If you’ve been surfing around you might have seen the news of Battlefield Heroes being delayed till later in the year. Well for the next 4 weeks the site will be posting a new article twice a week offering Beta keys, the first 20 comments on these will receive one. Also over those weekends the lucky few will have the chance to win more keys for a friend. Now that’s not too shabby and should hopefully keep us all going until the game hits the shelves, umm nope, Web sorry.

The Hacker from Blighty, Garry McKinnon, has recently lost his most recent battle to prevent his expedition to the US on counts of hacking.

Gary, who is being charged in excess of $700,000 in damages, is taking his case to the European court, which is expected to take at least a couple of years before it’s looked upon again. Originally charged with hacking into the NASA computer systems, the damages really amount to the cost of upgrading their systems (and user’s education you would imagine) to counter future attacks. Surely NASA should be shaking his hand, giving him a paycheck and patting his back for showing them how to improve their systems, after accounts were hacked using the most obvious methods possible: Administrator accounts without passwords, or default passwords, all available over the net via a terminal services connection. That’s like making a guy who punched you in the face to not only pay for the surgery to your teeth, but also pay for a couple of bodyguards, and karate lessons for you, to ensure you were more prepared in case somebody else tried their luck. I’m sure we would all want it, but is it really justified??

Richard Branson and designer Burt Rutan unveiled the “WhiteKnightTwo” (WK2) in the Mojave desert – the vehicle which will carry the equally badly named “SpaceShipTwo” (SS2) into what is technically a sub-orbit around the Earth.

After previously only seen as a computer generated render, it’s good to see the vehicle in the flesh. Especially so as the aircraft was created completely within a computer – with no full sized models to aid in testing. The aircraft, made completely of carbon composites, has been designed with versatility in mind too – meaning that in the future the platform can be used for things other than the SS2. The WK2 has a ceiling of around about 50,000 ft, which will give the SS2 a kick start into the atmosphere – where it can fire it’s rockets to take the lucky inhabitants up to an altitude of over 350,000 ft.

The tickets cost £100,000 each although I think Richard Branson only really wants to break even – I reckon with his cash, the idea is more appealing than the profit.

China has just overtaken the US, as the country with the largest online population in the world. China, according to sources, has a massive 253 million people surfing the net.

They may be online, but as we know, they aren’t exactly experiencing the net to it’s “fullest” shall we say, with censorship and government restrictions in place. But on the plus side, at least they’re enjoying their Great Firewall of China filtered content quickly – 95% of connections are on broadband or better. The world’s faster growing economy is starting to become the world’s most tech-savvy community too.

Photo source: Flickr

Need I say anymore? I think XKCD has said it all!.. Users eh?

That’s right, it’s that time of year again. That time when all the System Administrators around the world will be showered with gifts, praised upon and otherwise treated like binary Gods amongst their peers. Tomorrow, on Friday, it will be Sys Admin Appreciation Day!

To find out how you can treat that special geek in your life, visit the official site to get some suggestions. All I can say is that I just can’t wait for the cake tomorrow!.. What do you mean the cake is a lie?

Even though still technically in Beta (isn’t everything in Google “Beta?”) the search giant has announced today that anybody can now use their Wikipedia replacement, Knol.

The system is based around the idea of users being accountable for what they write. And if people are accountable, they’re more likely to concentrate a little more on getting their facts straight. Unlike Wikipedia where anybody can edit a page, if you don’t log into the Knol website, you can only view the articles available. I think it’s poignant that Google have allowed users to access the system now – the same accountability idea has just recently been talked about (again) by the Wikipedia team.

Knol includes articles that are written by professionals in their field, as well as people from the general public, which provide information, I think, that allows the reader to trust a little more – but at the very least gives a more rounded opinion on the subject. Plus with users being accountable for what they write, it should stop the majority of article spamming that has plagued Wikipedia since it’s inception.

Knol is still in it’s infancy, so don’t expect to find the find of information you would on Wikipedia – for instance I couldn’t find any instances of “telephone” or “laptop” within articles on the site. However, I’m sure it won’t be long before Knol starts to increase it’s article count as people become aware of the system after today.

Terry Childs, who I recently reported had been accused of locking the “FiberWAN” system for San Francisco’s local goverment, has given up the password to allow people back in. I guess the pressure just got to him in the end – I have visions of government workers with towels and jugs of water working him over to spill the beans!

What started out as a bit of a “misunderstanding” quoting his lawyer, has been resolved. We will wait and see what the court decides as punishment – which hopefully won’t be on the same level as the ridiculous $5 million bail.

While surfing the waves or the world wide web I came across a very funny video of gaming glitches and just had to share with the people of TechSnake. Enjoy and don’t drink hot drinks while watching

The proxy battle that has been in the wings since the start of this whole affair with Carl Icahn, has finally been resolved. Mr Icahn, is to take a seat on the board, plus another 2 members, which will be voted on from a list of 9 possible candidates. The board will expand to 11 members as one of the current members is resigning to concentrate on his other company.

So where does that leave Microsoft now? It appears they will have to go it alone, if they’re still serious about buying Yahoo. However, I think it’s probably the final straw for Steve Bulmer. I don’t see any deals being of great benefit to Microsoft now. Without Carl Icahn fighting for a proxy contest, to oust the current board, Microsoft have nothing to gain, unless they buy the whole company for $33 a share. But then, as we know with this ongoing soap opera, anything can change in an instant.