringing people together in the same room or around the world in a lot of new ways. He went on to point out some six odd Kinect release games.

Kinect is slated for release November 4th globally.

• Kinectimals are a fun bunch of interactive pets you can play with with your hands, interacting with the animals like they were in your living room. On screen the pet interacted with the young girl in some novel ways, even when she hid from it it cutely animated pressing up against the screen peering around trying to find where it’s owner went. The young girl also issued verbal commands, telling it which toys to go and get, one amusing animation was a matrix like barrel roll over a jump rope. You can adopt 40 animals with over 30 unique activities.
• Kinect Sports had some English bloke taunting a crowd of avatars in a stadium, the first game they played was a track and field match where they ran on the spot and jumped imaginary hurdles. I refuse to put in that much effort to play a game, if I wanted that I’d get a friggen Wii. Other sports include soccer, bowling, running, javlin, long jump, table tennis, boxing, beach volleyball, and more.
• Kinect Joy Ride is a controllerless car racing game, the graphics and dynamics look as novice as a Wii game, and having to use an ‘imaginary’ wheel is just ridiculous, all interactions seem to be automatic aside from the wheel. It really looks like a Wii game, except instead of a dicky Nintendo character from the 1980′s you have dicky avatar characters in their stead.
• Kinect Adventures is some retarded rollercoaster ride where you have to dodge, jump and generally interact with crap from a static platform, a rollercoaster and a water raft being two examples shown. It does however seamlessly add in a new player when someone stands beside the current player, again though it’s far more motion than a real gamer is going to invest in playing what is fundamentally such a sophmoric game that it’s almost designed for the mildly retarded.
• YourShape: Fitness Evolved, exlusive for Kinect from Ubisoft, will sink Wii Fit, doing everything Wii fit does and then some, with full body monitoring of your exercising to the point of even being able to tell if you’re doing aerobics in time, or dipping a knee to 90 degrees in certain exercises. The advert for it is outstanding and very creative, and the demonstration of the game environment portrays you and your entire body shape and interactions. It also gives you a glimpse as to how you look to the Kinect module, a yellow and orange blob with vague definitions of your more intricate features. If can measure your appendages, estimate your height, and calibrate in a manner that it entire absorbs you and tailors fitness routines to your exact shape.
• Dance Central, from Harmonix, comparable to DDR on crack with liberal dashings of MTV. The quality of interaction with the game is pretty smashing, and it’s a very revitalising take on DDR without having a lame mat, or worse, a Nintendo product in your house.
• Star Wars OMFG Lucasarts and Microsoft gaming studios team up to release a Kinect only star wars game where you get to weild a light saber and do .. starwarsy things. The graphics are very primative compared to other SW franchise games, but it looks like it has a lot of promise. This game alone will sink the evil Wii, but unfortunately there was little more than a teaser of gameplay and a note that it’s due 2011.

Turn 10 cam on to chat about Forza, talking about a Ferrari (GASP, no Audi?) discussing the way that it’ll allow you to use Kinect, using an imaginary steering wheel, but also allowing you to angle your head to look around the cabin of your vehicle which is a very handy feature. Marrying Forza 3′s amazing graphics with intuitive gameplay interaction is going to allow Turn 10 to provide radical car experiences. Browsing car designs just got better, you can interact with any part of the car and get the details of anything from headlights to carbon ceramic breaks, or walk around the vehicle to examine different parts. I’m praying that Kinect also implements with car design, I’m very well known for releasing some stunningly designed cars in Forza 3 and my main excuse is a friggen huge screen and patience, with this kind of intuitive interaction I should be able to release even more amazing designs. The previewing of cars also illustrated an internal examination where you can look at and interact with any feature of the vehicle.

The Xbox E3 closing speech came with a surprise, a NEW Xbox 360, sleaker, cooler looking, and shipping NOW, expect them to be in the stores by the end of the week. For those who’ve read through this rambling post (and I apologise, but it’s now five am and I’m shattered) I hope you enjoy this news and I look forward to gaming with you all in the future! Also, check out my YouTube channel for a peep at Halo Reach and the closing speech showing off the new Xbox at: http://www.youtube.com/user/bashpr0mpt

Let’s assume you don’t roll over into a new 30 second block, and merely pay per second, and let’s give it a really conservative estimate of 1 cent per second. The average time to drop carrier for my iPhone 3G’s and my iPhone 3GS is between 6-8 seconds. There are over 4.6 billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world. Let’s assume that all of these lag 6 seconds for efficacy of fact. That’s $240,000,000 in phone fees just from one design flaw coming out of every mobile phone owners pocket.

