DOUBLE your PC’s Performance! (Decrapifying/Page File Secrets) 1 of 3

Part 1 of 3 of the PC Performance Boosting tutorial. Learn the secrets to prepare your computer for optimizing and iron out a few fundamental creases on a new PC installation. Software Used: – PC Decrapifier @ www.pcdecrapifier.com – DISCLAIMER – This video tutorial does not guarantee a 200% performance increase, but it is likely. Some computers can even triple or quadruple in speed! I do not claim responsibility for any damage or data loss to your computer. However, unlikely this may be, if you do experience problems, contact me direct on my channel, or at CJ.FixThePC@gmail.com, and your problem may be viewed on a Q&A video. The vast majority of my educational videos are not the only way to approach the task, but they are in my views the best way of going about it. Comment to your heart’s content! If you like my videos and wish to know more, hit the subscribe button at the top.

YouTube to stream Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits (AP)

FILE – In this Aug. 8, 2010 file photo, see music fans Wolfmother's performance during the Lollapalooza music festival at Grant Park in Chicago. You

NEW YORK – YouTube will stream the Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits in the video, the place continued pressure to get music festivals to digital displays.

Google Inc.-owned YouTube will announce Friday that it will present online coverage of festivals, two of the biggest summer. YouTube has previously flowed festivals like Bonnaroo Tennessee, San Francisco's Outside Lands, and earlier this year, Southern California's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, both produced by C3 Presents will be presented with a great concert coverage from the various festival stages.Dell and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. will sponsor streaming.

Lollapalooza takes place in Chicago August 5 to 7 and will be promoted to a "Lollapalooza Week" on YouTube. Just what action will be broadcast not yet known, but the best performers this year include Eminem, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Muse and My Morning Jacket. This is the 20th anniversary of the founding of Perry Farrell event, which began as a traveling festival.

"For those of us who can not do – we have YouTube," said Farrell in a statement: "Be a voyeur at Lollapalooza this year .. Watch as musicians offer their soul and the audience devoured. You just forget that you can not are real. "

Austin City Limits, which runs from September 16 to 18 Capital of Texas, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. His actions are Kanye West, Stevie Wonder, Arcade Fire, Coldplay and My Morning Jacket.

YouTube, the deal is a growth to an increasingly robust digital festival going experience. Streaming Festival is, the site is attractive, because their names as sponsors connected to known events, and users in general, more than they left with three-minute videos. Profile length on average almost one hour.

"This allows us to present more artists every day, which is really exciting for users," said Dana's cousin, YouTube, music marketing programs manager. "And we hope that longer transfer times by taking people who are starting to trickle charge and a sentence to the next."

How many votes will partly depend on what actions will be streamed, but the online audience for festivals often in the millions and even – throughout the weekend – YouTube rival pulls the audience for live events such as the royal wedding in April.Some 72 million people watched the YouTube coverage of Prince William and Kate Middleton wedding.

"Over the past 12 to 18 months we got a very long road to the right in live music," says Vetter. "There are a wide audience in connection with these things. The process of live music has come a long way and we hope to go there."

There will be a stream of the first live performances as well as a secondary supply of the backstage areas, and interviews. Interactivity with Facebook and Twitter are also integrated. Videos stay on YouTube for four weeks after the festival.

In recent years, mega-festival proliferation in the digital space, where music fans will not be able to pull (or those who simply prefer to avoid the dirt and heat) in order to follow along online. Vevo, a joint venture of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Abu Dhabi Media Co., flocked acts from Bonnaroo this year.National Public Radio will air the Newport Folk Festival (July 30 to 31) and Newport Jazz Festival (06-07 August).

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Online:

http://www.youtube.com/lollapalooza

Google 2Q results show company thriving under Page (AP)

FILE – In this May 11, 2011 file photo, attendees await the morning keynote address at the Google IO Developers Conference in San Francisco. Google In

SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. CEO Larry Page’s traditionally frosty relationship with Wall Street turned into a warm embrace Thursday after the Internet search leader released strong financial results for its latest quarter.

The results represented Page’s first report card since he became CEO at the start of the second quarter in April, ending the decade-long reign of his mentor, Eric Schmidt.

