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A U.S. law firm representing a Web content-filtering company in a piracy lawsuit against the Chinese government said on Wednesday that it received malicious e-mails in a targeted attack from China similar to recent attacks on Google and other U.S. companies.

At least 10 employees at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione received the e-mails on Monday and Tuesday, according to Gregory Fayer, a lawyer at the Los Angeles-based firm.

The firm filed a $2.2 billion lawsuit last week on behalf of Solid Oak Software against the Chinese government, two Chinese software developers, and seven PC manufacturers. The suit … Read more

The Minnesota Twins' new stadium will include a rain-water recycling system, the baseball team said Tuesday.

The system was custom designed for Target Field by Minnesota-based Pentair, a tech company that specializes in part on water treatment and storage. Pentair's system will capture, filter, and purify rainwater for reuse at the stadium.

Specifically, the system will collect and purify rainwater from throughout the ballpark's seven acres, including the stands, and store it in a cistern buried deep in the ground under the outfield. That so-called gray water will then be used to wash down the stands and irrigate … Read more

Updated 11:45 a.m. PST January 14 to note that iDefense and Adobe now say that an Adobe vulnerability was not involved in the attacks and 8:18 a.m. PST January 13 with Rackspace comment.

The targeted attacks on Google and more than 30 other U.S. companies late last year bear striking similarities to targeted attacks on 100 U.S. companies last summer, a security researcher familiar with the attacks said Tuesday.

Last July, workers at about 100 U.S. technology companies were targeted with e-mails containing malicious PDF files that exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe … Read more

There might be a solution to one of the most obnoxious linear relationships: as Grandpa gets older, the TV gets louder. TV Ears is a wireless headset that allows Grandpa (or anyone) to listen to television audio in isolation. And though its design screams "geek!" the wearer can sacrifice fashion for a peaceful household.

A small transmitter plugs into the audio-out ports located on the back of the television set, satellite box, or cable box and wirelessly transmits the television's audio to the headset. The user can adjust the volume and tone dials on the headset, while … Read more

Have you noticed how many times bullets miss their mark in the movies?

If you need to shoot a bank robber, Sean Bean, John Malkovich, or even an ugly looking two-dimensional chap on a distant target, it seems as if it's very much a hit-or-miss affair.

This, believes professor Timothy Kraft of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, is because no one has re-thought the basic principles of a pistol sight for a hundred years.

Kraft, who happens to rather enjoy shooting and is good at it, dedicated some of his finest mental armory to solving the problem. As he describes it on the university's site, … Read more

Here's an interesting deal for anyone who has:

With a little coupon magic, you can score the "Monsters, Inc." and "Up" Blu-ray combo packs for $10.98 (plus sales tax).

Each bundle has four discs: two Blu-ray Discs (one with the movie, one with extras), one DVD of the movie (bonus!), and one disc containing a DisneyFile Digital Copy (for viewing on, say, a laptop or iPhone).

Start by printing this $8 off "Monsters, Inc." coupon. You'll need to … Read more

DUGWAY, Utah--"We train warriors and test weapons."

That's how Col. Jeff Snell, the commander of the 388th Range Squadron, which operates the gargantuan Utah Test & Training Range (UTTR), summed up the main mission of his command.

I had spent the day visiting part of UTTR's Maryland-size facilities, and discovered that Snell's words were a very succinct way of explaining what really goes on at the range: Air Force pilots fly in there in screaming-fast aircraft to run bombing training missions, often in advance of deployments to either Iraq or Afghanistan, and, less frequently, … Read more

A coalition of advertising industry trade groups have agreed on new guidelines for privacy related to behavioral targeting on the Web. Officially released on Thursday and expected to go into effect early next year, the set of principles concern what advertisers can do with personal data collected in order to zero in on target audiences.

The groups involved are the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

The guidelines take the form of seven principles, ranging from a commitment to better consumer education … Read more

Revamped privacy settings are coming soon to Facebook.

The social network's privacy controls had gotten so sprawling that they were distributed across six separate pages and 40 different settings, according to a conference call the company held on Wednesday.

"These can add up and pile up and not be as clean as one would like," Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly said on the call. From what it sounds like, they'd gotten so complicated that many members just ignored them altogether--something that Facebook certainly doesn't want as it encourages its 200-million-plus members to post and … Read more