Beck's Gig Finder for iPhone offers reasons to get out the house

Drinks company Anheuser-Busch InBev has introduced Beck's Gig Finder for iPhone and iPod touch.

The free application promises to keep music fans informed and for those simply in need of a night out a chance to see what's on both locally and across the UK.

Beck's Gig Finder searches the extensive Last.fm database for concerts localised in the US, UK, Germany,Italy and Romania including information on venue location and directions viaGoogle Maps.

Beck’s Gig Finder features automaticlocation detection, allowing music fans to manually search for upcoming gigs in any city listed. Theapplication also auto-saves the last 20 location searches and allows the user to share theinformation with friends via email.

Users can tag gigs as ‘Favourites,’ automatically saving information about the event and enabling push notification about the gig - automatically sending a reminder notificationabout the upcoming show a day before gig.

Beck’s Gig Finder also enables music fans to browse their favouriteartist’s of choice information pages as well as tune-in to their YouTube videos.

Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, Beck’s Gig Finder is free and requires the iPhone 3.0 Software Update or later.

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Apple's Magic Mouse spotted in stores

Thanks to Macworld reader Lee who spotted Apple's new Magic Mouse in the flagship Regent Street Apple Store and White City branch.

The 55 mouse, also included with all new iMacs, have only been available to pre-order or are 'temporarily out of stock' on many online stores including Amazon's UK store.

Apple's own website currently lists the Magic Mouse as 'Ships: 5-7 business days' online.

The Magic Mouse features a Multi-Touch surface with gesture support, the same technology first introduced with the iPhone.

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Twitter warns of fake messages, websites in new phishing attack

Twitter has warned users of a new phishing scam on the social networking site.

It's the latest in a series of scams that have plagued the site over the past year, designed to trick victims into giving up their user names and passwords.

"We've seen a few phishing attempts today, if you've received a strange DM and it takes you to a Twitter login page, don't do it!," Twitter wrote on its Spam message page.

The message reads, "hi. this you on here?" and includes a link to a fake Web site designed to look like a Twitter log-in page. After entering a user name and password, victims enter an empty blogspot page belonging to someone named NetMeg99.

The fake Web site is designed to look like a Twitter log-in page.

Neither of these pages appears to include any type of attack code, but both should be considered untrustworthy, according to Sophos Technology Consultant Graham Cluley. "It seems like this was a straightforward phishing campaign, rather than an attempt - at this stage at least - to spread virally," he said via email.

Victims get these direct messages only from people they follow on Twitter, so they seem more believable than other types of spam. Once a user has been phished by the attack, the criminals are then able to direct message all of the victim's contacts with the phishing spam.

"These sort of things have been happening for over a year on Twitter," Cluley said in an interview.

Hacked Twitter accounts are a great launching pad for more attacks, Cluley said. "We don't know precisely what they're going to do in this case, but often they will send spam messages to advertise a particular site."

Because about a third of users have the same passwords for all of their online activity, criminals can also use the same log-in information to try to get into other Web services such as Gmail or Yahoo, Cluley said.

"If you've fallen for one of these traps, don't just change your Twitter password; change your password on every Web site you use," Cluley siad. "Use non-dictionary words and use something that's hard to guess."

The Twitter attack comes as Facebook users are also under siege. Security researchers say that a spam botnet is has sent out hundreds of thousands of fake password reset messages.

When victims try to open an attachment that supposedly contains their new password, they end up running a Trojan horse program, called Bredolab, that then installs unwanted software on their PCs.

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OOiZiT.com offers music platform for new bands, artists

A new music website aims to help unsigned musicians achieve success without the need for a traditional record contract.

OOiZiT.com, pronounced ooo-is-it.com, is the brainchild of founder Thomas Fearn. 1,000 bands have already joined the site.

"For years new artists have made the UK a power house for music but, until now, they’ve not had the dedicated platform to push their creativity and talent. We are going to change that," insists Fearn.

"Unlike other social networks, OOiZiT.com is completely focussed on new music. OOiZiT.com isn’t simply for career hungry music artists, it provides new music lovers with a huge source of new music and helps highlight some of the most exciting acts in the UK."

For 9.97 per month the site promises unprecedented promotional and sales tools and services specifically geared towards UK music talent says OOiZiT.com.

