Twelve-year-old runs up £900 debt on FarmVille

by Darren Allan

Facebook is in the press again, and for the wrong reasons. Again.

This time the furore is over a twelve-year-old lad who played FarmVille, the “free” Facebook game that’s been appealing to a lot of casual gaming fans on the social networking site.

In fact FarmVille has become so popular, it now has almost 83 million players, in other words, one in five Facebookers across the world.

While the real-time farming simulation is outwardly free, it involves making virtual money from crops and livestock, which can be ploughed (ahem) back into your farm to produce more stuff, get a bigger farm and so on.

However, if you want to get ahead quickly, you can purchase the game’s virtual currency with real money, and that’s where the trouble started for this enterprising young virtual farmer.

He reportedly blew almost £300 of his own savings on the game, then found mummy’s credit card, and ran that until it smoked to the tune of £600.

Unfortunately, her bank refused to refund the money from the credit card unless she was willing to report her son to the police for the incident.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, she said that “he would be cautioned and I have been told that this caution would stay with him. Obviously the idea of a stupid farm simulation jeopardising his future earnings is not something that I want to consider.”

However, the mother apparently doesn’t blame Facebook or Zynga, the makers of FarmVille, or indeed the bank.

She accepts her son did a daft thing, but did comment that perhaps Facebook should have some form of system to check if a credit card name differs from a Facebook account name.

this is brilliant, really makes me laugh, a good point made by the mother as well, shouldnt this be implemented?

Apple iPad Having Issues With Non-Mac USB Charging

05 April, 2010, by ITProPortal Staff

With Apple’s iPad finally being released, the device has received mixed reactions from customers, who have also reported an issue which arises when they try to charge the iPad via USB.

Upon further investigation it was found that USB ports in old PCs and laptops are not powerful enough to charge the almighty iPad.

Whenever users tried to charge their new iPads via USB, the words ‘Not Charging’ appeared on the device’s menu bar, indicating that the device was not being charged.

However, it was later revealed that Apple’s new toy comes with massive charging requirements and cannot be charged with USB ports in old PCs when in use. 

An article on popular Mac website Macworld suggested that in order to charge the iPad, it will be advisable to use the 10-watt USB power charger that has been provided with the device.

However, when the device is charged with a high-power USB port, which comes with recent Mac devices, the iPad will take a longer time to be fully charged if it is being used at the same time.

Interestingly, when questioned about the device’s inability to charge with common USB ports, Apple told MacWorld that users will have to put the iPad to ‘sleep’ before charging it with old USB ports.

Apple to redesign iPad for Europe

Complex European safety regulations have forced Apple to redesign its new handheld device for the UK market

April Phurst

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First image of the iPad as it will appear in Europe

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Apple has been forced into a last-minute redesign of its ground-breaking iPad for the UK market, after European health and safety tsars claimed that the device posed a risk to young children.

A source at the little known Federation Of Online LED Safety told The Times that early versions of the touch-screen device “were too sharp” and might damage young fingers.

Apple has already delayed the device’s launch in the UK, though first deliveries will take place in the United States this weekend.

The delay, it is now clear, has been used by Apple for a hasty redesign into a shape that is considered acceptable on safety grounds within the EU.

European spokeswoman Ima Durak confirmed that, after consultation with the authorities, the European version of the iPad will be spherical.

The touch-screen will function in the same way as on the American sharp iPad, with the connection ports located on the rear of the device.

“After discussions with the Federation, it was clear that we needed to reconfigure the iPad to avoid any sharp edges,” Ms Durak confirmed.

The new shape, Apple believes, will appeal to the European love of football, and the company plans to launch in time for the World Cup in June.

The new shape will allow the device to be rolled from one user to another, though the fragility of the screen means that bouncing is out of the question.

In accordance with European accessibility legislation, the Euro-Pad will also feature a specially redesigned interface that responds to the human foot as well as fingers. This, Apple claims, will open up a whole new market for applications developers, and a virtual footrub app is already available on the app store.

A different kind of company name

4/01/2010 12:01:00 AM

Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka.

We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka’s municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.

In fact, Topeka Google Mayor Bill Bunten expressed it best: “Don’t be fooled. Even Google recognizes that all roads lead to Kansas, not just yellow brick ones.”

For 150 years, its fortuitous location at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Oregon Trail has made the city formerly known as Topeka a key jumping-off point to the new world of the West, just as for 150 months the company formerly known as Google has been a key jumping-off point to the new world of the web. When in 1858 a crucial bridge built across the Kansas River was destroyed by flooding mere months later, it was promptly rebuilt — and we too are accustomed to releasing 2.0 versions of software after stormy feedback on our ‘beta’ releases. And just as the town’s nickname is “Top City,” and the word “topeka” itself derives from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to “a good place to dig for potatoes,” we’d like to think that our website is one of the web’s top places to dig for information.

