One Button Is One Too Many: Apple Applies for Patent on "Invisible" Controls

Steve Jobs has been on a quest to rid the world of buttons since the original Macintosh debuted sans numeric keypad. In later years, we've seen the G4 Cube (with its touch-sensitive power-on area, as opposed to a physical button), the Apple Pro Mouse (sometimes known as the zero-button mouse), and most recently the iPhone/iPad with their single button.

If you thought one button was as low as any practical device could go, you were wrong. Apple has filed a patent application, 20100103116, for a "Disappearing Button or slider."

It's an artistic vision that lends itself well to the conceptualisation of some really futuristic gadgets, but fine-tuning the practical function of such an interface could be a nightmare.

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Microsoft Sells 100 Million Copies of Windows 7

Same story, new week. But this time, Microsoft has some pretty big numbers to back up the boasting . And by "pretty big," we really mean "huge." There was already little doubt that Windows 7 was on track to become bigger than Vista could ever dream of becoming, and while the OS was already the company's best selling of all time, no one knew exactly how long it would take to cross the magical 100 million mark.

This week, the Redmond-based software giant has proudly announced that the mark has been surpassed, with Windows 7 now installed in one of every 10 PCs in the entire world!

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Google threatens wrath over booze Startup Groggle

Google has taken issue with the name of Queensland liquor comparison startup Groggle, threatening legal action if the company doesn't change its name and withdraw a trademark application.

The startup has also been told to transfer its web domains to Google and provide "written acknowledgement" that Groggle infringed Google's own registered trademarks.

Groggle founder Cameron Collie told iTnews the company received a cease-and-desist letter from Google lawyers last Thursday.

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Relic of a Bygone Era: Sony to Cease Producing Floppy Drives

Sony has announced it will cease producing 1.44" drives in March, 2011. Demand for 3.5" drives and disks is larger than you might think—some 12 million disks sold in 2009—but it's time to pull the plug on the ancient standard.

Once the workhorse of the computer industry, the floppy disk evolved significantly through the 70s and 80s. When CD-ROM drives and multimedia capabilities arrived in the early 90s, however, pundits began busily predicting the imminent demise of the 3.5" standard while manufacturers poured millions into disk-based product R&D.

As for the 3.5" disk drive, it told both the pundits and the techies to get bent and set about surviving for another twenty years. The humble standard has proven to be a flat, rectangular, and tiny Jason Voorhees

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Backdoor Malware Targets Apple iPad

Apple iPad users are being warned of an email-borne threat which could give hackers unauthorised access to the device.

Sabina Datcu, technology writer for anti-virus firm BitDefender, wrote in a blog post today that the threat arrives via an unsolicited email urging the recipient to download the latest version of iTunes as a prelude to updating their iPad software.

"A direct link to the download location is conveniently provided. As a proof of cyber crime finesse, the web page the users are directed to is a perfect imitation of the one they would use for legitimate iTunes software downloads," Datcu said.

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Police Raid Gizmodo Edit Over iPhone Leak

On April 25, editor Jason Chen arrived home to discover police in the process of executing a search warrant. Chen demanded to see the warrant, which authorized police to seize every computing or computer-related device in his home including keyboards, mice, floppy disks, and anything that could possibly have anything to do with a device manufactured after 1865.

When the details of the iPhone 4G went live online, it was immediately a question of when Apple would respond, not if. In the recent past, Apple forced the closure of the longtime Apple enthusiast website ThinkSecret over the websites' (accurate) claim that the Cupertino-based company would reveal iWork and the Mac Mini. In 2006, Apple fought to discover the identity of individuals who had leaked information to AppleInsider and PowerPage

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Google Makes Government Censorship Requests Public Knowledge

Net Neutrality. Censorship. Freedom of speech. Global search. All of these items are becoming more and more visible in an interconnected world, and we suspect that these issues will become even more important as the Internet spreads. Recently,Google brought some of these matters into the mainstream light by taking on Chine in a way that no search engine ever had: Google refuses to continue censoring results, and redirected searches to their Hong Kong portal in order to achieve their goal while maintaining within China.

This week, Google has opened another can of worms. The new Government Requests Tool is quite the eye-opener, giving mere citizens the ability to see how many times a given government has requested information and how often they have asked the company to remove content from their sites or search index for reasons outside of copyright violations.

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New iPhone Model left behind in Redwood Bar

You can bet that someone, somewhere, is a very unhappy ex-Apple employee now that one of the company's prototype next-generation iPhones was lost (and found) in a Redwood City bar.

Whoever found the device (they're understandably laying low) turned it over to Gizmodo, which has spent a significant chunk of time disassembling the device, snapping photos, comparing its internal components to current-generation Apple iPhones, and documenting the various changes

Unfortunately, Apple killed the iPhone with a remote update, but Gizmodo has videos and a number of comparison photos available.

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School District Admits Taking Inappropriate Photos in Laptop Spying Case

Investigative reports now indicate that the school either lied through its teeth about the degree to which cameras were activated or was negligent—possibly criminally negligent—in exercising appropriate oversight of how the system was being used by the staff who had access.

Late last week, the Robbins' attourney filed a brief claiming that the school district snapped thousands of photos that documented all aspects of their lives, including the chat rooms and websites they frequented, their IM conversations, etc..

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ABC fingers China over cyber attacks

The ABC's Four Corners program has aired an investigation in which it claimed that the IT systems of Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals were all hacked in attacks originating in China in the lead up to the sentencing of former Rio Tinto mining executive, Stern Hu.

In a documentary titled 'Chinese Whispers' - aired last night by journalist Marian Wilkinson - sources from within all three iron ore companies claimed that their IT systems were hacked, none willing to go on the record.

All three companies were alleged to have upgraded IT security in response to the attacks.

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Google now using Speed to Rank Search Results

Google is now using site speed as a consideration when ranking sites in its search results, giving webmasters yet more food for thought.

Singhal and Cutts recommended several tools webmasters can use to evaluate the speed of their sites. These include open source Firefox/Firebug add-on Page Speed, Yahoo tool YSlow, and a Google function in its Webmaster Tools section.

However, the web giant did concede that site speed will not be taken into consideration as much as, say, relevance, when evaluating the search rankings of a particular site.

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