Go Tech News: 2007

As big as life

WASHINGTON -- In a whale-sized project, the world's scientists plan to compile everything they know about all of Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on one Web site, open to everyone. ...ClickHere

Final Fantasy IV officially DS-bound

Tokita, Asano, Ito and the rest of the FFIII DS development team are back for another 3D remake. By Hirohiko Niizumi, GameSpot. TOKYO--Square Enix is reviving yet another classic Final Fantasy title on the Nintendo DS. ...ClickHere

Creating a canon for science

In Grade 11 chemistry class, I sat beside a certain Greg Gibson, quarterback on our high school football team, who had recently arrived from Georgia and walked in a way - languidly, I suppose - that Canadian boys did not. ...ClickHere

TSA Hard Drive Missing

The airport security agency acknowledges it can't find an external drive storing personnel records. The US agency responsible for securing the nation's airports says it can't find an external hard drive packed with the personal records of about 100000 ...ClickHere

Monster supernova puts on a show

A massive star about 150 times the size of the Sun has exploded in what is the brightest supernova ever seen. The extraordinary discovery, announced yesterday by NASA, prompted astronomers to suggest a similar fate could be imminent for a ...ClickHere

Website to catalogue 1.8m species

SCIENTISTS from around the world plan to collaborate on a free website aimed at providing information on all 1.8 million known species of animals, plants, and other living creatures on the planet. ...ClickHere

Queen evokes gravity at NASA

GREENBELT // Even in a breakaway ex-colony, the queen of England drew thousands to the barricades to gawk and cheer and wave the Union Jack ...ClickHere

Sun Finishes Freeing Java, Debuts JavaFX

"We are now, with regard to the open sourcing of Java, done," Sun Microsystems software head Rich Green proclaimed is his opening keynote at JavaOne, the annual Java developers' conference running this week in San Francisco. ...ClickHere

Disable Fly-out

The founders of Kazaa and Skype believe their new product, Joost, can be just as revolutionary for the TV industry. By Steven Levy. ...ClickHere

Recalling Wally Schirra, Tommy Newsom and Tom Poston

Walter Schirra as a Mercury 7 astronaut, in a pressure suit with a model of Mercury capsule behind him. NASA photo (AP Photo ). Walter "Wally" Schirra Jr. ...ClickHere

Yahoo To Shutter Yahoo Photos

The site will phase out this fall in favor of Yahoo's Flickr photo sharing service or to another online photo service such as Photobucket. ...ClickHere

Premier League sues YouTube

The organisation said the video-sharing website had "knowingly misappropriated" its intellectual property by encouraging footage to be viewed on its site. ...ClickHere

Research In Motion (RIM) has announced its newest 'BlackBerry Curve,' calling it the smallest and lightest full QWERTY BlackBerry smart phone yet. ...ClickHere

After being sent to the planet Mercury, radio waves bounced off its surface and then traveled back to two ground-based telescopes, one in California, and another in West Virginia. ...ClickHere

IBM is taking a cue from nature to build the next generation computer chips. IBM borrowed the natural pattern-creating process that forms seashells, snowflakes and tooth enamel to help create next-generation chips.
...ClickHere

n the new shooter game "Fracture," melting of the polar ice caps has caused the Mississippi River to flood, wiping out the middle of the United States, leaving two battling groups. ...ClickHere

Snowflakes, seashells and IBM's next generation of chips

IBM is using lessons learned from naturally-forming patterns that create seashells, snowflakes and tooth enamel to build its next family of computer chips. ...ClickHere

RIM, Nokia Unveil High-End, Low-End Phones

Research In Motion is taking its second stab at the high-end consumer market with the new BlackBerry Curve, even while Nokia unveils some of the least expensive handsets in its line-up. ...ClickHere

Digg.com: Site Is 'Aligned With the Users'

Company stopped removing AACS code blog posts because it sides with users on copyright issues, says CEO Jay Adelson. Digg.com, the popular site where users determine the placement of new stories by voting, Wednesday found itself in the center of what ..ClickHere

By REUTERS. Joost, the online video network, has landed programming deals with Turner Broadcasting System, Sony Pictures Television and Hasbro as it prepares to introduce its service to the public this month. ...ClickHere

Ending months of speculation regarding which Linux distribution Dell should or would go with, the company along with Ubuntu commercial sponsor, Canonical, yesterday announced that it will preinstall Ubuntu Linux on some of its machines. ...ClickHere

Viacom suit attacks net freedom, says Google

In response to media firm Viacom’s US$1.1bn suit against YouTube, the video sharing site’s parent company Google described it as an attack on internet freedom and contravenes the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. ...ClickHere

Finding certain public information on state sites have always been a problem to the common public. ...ClickHere

Google agrees with Viacom on two points: Google spent $1.65 billion to buy YouTube last year and YouTube is popular. ...ClickHere

After reporting the massive success with Wii- which sold more than 5.84 units in less than 6 months- Nintendo announced that more than 1 million copies of Pokemon for DS have been sold in the US in less than a week.

With operating profits of more than 226 billion yen and 150% increase in profits compared to the same period last year Nintendo is now enjoying the new status of David (vs. Goliaths like Microsoft and Sony, who have both recently reported massive losses at their gaming departments).

With a market capitalization of more than $42.74 billion, Nintendo is not very far from its home ground rival Sony, which is estimated at $53.55 billion, but has business in a lot more domains. ...ClickHere

Sony's new video games chief might best be described as the anti-Kutaragi. On Apr. 27, the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant tapped Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai to take over Sony Computer Entertainment after founder Ken Kutaragi says his ...ClickHere

By Nick Farrell: Monday 30 April 2007, 08:13. A MAKER of pastel entertainment gear dubbed Apple has admitted that some of the batteries which are under the bonnet of its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook have a few "performance problems". ...ClickHere

By Peter Trute. A FORMER pilot has blasted the ashes of his wife into space alongside those of famous Star Trek actor James "Scotty" Doohan. ...ClickHere

Microsoft to tout plan on Web challenge

Last week, Microsoft released gilded third-quarter results largely on the strength of Windows Vista and Office 2007. ...ClickHere

May 7, 2007 issue - Finding 227 planets beyond our solar system was fun, but astronomers were getting a little edgy that all these orbs were duds, biologically speaking. ...ClickHere

By STEVE TILLEY. I have an embarrassing statistic to confess, and for once it's not related to anything sexual: I have spent 133 hours playing a single video game. ...ClickHere

Hawking achieves no-gravity dream

Free fall: Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking floats during a 90-minute adventure aboard a converted airliner nicknamed "the Vomit Comet". ...ClickHere

Spaceport launch a success

By Jose L. Medina Sun-News reporter. Saturday's rocket launch at Spaceport America appears 10 times closer for Richard Braastad, 45, of Houston as he watches the liftoff through a pair of binoculars. ...Click Here

Unspam Technologies, a company that consults with government agencies and private companies, and with users in 100 countries, filed suit today seeking the identity of those who have harvested millions of emails on behalf of spammers, The Washington ...ClickHere

By Stephen Withers. Adobe has announced plans to move Flex into the open source world by the end of 2007. Flex is Adobe's framework for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs). ...ClickHere

