iPod virus is no big deal

Leading security vendor Kaspersky Lab has uncovered the first ever proof of concept virus designed with the sole intention of infecting the iPod media player. Like all proof of concept viruses though, Podloso poses no real world threat to users. For a start it requires a Linux installation, not on your PC but on the iPod itself which rather limits the number of devices likely to be capable of infection. Even if this requirement is fulfilled, the virus still requires user involvement to be launched from the program demo folder. Finally, if the user does execute the Podloso file it will then scan the iPod hard drive and infect all ELF (executable and linking) files which it finds.

Greenpeace report slams environmentally unfriendly Apple

The latest Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics has been published, and makes fascinating reading for anyone geek who really cares about the effect that technology has upon the environment.

Greenpeace ranks the leading mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies and practice with regards to eliminating harmful chemicals as well as taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by consumers. Until the use of toxic substances within technology is completely eliminated, it is completely impossible to have completely safe recycling. That is the harsh truth, and the reason that Greenpeace wants to see major electronics companies cleaning up their act.

UK PS3 launch sales figures bad news for Microsoft and Nintendo

So the Sony PlayStation 3 has been available for a little over a week in Europe, and in that time it has officially become the second fastest selling games console ever in the UK. ChartTrack, an organisation that monitors such things, reports that the first two days of release saw some 165,000 PS3 consoles sold. Second place in the history stakes isn’t all bad news for Sony, it also has the number one spot which was with the PlayStation Portable. The PSP shifted some 185,000 units at launch. The PS3 did break one record though, as the most expensive games console ever sold in Great Britain at a recommend street price of £425, which is roughly $840!

Sky HD - what a washout

Some 75% through the redecorating process, everything but the chimney breast painted, a brand new cream carpet (yes, I must be mad with a 9 and 7 year old in the house) fitted and some built-in furniture units ripped out and removed it was time to relocate the TV from one end of the room to the other. No big deal, you might think, apart from the fact that the Sky + and TV cables now came through the wall at the wrong end of said room. I could, I guess, have got a big ladder out and moved them myself. But far better to use this as an excuse to upgrade to Sky HD surely? That way I get a nice new shiny Sky box to pump high definition broadcasts into my HD ready television, and a professional gets to move the cables for me in the process.

ICANN say .xxx cannot

Proposals for a virtual red light Internet district have been overturned for the third time during a contentious meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Portugal. Concluding business at the meeting, a resolution rejecting a proposal from the ICM Registry to create an .xxx top level domain was passed by nine votes to five.