Let’s go one step further and assume that each phone makes one call per business day of the week, that’s $1.2 billion per week. I guess designing flaws in your technology is big business, because you know there’d be kick backs. Let’s not even count in the money makers of voice mail, or other scammy crap. $62.4 BILLION per annum, and remember these are conservative estimates.

Long have we theorised the above line by a madman bearing a labtern not to be talking about the literal God believed in by so many theists. Instead, we interpret, he is talking about what this god represented for European culture, the shared cultural belief in God which had once been its defining and uniting characteristic.

So to has man thrown off the yolk of theism, every element of the divine has been replicated at large through science, trickery, art, illusionism except one final element; the creation of life.

Until yesterday when flamboyant geneticist Craig Venter held true to the pledge he made nearly 15 years ago, unveiling his magnum opus. This landmark of scientific progress, published in the Journal of Science, stands on the shoulders of his race to decode the human genome in his own laboratory, egotistically his own DNA I might add.

The madman carrying this lantern has indeed created the first instance of purely synthetic life, opening the doors nanoscience falter at with the potential to create designer microbes for special jobs such as production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals, through to filtering contaminents from air and water.

“This is the first synthetic life that has been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromasome, made with four bottles of chemcals on a synthesizer from information on a computer,” Dr Venter said.

Lauded as a tour de force by Prof. Mattick from the Australian Research Council, Dr. Venters work is as ground breaking as science gets these days, the applications for man made life are phenominal and limited only by our imagination. That being said, mans imagination can often be self destructive, so think of all the fantastic synthesized zombie viruses the US military will make with this!

The bacterium used decoded DNA from Mycoplasma mycoides imprinting the synthetic DNA and inserting it into living bacterium, in this case Mycoplasma capricolum, allowing the bacterium to flourish with both it’s own and the synthetic DNA within, then finally using an antibiotic designed to kill all but the synthetic DNA allowing only the synthesized organism to proliferate and produce protein strands from the original Mycoplasma mycoides creating, simply, artificial life.

Klatu barada neck-tie?

Project Natal is Microsoft’s attempt to revolutionise motion-control in video games.

An add-on for the XBox 360, it does away with handheld controllers altogether, relying solely on body motion and gestures caught on camera to control the on-screen action.

In a slow year for game fans – at least when it comes to hardware – Natal’s release couldn’t come soon enough.

And thanks to Microsoft marketing manager Syed Bilal Tarig, it may be coming sooner than expected.

In an interview with GamerTag radio, Tariq revealed Natal would get a worldwide release in October – a full two months before the end-of-year date that Microsoft had been peddling.

“I do have great news to share with everybody that Project Natal will be launched in Saudi Arabia at the same time it will be launched in the rest of the world, that is to be sometime in October,” he said.

“Definitely it is going to be October 2010, we will have it in Saudi Arabia for sure.”

He also confirmed that it would be unveiled at the E3 games expo in June, as rumoured.

Project Natal is one of a series of updates to the console that Microsoft claims will enable it to remain relevant for gamers until at least 2015.

It first appeared in public at last year’s E3 expo, where a basic unit showed it was capable of motion-tracking up to four players at once.

A notice sent out by Microsoft earlier this year suggests the exact date for the completed unit’s unveiling will be June 13, a day before the start of E3 2010.

Researchers at Imperva have discovered an ‘experimental’ botnet that uses around 300 hijacked web servers to launch high-bandwidth DDoS attacks.

The servers are all believed to be open to an unspecified security vulnerability that allows the attacker, who calls him or herself ‘Exeman’, to infect them with a tiny, 40-line PHP script. This includes a simple GUI from which the attacker can return at a later date to enter in the IP, port and duration numbers for the attack that is to be launched.

But why servers in the first place? Botnets are built from PCs and rarely involve servers.

According to Imperva’s CTO, Amachai Shulman, they have no antivirus software and offer high upload bandwidth, typically 10-50 times that of a consumer PC. Are there disadvantages to this? There are simply fewer of them, the attacker needs to find vulnerable machines using PHP, and they appear to need manual control, although Shulman did say that attacks could probably be automated using a separate script.

Imperva uncovered the attack by obtaining the server attack source code, which was simply run through Google, revealing a list of servers infected with it. The company was then able to watch as the attacker used a compromised server to launch a real denial-of-service attack on a Dutch ISP. The purpose is probably extortion-related.

The controller of the botent had used the Tor anonymity system to hide his or her incoming connections, which made it impossible to judge location. The servers themselves were lone servers at hosting companies, perhaps ones not carefully monitoring outgoing traffic patterns.

Would hosting companies or website owners know they were being hijacked by one of the Internet’s oddest botnets? Most likely, only if the authorities or third-party ISP comes calling with complaints of unwanted Internet traffic.

