Digital Photo Frames Shipped With Virus

A frightening new computer virus is making the rounds, and it's coming in through an unlikely source: Those cute, innocuous, and unavoidable digital picture frames.

SFGate has the story of a nasty piece of malware that has been riding along with Insignia brand photo frames, which were largely sold in Best Buy and Sam's Club stores (and possibly other outlets) over the holidays.

Click here for the full blog from Yahoo!

DVD Format War Ends

The biggest consumer-electronics format war in a generation is officially over.

Toshiba threw in the towel on its HD DVD technology Tuesday, announcing that it would no longer develop, produce or market disc players for the format.

In doing so, the Japanese electronics giant ceded victory to Sony's rival Blu-ray format, which looks set to become the global standard for high-definition DVDs.

In a pitched two-year battle, Sony and Toshiba tried to woo Hollywood studios to release movies in their formats and to persuade makers of computers and game consoles to use their disc drives.

The struggle was reminiscent of the 1980s battle between the VHS format of Matsushita and the Betamax format of Sony to become the standard for videotape

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USDA Orders Recall of Beef

A slaughterhouse that has been accused of mistreating cows agreed Sunday to recall 143 million pounds of beef in what federal officials called the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

Keith Williams, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman, said investigators have found no cases of illness related to the recalled meat.

But Dick Raymond, the undersecretary of agriculture for food safety, said there was a "remote probability" that the meat from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino, California, could cause illness in humans.

The amount of beef, about 143 million pounds, is roughly enough for two hamburgers for each man, woman and child in the United States.

The largest U.S. meat recall before Sunday came in 1999, when about 35 million pounds of product possibly contaminated with listeria were ordered off shelves. USDA officials said that was Class I recall, involving a known risk to human health.

Sunday's action was a Class II recall, under which authorities say there is little risk of illness.

Raymond said cattle that had lost the ability to walk since passing pre-processing inspections were slaughtered without an inspector having examined them for chronic illness -- a practice he said violated federal regulations and had been going on for at least two years.

Federal regulations are aimed at preventing the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE -- the scientific name for "mad cow" disease.

It's important to keep downed cattle out of the food supply because they also may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli or salmonella because the animals tend to wallow in feces and have weaker immune systems, according to AP.

Raymond said the average age of the cattle involved is 5-7 years, meaning they were likely born long after a 1997 ban on ruminant feed, and that the incidence of BSE in U.S. cattle is "extremely rare."

"We do not know how much of this product is out there at this time. We do not feel this product presents a health risk of any significance," he said. "But the product was produced in non-compliance with our regulations, so therefore we do have to take this action."

About 37 million pounds of the meat went to school lunch programs and other federal nutrition programs since October 2006, said Ron Vogel, of the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service.

Gas Prices Dropping?

Hmpf! I doubt it, but remember this article when you hear the next line of garbage about how spring is the time when refineries switch blends, shut down for maintenance, blah, blah, blah. From the article on the Reuters website:

U.S. drivers could enjoy a drop of up to 50 cents per gallon in gasoline prices by this spring as high fuel prices and the threat of a recession force them to conserve, experts said on Wednesday.

U.S. gasoline supplies hit a near-14-year high of 227.5 million barrels last week, helped by falling demand for the fuel, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

"Gasoline stocks are continuing to increase and it implies that people are probably cutting down on gasoline consumption -- a result of the weakening economy," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago.

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