Recently Microsoft went through and banned Xbox 360’s that had been modified to play pirated games from being able to use the Xbox Live service. Reports indicate that anywhere from 600,000 to 1,000,000 Xbox 360’s are now unable from ever logging into Xbox Live ever again, even if you create a whole new account for the online gaming service.

The affected units had all been modified in some way by after market hardware chips and software that would allow them to play modified games, pirated games and more hacks. All of these activities violate the Xbox Live terms of service, so hence the banning by Microsoft.

According to a story on Yahoo, those banned units are now showing up on sites such as eBay and Craig’s List for sale in droves. While some sellers are being upfront about the status of their units, while others are not being so forthcoming. While these units will still play offline games, and even pirated games if you so choose, they will never again be able to log in to Xbox Live.

While some of these units may be a tempting purchase for the holidays, it is definitely “buyer beware” right now if you are looking to purchase a used Xbox 360.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Beware Of Purchasing Xbox Units On Classified Or Auction Sites

On Saturday, Oct. 17, at 11:49 a.m., Rodney Bradford posted a Facebook status update from his father’s home in the Harlem section of New York City.  He was wondering where his pancakes were, and he left it at that.

According to The New York Times blog, the next day Mr. Bradford was arrested on suspicion of being involved in an armed mugging.  Mr. Bradford was already facing charges in a minor incident, but due to that, combined with the new charges, he could have been facing very serious sentencing.

There was one small problem with the case: the mugging happened at approximately 11:49 AM on Oct. 17th … when Mr. Bradford was updating his Facebook status.

After a court order to verify the location of where the status update was made from, and Facebook verified it came from the area Mr. Bradford claimed to be in.  While his defense lawyer Robert Reuland admitted that anyone that knew Mr. Bradford’s login information could have been the one to enter the status message, but it seemed unlikely considering the location and timing of the update.

The interesting portion of this article was the following passage, and what prompted me to bring this up on the site:

“This is the first case that I’m aware of in which a Facebook update has been used as alibi evidence,” said John Browning, a lawyer and member of the Dallas Bar Association who studies social networking and the law. “We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become.”

While we’re not saying you should update your social status on various networks on a continual basis — you know, “just in case” — it does bring up an interesting future defense for people involved in criminal cases.  However, Mr. Reuland’s comment of how it seemed unlikely that someone else could have done this for Mr. Bradford, he also just sank the defense for anyone else in the future.  That will always be the question from now on, but I somehow doubt that this will be the last time we see this come up.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Facebook Status Message Used As Alibi In A Crime

Since Research In Motion (RIM) introduced themes into its popular BlackBerry phones, you have been either stuck with the pre-loaded ones, a small selection of free ones you can download or paying for others you could find on some sites.  You could some times change the home image, but it always took some research to figure out what size the image needed to be.  All of this has now been simplified thanks to the new BlackBerry Theme Studio from RIM.

With this new application you can edit the following features of your phone:

• Home screen and backgrounds
• Icons and menus
• Animations and screen transitions
• Sound effects and ringtones

If you want to get real fancy, you can use programs like Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to create more detailed graphics.  If you don’t feel like doing everything yourself, you can also use the built-in templating system that will help you get along in the process.

While not an Earth shatteringly important announcement for the BlackBerry, it certainly is a welcome one for fans of the popular smartphones.

[Thanks to Jo from Jo's Cafe for the tip]

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

RIM Introduces BlackBerry Theme Studio

The BBC had a report today about a new line of computers called SimplicITy that is directed squarely at the elderly.  According a recent survey, 6 million residents of the UK over the age of 65 have never used the Internet, and that are the people SimplicITy is going to try to help.

Using a simplified navigation screen that has only 6 buttons, a person can browse the Web, email, chat with friends and family and more, and there is no extraneous items on the computer that might confuse someone.  The computer also comes loaded with 17 videos hosted by UK television presenter Valerie Singleton (sample video at the bottom of the post) that will explain everything you need to know about your computer in simple terms.