The botnet’s GUI hints that the hijack program, and perhaps the botnet itself, was probably created to be rented out to third-parties. A message in the simple interface reminds its users “Don’t DoS yourself nub.”

Apple made the announcement late last night, two days before it was officially due to begin taking international orders for its breakthrough entry into the touchscreen tablet market.

All six models will be available to the market on outside the US on May 28 – three wi-fi, three 3G – and surprisingly, Australians will also be able to immediately access Apple’s iBookstore, with titles available for download immediately.

Prices for the iPad in Australia are as follows:

Wi-Fi models:

16GB: $629

32GB: $759

64GB: $879

Wi-Fi + 3G models

16GB: $799

32GB: $928

64GB: $1049

The device will also go on sale in eight other countries from May 28: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Since its US launch on April 3, the “revolutionary and magical” machine, as Apple calls it, has created daily fodder for the media, right from its first day on sale when teenager Justin Kockott bought three of them, just so he could trash one and post the destruction on YouTube.

Kenny Irwin put his in a microwave and sealed it in resin.

It’s currently for sale on eBay and bidding this weekend pushed past its $575 sale price.

It’s been made into a skateboard, accused of coming up short when it comes to streaming video and its possibly drawn Apple into a court case after the company chose not to support Adobe’s Flash multimedia platform. Although that being said given the proliferation of PDF and the extortionate costs to use Adobe formats, it serves them right for being gluttons and shows a lot of balls on behalf of Apple.

Apple’s legendary ability to generate publicity has seen it shift a million iPads in 28 days in the US, selling twice as quickly as Apple sold its first million iPhones. Developers have created more than 5000 new apps for iPad that take advantage of its multi-touch interface, large screen and high-quality graphics. Demand for the “magical” device was so intense that its worldwide release was delayed, but the announcement it will available so soon will come as welcome relief for Apple’s Australian fanbase.

It was originally expected to take at least six weeks from the order date to arrive, with the iBookstore app not available until next year.

Publishing organisations have hailed the device as a possible saviour for newspapers as demand shifts from print to digital, and the iBookstore announcement comes on the heels of Google’s announcement that it will opens its online bookstore Google Editions, by the end of June.

The devices will be sold at Apple stores and Apple resellers and will be released in other countries including New Zealand and Singapore from July.

This is also clearly the end of the Amazon Kindle and it’s crappy black and grey LCD screen. :)

“Woke Up Dead is an American horror/comedy web series starring Jon Heder (best known for Napoleon Dynamite) as a young man who awakes in a full bathtub after ‘drowning’ and has no heartbeat, prompting his friends to believe him to be a zombie.

The show premiered on Sony Pictures Entertainment owned Crackle on October 5, 2009. Woke Up Dead is a production of Electric Farm Entertainment, a company that produced Afterworld, which currently runs on Crackle, along with Gemini Division and Valemont.

The show is executive produced by Brent V. Friedman, Stan Rogow, and Jeff Sagansky. Heder’s co-stars are Krysten Ritter, Josh Gad, and Wayne Knight. New episodes streamed weekdays through the end of October 2009.

The first episode was included on the Zombieland DVD. A season one DVD is in production. It is currently unknown if there will be a second season.”

Those familiar with Afterworld will remember it was a good concept wrecked by bad production and so intermittant you’d never follow the plot, not to mention unless you were in the US you couldn’t view episodes online.

Gemini Devision went one step further into the bowels of Internet fail by portraying it’s narrative as the vlog of some silly bitch on some urgent super mission being leaked. It was PACKED with promotional advertising which left you boggling at how they squeezed ten seconds of trashy hack narrative into four minutes of epilepsy inducing sub and paraliminal marketing gaffes.

So to does this next ‘feature’ from Electronic Farm disappoint. With blatent advertising segues in dialogue disengaging the viewer it forcibly pimps Kodal, Jeep, Ford, Doritos and Motorola. Many items are changed to have their logo physically in view, where logos aren’t found on the items in the real world.

Electric Farm breeds a lot of cows, because they sure as fuck shovel out more bullshit than any other ‘production company’ at present. Maybe film makers will take note of it’s limited success even with horrible advertising, or that of Dead Set (a zombie serial aired on BBC) and bring us a REAL zombie series?

Like Google Earth with a mind-numbing amount of extra detail added – namely, everything. It will be built in Switzerland, home of that other enormously ambitious project to map just about everything, the Large Hadron Collider. Finances, pandemics, emissions, weather patterns, transport, wars – if humanity indulges in it, affects it or is afflicted by it, it goes into the simulator. Whether we actually want to see that is another question, because it could well be like having your own genome sequenced and finding out you’ll be dead by the end of the year.

