Telecoms regulator Ofcom tells BT Group to cut the wholesale prices it charges for use of its lines

Facebook and Google tell a court in India they have complied with an order to remove “objectionable” material, amid ongoing legal moves on censorship.

The FBI investigates how activists linked to Anonymous obtained a recording of a phone call between US and UK police on their operations against hacking.

Apple is granted a suspension of a sales ban imposed on some of its iPads and iPhones in Germany.

MPs call on internet service providers to make greater efforts to remove violent extremist material.

Twenty-three years ago, when I was a general assignment reporter at a soon-to-be defunct paper, the El Paso Herald-Post, I got a fabulous job offer. BusinessWeek asked me to open a bureau in Mexico City. If you had asked me at that juncture what a board of directors was for, or to distinguish between revenue and earnings, I would have been stumped. I had never covered business before (unless you count oil in Venezuela), and I didn’t know much about it. But BusinessWeek, I soon learned, was chock full of knowledgeable, friendly and forgiving folks who helped people like me learn on the job.

My career at BusinessWeek, which wraps up tomorrow, was an education. I’d start ignorant, and then learn on the job from sources and colleagues. That’s the great privilege of journalism, and BusinessWeek was the best place imaginable for it. When I was sent from Pittsburgh to Paris to cover technology in 1998, I knew far more about blast furnaces than semiconductors. When I came back to New York four years later as acting technology editor, I’d never worked as an editor or covered technology in the United States. People helped, and picked me up.

Many of those people are already scattered, and dozens more are leaving with me. I’d say I’ll miss them, but I plan to stay with them on the networks. Why would I ever venture out alone when I have the greatest colleagues? They’re the treasure of my career, and to forgo them at this point would be insane.

And so I move on. This is my last post at Blogspotting.net. A big thanks to Heather for the great company on this ride, and to all of you for your intelligence, feedback and friendship. We’ll stay in touch, I hope, at TheNumerati.net, and on your blogs and Twitter feeds. (I’m @stevebaker.)

I still haven’t figured out how to store the archives of Blogspotting. But I plan to write an email to the incoming editor in chief of BW, Josh Tyrangiel, asking him please not to pull the plug.

I came across a pumped-up email system called Pixetell that could help with a problem I’ve been having. Of late, I’ve been writing laborious click-by-click instructions to explain to people on a Ning network how to change their profiles. Sometimes the written word is a round-about way of communicating.

With Pixetell, it would be easier. You describe or explain whatever you want in your voice as you move the cursor around and click. And then it all goes in an email. The person receiving it might as well be looking over your shoulder. Here’s a video demo featuring my colleague Arik Hesseldahl.

The technology looks useful. It would be great for help desks. Not sure at this point if the rest of us would shell out $9 or $19 a month to be able to generate these messages. (Everyone can receive them, but for now, subscribers have to have Windows machines.) Looks like something that Microsoft and Google could add as an enhancement. In fact, it may compete with parts of Google Wave. But Pixetell looks far simpler. (I started to watch the Google Wave video, but then realized, to my horror, that it wasn’t a minute and 20 seconds, but an hour and 20 minutes.)

In a cluttered office, I’m discovering, almost nothing is worth keeping. But as I pack my things, I come across two books that give me second thought:

Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom–Why home values and other real estate investments will climb through the end of the decade, and how to profit from them. By David Lereah (sounds like something I should be on top of…)

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Microsoft Windows Vista. (Who knows, in two or three years, I might “upgrade” to Vista…)

Then my colleague Burt Helm, the marketing and advertising editor, comes by with an envelope. It’s a letter from the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation. You’d think these direct marketers would know Burt down to his weekend brunching habits. So it’s a surprise to see that they got his title wrong. They call him Bert [sic] Helm, Global President, Baby Kids & Wound Care Franchise. (I wonder if Bloomberg is quietly shifting his beat…)

Still working on saving the archives to this blog. It’s a bit of a problem here, because most of the people with control over the innards of this system have been let go. And even if they could help me, Bloomberg no doubt will own the content as of Dec. 1. Maybe I’ll just jury-rig something.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it, and a Happy Thursday to the rest of the world. I’ll be seeing you at TheNumerati.net.

I’m one of those people. I knew from the very first story that I wrote 25 years ago for the Viking, Loudoun Valley High School’s own monopoly of a newspaper, that journalism was for me. I liked trotting around the halls interviewing the lead cheerleader about tryouts (the most important event at school), chatting up the music teacher about the annual musical (of course we only had one) and taking pictures of the boys’ soccer team (who wouldn’t like that). I quickly figured out the three or four different paths you could take to get into journalism (work for a wire service; get an internship at Time or Newsweek; cover courts and cops for the local edition of a metropolitan paper), and the path that you would travel after that (be a writer, start editing, become a senior feature writer or editor, then retire). It all seems so quaint now.