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | April 27, 2007. CAMBRIDGE -- With its cute bunny ears, its whimsical pull-string charger, and its big plastic handle, the lime-green XO laptop doesn't look like a technology that will change education and computing ...ClickHere

By Walaika Haskins. Sony has given its PlayStation 3 platform eyes and ears with the PlayStation Eye, a combination microphone and camera that plugs into the PS3 and gives users another way to communicate during online gaming. ...ClickHere

The United States Senate overwhelmingly passed the America Competes Act Wednesday. This act is designed to boost funding significantly for educational efforts in math, science, and technology. ...ClickHere

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, surrounded by doctors and nurses, floats in zero gravity in a jet with padded walls. The 65-year-old scientist, whose Lou Gehrig's disease has confined him to a wheelchair for 40 years, described weightlessness as ...ClickHere

Microsoft released the first public test version (Beta 3) of the next Windows Server last night and reiterated that it plans to release a final version of the operating system in the second half of this year. ...ClickHere

By Adam Turner. Steve Jobs will soon launch an iTunes music scription service, targeted at the Apple TV, regardless of whatever he says publicly. ...ClickHere

10000 Mac hack affects Windows too

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service. The bug that helped security researcher Dino Dai Zovi claim a $10000 prize at last week’s CanSecWest security conference affects Windows systems too. ...ClickHere

Mineral with Kryptonite's Composition Found: 'Jadarite'

by Iuliu Blaga. A mineral with the same composition as that mentioned for Superman's kryptonite has been found in a Serbian mine close to Jadar. ...ClickHere

Researchers May Have Found Earth's Twin

By Markus Becker. Astronomers may have found their holy grail. A team working out of Geneva say they have discovered a planet which may be capable of supporting life. ...ClickHere

Format accounts for 70% of HD-movie sales in Q1.

by Gerry Block. April 24, 2007 - Last week the North American HD-DVD Promotional Group released a moderately snarky press release celebrating the format's victory in reaching sales of 100000 dedicated units before Blu-ray (story). ...ClickHere

BlackBerry Inside Windows Mobile

Until a couple of weeks ago, I was a BlackBerry user--then I switched to a Palm Treo 750 running Windows Mobile. Both devices have their advantages--and now it looks like we may get the best of both worlds. ...ClickHere

Kryptonite Discovered; Adamantium Remains Elusive

The collective laughter of Lex Luthor, Brainiac and a host of other DC Comics villains was heard reverberating throughout Metropolis this morning, according to the Daily Planet. ...ClickHere

Yahoo's Better (But Imperfect) Lyrics Database

Most online databases of music lyrics are illegal--they reproduce copyrighted without payment. Worth than that, they're bad. Oftentimes, when I look up a song--usually by plugging a snippet of it into Google--I'm led to sloppy transcriptions that are ...ClickHere

Life possible on new planet

By John Johnson Jr. European astronomers announced Tuesday that they have discovered the first planet beyond our solar system that orbits in a "sweet spot" zone where life could exist. ...Click Here

Man gets 5000 calls for YouTube posting

AP. SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass. -- Ryan Fitzgerald is unemployed, lives with his father and has a little bit of time on his hands. So, he decided to offer his ear, to anyone who wants to call. ...ClickHere

Blu-ray besting its high-def DVD rival

As format war heats up, Blu-ray accounted for nearly three out of four high-definition discs sold in March, according to sales figures. ...ClickHere

Time Warner Broadband Deal to Allow Users to Share Access

By AP. In a victory for a small Wi-Fi start-up called Fon, Time Warner will let its home broadband customers turn their connections into public wireless access spots, a practice shunned by most Internet service providers in the United States. ...ClickHere

NASA astronomers create first 3-D images of Sun

NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. ...ClickHere

BlackBerry maker widens the net

By David Litterick in New York. Less than a week after its credibility was damaged by a 12-hour blackout, Research in Motion is attempting to increase its dominance by making features of its popular BlackBerry wireless email device available to ...ClickHere

Sub-$300 HD Movie Players En Route From Wal-Mart

High-def movies will soon reach the mass market thanks to Wally's World

Reports came in late last week of Wal-Mart planning to stock inexpensive high-definition disc movie players for under $300. The retailer reportedly is ordering 2 million players produced by Great Wall Corporation in China, with parts developed by Taiwan’s Fuh Yuan and Japan’s TDK, in a $100 million deal.

Although the news was initially pegged as a huge boost to the HD DVD camp, closer examination and more accurate translation of Chinese reports indicate that the players for Wal-Mart are “Blu-ray (or blue light) HD DVD” players, adding an extra layer of confusion to the matter. Both next-generation optical formats use blue or violet lasers, so unless the player is to be compatible with both HD DVD and Blu-ray, the exact nature of this low-priced will be unknown until we get official English confirmation. ... Click Here

Govt Public Database Exposed SS Numbers of 63,000 People

An Illinois farmer discovered, by accident, that her name along with her Social Security number was displayed in plain view on a U.S. government website, FedSpending.org. She was only one of the about 63,000 people whose personal information was publicly displayed in connection with financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The 63,000 people were awarded funds through the Farm Service Agency (FSA) or USDA Rural Development (RD).

"I was bored, and typed the name of my farm into Google to see what was out there," said Marsha Bergmeier, president of Mohr Family Farms in Fairmount, Ill. ...Click Here

Three Minutes With: Second Life Exec

From voice to virtual real estate, Linden Lab's Joe Miller ponders the nuances of livin' La Vida virtual. Second Life developer Linden Lab is hard at work enhancing the voice capabilities, search features and navigation interface of its creation. ...Click Here

Ethanol use may pose health threat

While ethanol is promoted as an eco-friendly, clean-burning fuel for cars, its widespread use could pose a threat to human health, according to a Stanford University study. ...ClickHere

Nintendo, Sony Rattle Games Industry

The only game system that might give you tennis elbow turns out to also be the one ruling the next-gen roost according to NPD's March sales numbers, which show Nintendo's Wii outselling its peers (Xbox 360, Playstation 3) by a healthy 60k-129k margin. ... ClickHere

US Billionaire Space Tourist Returns

By MARIA DANILOVA 04.21.07, 3:39 PM ET. Charles Simonyi, a 58-year-old native of Hungary who helped design Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Word and Excel, smiled and chatted with rescuers who helped him gingerly out of the Soyuz capsule and ... Click Here

Space tourist returns to Earth

MISSION CONTROL MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. space tourist Charles Simonyi returned safely to Earth on Saturday, touching down with a Russian-U.S. crew in the steppe of Central Asia after paying for a two-week round trip into space.

The Russian-made Soyuz capsule undocked from the International Space Station, re-entered Earth's atmosphere and landed just over three hours later in Kazakhstan at 1231 GMT.

Controllers who supervised the landing from Mission Control outside Moscow clapped along with the space travelers' relatives as they saw the announcement "It has landed!" appear in red capital letters on a giant screen.

ive television pictures from the landing site 133 km (81 miles) north-east of the Kazakh city of Jezkazgan showed recovery teams and doctors rushing to the capsule.