Helbing hopes his simulator – he’s coined the term “knowledge accelerator” – will be up and running by 2022, which is, perhaps not coincidentally, exactly 42 years after Douglas Adams gave the world the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Helbing believes it could be used by global leaders to view and manage current and future crises in “situation rooms”. “With our knowledge of the universe, we have sent men to the moon,” Helbing writes in a paper on the project released online. “Humankind is now facing serious crises for which we must develop new ways to tackle the global challenges of humanity in the 21st century.

“We know microscopic details of objects around us and within us. And yet we know relatively little about how our society works and how it reacts to changes brought upon it.” The start up cost will be somewhere around $1.5 billion and it’s so far wholly funded by the European Union, which shows it is taking the project and its possibilities very, very seriously.

The creator, Harrison Krix, is a ‘graphic designer’ yet seems to be making a tidy profit doing commission work producing props. Including a bloody awesome Daft Punk helmet amongst other things.

Click here to check out the blow by blow of the ADAM bottle and synringe prop.

Credit where credit is due, if you really want to be a knob and try and make a buck on the internet, try Sponsored Tweets, they’re run by IZEA a ‘Social Media Marketing’ business with decent sponsors. Lifestyle Channel have taken an interest in my blog adventures and whilst I am being derisive by saying $5 in a month that’s because it took a month for them to send me an offer, it works out to be $5 per tweet they feed into my stream, which could be a money winner if you talk about crap that will attract the right sponsors I guess? Their banners aren’t all that crappy too if you’re into the whole affiliate marketing crap, but I for one don’t see any value for time in that stuff. Example below.

Anyway, that’s as much as an update you’re going to get, so you CAN make money online but not enough to buy a beer down the pub. :)

That’s the question on the lips of anyone watching the drama unfold around the device found in a bar in California that turned out to be the new iPhone 4G.

Gray Powell is the Apple employee who lost it – and there was no hiding for him today after technology blog Gizmodo printed his name and photo after an interview with him in which they said he “sounded tired and broken”.

A uni graduate who helps build the software that enables the iPhone to make calls, Mr Powell is now the pin-up boy of several “Save Gray Powell” fan clubs on social networking sites.

And Gizmodo is under increasing pressure to justify two things – a) Whether it should have paid for, kept and dismantled a product under development and b) whether it was right to publish the name and photo of the person responsible for losing it.

Gizmodo contributing editor John Hermann – who interviewed Mr Powell and today revealed Apple’s failure to get its phone back – says he doesn’t know Mr Powell’s fate, other than “this has to be rough on him”.

He said Gizmodo wouldn’t be doing its job if it didn’t break the story properly.

“People read us because they’re obsessed with tech, either as a hobby, or as part of a recognition that it’s becoming drastically more important in their daily lives,” he said.

“As tech writers, if we knew about something like this and didn’t look into it, didn’t report it, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs.”

Mr Hermann said Gizmodo took a chance on spending $US5000 to acquire the phone and didn’t even realise what they had until they published the story.

Apple’s rapid reply confirmed their suspicions.

“We spent around a week vetting it, decided it was legit, and published our story,” Mr Hermann said.

“When Apple asked for it back, on record, we gave it back.”

The letter of reply from Gizmodo read: “P.S. I hope you take it easy on the kid who lost it. I don’t think he loves anything more than Apple.”

In an apology of sorts to Mr Powell, a blog today by Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam told Mr Powell they “couldn’t resist a good story” and to “keep your head up”.

“After all, it’s just a f**king iPhone and mistakes happen to everyone,” it read.

But Gizmodo’s readers weren’t so keen to brush the news – and the method of getting it – under the mat.

“Printing the name and photograph of the engineer who lost it was unnecessary and tasteless,” one wrote.

“If you needed a photo for the story, you had lots of options,” the reader continued.

“If you had printed all of those details (the bar, finding the Facebook page, etc), but withheld the name, it’s still the same story.”

Mr Powell wasn’t the one who handed the phone over to Gizmodo. Someone sitting near him was given the phone after he left and held onto it for three weeks.

“I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS,” he told Gizmodo.

“It just looked like one. I tried the camera, but it crashed three times.”

The finder had time to access Mr Powell’s Facebook account and record his last status update: “I underestimated how good German beer is.”

His Twitter account also showed Mr Powell was celebrating his birthday on the night in question.

Gizmodo paid the finder $5000 for the phone, after he claimed he’d tried to give it back, but the only people he could speak to at Apple didn’t want to know about it.

One Apple employee told Gizmodo he remembered the call coming in to a colleague next to him.

“We haven’t gotten any notices or anything about a lost phone, much less anything stating we are making a new one,” he said.