Although he established himself as engineering and entrepreneurial genius as Google’s co-founder, Page has made it clear since the company went public in 2004 that he is more interested in innovation than focusing on the short-term earnings targets set by stock market analysts.

Page’s standoffish attitude had raised concerns that Google might not exceed expectations as consistently as it did under Schmidt. The concern had been weighing on Google’s stock, causing it to lag well behind the technology-driven Nasdaq composite index.

But the second-quarter results at least temporarily erased the doubts about whether Google can thrive under Page’s unorthodox leadership.

Investors signaled their approval by boosting Google’s stock by more than 12 percent. That restored the stock price to where it stood before Page became CEO on April 4.

Page made analysts even happier by sticking around for the company’s hour-long conference call with analysts. That was a contrast to a cursory appearance he made at Google’s first-quarter call three months ago, which had fed perceptions that Page considered investor relations to be a waste of his time.

In his remarks, Page stressed that he intends to be a “careful steward of shareholders’ money,” while reiterating his intention to invest heavily in hiring more employees and expanding into other markets in pursuit of even bigger profits in the future.

“I see more opportunities for Google today than ever before because, believe it or not, we are still in the very early stages of what we want to do,” Page, 38, said.

Page’s demeanor and commentary “hit all the right notes,” said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. “It made people feel like maybe things are going to be OK and that (Page) isn’t going to be so hostile toward shareholders after all.”

Google earned $2.5 billion, or $7.68 per share, in the April-June period. That’s a 36 percent increase from $1.84 billion, or $5.71 per share, a year ago.

If not for costs covering employee stock compensation, Google says it would have earned $8.74 per share. That figured easily topped the average estimate of $7.84 per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue increased 32 percent to $9 billion, the first time in Google’s 13-year history that it has brought in that much money in a quarter.

After subtracting Google’s advertising commissions, revenue stood at $6.9 billion — nearly $400 million above analyst projections.

Google shares soared $66.36, or 12.6 percent, to $595.30 in extended trading after finishing the regular session at $528.94. The stock price stood at $591.80 when Page became CEO.

The results are the latest indication that the Internet remains a bright spot in an otherwise lackluster economy.

The contrasts between online and offline commerce during the last few years is like what happened in the Great Depression of the 1930s when “people sold horses and bought cars, so car companies did great,” Patrick Pichette, Google’s chief financial officer, said in a Thursday interview. “There is a fundamental shift in how the economy runs and we are living that through the digital economy today.”

Google fared so well because advertisers were willing to pay higher prices to promote their products on the Internet’s largest marketing network. The average price paid per advertising click on Google’s network rose 12 percent from last year. Web surfers also found the ads more enticing, clicking on them 18 percent more than they did at the same time last year.

Page delivered the impressive results even while standing by his vow to invest in projects that may take several years to pay off.

Google’s newest venture, a Facebook-like social network called Plus, debuted two weeks ago and has grown quickly amid positive reviews.

Page said Thursday that more than 10 million people already have joined Plus even though it still requires an invitation to get into it. By comparison, Facebook has more than 750 million users.

Google is hoping Plus can become as big a hit as its Android software for mobile phones and tablet computers. Although Google gives away the software, it has enabled Google to expand its advertising dominance into the mobile market as more people increasingly connect to the Web away from their home and office computers.

Page said more than 550,000 devices relying on Android are being activated each day. Google estimates there about 135 million devices that rely on Android.

“All of us at Google want to create services that people in the world use twice a day, just like a toothbrush,” Page said.

To help carry out its ambitious agenda, Google increased its payroll by 9 percent, or 2,452 employees, in the quarter to bring its workforce to nearly 28,800 people. The additions included 450 workers inherited as part of the company’s $700 million acquisition of airline fare tracker ITA Software.

Through the first half of the year, Google added nearly 4,400 workers. That’s well ahead of its pledge to hire at least 6,200 employees this year. Even Page indicated the hiring is occurring a little faster than he anticipated.