Ground crews first pulled out Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin who looked tired and kept his eyes closed. They then pulled out Simonyi who smiled while doctors wiped his face.

"I feel terrific, it was a fantastic trip, it is good to be back," Simonyi said before biting into an apple as he sat in a special reclining chair.

The world's fifth space tourist paid around $25 million for a fortnight in space and pre-flight training. He had been at the $100-billion space station, in orbit 350 km (217 miles) above Earth, since April 9.

News Corp's MySpace has launched a promising news aggregator in beta phase. Their engine tries to combine the Google News system, which crawls the websites of its sources and indexes, classifies and displays them organized in clusters and ranked by importance and the Digg-like system, where users determine the importance of a particular news story.

However, a quick exploration of their website, news.myspace.com, reveals that MySpace's solution is so far much weaker than either Google News or Digg.

It's quite important to note that both the Google and Digg approaches have their own specific disadvantages to start with. Google News, which is the better of the two, uses a complicated algorithm to rank news on the same subject according to their relevance. This algorithm is very effective most times, efficiently sorting through thousands of news in almost real time, entirely automatically.

The algorithm also seems to keep out certain news which are classified as inappropriate. This is very useful, for example, if a source website gets hacked or an editor goes bananas. But the filtering also catches legitimate news, especially if they're on a controversial subject which contains keywords inappropriate in other contexts.

On the other hand, Digg-systems let users select news displayed as headlines by voting either positively or negatively or only positively. This has many advantages, which are obvious, but also the very upsetting disadvantage that the timing of a particular story greatly influences the outcome. As an user sees the news story and votes for it, it then makes it more likely for the news to get voted subsequently.

This means that if a story gets posted at a time when few users visit the site, it will fade away before it gets a chance to be selected, regardless of its content. It's also quite clear that user votes are not necessarily linked to the news' quality.

The fact is that Digg only works well with certain categories of news. I think it works well primarily with sci-tech news and is much less efficient for other news categories.

Google News, on the other hand, works equally well with any type of news and provides better news selection than that which would turn up as done by an unselected crowd. I think this system employed by Google will always be, at least for now, the best and foremost type of news website. The Digg-systems is also important, but it's bound to be less preeminent.

There are 25 main news categories on MySpace's news site, with 300 subcategories. Clicking on a MySpace News item leads immediately to the original source of the story, but a banner runs across a story's source page identifying the news item as part of "MySpace News." It also shows the rating for the story as well as related links to other stories in that category.

I think there is a lot of room for improvement in MySpace's news display system, but the idea looks promising and is worth following up. The news feature of MySpace is built using Newroo technology, a company they acquired in early 2006 for a rumored $7 million. Newroo never had the chance of displaying the merits of its technology in public because of the acquisition.

Newroo founders Brian Norgard and Dan Gould (currently employed at MySpace) said that MySpace’s scanning mechanism will use a similar algorithm found in Google News, meaning that it will grab content from trusted sources via RSS feeds and later aggregate it at the right categories.

"Many advertisers have expressed interest in the service, which allows them to target the MySpace community in a more direct way," Brian Norgard, co-founder of Newroo, a company purchased by News Corp. last year, which created MySpace News' technology, said in an interview.

MySpace currently has 170 million user profiles and is adding 320,000 profiles per day.

A hacker managed to break into a Mac and win a $10,000 prize as part of a contest started at a Canadian security conference.

A hacker managed to break into a Mac and win a US$10,000 prize as part of a contest started at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver.

The conference organizer decided to offer the contest in part to draw attention to possible security shortcomings in Macs. "You see a lot of people running OS X saying it's so secure and frankly Microsoft is putting more work into security than Apple has," said Dragos Ruiu, the organizer of security conferences including CanSecWest

The contest originally was open just to conference attendees, who were invited to try to break into the machines through a wireless access point. But on Thursday evening, 3Com Corp.'s TippingPoint division put up the cash prize and put the machines online so that anyone could participate.

The winner has not yet been named but is not someone attending the conference in Vancouver.

The contest was a chance for hackers to demonstrate techniques they may have boasted about. "I hear a lot of people bragging about how easy it is to break into Macs," Ruiu said.

Some attendees didn't think it was a coincidence that on late Thursday Apple released a patch for 25 vulnerabilities in OS X.

Macs haven't been targets for hackers and malicious code writers nearly to the degree that Windows machines have historically. That's in part because there are fewer Macs in use, thus making the potential impact of malicious code smaller than on the more widely used PCs.

Also, Apple is "extremely litigious when people do find stuff," noted Theo de Raadt, OpenBSD project leader and an attendee at the conference. He suspects that will backfire on Apple, which could begin to "look evil" if hackers begin to publish potentially threatening letters from the company.

Google purchases Marratech conferencing software

Google has acquired the flagship software product of video-conferencing start-up Marratech, leading many to believe that conferencing software may become the next addition to Google's growing office suite.

The acquisition, announced in a post on the company blog Thursday evening, portrayed the acquisition of Stockholm, Sweden-based Marratech's software as a "spontaneous collaboration" and did not provide any financial details of the agreement. Marratech's development and support team plan to remain in Sweden.

Earlier this week, as part of the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the company would be adding new presentation software to its Docs & Spreadsheets Web-based office suite--the potential PowerPoint competitor that had been rumored for some time.

Marratech's conferencing software, which is desktop-based rather than Web-based, is a collaboration tool that includes video, text chat, voice over Internet Protocol audio, and a "whiteboard" feature for documents, presentations or charts.

A conferencing offering from Google could well be viewed as an alternative to services offered by WebEx Communications, which was acquired by Cisco Systems for $3.2 billion in March.

But that's not necessarily the principal reason for the deal: the Google blog post stated that Marratech's software will "enable from-the-desktop participation for Googlers in videoconference meetings wherever there's an Internet connection." Since "Googler" is the preferred term for an employee, not a customer, there's a chance that this means that Marratech's software will be used only for internal purposes--at least initially.

Representatives from Google were not immediately available for comment on the nature of the acquisition.

Google's data-storing feature fuels privacy fears

Facing worries about its tracking Web surfers' every move, Google Inc. is now offering a feature to track Web surfers' every move.

Its free Web History service is strictly voluntary — Google users can sign up to have the Internet giant keep detailed records of every website they visit so they can easily find them again later.

The feature is similar to that offered by Web browsers, except the data are stored on Google's servers instead of users' computers and there's no set time after which it is erased.

Web History's quiet debut this week came as privacy advocates continued to raise alarms about the prospect of Google combining its collection of information on individuals with that of DoubleClick Inc. Google has agreed to acquire the New York-based company, which distributes Web ads and tracks where the majority of people go on the Internet, for $3.1 billion.

Three consumer groups filed a complaint over Google's privacy practices with the Federal Trade Commission on Friday, asking it to investigate before approving the DoubleClick deal.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and two allied groups make a novel argument: Although Google discloses how it retains data in its privacy policy, the search engine goliath is engaging in deceptive practices because most Google users don't know that their search queries can be tied to them, the groups say.