“We wouldn’t have any idea what to do with it and that’s what sucks about working for apple.

“We’re given just enough info to try and help people but not enough info to do anything if someone calls like this.”

So, app store crap, what’s the dub? I’d love to get a bit of feedback (tweet @bashpr0mpt) about your experience with apps, purchased and free. I’ve bought numerous crappy apps that sound great, but weren’t.

My main gripe with the app store is the amount of IDENTICAL games sold as different games all based off the mafia wars model, rock bands, vampires, zombies, racing, high school, all the same bloody crap rebadged and rehashed. Apple need to rm -rf anything with ‘farm’ or ‘wars’ in it’s title IMHO.

Last Day of Work have given me compartment syndrome from toilet seats with their inane yet quirky and addictive series of games, many of which you can grab at flash games locales online–but hey iPhones and iPods don’t support flash–but also available for a small price (a few bucks) in the app store and horribly addictive. Most centre on a closed economic system with very limited upgrade models but the realms or theatres of the game are persistant.

Persistant realms are nothing new but make IRL timelines interesting, or in the case of idiots like me merely make you roll your phones clock forwards to get that instant fix.

I tried Sim City, addictive but buggy and crashes lots after you get your city big. Also tried Sims 3, it was as absolutely crap as the insanely limited Sims 2 for the PSP which has a low playability, low graphics, sound, gameplay and replayability if you ask me. Those, sadly, cost more for one than ALL the LDOW publications available.

So, your turn. What have you played that’s fun and … well, not crap?

REMEMBER: PSEUDOSCIENCE KILLS.
Click here to review individual instances of pseudoscience and alternative medicine being at fault in over 368,379 people dying, 306,096 injured and over $2,815,931,000 in economic damages.

I don’t mean to rag on him too much by the way, he seems to be a TAFE teacher (by Australian standards, or primarily a ‘community college’ instructor by US standards) and has clearly worked with some brilliant chaps too; my disdain isn’t against this individual but merely his actions as a proponent of deadly conspiracy and pseudoscience peddling. That being said he can be found on YouTube making an ass of himself talking about UFOs and conspiracies.

Before reading through this review, or maybe even after, watch this video on critical thinking for a general primer on how to approach … well, just about anything utilising the illumination of critical thought and the scientific mind!

I was cynical from the commencement reading this material, as I have read hundreds of papers debunking magetic therapy, the dedication at the begining of the work mentioning a naturopath was not reassuring. The preface is a very stereotypical opening shot of anecdote, as with most ‘alternative medicine‘ someone always knows someone who X, Y and Z, but sadly none of these people manage to deliver even a scrap of scientific proof nor are any of these wonderous revolutionary discoveries ever distributed to peer reviewed journals where the reading (and commenting) audience are medically or scientifically trained. We all know why that is.

The kicker that already got my eyes rolling out of my head was the defecting Russian scientist, who spoke of awesome ‘energy healing‘ methods through magnetic devices which, when pointed at the ear of a subject with an ear infection for a few minutes, would destroy the infection. If ANYONE can reproduce that in a lab under ANY form of scientific scrutiny, I will gladly sell all my possessions, hand them the cash, then promptly jump off a cliff. I shit you not, I WILL stake my entire life on the fact that ALL alternative medicine is a farce. A dangerous farce at that, killing millions the world over who, through ignorance, or irresponsibility of others putting forth puff where one should be proposing medicine and science, die and cause massive financial, emotional, and general harm to people every day. I feel safe in my bet on this one though: -

“I know of no scientist who takes this claim seriously…It’s another fad. They come and go like copper bracelets and crystals and all of these things, and this one will pass too.” –Robert Park of the American Physical Society.

“Iron atoms in a magnet are crammed together in a solid state about one atom apart from one another. In your blood only four iron atoms are allocated to each hemoglobin molecule, and they are separated by distances too great to form a magnet. This is easily tested by pricking your finger and placing a drop of your blood next to a magnet. ” –Michael Shermer*

“The more extreme claims of magnetic therapy, such as curing cancer by hanging supermagnets around your neck, are not only nonsense but also dangerous, since they may divert patients from seeking appropriate treatment from mainstream medicine. Magnetic jewelry and most other magnetic-therapy products probably are harmless beyond a waste of money.” –James D. Livingston*

By page 4 the author is already claiming magnets are ‘the medicine of the future’, an ongoing cliche comment from all alternative medicine and snake oil peddlers in general. This magnet shit was mostly hashed out in the 70′s, with magnetic rooms, or ion charging units in sweat lodges in Europe would charge tens of thousands for ‘therapy,’ or the pleasure of sitting on a seat awkwardly in the middle of a room in your underwear whilst your healers snort the cash you’ve given them like hoovers. The whole ‘electro’ fad was exhausted by the 1930′s and debunked by most educated fellows.

