Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down for an in-depth interview during the All Things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California on Tuesday. Cook discussed where Apple's been and — more importantly — where it's going. He also slipped in some hints about the future of Siri, the doom of Ping, and a potential relationship between Apple and Facebook.

Cook started his conversation with his hosts, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, by declaring that he has never been as amazed by "all the things [he] cannot talk about" right now. "The juices are flowing and we have some incredible things coming out," he explained.

While Cook touched on a range of topics, including Apple's manufacturing plans, during the interview, my ears twitched when he mentioned good ol' Ping.

Ping — iTunes Ping, to use its proper name — is a social network of sorts that's baked into Apple's desktop media player software. The feature was not received particularly well by most users, who criticized its limited availability, the prevalence of fake celebrity accounts, the removal of Facebook integration, and initial waves of spam.

When asked about what happened to Ping, Cook explained that it seems as if the average customer is saying that it "isn’t something that [he or she wants] to put a lot of energy into."

Click to expand...

Three key EU committees have voted against the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta).

The treaty, which aims to curb piracy, was rejected by committees tasked with assessing its legality and impact on civil liberties and industry.

To date 22 member states, including the UK, have signed the treaty - but it is yet to be formally ratified.

The European Parliament will make its final decision on Acta in July.

If it passes, the agreement will then come into force across the EU. If rejected, Acta will be scrapped entirely.

While the agreement covers the counterfeiting of physical items, such as pharmaceuticals, it is the measures relating to pirated material on the internet that have caused most concern among campaigners.

The agreement suggests setting international standards over how copyright infringements are dealt with. Preventive measures include possible imprisonment and fines.

However, critics say it is a potential threat to freedom of speech online.

The latest round of voting involved the Committee on Legal Affairs (Juri), Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). All three voted to express "opinions against Acta".

Click to expand...

Microsoft has rushed out a fix for a serious bug in its Hotmail webmail services.

The bug allowed a hacker to reset the password for a Hotmail account, locking out its owner and giving the attacker access to the inbox.

The fix was put together because the bug was starting to be actively exploited online.

One security news site reported that some hackers were offering to hack Hotmail accounts for $20 (£12).

Computer security researchers discovered the vulnerability in early April and told Microsoft about it soon afterwards. The bug revolved around the way Hotmail handles the data that must pass back and forth when a user wants to reset their password.

Details of the bug leaked out and led to attackers trying to find a way round it.

Click to expand...

Today, after 1 year and 4 months of work, we are pleased to announce the release of the Xfce desktop 4.10, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.8.

In the 4.10 cycle we mainly focused on polishing the desktop and improving the user experience in various ways. Highlights of this release are:

A new application finder that has been completely rewritten and combines the functionality of the old xfce4-appfinder and xfrun4.
The panel now has an alternative vertical display mode (a deskbar). What is more, panel plugins can be arranged in multiple rows, which is particularly useful in the deskbar mode.
A new MIME type editor that allows you to easily change applications used for opening different file types. The mouse and touchpad settings dialog and the settings editor were extended in terms of functionality. The former now supports tablets in a much better way.
It is now possible to launch applications and open files on the desktop with a single click of the mouse. In addition, the 4.10 desktop can display thumbnails and automatically advance through the wallpaper list.
The window manager can be configured to tile windows when dragging them to the screen edges. The tab window (Alt+Tab) supports more flexible theming and cursor key navigation.

Click to expand...

The House ignored Obama administration objections Thursday and approved legislation aimed at helping stop electronic attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure and private companies.
On a bipartisan vote of 248-168, the GOP-controlled House backed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which would encourage companies and the federal government to share information collected on the Internet to prevent electronic attacks from cybercriminals, foreign governments and terrorists.

"This is the last bastion of things we need to do to protect this country," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said after more than five hours of debate.

More than 10 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, proponents cast the bill as an initial step to deal with an evolving threat of the Internet age. The information sharing would be voluntary to avoid imposing new regulations on businesses, an imperative for Republicans.

The legislation would allow the government to relay cyber threat information to a company to prevent attacks from Russia or China. In the private sector, corporations could alert the government and provide data that could stop an attack intended to disrupt the country's water supply or take down the banking system.

Click to expand...