The complaint to the FTC cites a 2006 poll by the Ponemon Institute, a Michigan-based research group that studies privacy issues. When Google users were asked whether they believed that the company captured data that could be used to identify them, 77% said no.

In fact, Google ties search queries to the Internet address associated with a specific computer. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said last month that it would "anonymize" the data by stripping those addresses from its records after 18 to 24 months.

"Polling information can be persuasive in establishing a reasonable belief that the data aren't identifiable," said privacy attorney Chris Hoofnagle, who worked at the Electronic Privacy Information Center and is now at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. "They've got a shot, but it's still a stretch."

In a statement, Google said the electronic privacy group's complaint was "unsupported by the facts and the law." It said that the trust of its users was essential, that its privacy policies were clear and that its users were given choices about what would be done with their information.

Google says the personal data it collects allow it to customize its search and other services, making them more useful for consumers.

Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner agreed that Google users benefited from the practice but said it was a trade-off most people were uncomfortable with. Still, he said, Google continues to push the boundaries because "in order to continue to evolve its product, it truly needs for some of these things to be overcome."

Privacy concerns also have arisen over DoubleClick. A public outcry in 2000 ended the ad company's efforts to use people's names and Internet addresses in tracking online habits. In 2002, it settled lawsuits by state attorneys general and consumers over its privacy practices and promised to tell consumers more about their ability to block tracking software.

Google and DoubleClick took pains this week to explain that because only DoubleClick's advertising clients own the data about where Web surfers go, Google cannot simply merge that information with the profiles it has.

But Richard M. Smith, a privacy and security researcher, said Google could instead give its data to DoubleClick's clients.

"It doesn't matter if it is in one big database," Smith said. "It will go the other way."

DoubleClick referred questions on that theory to Google, which declined to make an executive available for comment.

As for the new Web History offering, Smith notes that Google already collects lists of websites visited when people use its Toolbar and PageRank functions.

Web History, Smith said, "illustrates to people directly how much information Google is capable of collecting."

Taiwan's Via Technologies released details of its upcoming motherboard, which opens the door to very small PC designs.

Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc. Thursday released details of its upcoming Pico-ITX motherboard, which is roughly the same size as a credit card and opens the door to very small PC designs.

Measuring just 10 centimeters (cm) by 7.2 cm, the Pico ITX is designed for Via's C-7 and Eden microprocessor families, and uses chipsets like Via's VX700, which packs the memory controller, integrated graphics, and I/O hub into a single chip instead of two. The motherboard has a single memory slot that can hold up to 1G byte of DDR2 (double data rate 2) memory.

Via hasn't announced precisely when the new boards will be available, but said it plans to release its first Pico-ITX product "shortly."

In the meantime, Via has published a detailed overview of the motherboard's specifications, hoping to win device makers over to the new motherboard form factor.

Via is the third-largest supplier of x86 processors, trailing far behind Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. But the Taiwanese chip company has blazed a trail to PCs that are smaller and consume less power than anything seen before.

Five years ago, Via began shipping the first Mini-ITX motherboards, a form factor designed by the company for embedded applications that caught on with enthusiasts interested in making smaller PCs. Measuring 17 cm by 17cm, the Mini-ITX is significantly larger than the Pico-ITX.

Dell brings back XP for encore

Attempting to reinvent itself in the face of declining fortunes, PC heavyweight Dell has brought back Windows XP to a range of notebooks and desktops, setting itself on a collision course with Microsoft which wants vendors to bundle Vista with all new hardware.
It appears that Dell, which has slipped to the number two PC maker in the world, is determined to follow the advice of consumers on its IdeaStorm website and see where it takes them. The novel approach has already led Dell to commit itself to bring pre-installed Linux computers to market and the latest move pits the powerful PC vendor against the might of Microsoft.

Dell will sell XP Home and Professional on six PC models including two desktops and four notebooks.

Although Microsoft has said publicly that it will stop offering licences for XP to PC vendors from January 2008, Dell could well be buoyed by the fact that most business users globally have so far expressed little intention to move to Vista. An XP to Vista upgrade is viewed by many businesses as a major operation that they would prefer to avoid as long as possible.

Consumers, however, would be expected to accept Vista more readily, an assumption that appears to be contradicted by the views that appeared on IdeaStorm.

Microsoft's public response so far has been little more than a shrug and a claim that the pro XP views expressed on IdeaStorm represent a small minority of PC users.

With Dell rumoured to bring PCs loaded with a popular Linux distribution to market as early as this month, it will be interesting to see whether the what the users say goes approach will succeed in turning the company's fortunes around.

MySpace Enters the News Biz

MySpace's news service, dubbed MySpace News, aggregates articles much like Google News does, and, in Digg-like fashion, lets users vote to rank the stories. MySpace News relies on technology the company added to its arsenal when parent company News Corp. acquired Newroo last year. News Corp. also owns Fox News and several other outlets.
MySpace's news service, dubbed MySpace News, aggregates articles much like Google News does, and, in Digg-like fashion, lets users vote to rank the stories. MySpace News relies on technology the company added to its arsenal when parent company News Corp. acquired Newroo last year. News Corp. also owns Fox News and several other outlets.

Sony responds to poor March figures

PlayStation as a brand is doing really well says Sony.

layStation 3 is not doing well in North America, the latest NPD figures for March show the console languishing in third place by some margin compared to Wii and Xbox 360.

But Sony is putting a brave face on the figures. According to the company, "a 24 percent increase in retail dollars generated year-over-year for the PlayStation brand in North America with total sales of $447 million, due in part to the addition of the PS3 platform as well as the strong launch performance of God of War II for PS2 at retail."

With PS3 not doing so well, the focus is on the PlayStation brand as a whole as PlayStation 2 and PSP continue to sell like hot cakes.

"PS3 saw a month-over-month increase of 2 percent with sales of 129,638 units, we continued to find ourselves supply constrained in March due primarily to the shift in manufacturing focus to the PS3 PAL version to support the launch of the system in Europe," said Sony.

What supply issues? PlayStation 3 is well known to be widely available in the US. If you want one there's no trouble walking into a store and picking one up

The physically interactive Nintendo Wii pushed Sony's ballyhooed PlayStation 3 into third place in the gaming console battle. According to NPD Group, Nintendo Wii was again No. 1 in the current-generation video game console market. NPD Group said that in March consumers bought 259,000 Nintendo Wii. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is on the second place with sales of 199,000 units. Sony is lagging behind its competitors with only 130.000 PlayStation 3 consoles sold in March.

Sony's last-generation PlayStation 2 continued to see strong sales with consumers picking up 280,000 units.

Nintendo Wii was launched in US in November 2006. According to NPD, Nintendo sold in November 2006, 476,000 units, which was more than double compared to PlayStation 3 units. (Sony sold only 197.000 units in November). During November 2006, Microsoft sold 511,000 units of its Xbox 360, according to NPD.

In February 2007 the New York-based NPD Group reported the Wii was the top-selling console video game system in February, with an estimated 335,000 units sold, outpacing the Microsoft Xbox 360 with 228,000 and the PS3 with 127,000.