Some critics have said that these new computers are patronizing to the elderly, but we say exactly the opposite.  My 89-year-old grandmother has never used the Internet, and is frightened to even try it with me sitting right next to her, but this she could understand.  I also would love it as her grandson because I wouldn’t have to worry about her accidentally deleting anything of importance, or possibly downloading all of the usual viruses.

This is exactly the type of product we had in mind when we started this site, and we think this is the type of product whose time has come.  With the baby boomers aging rapidly, there are still many of them who don’t understand computers, and this is going to be a huge segment of the population not online.  We hope it’s a huge success, and maybe they’ll think about expanding to the USA.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

UK Firm Launches Computers Designed For The Elderly

Travelling through airports is never fun, and since you never know exactly how long you will be stuck in some of them due to delays, there is always a temptation to pay the excessive fees for a few hours of Wi-Fi to pass the time.  Well, Google has heard your cries, and now through Jan. 15th, 2010, the search giant will be providing free Wi-Fi for the taking in 47 major airports across the United States.

Google announced today that it is partnering up with airport Wi-Fi providers Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to provide free Wi-Fi in airports such as Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte.

Also, while using any of these free airport connections, you will be asked if you would like to make a donation to the charities Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.  Google will match donations made up to $250,000.  As an added incentive, the airport with the highest per passenger donation rate by Jan. 1st, 2010 will be awarded $15,000 from Google to be donated to the non-profit charity of their choosing.

If you happen to be flying on Virgin America this holiday season, Google will also be providing free in-flight Wi-Fi on their routes.  You can read details on all of the airports, flights, charity donations and more at FreeHolidayWiFi.com.

So, great, all of those people in airports are getting all of that free Wi-Fi, but what are you going to do if you’re in Times Square in New York City?  Well, that’s where Yahoo comes in!  According to paidContent, starting today, Yahoo will provide free Wi-Fi in Times Square for one year.  While this may seem like an odd place to whip out your laptop, think of the tourist factor as they get out their iPhones, iPod Touches and other Wi-Fi enabled devices to make dinner reservations, try to find tickets to Broadway shows and so on.  And New Year’s Eve?  Forget about it.  More pictures than ever will probably be uploaded live from the celebration.

As for Microsoft, it has partnered with mobile advertising firm JiWire according to MediaPost to offer users free Wi-Fi in exchange for doing one search on Microsoft’s Bing search engine.  This will be done at selected hotspots in places such as hotels and airports.

It seems the air is going to be filled with free Wi-Fi for some time to come, why not take advantage of it?

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Google, Yahoo And Microsoft Offering Free Wi-Fi For The Holidays

Electronic Arts (EA), a major gaming company for game consoles, computers and mobile devices, has decided to enter the social media gaming space in a major way. It was announced today that EA would purchase Playfish, the company behind games such as Restaurant City, Pet Society and more, For $400 million.  The deal is structured as $275 million in cash, $25 million in stock options to help retain current employees and $100 million in earnout bonuses for company targets through Dec. 31st, 2011.

It is estimated that Playfish is currently earning around $75 million a year from traditional advertising, in-game sales of digital items and through offer advertising.

So, the next time you fire up one of those addictive games on Facebook, believe us, you’re helping someone make money.  Sure it looks like you’re not doing anything, but click an add … buy something for your farm … click on one of those offer ads that will give you game items in exchange for doing something, and well that suddenly turns into a multi-million dollar business.  This isn’t to say this is a bad thing, it’s just shocking to see how much all of that really adds up to.

And remember, Playfish isn’t the biggest company in the market, that would be Zynga … anyone want to guess how much they are making per year?

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

EA Purchases Social Gaming Company For $400 Million

The other day, my friend Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins shared an item on Google Reader from a site named Business Pundit that literally took my breath away.

It is actually difficult to tell if this was someone’s lame attempt at a joke, or if someone actually thought they could use intimidation to get what they wanted, but either way it is shocking.  The short version is that someone received an email telling them they needed to remove their site from Google’s search engine because the other party felt they didn’t belong, and they were outranking them.  They needed to remove their site or face legal action.  Here is the email as it was posted (I did edit the Google Chat window to hide the names of this person’s contacts):

After I picked up my jaw and stopped laughing at the absurdity of this email, I had to wonder if someone would ever actually fall for something like this.

