Behind Your Business

In yet another example of online attacks as commentary, a hacker group has broken into the PBS site. The attack, claimed by the anonymous group LulzSec, is reportedly due to unhappiness with a documentary about WikiLeaks aired by the PBS series Frontline.

As part of its retaliation, LulzSec posted a fake story on the PBS Newshour web site Sunday night, purporting to report that the late rapper Tupac Shakur, who died in a shooting in Las Vegas in 1996, had emerged alive in New Zealand. On occasion, there have been rumors about Shakur having survived the shooting. The fake story on the Newshour site spread quickly as word about Shakur's alleged reemergence entered the social sphere on Twitter and Facebook, although the Newshour disowned it with its own tweets and posting on Facebook, and the fake story was promptly pulled down.

'All Your Base'

According to the fake story, Shakur was living in a small, unnamed town in New Zealand along with rapper Biggie Smalls, who also died in a shooting in the 1990s. In addition to the fake story, LulzSec planted a calling card that read "All your base are belong to LulzSec," a reference to a famous phrase from a bad translation of a Japanese video game.

The documentary in question, WikiSecrets, ran on PBS on May 24. It profiled Bradley Manning, an Army soldier charged with giving classified information to WikiLeaks, and included an interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who criticized the program post-interview and before airing. Critics of the program said it focused on Manning's emotional problems without a comparable focus on the harsh treatment Manning has endured during the year he's been in custody.

LulzSec also tweeted links to internal IP addresses and names of servers at PBS, information about one of the network's databases, and usernames...

It's a tablet computer. It's a phone. No, it's both. It's an ASUS Padfone.

ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih unveiled the Padfone, along with several other innovations, at Computex 2011. The Padfone is supposed to reveal the possibilities of mobile computing and communication with a convergent device that combines two popular form factors. The Padfone allows consumers to choose the screen size that best fits their activities while empowering data sharing on 3G networks.

Despite all the hoopla about the convergent device, though, some analysts are skeptical. Avi Greengart of Current Analysis is one of them. As he sees it, convergent devices always look good on paper, but are rarely as functional as engineers expect them to be.

Half-Baked?

"People try these half devices over and over again. You look at the design on paper and you say, 'What is one of these tablet phones but just a really large phone? If I already have the phone, why not just supplement that with a bigger battery and a screen and I should be home free?'" Greengart said. "The problem is consumers don't buy products that way. They buy the best phone for their needs, and if they need a tablet, they buy the best tablet for their needs."

Greengart is boldly declaring that the ASUS Padfone isn't likely to be the best smartphone or tablet. Although he concedes it may be a nice phone for many, he questioned how well it can compete against the latest Samsung, Apple, LG or HTC smartphone. From his perspective, the Padfone looks like a fairly generic phone without any specific styling cues or technical features that make it outstanding. He isn't too impressed with the tablet, either.

"The pad part of the device is completely nonfunctional if you don't have the phone docked inside it. So if you are buying...

An international panel of experts says cellphones are possibly carcinogenic to humans after reviewing details from dozens of published studies.

The statement was issued in Lyon, France, on Tuesday by the International Agency for Research on Cancer after a weeklong meeting of experts. They reviewed possible links between cancer and the type of electromagnetic radiation found in cellphones, microwaves and radar.

The agency is the cancer arm of the World Health Organization and the assessment now goes to WHO and national health agencies for possible guidance on cellphone use.

The group classified cellphones in category 2B, meaning they are possibly carcinogenic to humans. Other substances in that category include the pesticide DDT and gasoline engine exhaust.

Last year, results of a large study found no clear link between cellphones and cancer. But some advocacy groups contend the study raised serious concerns because it showed a hint of a possible connection between very heavy phone use and glioma, a rare but often deadly form of brain tumor. However, the numbers in that subgroup weren't sufficient to make the case.

The study was controversial because it began with people who already had cancer and asked them to recall how often they used their cellphones more than a decade ago.

In about 30 other studies done in Europe, New Zealand and the U.S., patients with brain tumors have not reported using their cellphones more often than unaffected people.

Because cellphones are so popular, it may be impossible for experts to compare cellphone users who develop brain tumors with people who don't use the devices. According to a survey last year, the number of cellphone subscribers worldwide has hit 5 billion, or nearly three-quarters of the global population.

People's cellphone habits have also changed dramatically since the first studies began years ago and it's unclear if the results of previous research would...

AP - A look at economic developments and activity in major stock markets around the world Tuesday:

Lockheed Martin and PBS this weekend joined Sony, Epsilon Data Management and Hyundai Capital among the growing list of companies hit by cyber attacks in recent months. The attack on PBS was done in retaliation for the network's documentary on Wikileaks, The WSJ reports. The group who claimed responsibility, LulzSec, placed a fake article about [...]