The figures appeared to vindicate Nintendo's revolutionary approach which emphasized fun games aimed at casual players who could control the action using an innovative motion-detection remote control unit. In contrast Microsoft and Sony both offer higher powered and more expensive machines that feature better graphics quality and are far more expensive. Both companies also positioned their consoles as the centerpiece of a digital entertainment system.

Nintendo’s future seems better then ever as the research company IDC has predicted in a study released at the beginning of March that Nintendo's Wii will outship and outsell the 360 and PS3 in 2007 and 2008.

IDC said that Microsoft's Xbox 360 was the best selling current generation console for 2006 because it enjoyed a full year lead in the market. According to IDC’s study, called Worldwide Videogame Console Hardware and Software Forecast 2006-2011: Ready for a New Game, Nintendo, is the only one of the three manufacturers working to grow its total accessible market for its hardware and software by broadening its audience beyond the traditional market.

Microsoft, trying to meet its goal of doubling the number of computer users to 2 billion by 2015, promised to cut its software prices to governments in developing countries that provide free computers to school children.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the program at a news conference in Beijing.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said it plans to offer a software package called Microsoft Student Innovation Suite for $3 to governments purchasing and giving Windows-based computer to primary and secondary students.

The software bundle, which will be available in the second half of 2007, includes Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail desktop and other programs.

"This is not a philanthropic effort, this is a business," Orlando Ayala, senior vice president at Microsoft's emerging segments market development group in an interview before the official announcement.

In many emerging markets, Microsoft has seen its software pirated and sold at a fraction of the price of a genuine product. Microsoft said the technology industry must also adapt business models to developing nations.

The company is working with retailers and computer makers in Brazil to test a pay-as-you-go system, because that model has been successful with mobile phones in the country.

Gov't Straining to Secure Computer Systems

Hackers Increasingly Gaining Access to Networks, Congress Is Told
Federal computer networks are being targeted on an unprecedented scale and recent high-profile compromises at two key federal agencies are likely just the most visible symptoms of a government-wide security epidemic, government security experts told a congressional oversight committee today.

Officials from the Commerce and State departments appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee's cyber-security panel to explain at least three separate instances where sensitive government electronic data was compromised.
Donald Reid, senior coordinator for security infrastructure at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, described how an employee at an agency installation in East Asia opened a virus-infected e-mail attachment disguised as the text of a congressional speech. Investigators later found that the virus leveraged a previously unknown security hole in Microsoft's Word software that allowed the sender to evade anti-virus programs and hijack any computer running the Windows operating system that is used to open the document.

Further investigation showed that hackers had infiltrated State Department systems in Washington and other agency posts in the Pacific region. In the process of examining the infected systems in Washington, forensics experts learned that attackers had infiltrated them using another undocumented software security hole, a flaw in Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Dave Jarrell, manager of the critical infrastructure protection program at the Department of Commerce, said agency investigators learned in July 2006 that hackers using Chinese networks had broken into its network after one of its top officials complained that he was unable to log on to his computer. A follow-up audit showed that the official had been locked out of his account after hackers unsuccessfully tried to log into his system, and that it was among at least 32 other systems on the department's network that were seeded with a malicious software program designed to cloak the fact that unauthorized users had gained access to the network.

Officials from both agencies assured lawmakers that no classified information or networks were compromised by the break-ins. But Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.), the panel chairman, said it was impossible for the officials to make that statement definitively, as neither agency had completed its annual required annual inventory of computer systems.

"I think these incidents have opened a lot of eyes in the halls of Congress. The truth is we don't know the scope of our networks. We don't know who's inside our networks. We don't know what information has been stolen. We need to get serious about this threat to our national security." Langevin said. "These are not the only agencies experiencing problems. They are simply the only attacks that have been made public."

Indeed, evidence indicates that all federal agencies were similarly compromised last summer, said Marcus Sachs, director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, a Bethesda, Md.-based organization that tracks Internet security trends.

"These attacks didn't affect just the federal government, but also the private sector, state agencies and other national governments," Sachs said in an interview during a break at Thursday's committee hearing. "What we don't know is what they were able to do, what did the attackers do after that? There is just no telling."

Federal agencies are fending off and cleaning up digital attacks against their information systems on a scale never seen before, said Jerry Dixon, director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division. In 2006, the NCSD received reports of nearly 24,000 security "incidents," activity that ranges from attackers probing electronic networks for security holes to computer virus infections to cases of unauthorized access to government information resources. The NCSD is already on track to receive more than double that number of incident reports in 2007, Dixon said.

Protecting large government and private sector networks is a task complicated by the regular need to update thousands of computers and servers. According to analysis by washingtonpost.com, in at least 10 instances last year, Microsoft was rushed to issue a security update to fix previously unknown software flaws that criminals were using to break into vulnerable systems. In all of 2006, Microsoft shipped 104 updates to plug software holes labeled "critical," flaws so dangerous that hackers could exploit them with little or no help from the victim. Forty-one of those vulnerabilities resided in the widely used Word and other Microsoft Office programs that could be exploited by virus writers just by convincing a recipient to open an infected e-mail attachment.

Both the Commerce and State departments received failing grades for their handling of computer security in 2006, according to "report cards" handed down from congressional oversight committee last week. The Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for ensuring the security of federal information systems and leading by example, earned a grade of "D."

"I don't know how [DHS] thinks it's going to lead this nation in securing cyberspace when it can't even secure it's own networks," Langevin said. "Not only are these grades embarrassing, they're dangerous."

Road to Apple/Cisco iPhone compatibility leading through VoIP?

Part of the deal that got Cisco to grant Apple the use the iPhone name was that Apple and Cisco would pursue opportunities to make their respective iPhones interoperable. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Apple is currently making good on that promise. Cisco's Chief Development Officer Charlie Giancarlo told the paper that the discussions are happening at the highest level, at least on Apple's end.

iPhone Apparently, the idea is not to make the companies' respective iPhones work together, but rather, to have Apple's work with other Cisco products.

Cisco is best known for building routers that power the Internet and corporate networks. A number of years ago, Cisco started to incorporate VoIP technology in its routers and to build related products, such as ethernet and WiFi phones that allow organizations to leverage their IP networks for both data and voice, rather than operating two separate infrastructures. Cisco wants Apple's iPhone to work with these private VoIP installations so that iPhone users can enjoy services like teleconferencing and instant messaging. Whether that's something Apple or its cellular partners are also interested in remains unclear at this time.

This news fuels the question whether the iPhone will be able to place VoIP calls over WiFi in home environments. Wireless carriers typically include so many "free" minutes in their plans that for many users, it's not worth the trouble to set up VoIP service. However, it turns out that a quarter of mobile customers is interested in dual-mode service after all. Unconfirmed reports indicate that at least one carrier is pursuing the iPhone for this very purpose. On top of that, users who call internationally (both to other countries and when in other countries) will likely save a lot of money using VoIP service that's not necessarily provided by their cell phone carrier.