SKorean lawyer wages privacy fight against Apple (AP)

FILE – In this Nov. 28, 2009 file photo, iPhone fans line up as they wait for the Apple iPhone 3G during the launch ceremony in Seoul to purchase. A Sou

SEOUL, South Korea – A South Korean lawyer who is an avid user of the iPhone is leading a battle against the privacy of Apple Inc. in the device tracking capabilities.

Kim Hyeong-Seok said Friday that at least 16,000 people in South Korea have put him in a class action lawsuit against the company he wants to act with a Seoul court in early August.

The 36-year-old international trade and business lawyer is sentenced to the Korean unit of Apple, the ₩ million ($ 945) an action that he took to a regional South Korean court to gain in April.

His complaint was that the monitoring of iPhone users' sites violates the constitutional right to privacy in South Korea and let them "mental distress."

That has not stopped, continue to use it to your iPhone and iPad 4.

"I like Apple," Kim said in a telephone interview from his office in the city of Changwon, which is about 240 miles (380 kilometers) southeast of Seoul.

In fact, Kim says he is concerned "the mania of Apple."

But he adds his legal battle is "right or wrong."

Apple spokesman Steve Park in Seoul could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kim said he plans to file a lawsuit in Seoul, will be sometime in the first three days of August and its objectives both in Korea and Apple, Cupertino, Calif. Apple Inc.

The suit will seek ₩ 1,000,000 in damages for each participant, he said.

Kim's conflict as the iPhone has shaken up the South Korean mobile phone market since it went on sale in November 2009.

The phone has led to a smartphone war and encouraged local companies Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. to improve his game. Samsung has challenged the iPhone with the Galaxy line of Android-based smartphones, while LG has pushed his Optimus line.

Kim started her legal battle in April after reading that the iPhone is data that could be used to track the movements of users to store.

He filed a lawsuit in the local Changwon District Court for the damage.

Kim said the judge in his favor in May and awarded him damages he sought. The Company does not contest the ruling and Apple South Korea paid the money on June 27, Kim said.

A spokesman for Changwon District Court upheld the decision and payment.

Kim said he believes that the payment was the first Apple has done around the world in terms of the issue of persecution that occurred in April. South Korean agency Yonhap News reported the first time in South Korea.

Apple iPhones-known one that was store locations near the mobile towers and Wi-Fi hot spots for up to one year. These data can be used to provide a rough map of the unit owners to generate movement.

Apple is also facing another legal challenge in South Korea.

A total of 29 iPhone users filed a class action to the outlet end of follow-up of April, Yonhap news agency reported.

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Associated Press writers May Cho contributed to this report.

End near for endless data use on smartphones (AP)

FILE – In this Feb. 10, 2011 file photo, Chris Cioban, manager of the Verizon store in Beachwood, Ohio, holds up an Apple iPhone 4G. Verizon Wireless,

SAN FRANCISCO – When Verizon Wireless kills off its unlimited data plan for new smartphone customers on Thursday, it will mark another blow for endless Web surfing and video streaming.

The move by the nation’s largest wireless carrier has long been anticipated. More people are switching to smartphones and using an increasing amount of data for all manner of wireless activities. The shift could help wireless carriers ensure that they can handle the traffic flowing over the new higher-speed “4G,” or fourth-generation, data networks they’re rolling out.

AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA, the second- and fourth-largest U.S. carriers, respectively, have already set limits on monthly data usage. AT&T uses tiered data plans like the one Verizon is rolling out, while T-Mobile slows data speeds for unlimited data plan customers who use up their monthly allotment. Sprint Nextel Corp., the country’s third-largest carrier, still offers an unlimited plan.

The death of unlimited wireless data is happening as service providers see an explosion in data usage, due mainly to an ever-growing number of smartphone users. According to market researcher comScore Inc., 77 million people in the U.S. had smartphones in the first three months of the year — up 11 percent from a year earlier. And according to a Nielsen study, smartphone users’ average data growth climbed 89 percent to 435 megabytes in the same time frame.

Simply put, there’s more profit to be made with capped data plans. Steve Clement, a Pacific Crest Securities analyst, said this growth just won’t work with a fixed-pricing model over time, so to make money from the surging traffic the carriers have to try something else.

