[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

UC Berkeley Identities Stolen:

Somebody strolled into UC Berkeley and stole a laptop containing the personal info of 100,000 university alumni. This is the second time in 6 months that UC Berkeley has let a ton of personal info get stolen. Last time it was personal info of over a half a million people. Oops.

UC Berkeley plans to advise the 98,369 people affected by the laptop theft to check their credit reports, although there has been no indication any of he personal information has been used illegally, university spokeswoman Maria Felde said.

TiVo Pop-Up Ads?

Say it ain’t so. TiVo is testing the pop-up ad waters with a feature that will pop up an ad when you fast forward through commercials. Now there is a brilliant idea, pop up a window with an offer to watch another commercial, while I am fast forwarding through the first commercial.

The company confirmed late Monday that it released the first in a series of advertising features to a random and limited number of subscribers to the digital-video recorder service. The first test feature--a tag--pops up on the screen when a viewer is fast-forwarding through an advertisement.