state

When I finally upgraded my desktop computer's hard drive to an SSD, I nearly slapped myself for not doing it sooner. There's just something so magical about your computer booting up in less than 10 seconds, or watching games load in a blink of an eye.

Memory makers Crucial and Micron released a video that shows the manufacturing process behind the SSD, and in some ways, the speedy drive represents a work of art. … Read more

Former Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M -- who has announced that he will travel to North Korea with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt as early as this month -- brushed aside the State Department's expressed disapproval of the trip Friday on "CBS This Morning," saying, "I don't work for the U.S. government; neither does Eric Schmidt."

"I know the State Department is a little nervous," Richardson said, "but we did postpone this trip already. Eric and I were going in December, and at the request of the State Department, we … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Scientists to do tests to make sure this whole thing isn't just a computer simulation.

- Ban on demanding Facebook passwords among new 2013 state laws.

- Arizona bill would outlaw posing as others on Facebook or Twitter.

- Apple: "Do Not Disturb" will remain disturbed until January 7.

- An infinitely large wall of text editable by anyone, at your own risk.… Read more

The Mars Curiosity rover recently detected signs of organic compounds on the Red Planet, but NASA won't call the findings definitive. One holdup is the issue of contamination. The trace amounts may be the result of contamination from the rover itself.

The contamination issue could rear its head again should the rover or future expeditions turn up any microbes. Finding microbes on Mars would be a cause for scientific celebration, but a study published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America" shows that Earth microbes could very well survive in the brutal conditions on Mars.… Read more

The U.S. and Russia have agreed on an "action plan" to fight the theft of intellectual property, including online piracy of copyrighted materials.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative announced the agreement yesterday, saying that the plan's priorities include, quote:

"Combating copyright piracy over the Internet, including actions such as takedowns of infringing content, action against persons responsible for IPR [Intellectual Property Rights] crimes, coordination with rights holders, cooperation and information exchange between IPR enforcement officials, and devotion of resources and personnel to law enforcement agencies to combat piracy over the Internet.

news analysis When the history of early 21st century Internet politicking is written, the meltdown of a United Nations summit last week will mark the date a virtual Cold War began.

In retrospect, the implosion of the Dubai summit was all but foreordained: it pitted nations with little tolerance for human rights against Western democracies which, at least in theory, uphold those principles. And it capped nearly a decade of behind-the-scenes jockeying by a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, created in 1865 to coordinate telegraph connectivity, to gain more authority over how the Internet is managed.

It … Read more

Retailer point-of-sale systems may be at risk of malware that steals credit card data.

Israel-based security firm Seculert has identified a strain of malware, dubbed Dexter, which it asserts has infected hundreds of point-of-sale (POS) systems across 40 countries in the past two to three months. English-speaking countries appear to be a prime target, with 30 percent of infections in the U.S., 19 percent in the U.K., and 9 percent in Canada.

Rather than targeting thousands of individual machines through traditional Trojans or phishing emails, the custom-made malware targets specific POS systems. The malware injects itself into the … Read more

It's been an exciting -- and busy -- year for networking and storage, two very important categories in consumer electronics. Important because they are at the core of information technology -- without either, most or all of your gadgets will come to a grinding halt. And as far as I know, we haven't yet seen the limit of what they can do.

That said, here is a quick roundup of the current state of this sector and what we can expect, based on my educated guesses, heading into CES 2013.

802.11ac This year will be remembered … Read more

A U.S. judge has named the lead plaintiffs in the dozens of class-action lawsuits brought against Facebook over its bungled initial public offering, according to Reuters.

District Judge Robert Sweet has been assigned 42 cases against the social network, which he consolidated in October. Today he picked a handful of plaintiffs to head the suits. The lead plaintiffs include several state pension funds, such as the North Carolina Retirement Systems, Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, the Fresno County Employees' Retirement Association, and Banyan Capital Master Fund. Collectively, this group claims a combined loss of $7.1 million.

"Its members … Read more