By moving away from unlimited plans, the carriers can profit more from the heaviest data users. And, as RBC analyst Jonathan Atkin pointed out, by offering low-level data packages — such as the 200 megabyte plans that T-Mobile and AT&T offer — they can bring in more smartphone users.

Part of the move to capped data is to get consumers accustomed to the idea that data isn’t a limitless resource. If carriers didn’t move to usage-based data plans while rolling out newer speedy data networks, the networks would get abused, Zachary Investment Research analyst Patrick Comack said. And while the pricing of Verizon’s network is higher than AT&T’s, its service is speedier, so it can charge a premium for now.

Verizon Wireless’ current unlimited plan costs existing users $30 per month. With the new plans, smartphone users will choose between paying $30 for 2 gigabytes, $50 for 5 gigabytes or $80 for 10 gigabytes of monthly data usage. Customers who use more than their allotment will be charged $10 more for each additional gigabyte.

AT&T, meanwhile, charges $25 per month for 2 gigabytes of data and $45 for 4 gigabytes. The over-allotment fee is the same.

Verizon and AT&T say much of the move away from unlimited data plans has to do with making users pay for the data they really use.

“If you drive a car, you drive 50 miles, you pay for gas for 50 miles,” Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney said.

AT&T Inc. spokesman Mark Siegel said customers told the company that they wanted a choice instead of just having one unlimited plan for $30.

How are customers likely to react to the new plans? It depends.

Current Verizon smartphone users will not be affected, regardless of whether or not they have a long-term contract with the company.

And given that 95 percent of the company’s current smartphone users use less than 2 gigabytes per month, chances are that most of the newcomers — which includes new customers and existing ones trading up to a smartphone — won’t be affected by the change.

At AT&T Inc. the picture is similar: Siegel said 98 percent of smartphone customers use less than 2 gigabytes in a month.

Neil Strother, an analyst at ABI Research, believes caps on data usage will make things more confusing for consumers. Carriers will have to be increasingly transparent about what data caps mean and help them keep tabs on how much data they use. The carriers do offer online data calculators and alerts that customers can use to learn about how they use data.

“I think the issue for most people is they just don’t want to have that surprise bill,” Strother said.

The most recent changes don’t mean that data plans will always look this way, though. Some analysts suggest that carriers might eventually offer different speed tiers, perhaps charging more to always use a 4G network, or having customers start off using their 4G network and then switching to the slower 3G network after hitting a monthly data-usage allotment. T-Mobile’s existing unlimited data plan flirts with this idea already.

Strother expects to see some experimentation, saying the carriers will likely try different pricing models in order to keep themselves and consumers happy.

“Frankly no carrier wants a block of their customers to say, `I don’t like this, I’m moving to the other guy.’ They want to keep you,” Strother said.

FTC’s antitrust inquiry turns up heat on Google (AP)

FILE – In this Oct. 2, 2006, file photo, Google receptionist Lee Stimmel works at the front desk in the company’s office in New York. Federal regulato

SAN FRANCISCO – Google may be entering a make-or-break phase in its colorful history now that U.S. regulators have opened an investigation into whether the company has been abusing its dominance of Internet search and advertising to stifle competition.

The probe by the Federal Trade Commission, confirmed by the company Friday, will require Google to convince regulators that its closely guarded recipe for search results is designed to give people the best recommendations, not bury links to its rivals.

If you search for a local business, for example, Google might highlight its own listing, from a service called Google Places, instead of one on Yelp, a popular review site and Google competitor.

Requests for directions may turn up Google Maps, and queries for a video might point to the company’s own site, YouTube. Or if you type “mortgage” in Google’s main search box, the top ad might be for Google Advisor, which lists the lowest interest rates.

The inquiry also is expected to peer into Google’s financial engine: the advertising links tied to the subject of each search request. Some of these commercial messages appear, shaded in color, at the top of the results page, while others are stacked in the right-hand column.

Even as Google has expanded into video, mobile phones and television, the text advertising that pops up alongside search results and other Web content generates most of Google’s revenue — an amount expected to exceed $35 billion this year.