In the early 20th century, the former Topeka enjoyed a remarkable run of political prominence, gracing the nation with Margaret Hill McCarter, the first woman to address a national political convention (1920, Republican); Charles Curtis, the only Native American ever to serve as vice president (’29 to ‘33, under Herbert Hoover); Carrie Nation, leader of the old temperance movement (and wielder of American history’s most famous hatchet); and, most important, Alfred E. Neuman, arguably the most influential figure to an entire generation of Americans. We couldn’t be happier to add our own chapter to this storied history.

A change this dramatic won’t happen without consequences, perhaps even some disruptions. Here are a few of the thorny issues that we hope everyone in the broader Topeka community will bear in mind as we begin one of the most important transitions in our company’s history:

• Correspondence to both our corporate headquarters and offices around the world should now be addressed to Topeka Inc., but otherwise can be addressed normally.
• Google employees once known as “Googlers” should now be referred to as either “Topekers” or “Topekans,” depending on the result of a board meeting that’s ongoing at this hour. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is clear: we aren’t in Google anymore.
• Our new product names will take some getting used to. For instance, we’ll have to assure users of Topeka News and Topeka Maps that these services will continue to offer news and local information from across the globe. Topeka Talk, similarly, is an instant messaging product, not, say, a folksy midwestern morning show. And Project Virgle, our co-venture with Richard Branson and Virgin to launch the first permanent human colony on Mars, will henceforth be known as Project Vireka.
• We don’t really know what to tell Oliver Google Kai’s parents, except that, if you ask us, Oliver Topeka Kai would be a charming name for their little boy.
• As our lawyers remind us, branded product names can achieve such popularity as to risk losing their trademark status (see cellophane, zippers, trampolines, et al). So we hope all of you will do your best to remember our new name’s proper usage:

Finally, we want to be clear that this initiative is a one-shot deal that will have no bearing on which municipalities are chosen to participate in our experimental ultra-high-speed broadband project, to which Google, Kansas has been just one of many communities to apply.

Posted by Eric Schmidt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Topeka Inc.

brilliant little april fools by google, what a name that would be and imagine saying that to someone “Topeka it” that does sound weird. lol. what other april fools has any one else seen out there today?

Apple To Charge iPad Users For OS Updates

31 March, 2010, by ITProPortal Staff

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Apple has given away more details regarding operating system upgrades for the iPad in the future, under which the company will reportedly charge the iPad users for major OS upgrades after providing them with the first such upgrade for free, it has been reported.

The electronics titan on Monday kicked off seeding the Golden Master iteration of its iPhone OS 3.2 software development kit (SDK) to developers, which will incidentally be the iteration of the OS that powers the iPad.

Additionally, the company also issued iPad licensing agreement on its server, in which it asserted that the iPad owners would receive a major OS upgrade after the one that comes shipped with the device, and after that, all such upgrades would have a fee.

Indicating the same, the licensing agreement mentioned: “Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free.”

Such an upgrade policy in fact falls in between that for the iPod Touch and the iPhone, as the iPod Touch users were required to pay a $10 charge in order to upgrade iPhone OS 2.0 to iPhone OS 3.0, while the iPhone users received these upgrades for free.

London’s High Court of Justice has ruled against popular online forum site Newzbin in a lawsuit filed by top Hollywood studios including Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, Universal and Disney, holding it liable for the copyright infringement done by its members when they used it for downloading movies and music.

The ruling is being hailed as a new precedent for helping music and film companies in defending the copyright of their properties. Judge Justice Kitchin found that Newzbin allowed its members to keep on downloading copyright infringing material even after being warned about it.

However, Newzbin argued that it was not responsible for the activities of its members and claimed that all it did was to let users create forums so that they could share information and knowledge, somewhat similar to what Google does.

Legal representatives of the Hollywood studios said that the ruling made by the London court will call for ISPs to monitor their online traffic and aid creative arts companies in protecting their copyrighted material on the internet.

Commenting on the ruling, Simon Baggs, partner at the law firm which represented the Hollywood studios, said in a statement that “I don’t think ISPs need to be proactive [in policing content on their networks] but the judgment supports the view that ISPs can be required to block websites.”

not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing if im totally honest, i mean as they say their website is basically a forum that allows members to share information and surely thats what the internet is all about the sharing of information, how are they meant to control what the users do with that information.

A new approach to China: an update

3/22/2010 12:03:00 PM

On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks we had uncovered evidence to suggest that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists connected with China were being routinely accessed by third parties, most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on their computers. We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered—combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger—had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.

In terms of Google’s wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk. Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

Well done Google, its about time that they had full access to the web and all the information contained within, its a shame they have already blocked youtube according to the web page that Google created.

I spent a year living in china and I came across this issue a few times not being able to get to certain content which was very frustrating. im glad they have done this and lets hope the chinese dont block the search engine any time soon.