The site also allows listeners to earn money through the site too by offering bands the opportunity to give the listeners the chance to sell their tracks on their behalf – for each sale made the music listener receives a cut of the profits.

The site includes Facebook and MySpace integration to further promote your music.

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Gadget blog Gizmodo hit by malware ad

US gadget blog Gizmodo apologised to readers on Tuesday after failing to spot an ad was in fact malware.

Gizmodo said the malware was on its site "for a little while last week," without specifying details.

"Guys, I'm really sorry but we had some malware running on our site in ad boxes for a little while last week on Suzuki ads," Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam said.

"They somehow fooled our ad sales team through an elaborate scam. It's taken care of now, and only a few people should have been affected, but this isn't something we take lightly as writers, editors and tech geeks."

"Everything should be cleared up but you should be checking 'qegasysguard.exe' if you're experiencing random popups," Lam added. "Be careful, load up some antivirus and make sure your system is clean. I'm sorry."

The problem wasn't spotted for sometime due to the fact Gizmodo is put together on Mac and Linux computers. "We would have noticed sooner except everyone on staff is on OS X or Linux for production machines," Lam admitted.

Malware and fake virus adverts or scareware appear to be on the rise with the New York Times and Daily Mail both being recent victims.

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Apple Tablet: Did The New York Times spill the beans?

The New York Times' Executive Editor, Bill Keller may have inadvertently confirmed the existence of the oft-rumoured Apple Tablet in a private speech earlier this month. Keller may have also let slip the name of the new device: Apple Slate. Then again, he may have been speaking hypothetically based on the common assumption that Apple is about to release a tablet device in the next few months.

Here's what happened: The Keller Speech

On October 15 or 16, Keller gave a speech during an "all hands" meeting for the Times' digital staff at TheTimesCenter in New York, according to a post by Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab.

During the speech, Keller made a reference to the Times' strategy for mobile devices. "We need to figure out the right journalistic product to deliver to mobile platforms and devices," Keller said. "I'm hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that."

The entire meeting was supposed to be off the record, but a video of the speech was made available to Nieman, which it posted on Vimeo on October 19. Nieman's interest in the video had nothing to do with Keller's possible hint at the device.

Instead, Nieman was interested in the Times' thinking about the future of the newspaper industry. So it took a few days before technology pundits discovered the tablet reference, which was first uncovered by Gawker late on Sunday.

Apple slate or Apple Slate?

So did Keller let information about the Apple tablet slip or was he simply making a reference to a product that many believe to be in Apple's pipeline? Earlier this month, The Times was rumoured to be working with Apple on the rumoured tablet as a part of the device's pumped-up e-reading capabilities.

If the e-reader rumour is true, then Keller would almost certainly know about the device, and it's likely he would be constrained on what he could say about the tablet by some sort of secrecy pact between the Times and Apple.

Assuming Keller agreed to keep his mouth shut, why would he have spoken so freely about an Apple slate/Slate to his staff? Maybe he thought it was acceptable since he believed he was speaking off-the-record, maybe the entire digital staff at the Times has been developing content for Apple's device for months, or maybe Keller doesn't know a thing at all. It should be pointed out that "slate" is a less common, but by no means unused, term for Apple's rumoured tablet device.

Regardless of whether he knows anything or not, Keller's comments are a tantalising tidbit of information while we wait to see if Apple really will show off a tablet device in the near future. What do you think? Did Keller inadvertently confirm the Apple tablet or is he in the dark about Cupertino's plans just like everyone else?

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Leona Lewis LIVE webchat with iTunes TODAY at 4.30 pm GMT

Apple has sent out a press release today to announce Leona Lewis appearing online this afternoon.

"Today at 4.30pm on the iTunes (UK) Facebook page, iTunes will be hosting a LIVE web chat with Leona Lewis. The web chat will last 30 mins and fans will be able to put questions to the X Factor star."

Information can be found on the Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/iTunesUK.

Lewis rose to fame in 2006 as the winner of the third series of The X Factor.

Echo, the upcoming second studio album by Lewis is scheduled for release on 16 November in the UK and a day later in the US.

Lewis worked with Ryan Tedder, Justin Timberlake, Max Martin, John Shanks, and Harvey Mason, Jr. amongst others to produce the follow-up to her debut album Spirit. The album was preceded by the hit single "Happy", released on 15 September.

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