Microsoft, Samsung Patent Deal Includes Linux Coverage

While cross-licensing patent arrangements are common, the key to the deal between Microsoft and Samsung is that Samsung has so many patents, according to Samir Bhavnani, an analyst at Current Analysis. "And Samsung is one of the biggest and fastest growing consumer electronics companies in the world."
Two patent-holding giants, Microsoft Relevant Products/Services and Samsung, announced Thursday that they have entered into a broad cross-licensing agreement. In addition to allowing each to license the other's patents, the deal grants liability coverage to Samsung for Linux-related intellectual property that Microsoft contends it owns.

Samsung, which said it was the largest publisher of U.S. patents in 2006, will be able to use Microsoft patents across its product lines, including computer products, set-top boxes, media players, camcorders, televisions, and others.

The liability coverage, according to the companies, enables the Seoul, South Korea-based Samsung to use the Linux operating system in its products without the liability risk that Microsoft will sue it or its customers.

Microsoft will similarly be able to use Samsung's patents for computer-related and digital-media products. The financial terms were not disclosed, but the companies said that financial payments will be made to compensate both parties "for the value of their portfolios."

Novell Deal

Microsoft noted that, in the last 12 months, it has inked similar arrangements with such companies as Fuji Xerox Relevant Products/Services, NEC, Nortel, and Seiko Epson. Comparable Linux coverage was issued to Fuji Xerox and Novell.

Following the announcement of the Novell cross-licensing pact in November of last year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that users of Linux were engaged in an unauthorized use of Microsoft's intellectual property. "Every Linux customer," he reportedly said at the time, "basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability." Members of the Linux open-source community protested his remarks.

After its deal with Microsoft created controversy, Novell took exception with Ballmer's interpretation. "Our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property," Ron Hovsepian, Novell President and CEO, said in a statement at the time. "When we entered the patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents."

The Open Invention Network (OIN), an alliance whose members include Sony, IBM, NEC, Red Hat, Philips, and Novell itself, has been obtaining patents or patent agreements to avoid any claims against those who use Linux. Launched in 2005, OIN makes its patents available, free of charge, to "any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System."

'So Many Patents'

Cross-licensing arrangements are common, said Samir Bhavnani, director of research at technology research firm Current Analysis. "But the key to this deal," he said, "is that Samsung has so many patents. And Samsung is one of the biggest and fastest growing consumer electronics companies in the world."

He also noted that Samsung does a lot of work with Linux. "Linux is in a lot more devices than people generally realize," he said. As for the Linux liability protection provisions, he contended that "people who file Linux lawsuits typically don't win."

The real impact of this deal, Bhavnani said, is that consumers and businesses "will probably get products in their hands faster than if this deal hadn't taken place."

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 takes flight

Mozilla on Thursday launched Thunderbird 2, the latest version of its free, open-source e-mail client featuring message tagging and customization.

Thunderbird 2, with its enhanced features, is intended to ease the organization of e-mail via message tags, advanced folder viewing, and speedier inbox and message searching.

Under its message tagging feature, users can assign single or multiple custom tags to their e-mail, such as "from mom" or "weekend projects." Users would also be able to assign default tags, as well.

"In Thunderbird 2, we incorporated the proven benefits of tagging to e-mail," Scott MacGregor, Mozilla's lead engineer for Thunderbird, said in a statement. "Tagging initially gained popularity on blogs, photo and link-sharing sites as an intuitive way to organize online information."

Thunderbird 2's customization features are designed to allow users to create their own message template, or use any hundreds of free add-ons to change the appearance and functionality of their e-mail client.

Thunderbird 2 also includes a backward-forward function to browse messages, and allows users to save e-mail searches in folders for reuse.

PS3 Updated to Firmware 1.70; Q2 Line-up Confirmed

Thanks to the latest firmware update for the PlayStation 3 owners will be able to download and play PSone titles directly on the console (not just PSP), and rumble support has been added for PS and PS2 accessories. 16 titles have been confirmed for the PS3 in Q2. [Update: Dual Shock rumble not 'officially' supported]

Late last night PS3 owners were greeted with a system update message. The new 1.70 firmware brings with it a few very important features. Primary among those is that PS3 owners should now be able to download and play PSone software on the console itself. Up to this point, original PlayStation titles were only being made available as downloads that you could transfer to the PSP.

At the time of the update the PSP versions of the downloadable games were the only ones available, but it's likely that Sony will be updating the PlayStation Store with the PS3-compatible PSone games soon. Saved data for PlayStation format software can also now be used on the PSP. This could prove useful for gamers on the go who want to continue a game they've started on the PS3.

The third major feature of the update relates to rumble support. The firmware enables the vibration function of accessories that are for use with PlayStation and PlayStation 2 format software. We're assuming this means a USB adapter for a Dual Shock PS2 controller would allow vibration to work in backwards compatible games; we've put in an inquiry with SCEA for clarification.
[UPDATE] We got in touch with Dave Karraker, SCEA's Sr. Director, Corporate Communications, who advised us that gamers cannot use a Dual Shock on the PS3 and get force feedback. He said the firmware update is primarily for PS2 peripherals made by third parties, such as Flightstick 2 (Hori), Logitech Driving Force Pro, Logitech Driving Force, and the Logitech G25 Racing Wheel. "This would allow you to play compatible PS2 games on the PS3 with these peripherals and get force feedback. The only PS3 native game that would work with these peripherals and achieve force feedback is Gran Turismo HD," Karraker explained.

[UPDATE 2] User reports on message reports across the Internet, including NeoGAF, have found that third-party USB adapters do indeed enable the Dual Shock with rumble functionality on PS2 games. SCEA's Karraker explained, "None of the USB adapters that are offered on the market today for the Dual Shock controller are licensed by SCEA, so we didn't test their compatibility with 1.7. So, we can't comment on whether or not PS2 games with rumble will function on PS3 utilizing a Dual Shock controller with an unlicensed USB adapter."

SCEA also outlined its "extensive" second quarter line-up today. More than 100 titles are expected to hit store shelves for PS3, PS2 and PSP during the next few months. For the PS3, specifically, 16 titles will soon be released, split evenly between retail and digital download at the PlayStation Store. Here's a Q2 breakdown of key titles for the three PlayStation platforms:

Dell Still Losing Market Share to Hewlett and Others, Data Shows

Dell’s personal computer sales continued to decline in the first quarter in the United States and across the world, according to analyses of PC sales made public yesterday by IDC and Gartner, two major consulting and market analysis firms.
Dell Computer also continued to lose market share in the first three months of year to Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest PC vendor, and to overseas companies like Lenovo and Acer.

Dell’s shipments worldwide fell 6.9 percent from the first quarter of 2006, pushing its share of the market to 15.2 percent from 18.2 percent last year, according to IDC. It was a particularly sharp decline given that the overall market grew 10.9 percent.
Statistics from Gartner, based in Stamford, Conn., showed a similar trend.

“When you were king of the hill for as long as Dell was, it gave room for everyone else to maneuver,” said Loren Loverde, an analyst with IDC, based in Framingham, Mass.

IDC said that Hewlett-Packard shipped 28.2 percent more computers in the first quarter worldwide than a year earlier, and held 19.1 percent of the market. The other standout was Acer, the Taiwanese maker, whose worldwide shipments rose 41.4 percent.

