Cody Taylor

Adobe has announced an HD-optimized version of Flash that will be available on TVs, Blu-ray players, and other set-top boxes. With a number of industry partners already on board, the Flash-capable products could be available for your YouTube-watching pleasure by the second half of 2009.

Incremental and even substantial tech improvements just don’t get us excited the way they used to.

A British study found organized crime is behind the vast majority of hacking attacks.

Last I checked Macs don’t come with Photoshop…

The city’s “Energy Smart Miami” project will put smart meters in every home and many businesses in Miami-Dade county, creating jobs and saving money and energy use at the same time. With the help of federal stimulus funds, the project will team heavy-hitters GE and Cisco Systems, along with Florida Power & Light and Silver Spring Networks.

eldavojohn writes “The sweet sweet melodies of Queen and the late Freddie Mercury are reproduced by hardware almost as old as the song is. ‘There are millions of computers sitting idle at home consuming fantom electricity. Let’s see where all that power is going. This is dedicated to all fans of Queen and hey let’s not forget about Mike Myers and Dana Carvey of Wayne’s World. Please note no effects or sampling was used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?) Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound, Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar, 8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass, 3.5 inch Hard drive as the gong, HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 separate times for each voice. I tried to buy 4 HP scanners but for some reason sellers on E-Bay expect you to pay -0, I got mine for .'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kerrieanne writes to tell us that Australian telecommunications giant Telstra has become the first major player down under to lay down the law with respect to social media. Still recovering from the shakeup surrounding a Telstra worker using the name of the communications minister on Twitter, they have released a six-page set of guidelines on the use of Facebook, Twitter, and other similar websites for both company and personal use. “Under the guidelines, which are backed up with the threat of disciplinary action, employees using sites on official Telstra business should disclose who they are, ensure they do not give away confidential information and treat other users with respect. They are required to complete an accreditation process and undergo training to update their ‘knowledge on emerging social trends and evolving best practice in social media.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.