Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices At the beginning of December, we warned the Copyright Office that operating system vendors would use UEFI secure boot anticompetitively, by colluding with hardware partners to exclude alternative operating systems. As Glyn Moody points out, Microsoft has wasted no time in revising its Windows Hardware Certification Requirements to effectively ban most alternative operating systems on ARM-based devices that ship with Windows 8. Software Freedom
Facebook on track for one billion users in 2012 A billion. With a "B". That is how many people on planet Earth will be using the Facebook social network by sometime around August this year. Facebook revealed at its F8 conference in September that it had reached the milestone of 800 million users. iCrossing, an online analytics firm, has examined the trends at Facebook, and extrapolated the growth to project that Facebook will pass one billion users in August... Itworld
EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security: Media monitoring EPIC is pursuing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for information about the agency's surveillance of social networks and news organizations.In February 2011, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the agency planned to implement a program that would monitor media content... EPIC
Samantha Garvey's story: From homeless shelter to Intel semifinalist Samantha Garvey was overjoyed. She didn't think a kid living in a homeless shelter would have a chance in the national Intel science competition, but the 17-year-old Brentwood High School senior was named a semifinalist Wednesday. Garvey, who spent 2 1/2 years on a marine-life study, is one of 61 Long Islanders with a shot at Intel's top prize: $100,000. Newsday
Apple lists its suppliers for 1st time Apple released a list of its major suppliers for the first time on Friday, bringing the company up to par with other big American corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Nike, which have released similar lists. The list accompanied a report detailing troubling practices inside many of the technology giant’s suppliers. Apple said audits revealed that 93 supplier facilities... NY Times
AMD clarifies 7000M strategy CES has wrapped up now and we’re all back home, but we’ve still got a few items to cover. While Anand was meeting with AMD on Thursday to go over some other their other tech, I got a chance to head into a separate area for a briefing on their mobile technology. There are two items I want to quickly discuss: the Radeon 7000M lineup, and Trinity. AnandTech
Windows AMD Bulldozer performance patch Microsoft unleashes two patches for the AMD FX processors. This was announced and is thus no surprise. We want to know whether and how the updates are able to increase performance. For this purpose, we first want to general considerations and then see if this can be confirmed by test results. Tweak PC (translated from German)
Yep: Origin required for all PC versions of Mass Effect 3 Physical and digital PC versions of Mass Effect 3 alike will require Electronic Arts' Origin, according to developer BioWare. In slightly less annoying news, unlimited game installs are allowed and access to the single-player campaign requires a one-time authorization rather than a constant Internet connection. Destructoid
Email in your eye? Next-generation video screen glasses could lay messages or GPS over your field of vision As advances in computer technology make gadgets ever smaller and more portable the idea of carrying a screen of any kind could soon be outdated. Consumer products with screens have dropped in size from computer to laptop to tablet via phone. Daily Mail
Network by Michael Rigley Information technology has become a ubiquitous presence. By visualizing the processes that underlie our interactions with this technology we can trace what happens to the information we feed into the network. Vimeo (video)
