Jerry Yang, was the co-founder of the once great, and ‘hanging’ in there Yahoo. When the dot.com bubble hit in the late 90’s, Yahoo was there to get kick started, and would dominate the market. That is until that pesky Google showed up and ruined the show for them.

Fast forward to now and Yahoo is looking like a fighter that’s on his final legs. Jerry Yang, the once great co-founder of Yahoo is now stepping down from his CEO position. He’ll be around, taking a seat as chairman on the board.

It’s obvious to see why Yang has stepped down. After the overall performance of Yahoo in the numbers department the past year, it was time for new leadership. Of course Yang’s dealings with Microsoft was the huge debacle. At one point Microsoft was offering to buyout Yahoo at $33/share, and Yahoo is now sitting at around $10/share.

Yang had this to say about his resigning from Yahoo, “From founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is indispensible to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise. When the board asked me to become CEO and lead the transformation of the company, I did so because it was important to re-envision the business for a different era to drive more effective growth. Having set Yahoo on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader. I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation.”

The coming weeks will be quite exciting indeed. Unless you’re a Yahoo employee, then it’s more tumultuous than exciting.

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With the economy going into the tanker, finding a deal this Christmas season is even more important. Therefore, this Black Friday might be the most important, and popular one we’ve had in awhile. If you don’t mind waiting in lines, and fighting crowds here are some of the great consumer tech deals announced so far.

Radio Shack

SIRIUS SUB-2X Dock & Play Boombox - $49.99

Motorola H375 Bluetooth Headset - $9.99

Gateway M-7305u 15.4″ T3200 250GB 3GB Laptop - $499.99

Samsung 10.2MP L200 Digital Camera - $99.99

Dell

So, if you don’t mind waiting hours in line, or shoving others to get the deals, it’s shaping up to be a gravy Black Friday, indeed.

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The mind doesn’t tend to shift to terrorism when talking about cell phones, and sites like Twitter. I’d say the big generalization for that market is mostly 14/f’s. Although this is false because most adults are getting in on the action as well. We can add another group to this long list in the ‘connected’ world. Terrorists.

In this PDF file, there is a long list of different cell phone, and website technologies that terrorists are already using. If you’re to believe the report.

The first part of the article states how terrorists could be or are using many of the technologies found on current smartphones. The first is the GPS navigation options that many people use when travelling. Only instead of being used for family vacation, it’s being used for terrorist activities.

Other voice technologies that are being reported for terrorist use, are voice changers and the SKYPE service.

Probably the most surprising report was the use of Twitter by some of the terrorist networks. Just like groups that tweet about gardening, or sports, or whatever issue. The article claims there are extremist Twitter groups who are using the service to voice opitions, and concerns with one another.

You can take the report for what you will. They do list references with their claims. Most of them being translations of extremist sites. Read the PDF and decide for yourself.

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Very few times in life do I feel violated. I don’t think any girl could ever sexually harass me, as I’ve deemed it impossible. I couldn’t name a particular instance that I’ve ever been offended. EA has put that streak to and end, as they’ve left me feeling violated, and offended. They’ve done what I thought could never be done.

For anyone who’s downloaded/installed Spore onto their computer, I urge you take up a lawsuit against EA. I hate the way lawsuits have been thrown around in our country, but in this case it is deserved. EA has gone to the extreme in protecting their product from illegal pirating.

Whenever you install Spore onto your PC, another program called SecuROM is installed alongside it. The program is a security measure in which EA can regulate how many times Spore is installed on the PC. The original cap was set at three installs, then was bumped up to five due to fan’s complaints.

It has now been learned that SecuROM does more than just that. The program scans your computer and relays information back to EA, which is how it knows how many times you’ve installed. So when you’re done with Spore and are ready to uninstall, SecuROM leaves along with it, right? HA, instead of taking that common sense measure, SecuROM can’t be deleted in any other means than reformatting your hard drive, or buying a new drive. This to me makes it even more dangerous than spyware. Atleast with a spyware program, unwanted programs can be removed. With SecuROM, it’s completely free from being deleted.

As someone who downloaded and played Spore, I can say I feel as though I’ve been completely violated. I’ve always been on the fence when it comes to DRM practices. I can understand companies protecting their brand from piracy. This goes beyond the DRM argument though, as this is invasion of privacy. If I don’t want the government to be able to get inside my computer with out reasonable cause, what makes EA think I want them there as well?

Luckily, there has been one case where someone has stood up to EA. Melissa Thomas filed a suit against EA, stating that SecuROM violated the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law. Her along with other Spore customers in the area will be compensated back their $49.99 along with damages. I hope to see other cases like this pop up around the country. Until we let companies know that practices like this won’t be tolerated, they will continue to happen.

Source: Cnet

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