The higher you rank in a search engine the better, but to threaten someone with lawsuits is a new one on me.  Most people work on their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to increase their ranking, but perhaps it would be easier to just threaten those with better SEO than you off the search engine so you don’t actually have to work on it?  True, this person says they have optimized their site, but you can always do a bit more tweaking.

In short, no, someone can not sue you for being ranked higher than them in a search engine no matter if they say you don’t belong on that keyword or not.  I would hope no one else would ever attempt using this tactic, but if one person did it, it is almost certain that someone somewhere else has tried it, or may try it.  Don’t fall for this, and if you ever do get an email like this, merely laugh it off, go about your day … oh, and share it for the world to get a laugh.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

The Importance Of Google To Your Site

According to rumors reported by AppleInsider, Apple has contracted for a version of its popular iPhone to be built with both UMTS/CDMA bandwidths, meaning that it would work with every carrier in the world. This would reduce the cost to Apple of having to produce different handsets for different markets, and it would also open up the possibility of the iPhone coming to Verizon in the USA.

Does this mean that Apple is for sure severing its exclusivity ties with AT&T in the USA?  No, of course it doesn’t.  While the new iPhone is scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2010, and that is close to when the AT&T contract ends, that doesn’t mean anything is written in stone.

Would it be smart for Apple to get away from AT&T?  Yes, it would be considering the numerous complaints users have had with the carrier, it has reflected badly on Apple in turn.  But, just because a phone has the capability to do something doesn’t mean it necessarily will.  This change to the iPhone’s construction solves a lot of problems for Apple in numerous markets, not just in the USA.

Another portion of the rumor is that Apple is looking at reducing the screen size from 3.5″ to 2.8″.  I find it difficult to believe that Apple would do this across the board, it sounds more to me like the oft-rumored “iPhone Nano”.  People have speculated for years now that Apple would come out with some smaller, cheaper version of the phone to capture more of the market.  A screen reduction of that magnitude would be very odd if it was an “all or nothing” scenario.

What I find most amusing is that we are already in rumor mode for iPhone 2010 … I bet the 2011 rumors will start fairly soon too …

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Rumor: Apple Preparing To Move To Other Carriers

An iPhone user in Washington state named Michael Turner is looking to start a class action lawsuit against iPhone app developer Storm8 according to MediaPost.

The company is the maker of popular game apps such as “Vampires Live” and “Zombies Live”, and it is now known that their applications have been sending user’s phone numbers back to their central office.  The company claims that this was a bug in their games and that it has now been fixed.

Mr. Turner claims that this action actually violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and that is what he is seeking to sue the company under.  Unfortunately Mr. Turner may have a long road ahead of him due to the fact that particular act states that the act must have “impaired the integrity of the data stored on a protected computer.”  Also, legal experts are saying that the collection of the phone number is not that sensitive as other data.

Either way, win or lose, Mr. Turner is correct to have at least brought this to everyone’s attention.  Sure what Storm8 did was improper, but not necessarily that harmful.  What is harmful is when you start to wonder that if this got past Apple, what else is lurking in those other 100,000 applications they are so proud of?

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

iPhone Gaming Company Sued Over Harvesting Cell Numbers

As Google is slowly taking over our lives with its numerous free offerings, it would be nice to see just how many of its services you are using, and also get quick access to all of them.  The new Dashboard feature was announced this morning, and it does exactly that.  With this new tool it lets you quickly see at a glance which services you are using, statistics on their uses and easy access to the controls of each so you can quickly change settings without having to hunt for the right page.

One nice thing about Google is they make extremely straight forward videos to explain their new tools, and so we leave you with the newest one which explains everything you need to know in a matter of minutes.

Article originally published by StarterTech.com

Google Dashboard Gives You Control Of Your Data