One can’t go very far in the realm of ‘alternative medicine’ without striking on an Edison or Tesla reference, this work doesn’t disappoint, albeit I did find the uber professionalism of the author in one outstanding statement that pretty much sets the feel for the rest of the narrative of pseudoscience: -

Key sections are noted with a :) symbol to indicate importance.

Brilliant, right? In the 1930′s, as the author even states, such ridiculous claims were put forwards such as Tesla’s high frequency currents “are bringing about a highly beneficial result in dealing with cancer, surpassing anything that could be accomplished with ordinary surgery.” Statements like that are what people term as anecdotal; they’re not scientific, nor is any credential other than that of the conman or his associates put on the line. If it were submitted for peer review scientific journals by modern standards they’d be ridiculed openly and debunked, if not outright exposed, as phoneys. We all know electricity won’t cure cancer. If it did, we wouldn’t be spending billions in cancer research, nor spending even more in socialist states like Australia to fund the treatment of cancer patients if mere electro-shock will cure it.

Tim Harlow, general practitioner, Colin Greaves, research fellow, Adrian White, senior research fellow, Liz Brown, research assistant, Anna Hart, statistician, Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine conducted a large scale scientific examination of energy healing, with a focus on magnets, these findings were published in an esteemed and peer reviewed journal, British Medical Journal, Dec. 2004.

Skip to the bottom of this article to see other findings from other scientists that have been submitted to REAL journals and published BY presses that aren’t owned by those conducting the research.

That being said, we still have some whacky psychiatrists (mostly in Western Australia at Graylands (movies have been made about that place and this practice) who believe that electro-shock therapy is effective in dealing with depression and anxiety conditions. The figures probably come from the fact people will behave the way the doctors want because they don’t want a fucking jumper cable put to their temples again; not to mention in extreme cases these practices cause indirect lobotomies, but have as unpredictable a result as inserting a screw driver into your cars ignition, hitting it with a 20 lb sledge hammer, and hoping it starts.

By page 12 the author had lost me with far too much blatent pseudo-science, so I decided to look into him a bit more, examine his writing style. He seems to apply many footnotes, but I noticed that there are none beyond the 90s if not even the 70s that AREN’T published in some wanky new age touchy feely hippy publication, or vanity pressing. All the rest of the footnotes are from things from the late 1870s through to the 1930s, so we’re already dealing with someone who is structuring their research to suit their argument, as opposed to conducting research to present their argument be it right or wrong.

By page 13 the author is citing conspiracy theory books claiming that there is suppression by ‘big pharma’ to prevent the world being this wonderful utopia as peddled by snake oil salesmen. At this point I realised I could not go any further without losing all respect for myself. Cute read, non-scientific, all point of view, all flawed research.

Further reading:

• Colbert, A. P., Wahbeh, H., Harling, N., Connelly, E., Schiffke, H. C., Forsten, C., Gregory, W. L., Markov, M. S., Souder, J. J., Elmer, P., King, V. (2009). Static Magnetic Field Therapy: A Critical Review of Treatment Parameters. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 6: 133-139 [Abstract] [Full text]
• Boutron, I., Moher, D., Altman, D. G., Schulz, K. F., Ravaud, P., for the CONSORT Group, (2008). Extending the CONSORT Statement to Randomized Trials of Nonpharmacologic Treatment: Explanation and Elaboration. ANN INTERN MED 148: 295-309 [Abstract] [Full text]
• Rumbaut, R. E., Mirkovic, D. (2008). Magnetic therapy for edema in inflammation: a physiological assessment. Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol. 294: H19-H20 [Full text]
• Barron, M. C., Rubin, B. R. (2007). Managing Osteoarthritic Knee Pain. J Am Osteopath Assoc 107: ES21-ES27 [Abstract] [Full text]
• Pittler, M. H. MD PhD, Brown, E. M. BSc, Ernst, E. MD PhD (2007). Static magnets for reducing pain: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. CMAJ 177: 736-742 [Abstract] [Full text]
• Katz, W. A. (2007). Themed Review: Nonpharmacologic Approaches to Osteoarthritis. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF LIFESTYLE MEDICINE 1: 249-255 [Abstract]
• Kuipers, N. T., Sauder, C. L., Ray, C. A. (2007). Influence of static magnetic fields on pain perception and sympathetic nerve activity in humans. J. Appl. Physiol. 102: 1410-1415 [Abstract] [Full text]
• Bjordal, J, Conaghan, P G (2006). NSAIDs in osteoarthritis: irreplaceable or troublesome guidelines?. Br. J. Sports. Med. 40: 285-286 [Full text]
• Finegold, L., Flamm, B. L (2006). Magnet therapy. BMJ 332: 4-4 [Full text]
• Rubin, B. R. (2005). Management of Osteoarthritic Knee Pain. J Am Osteopath Assoc 105: S23-S28 [Abstract] [Full text]
• Winemiller, M. H., Billow, R. G., Laskowski, E. R., Harmsen, W. S. (2005). Effect of Magnetic vs Sham-Magnetic Insoles on Nonspecific Foot Pain in the Workplace: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Mayo Clin Proc. 80: 1138-1145 [Abstract]
• McDonald, H. L (2005). Patients who wore standard magnetic bracelets reported reduced pain from osteoarthritis of the hip or knee compared with patients wearing placebo bracelets. Evid. Based Nurs. 8: 89-89 [Full text]
• McCrory, P (2005). The power of placebo. Br. J. Sports. Med. 39: 125-125 [Full text]
• (2005). Robin Goodfellow (44-3). Rheumatology (Oxford) 44: 418-418 [Full text]

