Hundreds of Facebook Groups Hacked

Due to a particularly strange Facebook design issue, hundreds of Facebook groups have effectively been “hacked,” with new users taking control of the groups as administrators.

According to a report from social media news site Mashable, the issue stems from the way in which Facebook handles groups that the original administrator has left. Essentially, once a group has been created, the creator is the administrator by default. If that administrator later leaves, then any new user can register to become an administrator… and you can imagine the trouble that gets some groups into.

Marketing – Game Developer Pirates Own Game

In a move that’s certain to get earn bundles of free publicity, game developer RedLynx has made sure that its own game has been posted on torrent sites for free download.

If you haven’t heard of RedLynx then you’re not alone; it’s a small, independent developer and it’s doing its best to get its product out there and make a name for itself. They have taken the fairly sensible precaution of stripping out a big feature from the torrentable version, namely the leaderboard, which they’re describing as the “soul” of the game.

Google Responds to Rupert Murdoch

Google has responded to Rupert Murdoch’s claim that his News Corp sites would likely block Google from indexing them once they move to a for-pay model… and the response is excellent.

Murdoch had, in the past, essentially accused news aggregators like Google of living off the content that companies like News Corp paid to have produced. Murdoch seemed to be of the opinion that Google should, for some reason, be paying news sites to display their content, rather than getting a “free ride.” This is what led to the claim yesterday that Murdoch might have his sites removed from Google’s indexes.

Google Acquires Gizmo5

Google has managed to get in under Skype’s feet and snatch VOIP setup Gizmo5, setting the stage for a very strange web of services indeed, and one that Skype won’t be too pleased with.

TechCrunch is reporting that Skype had been angling to pick up Gizmo5 during the last month or so while Gizmo5 the two were embroiled in legal proceedings. At some point during the whole affair though, Skype managed to settle the whole thing, which made Gizmo5 look like a far less worthwhile investment… at least, it looked like a far less worthwhile investment to Skype. Google had other ideas.

Amazon Launches Kindle for PC

Amazon has finally released the actual standalone application for it’s Kindle for PC project, which sees the Kindle brand extended beyond the hardware and into a service.

Amazon announced the Kindle service for desktops and notebooks earlier on in the month, throwing up a splash page and making sure that everyone was aware that there’d be a Kindle service available for users who didn’t feel like throwing down a few hundred euro on an Amazon-centric ebook reader. In doing so, Amazon also confirmed Steve Ballmer’s statement to the effect that PCs (specifically notebooks) would be the biggest ebook reader market going.

Modern Warfare 2 Poised for Record

With the world and its mother either excited or enraged by Infinity Ward’s latest entry to the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 2, it seems the game is likely to break records regardless of the controversy surrounding it.

According to the BBC, the folks at HMV are convinced that its going to break the record number of copies sold in its first week of release. A spokesperson for the company said as much in no uncertain terms, telling the BBC that, “We estimate the game will exceed 1m UK sales in its first week, which would be a new record.” Certainly, it’d be an achievement for the folks at Infinity Ward to break that record, but to do so in spite of the negative press surrounding the game is only more impressive.

OpenOffice Shows Off New Mouse

OpenOffice.Org (as it’s now known) may not be much closer to its goal of dethroning Microsoft in the world of office suites, but it’s moving in a bold new direction with the introduction of its new mouse.

I can't help myself, I laughed when I first saw it

Now, after you’ve stopped laughing at the picture, you’ll need to pay attention, because it seem the team behind the mouse are actually very serious about it. OpenOffice has teamed up with WarMouse to handle the hardware side of things. The mouse boasts, as you can probably already guess, fully 18 buttons and boasts an Xbox 360 style analog stick where the right thumb rests.

Processor Market Bouncing Back?

The processor market has shown signs that things are returning to pre-recession normality, boasting record-breaking shipments for the third quarter of 2009.

With everyone looking for signs of economic recovery, this seems as though it could well be one of the figures we hear touted in the coming weeks that things are looking up. The figures, which boast a growth of 23% over last quarter, come from an IDC report released yesterday. According to IDC’s Shane Rau,

“Most meaningful about Q309 is that, since PC processor shipments overall just slightly exceeded shipments in Q308—which was itself a record quarter at the time—we know that the processor market is recovering.”

Apple Flip Flops on Atom Support

Apple has been back and forth on support for Intel’s Atom processor, with news emerging that the lastest version of Apple’s Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.2) once again not featuring support for the processor line.

News emerged last week that some people who’d been lucky enough to get their hands on the developer build of the upcoming update to Apple’s Mac OS X had found that the update removed support for Intel’s mobile processor line, the Atom. This wouldn’t have been too big an issue for Mac users (since none of Apple’s devices actually use the Atom processor) but it is an issue for anyone who’s “hackintoshed” their own netbook. Shortly afterwards, folks were happy to hear that support was, apparently returned. That appears now not to be the case.

Mozilla Gets Critical About Google

Mozilla’s Firfox browser has turned five, and while it took a lot of time and money to get to where it is, the folks at Firefox are starting to bite the hand that fed them… Google.

Mozilla and Google have something of a strange relationship. As we mentioned earlier on in the year when we got a chance to talk to some of the guys from both Mozilla and Opera, most browsers make a significant proportion of their money from that little Google search bar in the top right… Google pays for the traffic sent their way from different browsers, browsers can be offered for free, it’s an ideal arrangement, except Google has had more involvement than that with Firefox.