Some websites contend Google has rigged its system in a way that drives up the ad prices, even though Google says the rate is determined by bids submitted in an auction. Others say Google purposely blocks their ads from appearing because the company views them as competitive threats. A coalition of Internet travel companies, including Expedia, Hotwire and Kayak, have welcomed the investigation.

The FTC is following the lead of European regulators who launched a similar investigation last November. The Texas attorney general has been looking into Google’s business practices, too.

The search engines for Microsoft and Yahoo also sometimes feature their own services in search results. The big difference: Google processes about two-thirds of all search requests in the U.S. and handles an even larger volume of advertising. Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo combined have less than 30 percent of the market.

Danny Sullivan, who follows the industry closely as editor-in-chief of the trade journal Search Engine Land, said what Google is doing is not unlike a newspaper running an ad to promote one of its products.

“From what I have seen so far,” he says, “Google doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong.”

Melissa Maxman, an antitrust attorney in Washington, said the FTC wouldn’t have opened its inquiry unless it thought the complaints were credible.

“There is smoke if not fire,” she said.

The FTC’s investigation threatens to put Google on the same course as nemesis Microsoft, which was the target of a Justice Department lawsuit that began in the 1990s and dragged into the next decade. That case alleged that Microsoft used its dominant Windows operating system to kill competing software makers.

“It’s right out of the same playbook,” Maxman said of the FTC’s probe into Google.

Although Microsoft thwarted an attempt to break up the company, it was distracted for years, and the company has never been quite the same. The investigation may have made Microsoft more vulnerable to companies such as Google during the late 1990s as the Internet emerged as an important new platform on computers.

Now, Google faces some of the same threats as it tries to figure out how to counter the rising popularity of services such as Facebook.

In an extreme scenario, the FTC’s inquiry could be the first step in a long process that ends with Google having to spin off YouTube and some of the other pieces of the empire it has built for 13 years. Although it doesn’t have to, the FTC could hand its case off to the Justice Department, as it did in the Microsoft inquiry.

“Inevitably, if we get to the point where Google is found to have abused its power, we are going to be talking about divestiture because divestitures are always a better way to go than trying to regulate something like this,” said Gary Reback, an antitrust lawyer in Silicon Valley who is representing some of the companies complaining about Google’s practices.

Other antitrust attorneys think the investigation could result in less radical solutions, such as prohibiting Google from featuring its own services at the top of its search results. Google could also agree to periodic audits of how it programs its search engine, much as did earlier this year in a settlement of an FTC investigation into its privacy practices.

Google is expected to put up a fierce fight. The investigation is aimed at the heart of its business, its formula for ranking the quality of websites and ads, which has evolved since Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin began working on it at Stanford University. The company views the recommendations that it produces as a matter of opinion protected by the First Amendment.

“It’s still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are, but we’re clear about where we stand,” one of Google’s top search engineers, Amit Singhal, wrote Friday on the company’s blog. “Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow.”

Google has been preparing for this battle since it was almost sued by the Justice Department over a proposed Internet search partnership two and a half years ago. The Justice Department drew up a complaint alleging Google had built a monopoly in Internet search, but never filed it because Google scuttled its agreement with Yahoo to avoid going to court.

Google has been under increasing government scrutiny since then. It has prevailed in the key confrontations and won regulatory approval for several key acquisitions, including its $3.2 billion purchase of online ad service DoubleClick in 2008, last year’s $681 million purchase of mobile ad service AdMob and a $700 million purchase of airline fare tracker ITA Software in April.

To prove Google abused its dominance, regulators will have to get it to turn over sensitive documents that it has resisted sharing in the past. And Google probably won’t be shy about fighting for the right to adjust its search formula to deliver more useful results to its audience.

The company says it needs to fine-tune search results to weed out the sites that try to game its system and win a high ranking even though they have little to do with whatever a person was searching for.

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Tessler reported from Washington. AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

Oracle’s profit tops Street, but worries surface (AP)

FILE – In this March 22, 2011 file photo, the exterior of Oracle headquarters is shown in Redwood City, Calif. Oracle Corp. is scheduled to report its

SAN FRANCISCO – Oracle Corp.’s latest quarterly results Thursday underscore the critical role its software business plays, despite the company’s push to become a more well-rounded technology vendor by selling computer servers.

