Why March 8 Could Be Digital Doomsday

Just one week left until the end of the internet as we know it. It's not all bad news though, if the net really does go down on the 8th, it'll be a four day weekend for me.

Contrary to rumors currently popping in emails and on chat forums, the FBI will not be shutting down the entire Internet on March 8. However, the agency may be pulling the plug on special Web servers that maintain Internet access for millions of users worldwide whose PCs, Macs and home and office routers were infected by a malware package called DNSChanger.

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Gaming [H]eadlines

Kinect Grocery Cart

It's funny how the addition of a Kinect turns this grocery cart into a robotic shopping assistant.

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Stupid Criminal of the Day

For future reference, using the domain name "HitmanForHire" is generally a bad idea if you plan on taking money to kill people.

The man behind HitmanForHire.net showed up at Woodland Hills mortgage broker Anne Lauren Royston's office one Saturday morning in 2006, wearing head-to-toe black and driving a yellow Corvette.

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[H]ardware Round-Up

7.06GHz On A Core i7-3770K?

There is a screenshot from Canard PC floating around the internet today supposedly showing a Core i7-3770k running a 7.06GHz but for the life of me, I can't track down the original image. Here's what I found at EXPreview:

Core i7-3770K was overclocked to 7.06GHz from 3.5GHz in liquid nitrogen condition. At that time, the multiplier was 63x, external frequency was 112.11MHz at the voltage of 1.889V. Most importantly, no core was disabled and hyperthreading was on.

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How Apple Conned Proview Out Of The iPad Trademark

Wow, if what this company claims is true, this whole deal was as underhanded as you get.

These details -- some familiar, some fresh -- come from a Proview press release issued Monday. It describes an amended complaint filed in a California federal court that is charging Apple with "fraud by intentional misrepresentation, fraud by concealment, fraudulent inducement, and unfair competition."

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Yahoo Picks Patent Fight With Facebook

It would appear that Yahoo has found itself a new business model...patent litigation.

The foundering Web pioneer is threatening legal action against Facebook if the social-networking giant does not agree to license 10 to 20 patents held by Yahoo, according to The New York Times. The patents at issue relate to advertising, Web site personalization, social networking, and chat services, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified people briefed on the matter.

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Spain Arrests 4 Suspected Anonymous Hackers

These guys seem to have the "hacking" part down pat, its the whole "avoiding arrest" thing they haven't mastered yet.

It said the four included the alleged manager of Anonymous' computer operations in Spain and Latin America, who was identified only by his initials and the aliases "Thunder" and "Pacotron." The four are suspected of defacing websites, carrying out denial-of-service attacks and publishing data on police assigned to the royal palace and the premier's office online.

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Best Buy Changing Return Policy To 30 Days

According to this article, Best Buy is changing its current 14 day return policy to 30 days on all items with a 30 day price match guarantee. Good news about Best Buy? Can it be? I'm not sure what to do with myself.

Starting next week, Best Buy plans to offer 30-day returns on all items, iPads and Macs included. This simplification of the customer policies appears to be a major push for Best Buy this quarter, if the screenshots we got are legitimate.

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Sony Refunding Improperly Collected Sales Tax

I thought this letter was another phishing attempt until I checked my account and saw that Sony had refunded me money too....all $0.32 of it.

Dear Sony Entertainment Network account holder,

After performing routine system maintenance, Sony Entertainment Network sales tax records were mistakenly modified and some customer's accounts were charged sales tax in error.

Between November 18, 2010, and April 11, 2011, one or more transactions originating from your account was charged sales tax in error. Correcting this, we will refund the errant charges back to your account in the amount of [redacted] via your Sony Entertainment Network wallet. This will appear in your transaction history as a one-time inclusive credit.

We are diligently working to correct this error and will have your account refunded by March 31, 2012. If you do not see the credit to your account by March 31, 2012, or if you have further questions please contact our customer service department at: http://us.playstation.com/support/contact_options/

Thank you,

The Sony Entertainment Network Team

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Illegal Drugs Sold Via Social Media

The drug dealer on the corner? He's been replaced by Facebook. Everyone hide your children!

The International Narcotics Control Board also described North America as continuing to be "the world's largest illicit drug market" in 2010; parts of Europe as the homes of industrial scale cannabis factories; and growing poppy cultivation in West Asia.

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