Engadget claims someone left an iPhone 4G on the floor of a bar in San Jose.

The website said the phone was hidden inside an iPhone 3G case and featured a front-facing camera, 80Gb of storage and a new operating system.

The discovery was quickly branded a fake, as similar pictures had surfaced weeks earlier that turned out to be Japanese or Chinese mock-ups.

But then Engadget followed up their news with another surprise discovery – they claimed they had unwittingly had a photo of the new iPhone 4G sitting in their office “for months”.

Not one, but two apparently new iPhones were discovered in a picture leaked the night before the iPad was officially revealed, overlooked in all the excitement surrounding Apple’s latest release.

The blurred image seemed to show one “4G” sitting on the iPad itself and the corner of another showing just out of shot.

The iPhone on the iPad has an aluminium case, revisiting the design of the first iPhone in June 2007.

Engadget said a source had since confirmed to them that the device was the new iPhone.

The source said the new camera would be higher-res and have a flash, while the 4G’s screen would also be higher-res and the phone would take a MicroSIM card.

Photos leaked on Twitpic back in February show a new button on the side of the phone which may confirm the rumours of the MicroSIM card addition, but Apple is claiming the photos have been faked, despite their similarity to the mysterious iPhone seen sitting on the iPad in Engadget’s photo.

The new iPhone is expected to be unveiled on June 22, after Apple recently booked the Yerba Buena Centre in San Francisco for that date.

The last event Apple held at the Yerba Buena Centre was the iPad launch.

It states that customers grant the company the right to claim their soul.

“By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions.”

GameStation’s form also points out that “we reserve the right to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act. If you a) do not believe you have an immortal soul, b) have already given it to another party, or c) do not wish to grant Us such a license, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause and proceed with your transaction.”

The terms of service were updated on April Fool’s Day as a gag, but the retailer did so to make a very real point.

They said no one reads the online terms and conditions of shopping and companies are free to insert whatever language they want into the documents.

The company noted that it would not be enforcing the ownership rights and planned to email customers nullifying any claim on their soul.

The 27-year-old was arrested in Las Vegas on Friday and appeared in a federal court, where he was detained until a bail hearing on Wednesday (US time).

A relative unknown only two years ago, Ipswich-born Tzvetkoff shot to prominence in 2008 as the founder of online payment processing company Intabill.

Tzvetkoff’s lawyer, Mace Yampolsky, told The Sunday Mail his client was “distraught” and would apply for bail.

According to a 15-page indictment, Tzvetkoff faces charges of money laundering, money laundering conspiracy, gambling conspiracy and bank fraud conspiracy.

Prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Office allege Tzvetkoff assisted illegal online gambling companies to launder about $US540 million ($A584 million) into offshore accounts.

Tzvetkoff allegedly duped banks – which have bans on internet credit card gambling – into believing the gambling transactions were actually ordinary transactions.

He was then able to use what is known as the “Automated Clearing House system” (ACH) to run hundreds of millions of dollars between the US and a web of companies in the British Virgin Islands.

Emails obtained by the FBI, and detailed in the indictment, allege an unnamed co-conspirator boasted they had hired programmers to develop “unique” websites for shelf companies so if someone was “checking the companies out there is absolutely no way to tie the companies together”.

A minute later, Tzvetkoff replied: “This is all perfect!”, authorities allege.

At its peak, Intabill employed 120 people in its Milton office.

Tzvetkoff made The Sunday Mail’s 2008 Rich List, with a personal wealth of $82 million and appeared to have it all – including an 18-month-old son and partner.

But his world rapidly unravelled last year, when he was hit with a $100 million law suit by business partner Sam Sciacca.

