Cclimate guru Al Gore warned UN climate talks today that record melting of Polar and Himalayan ice could deprive more than a billion people of access to clean water.

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eldavojohn writes “A new report from the FTC is claiming minors have access to explicit content via online virtual worlds such as those found in online games. The report makes five recommendations to keep little Johnny away from the harms of Barrens chat: Use more effective age-screening mechanisms to prevent children from registering in adult virtual worlds; Use or enhance age-segregation techniques to make sure that people interact only with others (more…)

Blockbuster sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 have helped push the Call of Duty franchise past the $3 billion mark.

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A Defense Department intelligence analyst hit with a federal computer hacking charge last week says he’s being made a scapegoat for a security slip-up that sent a password in a nationwide terrorism investigation to “tens of thousands” of analysts without the need-to-know.

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Zott writes “Apparently, ‘some readers’ of the New York Times site are getting a bit more with their news: an apparently syndicated adware popup with a faux virus scan of the user’s computer indicating they are infected, and a link to go download a fix now. It’s entertaining when a Mac user gets it, but clearly downloading an .exe file isn’t a good way to keep your computer clean …” Update: 09/14 03:20 GMT by T : Troy encountered this malware, “and (more…)

CWmike writes “Twitter has modified its terms of service to state unequivocally that messages posted belong to their authors and not to the company. ‘Twitter is allowed to “use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute” your tweets because that’s what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you,’ wrote Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in a blog post Thursday announcing the modifications. Twitter (more…)

The Jamaican sprinter, who took part in a ceremonial kickoff celebrating the start of the Spanish league at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium this weekend, said he can improve on his record times of 9.58 seconds in the 100 meters and 19.19 in the 200.

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N!NJA writes “In an amicus curiae brief filed on Aug. 24, Dell asked the judge overseeing the Eastern District Court of Texas to reconsider its order blocking sales of Word, part of the original ruling in favor of Canadian software developer i4i. In the worst case, the brief argued, the injunction should be delayed by 120 days. ‘The District Court’s injunction of Microsoft Word will have an impact far beyond Microsoft,’ Dell and HP wrote. ‘Microsoft (more…)

BenEnglishAtHome writes “Nearly all US government employees and contractors are subject to mandatory annual information security briefings. This year the official briefing flatly states that all downloaded music is stolen. The occasionally breathless tone of the briefing and the various minor errors contained therein are funny but the real eye-opener is a ‘secure the building’ exercise where employees stumble across security problems and resolve them. (more…)

Michiel Roos notes that at this week’s OpenSource World, a Dell executive deflated Microsoft’s claims that Linux notebooks have return rates four or five times higher than Windows machines. “Todd Finch, Dell senior product marketing manager, said the number of Linux returns are approximately the same as those for Windows netbooks. He categorized the matter of returns as a ‘non-issue.’ ‘They are making something of nothing,’ he said of Microsoft’s (more…)