Botnets Took Control of 12 Million New IPs this Year

"Botnet criminals have taken control of almost 12 million new IP addresses since January, according to a quarterly report (.pdf) from anti-virus firm, McAfee. The United States has the largest number of botnet-controlled machines, with 18 percent of them based here. The number of zombie machines represents a 50-percent rise over last year."

20% of Americans Drop Landline for Cell: Study

"As Americans trim their spending, more are getting rid of landlines. In the second half of last year, 20% of households had only cell phones, outnumbering for the first time the 17% who had just landlines. The 3% jump from the first half of 2008 is the largest increase since the government began the survey in 2003, the AP reports."

A Fifth Of U.S. Homes Only Use Cell Phones

"For the first time, the number of U.S. households opting for only cell phones outnumber those that just have traditional landlines in a high-tech shift accelerated by the recession. In the freshest evidence of the growing appeal of cell phones, 20 percent of households had only cells during the last half of 2008, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released Wednesday. That was an increase of nearly 3 percentage points over the first half of the year, the largest six-month increase since the government started gathering such data in 2003."

Amazon Introduces $489 Large-Screen Kindle

"Now there's a new Kindle for that -- the Kindle DX. Its 9.7-inch screen is 2.5 times the size of a regular Kindle display. That makes it better for reading 8 1/2 x 11 documents, cookbooks, and other formatted material. It has 3.3 GB of storage, enough to hold about 3,500 books. The price: $489. Textbooks are another good application for a wide-screen Kindle. Amazon has partnerships with the three leading textbook publishers -- Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley. The new Kindle will allow students to carry smaller backpacks, Bezos says. The cost of these textbooks is unknown, but Bezos says these will likely be priced lower than physical copies."

Super-Sized Kindle May Not Be Quick Fix for Newspaper Industry

"Amazon plans to launch this week a bigger version of its Kindle, which may also house textbooks, analysts and media report. The New York Times said the new device could be unveiled on Wednesday and its parent would be involved. But a larger-format e-reader may not be a quick fix for a struggling newspaper business devastated by crumbling ad revenue and declining readership. Nor would it guarantee a big boost to Amazon's bottom line anytime soon, analysts say."

Libraries Ask Judge to Monitor Google Books Settlement

"Three groups representing libraries, including the American Library Association, the largest such group in the United States, have asked a federal judge to exercise 'vigorous oversight' over a class-action settlement between Google, authors and publishers."

Patent Reveals Google's Book-Scanning Advantage

". . .Google has come up with a system that uses two cameras and infrared light to automatically correct for the curvature of pages in a book. By constructing a 3D model of each page and then "de-warping" it afterward, Google can present flat-looking pages online without having to slice books up or mash them onto a flatbed scanner."