netbuzz writes “Some 230,000 New Zealanders have been informed that their personal information has apparently fallen into the hands of hackers who compromised the network of a locally famous food chain, Hell Pizza. The company says it suspects ‘a rogue employee,’ but one security expert says Hell’s ordering portal is ‘about 50 steps of fail.’ Several New Zealand celebrities are among the victims and at least one is taking the matter in stride, musing: (more…)

Unlike previous Kindles, the $139 “Kindle Wi-Fi” will connect to the Internet using only Wi-Fi instead of a cellphone network. Amazon is also introducing a model to replace the Kindle 2, which it will sell for the same price as that model, $189. Both new Kindles are smaller and lighter, with higher contrast screens and crisper text.

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Diego Maradona has left his post as Argentina boss after a unanimous vote from the Argentine Football Association.

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krebsonsecurity writes “One big reason why rogue anti-virus continues to make major bucks for scam artists: relatively few victims ever ask their credit card company or bank to reverse the charges for the phony security software — even when the victims don’t even receive the worthless software they were promised. I recently found several caches of data for affiliates of a rogue anti-virus distribution program, and the data showed that in one (more…)

A cuneiform tablet found in Hazor, Israel, and dating from the 18th-17th centuries B.C.E in the Middle Bronze Age, is said to contain a law code that parallels portions of the famous Code of Hammurabi.

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ergo98 writes “As we discussed recently, a CNN article had a statement that ’77% of iPhone owners say they’ll buy another iPhone, compared to 20% of Android customers who say they’ll buy another Android phone.’ This was a gross misrepresentation. The CNN story now has up this note: ‘Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that 20% of Android customers say they’ll buy another Android phone. The survey actually revealed that 20% (more…)

I’m Not There (1956) writes “Jeffrey Zeldman brings up the interesting issue of the paradox between Japan’s strong cultural preference for simplicity in design, contrasted with the complexity of Japanese websites. The post invites you to study several sites, each more crowded than the last. ‘It is odd that in Japan, land of world-leading minimalism in the traditional arts and design, Web users and skilled Web design practitioners believe more is more.’”

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EvilAlphonso notes news of a “Texas” IP holding company suing 36 actual companies for violating its claimed patent on spam filtering. Techdirt deconstructs the patent itself, No. 6,018,761, which seems to amount to little more than a database lookup. It was filed in 1996 and issued in 2000 (despite the lawyers’ press release claiming that it “was awarded… nearly 15 years ago”). Among the companies being sued are 3Com, Apple, Google, AOL, Yahoo, (more…)

An anonymous reader writes “Big news for Star Wars fans looking forward to BioWare’s upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG — space combat has been confirmed for the game. Players will be able to fly around the galaxy in their own personal starships, avoiding asteroid belts, landing in dangerous territory and battling other vessels. The initial news makes it sound like a cross between Mass Effect’s galaxy map and a traditional space fighting (more…)

A week ago we wrote about the Zephyr “Eternal Aircraft”, an unmanned solar plane that had just broken many records by staying up in the air for 7 days. Well, the Zephyr has finally landed at the US Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona after 14 days and 24 minutes, setting a new world record .

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