Oracle’s net income increased 36 percent as new sales of business software were at the high end of its expectations. Revenue rose 13 percent.

But the company’s stock fell as its hardware division stumbled. The stock rebounded somewhat after Oracle issued guidance that was in-line with analysts’ predictions.

Oracle bought fallen Silicon Valley star Sun Microsystems last year for $7.3 billion. That thrust Oracle into the computer server business.

The transformation has made CEO Larry Ellison one of the world’s richest men. It also made an enemy of longtime partner Hewlett-Packard Co.

Ellison has repeatedly said that he wants to focus Sun’s business only on higher-profit deals. As a result, he has warned, some lower-margin deals may fall off.

Now that Oracle has had Sun for a full year, the effect of Ellison’s strategy is coming into focus.

Oracle said its net income was $3.21 billion, or 62 cents per share, in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended May 31. That compares with $2.36 billion, or 46 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding stock-based compensation and one-time expenses, Oracle earned 75 cents per share, higher than the 71 cents per share that analysts polled by FactSet expected.

Revenue of $10.78 billion was slightly higher than the $10.76 billion that analysts expected.

Oracle’s software revenue rose 17 percent to $7.70 billion. Revenue from new software licenses — a key metric for predicting future revenue — came in at the high end of Oracle’s previous forecast.

Safra Catz, Oracle’s co-president, said revenue growth from new software licenses came without a boost from new acquisitions.

But revenue in its hardware division was flat at $1.83 billion. Stronger sales of hardware support contracts masked a 6 percent decline in revenue from computers sold.

Investors appeared unsettled by what they saw. Oracle’s stock fell $2.36, or 7.3 percent, to $30.40 in extended trading, after the results were reported. It recovered a few percentage points after the guidance was issued during a conference call with financial analysts.

The server market has generally been strong coming out of the Great Recession as companies invest in Internet infrastructure.

What was unclear from Oracle’s results was whether its weakness in hardware resulted from a downturn in the market or from competition. HP and IBM Corp. have relentlessly pursued the customers that Oracle got through the Sun purchase. Sun’s share of the server market has declined over the past year.

Many analysts had expressed skepticism about Oracle’s ability to make money on a company that had been losing billions of dollars for years.

Despite the downturn in hardware, Sun said its profit margin rose as the company improved operational efficiency. Catz said the results “clearly exceeded even our own high expectations for Sun’s business.”

For the current quarter, Oracle said it expects net income of 45 cents to 48 cents per share, excluding items, which is in line with expectations for 46 cents per share. Revenue should grow 10 percent to 13 percent, the company said. That translates to $8.25 billion to $8.48 billion and is in line with the $8.30 billion analysts are expecting.

Oracle said it expects revenue from new software licenses to grow 10 percent to 20 percent to $1.43 billion to $1.56 billion. The company expects revenue from hardware to fall up to 5 percent or increase up to 5 percent.

In latest attack, hackers steal Citibank card data (AP)

FILE – The Citibank logo is shown on a branch office in this April 11, 2007 file photo taken in New York. Citigroup Inc. said Thursday June 9, 2011 th

NEW YORK – About 200,000 Citibank credit card customers in North America have had their names, account numbers and email addresses stolen by hackers who broke into Citi’s online account site.

Citigroup Inc. said it discovered that account information for about 1 percent of its credit card customers had been viewed by hackers. Citi has more than 21 million credit card customers in North America, according to its 2010 annual report. The New York-based bank, which discovered the problem during routine monitoring, didn’t say exactly how many accounts were breached. Citi said it was contacting those customers.

The bank said hackers weren’t able to gain access to social security numbers, birth dates, card expiration dates or card security codes. That kind of information often leads to identity theft, where cyber criminals empty out bank accounts and apply for multiple credit cards. That can debilitate the finances and credit of victims. Citi customers could still be vulnerable other problems. Details about their bank accounts and financial information linked to them could be acquired using the email information and account numbers hackers stole.

Federal regulators have taken notice and are asking banks to improve security.

“Both banks and regulators must remain vigilant,” said Sheila Bair, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. She said federal agencies, including the FDIC, are developing new rules to push banks to enhance online account access.

