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A text conversation has revealed a big problem with the G1 mobile phone - powered by Google’s Android software.

The newly discovered bug causes the phone to restart when owners type in the word “reboot” soon after starting up the device.

Google hurried to repair the problem, which causes the phone to interpret any text entered just after the phone was turned on as a command.

Google has rushed out a fix for the bug which will soon be available in the UK.

The bug was discovered when an owner of the phone typed the word “reboot” into a text message after restarting the phone.

“I was in the middle of a text conversation with my girl when she asked why I hadn’t responded,” said a user called jdhorvat in the description of his discovery that was posted to Google’s problem reporting website.

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disturbing children

Three out of four children have seen images on the internet that disturbed them, an NSPCC poll suggests.

The charity is renewing its call for computer manufacturers and retailers to install security to stop children finding violent or sexual content.

The NSPCC, which polled visitors to its children’s website There4me.com, said it was “alarmed” by the accessibility of potentially disturbing material.

Some 377 of 497 votes cast claimed to have been disturbed by internet images.

One child posted a comment on a There4me message board saying: “I’ve seen violent images I didn’t search for. I was freaked out.”

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YouTube is to ban footage showing weapons being used to intimidate people on its website in the UK.

The new policy was being introduced because of “particular concern” in Britain over the subject, the site’s owners, Google, said.

MPs criticised video-sharing websites, including YouTube, in July, saying they should be doing more to vet content.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith welcomed the YouTube ban and called on other internet sites to follow suit.

YouTube said the introduction of the new rule on weapons and intimidation would be the first time the site had made a policy change targeted specifically at the UK.

Direct threatening of any groups or individuals has always been banned worldwide, but a spokesman for YouTube said it was necessary to reflect “local laws and sensitivities” in countries viewing the “diverse content posted by users” as the site’s community evolved.

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New independent data shows Facebook enjoyed 153 percent growth year over year, while MySpace remains essentially flat. The site’s growth is biggest overall outside of the US. Overall, Facebook attracted 132.1 million unique users in June, compared to 117.6 million for MySpace, according to data from comScore released this week. Another site that saw impressive growth was Hi5, which doubled its unique userbase to 56.4 million.

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The days when Web pages were static collections of text and graphics are long past. But as the Web matures, there’s a fierce competition over which technology will propel it into a medium for rich, interactive applications.

On one side of the battle lines is the original Web page description technology called HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language. Over the years, its abilities were augmented first with JavaScript, a basic programming language, and later a JavaScript-on-steroids technology called Ajax.

On the other side is Adobe Systems’ Flash, which got its start as a method for graphic animations. It’s grown into a much more powerful programming foundation over the years and has been joined more recently by a competitor: Microsoft’s Silverlight.

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That’s the word from security researcher Dan Kaminsky, who recently presided over an unprecedented effort to coordinate a fix for a DNS vulnerability across more than 80 software and hardware vendors.

And now the danger flare has been fired to warn computer users everywhere that the risk is real. Technical details about how one might exploit the vulnerability have been disclosed.

The domain name system translates domain names, like “informationweek.com,” into numeric IP addresses and vice versa. The DNS flaw, if exploited, allows what is known as DNS cache poisoning. This involves remapping domain names to different, potentially malicious servers.
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Google Inc opened its website Knol to the public on Wednesday, allowing people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows anonymity. “We are deeply convinced that authorship knowing who wrote what helps readers trust the content,” said Cedric DuPont, product manager for Knol.

The name of the service is a play on an individual unit of knowledge, DuPont said, and entries on the public website, knol.google.com, are called “knols.” Google conducted a limited test of the site beginning in December.

Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages. But unlike blogs, Knol encourages writers to reduce what they know about a topic to a single page that is not chronologically updated.

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Facebook today is beginning to roll out a redesign aimed at simplifying the site and giving users more control over their profiles. The new version of the site has been in the works for some time now, and Ars Technica went hands-on to see how social and private the new design really is.

Announced in a press release, Facebook’s new design is slowly being rolled out to its 80 million users over the next few days. If you can’t wait to check it out for yourself, though, you can visit www.new.facebook.com with a registered account to gain access now. continue

The disclosure from major vendors generated a good deal of concern, but how widespread is the actual danger and what can be done?

With DNS so vital to the operation of the Internet, security threats to it need to be taken seriously. But when it comes to the recent disclosure of a multivendor DNS cache poisoning issue, who really is at risk? And will the Internet collapse if the issue isn’t fixed?

Experts say that while the new DNS cache poisoning issue is very serious, DNS has been threatened before — and the core structure of the Internet name servers remains ready for such challenges.

“This is the type of attack against DNS that we anticipated years ago would be theoretically possible,” VeriSign CTO Ken Silva told InternetNews.com. “And this is not the first instance of cache poisoning that has been reported, as there were similar issues in the late 90’s.”

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The new Google Trends product that measures website traffic (the old product simply measures search queries) is a great way to get data on website traffic. It may not be perfect, but it’s yet another data source to help people understand what’s happening on the Internet.

But curiously Google has blocked most Google properties from the product. Do a search for Google.com and you get nothing. Same for YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, etc. As Google Operating System pointed out, there are a few smaller properties that do show data, so it isn’t an across the board exclusion.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp’s (NWSa.N: Quote, Profile, Research) MySpace plans a global redesign next week in an attempt to widen its demographics and boost user engagement on the site, the social networking site said on Friday. In what it said would be the largest scale relaunch of a website of its size, MySpace will change its home page, navigation, profile editing, search, and MySpaceTV player facilities. Other changes will come during the summer.

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MUMBAI: Yahoo! India has launched a local information platform - Yahoo! India Local (beta). The new launch will be made available at local.yahoo.in. The product was conceptualized and developed by the Yahoo! India team in collaboration with the Yahoo! India Research & Development team. Yahoo! India Local will be available across Delhi/NCR (National Capital Region), Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore. Yahoo! India Local will provide local information like business listings, maps and directions, local events, and current movies.

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