I went the wire route, starting my career (ironically) at Bloomberg, a young startup and one of the few media joints hiring in the early 1990s. (And a place where the word “ironically” was banned from stories.) The thing about starting with a young company is you get a lot of opportunity. And my opportunity was to build from scratch their coverage of the Internet, starting with Netscape’s IPO. It was phenomenal to meet those people (Jerry Yang, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen) when meeting them meant hanging out on couches at tiny conferences and talking about what all this Web stuff might turn into. It was 1994 and no one had a clue.

When I was hired by Bloomberg, the fellow hiring me asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years. He used to work at Businessweek (I know because it was one of the first things he told me when we sat down ) and so to impress him back, I said “Businessweek.” I soon figured out that that was actually a good idea and 3 years later I landed there, covering the Internet and continuing my love affair with emerging tech.

The environment at BW was incredible. Collegial, analytical, devoted to journalism. And that’s what I will miss. I could bore you all with stories of the past 12 years. But I’d rather discuss things that I am most thankful for.

First, just the opportunity to meet incredibly capable, thoughtful people and exchange ideas. Every time I got on the phone or sat in a conference room with someone from a startup or IBM or Amazon or what have you, I just felt privileged to be able to learn about something new. I was just as lucky to work with the fantastic group of folks here at BW. It’s hard to believe even now the level of conversation and analysis that I was exposed to here. I want to thank everyone who met with me or worked with me over the years for their patience, their insight, and their time.

Second, I’m thankful for the skills I learned. I am so lucky to have been able to learn to blog and podcast and use Twitter and be on Facebook for my job. I was literally paid to learn the skills that journalists need these days to thrive and given the foundation to consider new careers. And all of you helped me along, encouraging me and Steve to try new things, providing us with insight about different technologies and approaches to journalism. You taught us what we needed to know, whether it was evolving our thoughts about what journalism is or learning what new technology we should use.

Third, I’m thankful that I was able to explore an area that I am passionate about: clean tech and environmentalism. Now, with leaving Businessweek, I will have the opportunity to explore carving out a new career in that arena.

Fourth, I’m thankful that I was able to be a journalist. I loved writing, I loved the ethics, I loved grousing about how editors were asking for stupid new facts. I’ve been lucky to work at the kind of organization that really put a Chinese wall between journalists and advertising, that respected the work reporters did, and that hired the kind of people who did everything they could to make a story better.

I know that there is a lot more that I am forgetting right now. But, I let me just repeat, thank you all, within Businessweek and outside of it. And thank you Steve, for being the generous, warm, intelligent, and curious person that you are.

Heather and I both got the word on Thursday that we won’t be part of BusinessWeek once Bloomberg takes over, on Dec. 1. (We’re both pleased with this outcome, though it’s no picnic watching the staff get decimated, with good friends and colleagues heading off in every direction.) In the coming week, I think I’ll write a nice long eulogy for this blog.

But in the meantime, a question: Does anyone know how to preserve and store our four and a half years of blog posts and comments? Our colleague Arik Hesseldahl said something about turning each month into a pdf. I’ll look into that (as soon as I close my last story tomorrow). But you have a specific how-to, I’m all ears. As I wrote in September on my Numerati blog, I’m not sure how committed Bloomberg will be to social media. There’s no telling when someone might pull the plug on a server housing the archives of a discontinued blog.

angry tapir writes “Symantec researchers have identified a new premium-rate SMS Android Trojan that modifies its code every time it gets downloaded in order to bypass antivirus detection. his technique is known as server-side polymorphism and has already existed in the world of desktop malware for many years, but mobile malware creators have only now begun to adopt it.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MojoKid writes “There’s a new tablet in town called the Spark. The Linux-driven tablet, based on the Zenithink C71 and KDE was unveiled by developer Aaron Seigo recently. The tablet will be available for pre-order this week and will start shipping worldwide in May. In terms of specifications, the 7-inch (800×480) multi-touch slate will run a 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor and Mali-400 GPU, sport 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage (with a microSD slot for expandability), 802/11b/g WiFi, a pair of USB ports, a front-facing 1.3MP webcam, and an audio jack. The UI of choice is Plasma Active and there will apparently be a content store where developers can peddle their wares and users can snag software.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First time accepted submitter gmrobbins writes “The Seattle Times profiles avionics engineer Don Bateman, whose Honeywell lab in Redmond, Washington has for decades pioneered ground proximity warning systems. Bateman’s innovations have have nearly eliminated controlled flight into terrain by commercial aircraft, the most common cause of fatal airplane accidents.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

itwbennett writes “Just a few hours after a fake CNN news report appeared on Facebook Friday, more than 60,000 users had gone to the spoofed, malware bearing page according to Sophos Senior Security Advisor Chester Wisniewski. Facebook didn’t respond to IDG News Service’s request for information on ‘how widespread the problem was or whether its own security had been breached, but Wisniewski said that there are a number of ways that status updates could appear without users’ knowledge.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First time accepted submitter AWESOM-O 4k writes “It seems like the popular file sharing site BTJunkie.org is gone. On btjunkie.org you are greeted with the following: ‘2005 — 2012 This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best! ‘”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ein geleaktes Video vom Windows Phone Manager Joe Belfiore liefert umfassende Infos zum kommenden mobilen Betriebssystem Windows Phone 8 Apollo. Das neue Windows Phone wird demnach Multicore-CPUs und microSD-Karten unterstützen.