But now he faces an even more serious fight, far away from the rolling surf of the Gold Coast. According to the indictment, he created a number of shelf companies in the British Virgin Islands – complete with phony websites and unrelated names.

Emails in the document allege Tzvetkoff took a lead role in telling Intabill employees to lie to banks about the business.

Another email by Tzvetkoff directed an employee to “buy some shelf companies that the BVI’s (apparently a reference to the British Virgin Islands) will own . . . We need to then rename each company to be called something process related.”

Tzvetkoff’s father, Kim Tzvetkoff, said he was unaware of the unfolding events surrounding his son. “We will do everything we can to support Daniel,” he said.

THE RISE AND FALL OF DANIEL TZVETKOFF

AUGUST 2001: BT Projects founded

FEBRUARY 2007: Online payment company Intabill registered

MARCH 2008: Tzvetkoff buys Hedges Avenue mansion for $28 million. Has additional property portfolio of more than $21 million

AUGUST 2008: Features on Sunday Mail Rich List worth $82 million

MARCH 2009: Buys V8 supercar team, Inta Racing

APRIL 2009: Sacks 96 staff at his Intabill office

JULY 2009: BT Projects placed in liquidation with debts of $80 million

JULY 2009: Business partner Sam Sciacca sues Tzvetkoff for $100 million

JULY 2009: Online poker house Kolyma sues for $52 million

JULY 2009: Sells partnership in Zuri nightclub

AUGUST 2009: Sells 30m superyacht Maximus

NOVEMBER 2009: Hedges Ave mansion sold for $17 million

JANUARY 2010: Files for bankruptcy

APRIL 2010: Charged by US authorities with money laundering. Faces 75 years in jail

10. Knowing

Kicking off the list of 2009′s most pirated movies is sci-fi thriller Knowing. The blockbuster, starring Nicholas Cage, made $200 million worldwide. It was illegally downloaded 6.93 million times / Summit Entertainment

9. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, starring Australia’s Hugh Jackman, was leaked online one month before its scheduled release in May last year.

The leak received widespread media attention when Fox News entertainment columnist Roger Friedman was fired for downloading the illegal version to review it. The film clawed in $406 million and was downloaded 7.2 million times / Fox

8. State of play

Kevin Macdonald’s political thriller about a journalist’s fight to solve the mystery behind a congressman’s murdered mistress made just under $95.6 million worldwide. It was downloaded 7.44 million times / Universal

7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came in third for the highest grossing film of 2009, raking in more than $1 billion worldwide. The movie was illegally downloaded 7.93 million times / Warner Bros.

6. District 9

Sci-fi film District 9 did well at the box office, making over $223 million. It was downloaded 8.28 million times / Tristar

5. Twilight

The film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s popular novel earned more than $419 million worldwide when it was released in 2008. Despite its success the year before, the film was still illegally downloaded 8.72 million times in 2009 / Summit Entertainment

4. The Hangover

Todd Phillips’ misadventure comedy The Hangover came sixth in worldwide box office results in 2009, raking in $509 million. It was downloaded 9.18 million times / Warner Bros

3. RocknRolla

Although it premiered in late 2008, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla was the third most illegally downloaded movie of 2009. The movie made just over $28 million at the box office and was downloaded 9.43 million times / Warner Bros.

2. Transformers: Rise of the Fallen

Michael Bay’s sequel Transformers: Rise of the Fallen proved more successful than its predecessor at the box office. The movie grossed over $900 million worldwide $120 million more than the first film. It was illegally downloaded 10.6 million times / Paramount

1. Star Trek

JJ Abrams’ Star Trek was popular at the box office, raking in more than $416 million, but it was also popular with pirates. According to TorrentFreak the movie was illegally downloaded 10.96 million times – making it the most pirated movie of 2009 / Paramount

In January I invited your Internet and cable TV departments to go fuck yourselves, you billed me, I reitterated, you billed me, I changed my VISA number, and you’re still spamming me with fucking bills.

By February I had your services replaced by Telstra Bigpond and Foxtel. I got rid of your broadband because of several breaches of contract on your behalf which you were made aware of. I got rid of your TV service because a fifteen year old STB and no HD support is pointless.

My broadband account number is 1782366014 for broadband and 129686010 for cable. I hope you’re ashamed that your absolute fucking uselessness has led to me publicly humiliating you, and I hope it makes potential customers think twice before using your anachronistic services and non-competative pricing and far from contemporary downstream caps.

Most of all, fuck you for shaping me to 3kbps when I went over cap and considering that ‘within acceptable limits’ rather than the 64k you tell your customers you shape to.

Love,

BaSH PR0MPT. <3