Acer shipped about the same number of PCs as Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought I.B.M.’s PC operations. Acer and Lenovo tied for the title of the world’s third- largest PC vendor, according to statistics gathered by IDC. (Gartner gave a slight edge to Acer.)

Dell’s biggest problems were in the United States, where its PC shipments slipped 14.4 percent while the overall market grew 3.6 percent. Dell remained the No. 1 PC vendor in its home market with 26.8 percent of shipments, but it was no longer dominant. Hewlett-Packard’s shipments rose 25.5 percent, seven times the overall market growth rate. It had 24.2 percent of the domestic market, IDC said.
Apple also picked up market share in the United States, growing to 5 percent, from 4 percent, as its shipments increased 30 percent, according to Gartner. Apple grew faster than any other PC maker in the United States, Gartner said.

Dell’s weakness in the quarter was in part a result of its focus on sales to large American companies. IDC said that the corporate market in the United States was one of the few weak spots for PC sales. Indeed, the growth in worldwide shipments exceeded its forecasts.

The consumer market in the United States, which has been showing a preference for notebook computers, remained strong, surprising analysts. Gartner analysts had been expecting less than 1 percent growth in the United States.

Dell, which announces its financial results May 31, had no comment on the reports.

Despite having capitalized on the strength of notebook sales worldwide, Hewlett-Packard said that it had revamped its desktop line to emphasize style. In an announcement yesterday, it said that all its computers would come in a glossy black finish to match the finish on its notebooks and TVs.

“People still buy a lot of desktop PCs,” said Satjiv Chahil, the head of the company’s PC marketing.

MySpace News goes live

Following the rumors last month that MySpace was getting into the news aggregation game, MySpace News has now gone live. Built on technology developed by Newroo (which News Corp. acquired last year), MySpace news combines the aggregation functionality of Google News, with user voting similar to Digg.

From London's Times newspaper (which is also owned by News Corp.):

MySpace is going into the news business with a service that will scour the internet for news stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure.

This approach blends elements of Google News and sites such as Digg and Netscape, which rely on readers to submit stories and determine their prominence.

Despite speculation to the contrary, MySpace News won't favor News Corp-owned content, and, according to the site's FAQs page, news outlets will be able to opt-out — presumably to avoid being sued, as has happened to Google News — and that sites that aren't currently featured (including blogs) can apply to be included.

As I've said previously, it's clear that with MySpace News (and previous efforts around video), News Corp. wants to make the social network a one-stop-shop, with no reason for users to go elsewhere.

MySpace is fast becoming a portal 2.0 in disguise.

MySpace takes on Google News and Digg

MySpace is going into the news business with a service that will scour the internet for news stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure.

This approach blends elements of Google News and sites such as Digg and Netscape, which rely on readers to submit stories and determine their prominence. It also marks the site’s ambitions to become a web portal like Yahoo!, providing its users with a front door to the internet.

MySpace, which is owned by News Corp, also the parent company of Times Online, will display headlines from external new sites, a practice that attracted legal challenges when Google used it for its news service.

The search engine recently reached a settlement with Agence France-Presse after the news agency claimed that Google had infringed its copyright.
Dan Strauss, who headed the group that developed MySpace News, said that publishers would be able to opt out of the service if they didn’t want their stories to appear on it. He also said that media outlets owned by News Corp would not receive favourable treatment.

The feature, which is expected to be launched as a ‘beta’ test feature, uses technology developed by Newroo, which News Corp bought last year.

Beeb extends download trial to Macs

The BBC is to extend its trial of downloadable content from 5,000 to 20,000 people.

Anyone signing up for the trial will get access to TV and radio archive programmes, as well as scripts and programme notes. The original trial involved 1,500, which was increased to 5,000 in 2005.
The final aim is to allow viewers to download anything from the archive through their TV. But for the purposes of the trial only about 1,000 hours of content will be available.

Ashley Highfield, director of future media and technology at the BBC, announced the changes at a new media trade show in Cannes, France.

He also said the BBC's iPlayer - through which content is accessed - will be re-written to work on Macs and eventually on set-top boxes too.

Highfield complained that Apple's "proprietary and closed framework for digital rights management gives us headaches".

Highfield said the trial will help the BBC decide "where we should draw the line between a licence fee funded service and a commercial service".

The Beeb will also trial set-top boxes which can record broadcast TV as well as download web content. Some of this technology might find its way onto Freeview boxes in the future.

The archive trial is separate from the iPlayer, which gives access to the last seven days of programming.

A spokeswoman for the BBC said it had already been inundated with requests to take part in the trial, but if you're a woman living in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland please get in touch.

World’s first tree reconstructed

Earth's oldest known tree stood nearly 30 feet tall and looked like a modern palm, a new reconstruction shows.

Workers uncovered hundreds of upright stumps of the 385 million-year-old tree more than a century ago, after a flash flood in Gilboa, New York uncovered them, but little else was known about the tree’s appearance.

Then, in 2004, scientists unearthed a 400-pound fossilized top — or crown — of the same genus a few miles away. The following summer, the same team discovered fragments of a 28-foot trunk. Piecing together stump, trunk and crown now reveals what the full tree looked like for the first time.
“These were very big trees,” said study team member William Stein, a paleobotanist at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

“Our reconstruction shows them to be a lot longer and much more treelike than any of the reconstructions before,” Stein told LiveScience. “I don’t think any of us dared think of them being quite that big.”

The tree belonged to a group of early fern-like plants called Wattieza. Unlike flowering plants, which use seeds to reproduce, Wattieza used spores, the reproductive method of choice for algae, ferns and fungi.

The finding, detailed in the March 19 issue of the journal Nature, will help scientists understand a crucial turning-point in our planet’s history — when the first forests appeared.

“In forming the first forests, they must have really changed the Earth system as a whole, creating new types of micro-environments for smaller plants and insects, storing large amounts of carbon and binding the soil together,” said study leader Christopher Berry of Cardiff University in Wales.

Now extinct, Wattieza lived during the Middle Devonian period, before aquatic creatures clambered onto land. “The trees preceded dinosaurs by 140 million years,” said study team member Ed Landing of the New York State Museum. “There was nothing flying, no reptiles and no amphibians.”

The rise of land plants such as Wattieza drastically altered the climate and paved the way for terrestrial animals and insects.

“The rise of forests removed a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” Berry explained. “This caused temperatures to drop and the planet became very similar to its present-day conditions.”

Hackers Exploit Windows DNS Vulnerability

Several security vendors have issued a workaround patch for the DNS bug now being exploited by hackers, but word from Microsoft on an official DNS patch is sketchy. Chris Budd, of the Microsoft Security Response Center, says that Microsoft has teams around the world working on the DNS patch, and hopes to have updates no later than May 8, 2007.
According to I.T. security Relevant Products/Services firm Sophos, a worm is exploiting an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in the DNS services of several Windows operating systems.

Also known as Nirbot or Rinbot, the W32/Delbot-AI worm is taking advantage of a vulnerability in the way the Windows DNS Server's Remote Procedure Call (RPC) interface has been implemented. The hackers' worm has been able to exploit the flaw by sending a specially crafted RPC packet to vulnerable servers.

