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With the tax deadline of April 15 near at hand, online con artists are sending out spam claiming to be representatives of the IRS. One of the e-mails says that it is from “taxrefunds@irs.gov” and that you are owed a refund. It even has a link to show you a specific amount. Because the IRS never contacts taxpayers by e-mail, you should know that there is something wrong here, especially if the site phishes for financial or personal information. If you receive one of these e-mails and want to turn the baddies in, call the IRS fraud hotline 1-800-829-3676 or forward it to phishing@irs.gov.
Read More 
| IRS
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XBox Live to Unite Online with Windows Vista
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Microsoft, Video Games,
Xbox Live and Windows Vista have teamed up to create a single online gaming service beginning with Halo 2 on May 8th. Shadowrun will be the next game to be shared in June, followed by Uno, to be released later this year. Xbox gamers will automatically receive the same playability as those on Windows Live games at no additional fee. The Silver membership is free for both types of gamers and chat is open to all. If you are a gameaholic, a Gold membership is available for $49.95. Isn’t it extraordinary that in this day of heavy competition between the major game corporations, these two giants have decided to make nice?
Read More | Microsoft
YouTube to Award Best Videos of 2006
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Design, Internet, Videos,
YouTube just cannot stay out of our headlines today. We just discovered that it will be presenting awards for the top user-generated videos of 2006. Users of the service can vote for their favorite clips under the categories of “most creative, most inspirational, best series, best comedy, musician of the year, best commentary and ‘most adorable video ever.’”
“We wanted to call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition,” said Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing.
Get your videography skills and your cat that flushes the toilet together, and you just might be a winner of the first annual Tubey award. The winners will be announced March 25th and will receive a trophy and a “prominent spot” on their site.
Read More | BBC
Latest Gear Live Videos
It seems that YouTube is breaking into politics. Someone has creatively combined the “1984” Mac launch commercial with images of Hillary in this slickly produced video. Although the camp of Obama is not taking credit for it, it may nonetheless start a political war that will be decided on the Internet. Just as Nixon’s looking dreadful on television in the debate against Kennedy may have cost him the election in 1960, it may turn out that the one with the cleverest YouTube campaign may be our next President.
Read More | YouTube
Since we reported the ongoing saga of Sgt. Copeland and his search on MySpace for his perp, we discovered that there has been a rise of hoax profiles on the site. Six of the approximately 16 sheriff or police departments profiles have already been found to be phony by USA Today. When asked to check into the problem, MySpace closed some that claimed they were New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Florida law enforcement departments.
Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, has promised to look into other suspicious-looking profile pages, since there are those who can be rather creative with their use of online deception. They are also training police on how to set up a MySpace page and tag it as an official profile. With over 160 million total profiles on the site, that’s a lot of cyber coffee and donuts to provide.
Read More | USA Today
FlowPlay Rewards Good Gamers with Cybercash
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Design, Internet, Video Games,
Derrick Morton left his cushy job of Chief Technology Officer at RealNetwork last September to create FlowPlay, which he describes as a “virtual world platform powered by casual gaming.” After creating an avatar, you interact with others and play certain games. Do well in them and you receive virtual currency you can use to purchase virtual clothing, jewelry, furniture, pets, and even tattoos.
Morton says that he is basing FlowPlay on ClubPenguin, an online game devised for kids between the ages of 8 and 14, which currently houses more that 1 million subscribers. Aimed at slightly older teenagers, a private version of the site will be released next month. If Mr. Morton believes he can teach the value of a dollar by playing games within games, we would like to see him tackle our national deficit next.
Read More | FlowPlay via Seattle pi
Google hits our headlines once again on the subject of security. They have now promised to provide anonymity to the large amounts of information that they collect from their users. This privacy should lessen the chances that companies, government agencies, or other parties can identify personal information about users behind searches. They have also decided to remove major pieces of identifying information every 18 to 24 months. Although this is good news over the long haul, we are still wary that maybe googling is not the best way to travel on the Internet.
Read More | ABC
The Bleeding Edge 164: AMD Active TV Details
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Features, Home Entertainment, Internet, PC / Laptop, Podcasts, Videocasts, Videos,
[Download] - iPod-formatted H.264
[Download] - 720p HD
[Download] - 1080p MP4
Read More | The Bleeding Edge
Listen up, all you Gear Livers. Last week we told you about the robber with his own MySpace entry, in an effort to apprehend him somewhere between Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Sgt. Jarrad Copeland has told Gear Live that he has also posted on YouTube. Take a good look and if you think you have seen the alleged perpetrator, become a superhero and turn in the guy. We’d rather not meet him at our local convenience store and assume you probably would feel the same way.
Read More | YouTube
WGA Reaches Agreement with CBS
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Home Entertainment, Internet,
Attention, all you wannabe Internet scriptwriters. After having mentioned a new trend concerning webisodes cropping up on the Internet, we now find that real soap operas will be doing likewise. The Writers Guild of America has come to an agreement with CBS regarding online content for daytime soaps such as The Young and The Restless and As the World Turns.
The WGA claims that it has given a flexible foundation for those who use keyboards rather than pencils. In the agreement, which will possibly begin this summer, writers will gain initial compensation, health and retirement benefits, credit, and residuals when reused for media, television, cable, and DVD. We applaud the WGA for helping us out but we still want to know if the Newman and Abbott families will ever stop their feuding.
Read More | Broadcasting & Cable