The Citi data breach was the latest in a series of recent high-profile data attacks against a number of major firms.

–On June 1, Google Inc. said that the personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists, had been breached.

–On May 30, broadcaster PBS confirmed that hackers cracked the network’s website and posted a phony story claiming dead rapper Tupac Shakur was alive in New Zealand.

–On May 28, defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. said it had detected a “significant and tenacious attack” against its computer networks. The company said it took swift and deliberate actions to protect the network and the systems remain secure.

–In April, media and electronics company Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Network was shut down in April after a massive security breach that affected more than 100 million online accounts.

–Also in April, hackers penetrated a network operated by a data marketing firm Epsilon. The company handles email communications for companies like Best Buy Co. and Target Corp.

The number of data breaches in the last two months sets a “high water mark,” said John Ottman, CEO of Application Security Inc., a New York-based firm that specializes in securing databases, the big repositories companies use to organize account information and other data.

“Attackers have realized that most organizations have not properly protected databases,” Ottman said.

Cyber attackers have a variety of less-dangerous motivations, from mischief to online activism. For example, a group identifying itself as LulzSec claimed credit for the fake PBS article calling it retaliation for a documentary about WikiLeaks, the website that publishes classified documents.

But often such data breaches are an attempt to steal personal data, which is likely the case with Citi. Hackers also will pose as legitimate companies in a tactic known as “phishing,” where they try to get users to supply additional information like social security numbers and email or bank passwords to get access to their financial information.

The fact that the Citi hackers only got a few pieces of personal data on customers may limit what crooks can do with the information, said Susan Grant, director of consumer protection at Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group.

“But any ID theft is worrisome for consumers,” Grant said. She believes companies are responsible for protecting their customers’ information from internal and external abuse.

In an emailed statement, Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for Citi said the bank is contacting affected customers and enhancing procedures to prevent a similar security breach from happening again.

“For the security of these customers, we are not disclosing further details,” he said.

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Kelvin Chang reported from Hong Kong. Peter Svensson from New York, and Nyia Hawkins from Washington contributed to the report.

Skype says some users had problems signing in (AP)

FILE – In this May 10, 2011 file photo, exterior view of Skype's offices in Palo Alto, California, is shown. Internet phone service Skype said Friday

NEW YORK – The service Skype Internet telephony, says a small percentage of its 170 million users have been able to access your service, hopes to solve a problem with a software update.

Skype says on its website the problem stems from data corruption, which affects computers running Windows, Linux or Macintosh.

The company, based in Luxembourg, said it launched a new version of Skype for Windows on Thursday to address the issue. On Friday, released a Mac version of Linux users were asked to delete a file manually.

Skype says that people who use its services on mobile phones, televisions or other non-computer equipment are not affected.

Skype service that allows users to voice or video calls free or at low levels, has become a popular way for telephone costs down.

Microsoft Corp., world's largest maker of software, is buying Skype for $ 8.5 billion in a transaction expected by the end of the year. Microsoft believes Skype will increase sales of digital advertising and conferencing tools offer the most popular to help companies save money.

Skype also span services markets hot – Social networking, mobile phones and digital video – that Microsoft is struggling to catch up with Facebook, Apple and Google Inc.

Malone’s Barnes & Noble bid a bet on the Nook (AP)

FILE – In this June 8, 2010 file photo, a customer enters a Barnes & Noble in Bethel Park, Pa. Barnes & Noble Inc. on Thursday, May 19, 2011 said that

NEW YORK – Why buy a bookstore?

John Malone, who made a fortune in cable television, is offering $1 billion for Barnes & Noble — trying to jump into a business so sick that its No. 2 competitor, Borders Group Inc., is on life support.

The difference is that Malone and his Liberty Media conglomerate aren’t betting on the books-and-mortar past, analysts say, but the promise of the electronic future.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook electronic reader now accounts for 28 percent of the market for those devices. And the Nook has the potential to go beyond books to deliver all types of digital products, including music, magazines, TV shows and movies. That makes it a competitor not just to Amazon.com’s Kindle but also to Apple’s iPad.

