The UpStream (Page 465)

With the common usage of USB thumb drives it makes sense that keeping them clean and secure in everyday usage would be top priority for individuals and business alike. It is certainly understandable that even with care bad things will happen from time to time. However, you don't want that to happen at a major security conference like AusCERT in Australia and you certainly don't want to be IBM who was distributing free thumb drives full of malware. Oops. Glenn Wightwick, the chief technologist for IBM Australia wrote a letter to AusCERT explaining what the malware is and how to best get rid of it.

The malware is detected by the majority of current Anti Virus products {as at 20/05/2010} and been known since 2008. The malware is known by a number of names and is contained in the setup.exe and autorun.ini files. It is spread when the infected USB device is inserted into a Microsoft Windows workstation or server whereby the setup.exe and autorun.ini files run automatically.

Free stuff is always great, especially when it's something you already want or need. What really sucks is when the product just doesn't quite fit the needs exactly. Take, for example, free condoms. Great idea, unless they are too small or of poor quality.

Students from the District of Columbia have petitioned officials to change brands from Durex to Trojan and carry larger sizes. Apparently youth believe that Trojan is of better quality than Durex, despite a perfect score for both brands from Consumer Reports.

The officials have decided to listen and change what they are doing. It is important to the local government because there is a huge fear of the spread of HIV/AIDS. Studies show that 3 percent of residents in the DC area have HIV, so they will spend a little more to help protect the citizens.

In March of 2007, Viacom filed a lawsuit against Google-owned YouTube citing massive copyright infringement. They claim that around 160,000 video clips of Viacom's programming have been viewed over 1.5 billion times making this the largest lawsuit concerning intellectual property rights ever, but Google doesn't seem to be worried. After acquiring YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion, making it the largest online acquisition ever, Google expected there to be potential lawsuits in the future. At present day the two companies are still locked in legal turmoil but things are really starting to heat up. Viacom stated last Friday on their website that,

It is abundantly clear that YouTube and Google knew about copyright infringement on the YouTube site, encouraged it and profited from it.

There are also some very angry internal e-mails from Viacom execs and employees that reveal their true hatred for Google, including "F*** those motherf***ers." and "Google bastards."

In the 80s and 90s, Virgin Interactive Entertainment was one of the biggest names in the industry, topping their achievements with Command and Conquer. After they sold to Blockbuster in 1994 for a whopping $250 million, no one expected they would ever be a force to be reckoned with again. Boy were we wrong.

In 2004, Richard Branson, the billionaire playboy owner of the Virgin Group, started Virgin Games which owns and operates prize-based game sites. Among the featured games is a casino, poker and bingo. Certainly not what Virgin Interactive was all about. Rumor has it that Sir Richard Branson himself will be at E3 next month to step up their game.

According to MCVUK, Branson has been developing a cross-platform gaming environment.

The new gaming service rumoured to launch at E3 will seek partnerships with leading publishers and content owners, offering new and unique opportunities.

Ambitious and global, the business is expected to run across the leading console formats and feature the most popular games on the market.

MCV understands that the new video games venture will be online-only and again challenge-based, possibly built on a technology acquisition.

This wouldn't be the first product of its type in the gaming space (BringIt), but with the backing of the Virgin name and logo, it could be the first to be successful.

Protesters in Pakistan are outraged by what they feel is a direct attack against their religion. In the Muslim world, it is sacrilegious to display the image of the Prophet Mohammed. Many free speech advocates, however, feel that there is a need to do it just to prove the value of free speech. One such person created a Facebook event and group entitled "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" which was this past Thursday.

Clearly, this is a controversial move and one that members of the Muslim world do not appreciate. At these protests, there have been chants of "Death to Facebook" and "Death to America," though the protests themselves have been mostly peaceful. As a result, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has blocked access to Facebook, YouTube and a collection of more than 450 other sites that have been deemed to be in conjunction.

Intel has tried to keep tabs on netbook sales overtaking notebook sales by placing a limitation on how large a netbook screen could be. Netbooks that used the Atom N series processor were restricted to screen sizes of 10.2" or less. Sound the rumor alert though, because word on the street is that Intel will be removing this hardware restriction sometime in the second half of this year, which will allow any netbook using the dual-core N550 processor to have larger screens.

This doesn't come as a shock to us, as Intel is trying to find a new way to keep netbook sales on the rise after seeing them level off in the past six months. Offering new models and styles will probably drum up a few percentage points in sales. It might also be that Intel is trying to keep up with Asus' move of the new EEE-PC netbooks, which offer 1080p video on a 10" screen, by combining Pine Trail and BroadcamCrystalHD to make it possible on larger LCDs.