Humphrey Cheung

Hackers have proclaimed victory over Microsoft's vaunted Windows Vista activation protection. The folks at Keznews forums say they have made a simple number guesser that takes a serial code and then tries to activate it through Microsoft's servers. It can take a while, but they say it eventually works.\

The creators of the popular Chad Vader online video series which lampoons Darth Vader's younger brother are hitting the big time. Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan made the films on a shoe string budget and now have a potential commercial deal to make several more episodes for a major website.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the police can search a computer after someone has been sent child pornography emails. While this may seem like common sense, the judge also ruled that the police don't need to prove that the person had solicited or even read the messages.

YouTube has removed dozens of clips from last Sunday's Academy Awards. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made the request after bootleg videos of the opening speeches and a comedy song featuring Will Ferrell and Beyonce began appearing on the popular video sharing site.

A pair of hackers, accused of trying to extort $150,000 from the world's largest social networking site MySpace, have cut a deal with prosecutors and will avoid jail time. Suffolk County New York residents Shaun Harrison and Saverio Mondelli are accused of selling code that tracked MySpace users' IP and email addresses. The pair now will get three years of probation which is quite a bit better than the four years in prison that they could have received.

Using your laptop while driving can be hazardous to your health as one Californian man found out. The 28-year-old man died after his Toyota Corolla slammed head on into a Hummer on Highway 99 north of Sacramento. California Highway Patrol Commander Scott Silsbee told UPI that the man was probably lost control because he was typing on a laptop.

Professional golfer "Fuzzy" Zoeller Jr. is suing a Miami company over alleged false Wikipedia entries. Zoeller claims a computer at Josef Silny & Associates was used to add allegations of drug and alcohol abuse to Zoeller's Wikipedia entry. Josef Silny has hired a computer consultant to investigate the matter.

The head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Dr. Tony Tether, says the Urban Challenge will have multiple cash prizes. Tether told Wired magazine that prizes from $500,000 to $2,000,000 will be given to the top teams that successfully complete the 60-mile urban course with robotic vehicles.

Virgin Galactic and NASA are partnering to make space suits, heat shields and other equipment for space travel. In a collaborative deal announced this week, no money will change hands, but NASA scientists say both their agency and Virgin are in the business of making spaceships and a lot could be learned by both teams. The partnership also extends to motors and hypersonic vehicles.

AMD's long awaited ATI R600 graphics chip is getting delayed and is now expected to be available in May. The card was scheduled to be released in March and would have given Nvidia's 8800 line of cards a run for their money.

Terrorists better put on their makeup because European researchers are developing small cameras to be mounted in the backs of airline seats. The cameras would profile suspicious movements and then transfer the information up to pilots and authorities. But it doesn't stop there, microphones would also record speech.

Intel plans on fighting overheating laptops with a little bit of light. The chip giant has patented a new technology that uses sensors to detect heat-sensitive color-changing material inside the laptop. If certain parts of the laptop get too hot, the laptop will throttle back the power to cool down.

A judge has thrown out a $30 million dollar lawsuit against MySpace that was filed by parents of a 13-year-old Austin girl that was molested by someone she met on the world's most popular social networking website. U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks ruled that MySpace was protected under the 1996 Communications Decency Act and couldn't reasonably be expected to verify everyone's age.

D-Wave's quantum computer demonstration this week has generated lots of buzz, but some experts doubt the authenticity of the demo. At the Computer History Museum in Mountain View California, company reps solved Sudoku problems and calculated seating plans, but some university researchers and corporate scientists need to see more data to be convinced. They are also concerned about D-Wave's lack of peer research and of the test's remote nature.

System administrators who need a lot of network storage may want to look into Coraid's serial ATA over Ethernet. At the recently completed Southern California Linux Expo, the folks from the San Clemente-based company showed off their SR1521T 15-drive tower that can be accessed by Linux, Mac and Windows machines.

Sierra Online is bringing the popular sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica to the Xbox Live network and PCs in a new video game this fall. The space flight simulator will have ships from both the human and Cylon races and will feature single and multiplayer games. A single player campaign mode will also have missions that resemble episodes from the television series.

AT&T has unveiled a new website that lets parents control access to phone calls, Internet access and television. The new "Smart Limits" website consolidates parental controls and comes from the company's acquisition of BellSouth and merger with Cingular Wireless.

With the increased interest in global warming and environmental issues, Google and the United Nations are reminding people that environmental hotspots can be viewed inside of the free Google Earth program. Back in September the UN struck a deal with Google to allow picture overlays which show drastic changes in terrain, vegetation and sea levels in environmental problem areas.

Comcast and Facebook are partnering up to gather and share user-created videos in a new television series. Starting in March, Facebook users can submit video diary segments which will be viewable on both Facebook and Comcast's Ziddio.com site. The videos will also be viewable on Comcast's ON DEMAND service. Some of the best videos will be used in a new television series called "Facebook Diaries".

Convicted sex offenders in the United Kingdom could be forced to register their screen names along with their email addresses. Home Office Secretary John Reid has proposed a new law that would mandate prison terms for sex offenders who fail to give their online identities to the nationwide Sex Offenders Register.

A recent University of New Hampshire survey shows that nearly 40% of teenagers have seen online pornography. Two-thirds of those teenagers say they came across the material accidentally.

YouTube is known for sharing videos, but in the future it could be sharing money with video producers. Chad Hurley, YouTube's Chief Executive has said that video makers could be compensated in the future. Hurley didn't give any more details nor did he get any more specific about the timeline.

Compulsive YouTube watching is forcing many Internet users to skip other chores, but Google would be making a mistake if wanted to cash in by including in-video ads. According to a survey done by Harris Interactive, the vast majority of YouTube viewers would visit less if video ads were included. 73% of frequent viewers would visit less, while 31% of viewers would visit "a lot less".

A trio of Brighton Tennessee high school students are suing the school district for $3 million dollars after they were disciplined for a MySpace prank. Christopher Barnett, Kevin Black and Gary Moses created a MySpace profile page and pretended to be their school's assistant principal. The page was taken down after three days, but this wasn't enough for the school district. Barnett was expelled, while Black and Moses are now on probation.

Dell has wasted no time selling Microsoft's newest operating system and has been including Vista on most computer orders since Saturday. Windows Home Premium is now the standard option on most of the desktops and laptops with an update to Windows Vista Business edition costing from $100 to $200 more.