“This deal is all about the device,” said Sherif Mityas, a partner in the retail practice of global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. “As Apple proved, you need to have the content and the device. Malone has the content, and Barnes & Noble has the device. You’re not buying the stores; you’re buying the Nook.”

Malone’s empire, Liberty Media Corp., operates three publicly traded companies — Liberty Interactive Inc., Liberty Starz Group and Liberty Capital Group — through which it runs home-shopping network QVC and movie channel Starz. It also holds stakes in numerous other online, media and communications companies. Some believe that QVC could be used as a marketing vehicle for Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

With the backing of a media conglomerate, Barnes & Noble’s digital business would be able to compete better with Amazon, Apple and others, said Gary Balter, a retail analyst at Credit Suisse.

Barnes & Noble’s 700 stores may appear to be an albatross. But they could be transformed into places that highlight mostly digital devices and content and mimic Apple’s successful stores. Barnes & Noble has already cleared space at the front of its stores to display the Nook and push e-books.

“You don’t want the old-fashioned bookstore customer who goes in and sits and reads a book for two hours. You want people going in there who are hungry for experience,” said Richard Hastings, a consumer strategist with Global Hunter Securities.

Barnes & Noble’s shares surged almost 30 percent on Friday and passed Liberty’s bid of $17 a share in cash, closing at $18.33. The companies haven’t yet signed an agreement, and the deal is still subject to closing conditions, including one that founding Chairman Leonard Riggio keep a stake in the company and remain in a management position, Barnes & Noble said.

Barnes & Noble reiterated Friday a committee of its board is evaluating the offer.

Barnes & Noble had put itself up for sale in August in response to pressure from billionaire activist shareholder Ron Burkle, but the company didn’t find much interest.

Traditional book sellers have been facing increasing competition from online retailers like Amazon.com and discounters like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. And heavy readers are quickly embracing e-books.

Right now, though, Simba Information senior trade analyst Michael Norris estimates there are still at least five print book buyers for every e-book buyer.

Still, the industry thinks e-books are the future. Amazon.com said Thursday that, after less than four years of selling electronic books, it’s now selling more of them than printed books. Stores have cut shelf space devoted to printed books by 15 percent over the past year, estimated Mike Shatzkin, CEO of Idea Logical, a book consulting company. Last year, he predicted that it would take five years for stores to cut space for printed books by 50 percent; now, he believes it will only take about three.

The shift has already rocked Borders Group, which filed for bankruptcy court protection in February. It has been closing stores and is reportedly in talks to sell more than half of those that remain.

While Barnes & Noble has done better than Borders, its quarterly results have been weighed down by large investments in its online and e-reader businesses. Barnes & Noble reported growth in its online store in the most recent quarter, and said both that and its bricks-and-mortar stores were helped by sales of its Nook e-reader.

Last month, Barnes & Noble added an app store and an e-mail program to its Nook Color e-reader. That brings the $249 device closer to working like a tablet computer like the iPad, which sells for twice as much. Barnes & Noble is expected to announce a new version of the Nook next week, though it hasn’t said what features it will include.

Clearly, there are concerns. Norris says he would like assurance from Liberty that it’s not going to look at the Nook in “a vacuum” and get rid of the stores.

“Its success has been (tied) with the physical bookstores because people are not giving up physical books,” he added.

No one know knows exactly what Malone, 70, has in mind. He has typically been a pure investor, like Warren Buffett or a private equity firm, who buys companies when they are cheap and on the brink of financial ruin.

Malone doesn’t have a history of putting together grand technological schemes, said Wedge Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen. He called Malone a “financial engineer” who demands excellent returns, keeps management in place and reaps rewards when the business returns to health.

It could be there is no grand plan with Barnes & Noble, either, besides closing unprofitable stores and otherwise improving profitability. One thing that is similar with other Malone investments is Barnes & Noble’s big share of its market, which could get bigger if Borders Group closes or sells more stores.

“Malone’s style is to very quietly, very patiently look and watch, and when things get to his threshold level, then make his move,” Pyykkonen said. “But he makes his move in a generally quiet, friendly, cooperative way, because he actually wants management to stay in there and keep running the company.”

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AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this report.