If the worm successfully infects a server, it allows hackers to gain control over the computer, giving them the ability to determine what it does and steal information from unsuspecting users. The worm also can exploit an old vulnerability present in Symantec's antivirus product line, which was patched a year ago.

Laying in Wait

Several security vendors have issued a workaround patch, but word from Microsoft Relevant Products/Services on an official patch is sketchy.

"While we don't have a firm estimate on when we'll complete our development and testing of updates for this issue, we have teams around the world working on it 24 hours a day, and hope to have updates no later than May 8, 2007, for the May monthly bulletin release," Chris Budd, of the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote in the corporate blog.

This flaw in Microsoft's code has only been known for a handful of days, and already there is a worm that is taking advantage of the problem in its attempt to infect as many computers as possible, noted Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

"Time and time again hackers are forcing companies like Microsoft to scramble around to develop, test, and roll out a software patch," Cluley said in a statement. "Businesses should ensure that their computers are properly configured, and protected with up-to-date antivirus software, hardened firewalls, and patches."

A Watching Eye

The computer underground appears to be reveling in waiting until Microsoft has released its monthly batch of patches before unleashing its latest attacks, continued Cluley. "Microsoft will not be enjoying having the security of their software brought into question again," he concluded.

While the current worm exploits are unsophisticated, there is considerable danger that more sophisticated attacks could be in the works, according Paul Zimski, PatchLink's director of product and market strategy. PatchLink, whose customers include KPMG, Wells Fargo, and Yahoo, has issued an emergency patch ahead of the official Microsoft fix.

"The DNS servers are a particularly high-value target because a hacker that 'owns' DNS servers can do a 'man in the middle' attack," Zimski said. "While this attack isn't going to hit every desktop, it is very serious."

Microsoft-Samsung pact includes Linux patent 'protection'

April 18, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday signed a broad cross-licensing agreement with close partner Samsung Electronics Co. that includes a controversial provision granting the Korean electronics conglomerate rights to patents that Microsoft claims have been illegally borrowed by the Linux operating system.

Samsung is the third company to ink a similar cross-licensing pact, which critics said de facto advances Microsoft’s unproven claims to Linux-related intellectual property. The first deal, an alliance signed Nov. 2 between Microsoft and longtime rival Novell Inc., saw the latter firm agreeing to pay Microsoft $40 million in return for immunity for Novell’s customers against any Linux-related patent violations.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer riled the open-source community a few weeks later when he openly said that because of Linux’s unauthorized use of Microsoft intellectual property, "every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability."

His comments drew rebukes from open-source community members and vendors, including Novell, which argued that it was absurd for Microsoft to claim its patents are violated by the free open-source operating system. But they warned that the more such pacts Microsoft signs, the better its as-yet-unproven claims may look in court if Microsoft someday tries to enforce them.

According to a press release, Samsung will be able to use Microsoft’s patents in its wide range of consumer electronic and PC products. Microsoft will gain access to Samsung’s large patent portfolio "relating to digital media and computer-related inventions." An unspecified amount of money will be exchanged between the two firms compensating each company for the value of their respective patent portfolios.

Microsoft executives were unavailable to comment. Samsung, through a spokesman, declined to comment. Even groups such as the Open Invention Network, which was critical of Microsoft’s deal with Novell, declined to comment.
OIN was founded by IBM, Novell, Red Hat Inc. and others in late 2005 with the express goal of buying up Linux-related patents to protect the open-source operating system from just such claims.

Besides Samsung and Novell, Microsoft agreed last month to a cross-licensing deal with Fuji Xerox Co. that includes Linux patent protection for the Japanese firm.

Pac-Man Championship on Xbox Live

ow, fans of 'Pac-Man,' one of the world's all time favorites, will have a chance to compete online on Xbox Live Arcade, and become the world's best 'Pac-Man' player.

Microsoft and Namco Bandai Games have together announced the first-ever Xbox 360 'Pac-Man' World Championship, presented by Quiznos.
According to Jeff Bell, Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, "Pac-Man reached an iconic status in the '80s across multiple generations and cultures, so the Xbox 360 'Pac-Man' World Championship provides a great incentive for fans old and new to fall in love with the game all over again."

Starting April 25th through May 9th, fans of 'Pac-Man' will compete on the classic arcade game via the Xbox Live Arcade. A total of nine finalists in the Xbox 360 'Pac-Man' World Championship will advance to the finals, based upon highest Xbox Live Arcade leaderboard scores.

Top finalists from Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and Mexico will be joined by two finalists from Europe and the US. This group will be further joined by the winner of the 'Pac-Man' FANatic contest, a competition where 'Pac-Man' fans from the US and Canada have to submit a video demonstrating why they are ultimate "Pac-Man" fans.

The winners will be flown to New York City for the finals on June 5th, and the final winner will be crowned Xbox 360 'Pac-Man' World Champion by Toru Iwatani, creator of 'Pac-Man.'

He/she will receive other great prizes, including 26 years of free Quiznos toasted subs; 100,000 Microsoft Points for games, movies, and other fun content available on Xbox Live; and a one-of-a-kind Xbox 360 featuring a special design inspired by 'Pac-Man.'

Gamers interested in practising can download 'Pac-Man' (400 Microsoft Points) from Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360. For a complete list of participating countries and country-specific eligibility criteria, gamers can visit http://www.xboxlivetournament.com/ starting April 25, 2007.

Microsoft aims to double user base with $3 Windows and Office

Microsoft has launched an effort to double its user base to 2 billion by 2015, offering students in developing countries entry level versions of Windows and Office for next to nothing. It's also an effort to keep users in poorer nations hooked on Windows and away from Linux.

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* Linux winds of change: friction between Ubuntu and old guard

According to Microsoft, its Student Innovation Suite will be an affordable and reliable software package for governments who buy and give free Windows-based PCs to primary and secondary students for their personal use at home and for schoolwork.

The Microsoft suite, which will be sold to qualifying governments for US$3, includes Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office, and Windows Live Mail desktop.

Interestingly, the package, which will be be offered in the second half of 2007, includes Windows XP instead of Vista, suggesting that it is aimed at lowly configured and perhaps recycled computers.

Microsoft, which has a massive piracy problem in developing countries, is caught between a rock and a hard place in poorer nations. Most consumers cannot afford its premium priced software and the only way to access Microsoft products is to buy cheap pirated copies. The problem for Microsoft is if it cracks down too hard on piracy in poor countries it risks pushing consumers into the arms of open source alternatives such as Linux.

With an eye on low cost Linux-based initiatives, such as the One Laptop Per Child program, Microsoft is attempting to tap into a view from some humanitarian organizations such as FAIR that putting recycled PCs from the first world to use in developing countries makes more sense than selling them cheap new Linux boxes.

The last thing Microsoft wants to see is a Linux third world. Therefore, since most recycled PCs will be Windows machines running XP, it is in Microsoft's interests to persuade cash poor governments to buy cheap recycled PCs which will be capable of running its US$3 software.

A hacker managed to break into a Mac and win a $10,000 prize as part of a contest started at a Canadian security conference.

Taiwan's Via Technologies released details of its upcoming motherboard, which opens the door to very small PC designs.

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