Der Super Bowl ist das Finale der amerikanischen Football-Liga NFL. 800 Millionen Menschen schauten dem Ereignis über das Fernsehen zu - witzige Werbe-Spots inklusive.

Der Kongressausschuss, der sich mit Googles neuer Datenschutzpolitik befasst, hat sich sehr negativ geäußert und den Abgeordneten indirekt geraten, die Finger von Google-Produkten zu lassen.

Der Elektro-Laden Saturn hat einen neuen Prospekt veröffentlicht, der wieder einmal beste Technik zum genialen Preis verspricht. Wir checken für Sie die Angebote und empfehlen Ihnen gute Alternativen.

Die Gehackten tun sich zusammen: Sony will ab dem 8. Februar seine Dienste Qriocity und das PlayStation Network unter dem Namen Sony Entertainment Network vereinen (SEN). Beide Services waren im Jahr 2011 Ziel des spektakulärsten Hacker-Angriffs der jungen IT-Geschichte.

Til Schweiger überreichte der Hollywood-Schauspielerin am Samstagabend eine Goldene Kamera. Morgan Freeman und Mario Adorf erhielten den Preis für ihr Lebenswerk.

Jeder zweite Deutsche (57,8 Prozent) hält unpünktliche Menschen auch in anderen Bereichen für unzuverlässig. Das hat eine repräsentative Umfrage der GfK Marktforschung in Nürnberg…

Fußball-Nationalspieler Sami Khedira steht nach einmonatiger Verletzungspause bei Real Madrid vor einem Comeback.

Die an einer Vorstufe von Multipler Sklerose leidende Langläuferin Seraina Mischol tritt vom Spitzensport zurück.

Stale Solbakken strahlte und scherzte und wippte frohgemut auf seinen Fersen.

Компания Microsoft убрала кнопку “Пуск” из готовящейся к выпуску версии операционной системы Windows 8, предназначенной для публичного тестирования, свидетельствуют неофициальные скриншоты, опубликованные сайтом PCBeta.

Компания Microsoft убрала кнопку “Пуск” из готовящейся к выпуску версии операционной системы Windows 8, предназначенной для публичного тестирования, свидетельствуют неофициальные скриншоты, опубликованные сайтом PCBeta.

В самой первой публичной версии Windows 8, которая вышла в сентябре 2011 года, кнопка “Пуск” имелась, хотя она выполняла несколько иные задачи, чем в Windows 7. Она служила для переключения между “традиционным” интерфейсом Windows и новым интерфейсом Metro.

Компания Google переманила старшего директора Apple Симона Пракаша ( Simon Prakash ), который контролировал качество продуктов на всех этапах от разработки до производства, для работы над неким секретным проектом, сообщил сайт VentureBeat.

Еще месяц назад, 21-22 декабря, солнце пошло на лето.

По данным журнала Digital Trends, всего за 2011 год в мире было продано 487,7 млн смартфонов, что на 62,7% больше, чем в предыдущем году. Персональных компьютеров, включая планшетники, в 2011 году было продано 414,6 единиц.

Браузер Google Chrome обогнал по популярности Firefox и стал самым популярным интернет-браузером в России. В настоящий момент доля продукта от Google составляет чуть более 25% на российском рынке, сообщает сама компания со ссылкой на результаты исследования StatCounter.

Представитель института Арктики и Антарктики Росгидромета ( ААНИИ ) опроверг информацию о пропаже российской экспедиции по бурению подледного озера Восток в Антарктиде, обнародованную некоторыми СМИ со ссылкой на американских ученых.

Церемония оглашения имен лауреатов премии президента РФ в области науки и инноваций для молодых ученых за 2011 год состоялась в Москве в здании президиума Российской академии наук, передает корреспондент РИА Новости.

Давние дружеские связи с семьей тверского краеведа, Почетного гражданина города Твери, заслуженного учителя школы РСФСР Николая Алексеевича Забелина привели Б. Н. Ротермеля к общественной и научной деятельности на ниве родиноведения.

Уровень загрязнения атмосферного воздуха в Москве повысился из-за морозной безветренной погоды, сообщил в понедельник специалист ГПБУ “Мосэкомониторинг”. Отмечено ухудшение экологической обстановки.

Американская авиационная компания Lockheed Martin ведет работы над новым беспилотным летательным аппаратом X-56A, выполненным по схеме “летающее крыло”. Размер беспилотника составит порядка 8,5 метра.