leak

We're signed! That's right, Tim Geisenheimer is now our agent, so we trust he'll have our and not CBS' best interests at heart. With that in mind, we're asking Tim to get New York City's first chief digital officer, Rachel Sterne.

Boy, did New York City luck out. Sterne, a 27-year-old Columbia University adjunct professor, now leads the efforts to bring Gotham City into the 21st century. Sterne will focus on how city government uses digital technology to better communicate with citizens. We're thinking she's going to be tweeting and Facebooking all day long. She'll also handle the city's Wi-Fi password, so DM her when you visit and you need Internet.

In more tech news, word has leaked that Sony will be releasing details of the next-generation PSP2 this Thursday. Rumors thus far point to a touch OLED screen and 3G connectivity. All this makes us wonder how different the PSP2 will be from the plethora of smartphones out there.

In more video game news, Duke Nukem Forever, the video game that has been in development since our grandparents were growing up, finally has a release date and trailer. Gearbox, the game's developer, says the game will be released on May 3 in the U.S. and May 6 worldwide. Personally, we think the trailer has a few laughs but disappoints when it comes to graphics.

Finally, we've got some media news. Angry Birds will reportedly get an animated series, according to its CEO. WikiLeaks and Google are also reported getting movies after the success of "The Social Network"! Julian Assange seems like a character, but I don't know if Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be all that entertaining to watch in the basement of their garages.

If you've got a free moment, leave us a voice mail at 1.866.404.CNET (2638). Apparently, Wilson G. Tang and Jeff Bakalar did a pretty good job, along with Scott Stein and Dan Ackerman, hosting Friday's Buzz Out Loud. We know... shocking.

There have been rumors of two Sony Cyber-shot models, the HX9V and HX100V, to be announced in February, but so far there has been no concrete proof. Until now.

Photo equipment retailer B&H leaked on its online store these two point-and-shoots, complete with specifications and pictures of one shooter.

The Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V, according to the Web site, employs a 16-megapixel Exmor R CMOS image sensor, a 16x optical zoom lens that extends from 24mm to 384mm, a 3-inch LCD, full-HD video recording, 3D Sweep Panorama, and optical image stabilizer. The top view of the snapper indicates that this camera will have manual exposure control and stereo audio capture. It has a pop-up flash, too.

There weren't any pictures of the HX100V, though its specifications were clearly listed on B&H's site (as we expected, B&H has removed the listings). It also has a 16-megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor, and the zoom range is 30x (27mm to 810mm). The remaining features, such as LCD size and video capture, are similar to the HX9V. … Read more

A British court today set an extradition hearing for February 7 and 8 for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks editor whom Swedish authorities have accused of rape.

District Judge Nicholas Evans set the date in a brief hearing today in London, using a large courtroom to accommodate more of the people interested in the high-profile case. In addition, the judge modified the terms of Assange's bail to permit him to stay in London during the hearing, according to CNET News sister site ZDNet UK.

Assange denies the Swedish accusations. According to a British police statement released when Assange was arrested … Read more

The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others, according to a report.

During a December 16 raid, agents seized a server at Tailor Made Services, a Dallas-based co-location, or server-hosting, facility, and copied two of its hard drives, according to The Smoking Gun Web site, which said it has obtained the FBI affidavit in support of a search warrant for the seizure.

It's not clear what was found on the drives, The Smoking Gun reported, saying that … Read more

Faced with mounting legal bills, Julian Assange has agreed to a $1.5 million deal to write his autobiography.

"I don't want to write this book, but I have to," the controversial WikiLeaks founder told Britain's Sunday Times yesterday. "I have already spent 200,000 pounds ($307,400) for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

Assange told the Times that he would receive $796,654 from Alfred A Knopf, his U.S. publisher. A deal with British publisher Canongate would bring in around 325,000 pounds ($501,… Read more

The Federal Communications Commission officially adopted Net neutrality rules this week, but the agency's authority to enforce the controversial rules may still be in question.

With the support of Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, as well as the two other Democratic commissioners, the agency passed the rules in a 3-to-2 vote. The new Net neutrality rules essentially create two classes of service subject to different rules: one that applies to fixed broadband networks and one for wireless networks. The FCC says this is necessary because wireless networks are technologically different from fixed broadband networks.

The first rule requires both … Read more

Hackers are increasingly hitting the Web sites of human rights and independent media groups in an attempt to silence them, says a new study released this week by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Based on a survey of 45 groups, the report "Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Against Independent Media and Human Rights Sites" found that a large percentage said they've been targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks from those who disagree with their viewpoints. The Web sites typically have been knocked offline for short periods of time but in some cases have … Read more

Apple has removed a WikiLeaks app from its App Store just a few short days after its release.

Launched on December 17, the $1.99 WikiLeaks App offered access to the whistleblower site and the @wikileaks Twitter stream and was described as providing "'instant access to the world's most documented leakage of top secret memos and other confidential government documents," according to a Google cached version of the site provided by TechCrunch. The app was created by a third-party development firm called Hint Solutions, which lists Igor Barinov as its general manager.

But as of late last … Read more

There are clearly far more similarities between WikiLeaks and Facebook than might first assail the average retina.

Indeed, when Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the two organizations, during his acceptance interview for Time magazine's Person of the Year, he replied: "Well, at a very high level some of the themes could be connected. I mean we mostly make so you can understand what's going on with the people around you because we think that that helps you connect with them more broadly."

So how could "Saturday Night Live" not examine the contrast … Read more