Skype under attack

After several days of no or unreliable service, the Skype ecosystem is under attack. Commentators and competitors alike are taking a look at the leading VOIP service and seeing more than one chink in the previously polished armour, says VOIP News.

As expected, the competitors came out on the attack. In Australia, phone card distributor and more recently ISP and VOIP service provider, gotalk, said the outage created an opportunity for other players to make a raid on Skype's loyal subscriber base.

Gotalk CEO Steve Picton believes the outage made Skype's domination of the Australian and New Zealand VOIP markets "even more vulnerable to attack" from full service local competition.

Rumours of the Canon EOS 40D have been circulating for a while now. Canon has finally lifted the shroud of secrecy, introducing its long-awaited refresh of its step-up camera from the entry-level Digital Rebel series, reports PC World.

The Canon 40D has enough high-powered features to be an appealing camera to photography enthusiasts, as well as professionals seeking a second camera.

The 40D benefits from Canon technologies introduced at both ends of the spectrum. The camera, priced at $1 299 for the body only, has many of the same capabilities as its latest higher-end cousin, 1D Mark III.

Does that Walkman walk no more, or is the original PlayStation now a doorstop? Starting next month, Sony will take them back at 75 recycling stations around the country, says ABC News.

The electronics and entertainment company previously accepted products for recycling at a few places, but this initiative greatly expands the number of locations.

Other makers of computers and electronics, like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, have their own recycling programmes, which generally rely on customers mailing in their old gear. Sony is the first to partner with trash-hauler Waste Management, which has a network of recycling drop-off centres.

An Army investigative report found that official Army Web sites violated operational security more than military bloggers, says IHT.

An Army official, whose name was not revealed, said in government documents published in Wired magazine that the Army's 10-person Web security unit is being diverted from reviewing official sites by having to pay attention to soldiers' personal blogs.

According to the documents, which have many portions blacked out, audits performed by the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell found at least 1 813 violations of operational security on 878 official military Web sites and only 28 on 594 soldier blogs reviewed between January 2006 and January 2007.