 Microsoft Tightens Grip with Genuine Advantage
To date, with its Genuine Advantage anti-piracy programs, Microsoft has targeted consumers. Windows and Office users have been required to validate their products as "genuine" before being able to obtain many downloads and add-ons.
Come this fall, however, the Redmond, Wash., software maker is planning to turn up the Genuine Advantage heat in two ways: by baking more Genuine Advantage checks directly into Windows Vista, and by taking aim at PC makers, system builders, Internet cafes and other sources of potentially pirated software.
Microsoft officials?whose Genuine Advantage Notification strategy came under fire earlier this summer?declined to share specifics about its new Genuine Advantage plans. But executives already have been setting the stage for the upcoming changes in recent keynote addresses.
"We expect to do more to make Windows more differentiated when it's genuine, and so genuine customers get a truly different experience than non-genuine customers, as well as to make piracy harder, so that our genuine partners can do a better job competing with those that don't play by the rules," Windows Client Marketing Chief Michael Sievert told attendees of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in July.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: August 10, 2006, 6:37 pm
News Source : eWeek
 Firefox 2.0 Beta Delayed
browser software.
Firefox 2.0 Beta 2 was set to appear this week, but it will now make an appearance on 15 August. The new browser will offer users improved security features and greater functionality. Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 was unveiled last month.
Despite the delay, Firefox 2.0 is still expected to appear on 26 September, its original release date. Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X editions of Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 are available from the Mozilla website.
According to web analytics firms the Firefox browser has over 10% of the browser market, with Microsoft?s Internet Explorer on around 85%.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: August 10, 2006, 6:37 pm
News Source : Computer Weekly
 U.S. Homeland Security Urges Windows users to Apply Patch
In a rare alert, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has urged Windows users to plug a potential worm hole in the Microsoft operating system. The agency, which also runs the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), sent out a news release on Wednesday recommending that people apply Microsoft's MS06-040 patch as quickly as possible. The software maker released the "critical" fix Tuesday as part of its monthly patch cycle.
"Users are encouraged to avoid delay in applying this security patch," the Department of Homeland Security said in the statement. The patch fixes a serious flaw that, if exploited, could enable an attacker to remotely take complete control of an affected system, the agency said.
Microsoft on Tuesday issued a dozen security bulletins, nine of which were tagged "critical," the company's highest severity rating. However, the flaw addressed in MS06-040 is the only one in the updates that could let an anonymous attacker remotely commandeer a Windows PC without any user interaction.
The flaw has some similarities to the Windows bug that enabled the notorious MSBlast worm to spread in 2003. Both security vulnerabilities are related to a Windows component called "remote procedure call," which provides support for networking features such as file sharing and printer sharing.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: August 10, 2006, 6:36 pm
News Source : CNet
Google Web Accelerator 0.2.66.84
Google Web Accelerator is an application that uses the power of Google's global computer network to make web pages load faster. Google Web Accelerator is easy to use; all you have to do is download and install it, and from then on many web pages will automatically load faster than before.
How does Google Web Accelerator work?
Google Web Accelerator uses various strategies to make your web pages load faster, including:
* Sending your page requests through Google machines dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic.
* Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.
* Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.
* Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.
* Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.
* Compressing data before sending it to your computer.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:22 pm
News Source : Google
Download : Google Web Accelerator
 Activision Reveals Call Of Duty 3 Details
Activision has today confirmed the first details of Call of Duty 3, which is in development by Treyarch for Xbox 360, PlayStation3, Wii, Xbox and PlayStation2. The game, which is set for release in the Autumn, follows the story of four sets of Allied soldiers (American, British, Canadian, and Polish) as they launch their breakout from Normandy in 1944.
Call of Duty 3 will be the second time that Treyarch has developed a CoD title, the first being 2005's Big Red One on Xbox and PlayStation2, and will mark the franchise's debut on PS3 and Wii. Perhaps more controversially for Call of Duty fans, it will mark the first time that a 'main' installment of the series won't be making an appearance on the PC. The game will also see team-based and vehicular multiplayer gametypes of up to twenty-four gamers, along with different soldier classes and specific abilities.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:22 pm
News Source : TVG
Microsoft roll out 80s classics
Frogger has leaped onto Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade as the first of five 80s classics targetted at hardcore gamers.
Every Wednesday for the next five weeks the service will gain a new game, including retro classics from years gone by priced between $5 and $15 each. The move comes in response to the surprising success of the Arcade service, with Microsoft managing to convert 21.7% of free trial downloads into paying customers.
Currently only 20 games are available via the Arcade service, though Microsoft has said it hopes to have around 50 up for download by the end of the year.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:21 pm
News Source : Neowin
Sony Withdraws Racist Ad
Sony has bowed to pressure against them caused by a recent advert in Holland. The advert depicted a white woman grabbing a black woman by the jaw, and was being used to advertise the new ceramic PSP that has just come on sale in shores over Europe.
"Whilst the images used in the campaign were intended solely to highlight the contrast between the different colours available for the PSP, we recognise that the subject matter of one specific image may have caused concern in some countries not directly affected by the advertising. As a result, we have now withdrawn the campaign," Sony said in a statement this week.
"We further recognise that people have a wide variety of perceptions about such imagery and we wish to apologise to those who perceived the advert differently to that intended. In future, we will apply greater sensitivity in our selection of campaign imagery, and will take due account of the increasingly global reach of such local adverts, and their potential impact in other countries."
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:19 pm
News Source : GamesIndustry
Sony sampling movies for memory stick
In an attempt to regain a fading market for pre-recorded movies for its PlayStation Portable system, Sony is testing the sale of movies on Memory Stick pro Duos. Sony has recently announced that it will be releasing a pair of "entertainment packs" which bundle respectively, a 1GB or a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo with a choice of a free movie. The first movies that will be available are: XXX: State of the Union, SWAT, The Grudge or Hitch.
The memory cards will also come packaged with a DVD, which users can use to unlock and transfer a pre-ripped PSP-friendly copy of the movie of their choice. You can use the Memory Stick pro Duo in any compatible device, but the videos will only play on a PSP.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:17 pm
News Source : Neowin
 Apple Denies Customers Education iMac
In an echo of the furore that met the release of the original eMac, Apple has withdrawn its new education-only iMac from sale to individuals. The new product was available for purchase by individual students and teachers through Apple's resellers and online and high street stores, but this has now been changed. Apple will now only sell the new education iMac to institutions.
A note to dealers reveals: "Please be advised that the iMac for education is no longer available to education individuals. Effective immediately this product is only available to education institutions. The product will be removed from the Apple Education Individual Stores from 12 July 2006."
The move to withdraw the Mac, which costs ?544 (excluding VAT), has not been explained, though the product was only ever aimed at the education market.
It's an odd reflection of what occurred when Apple launched its education-only eMac. The company experienced a cacophony of requests from potential customers who wanted to buy what was at that time Apple's most affordable Mac.
So strong was this demand that Apple eventually relented and began selling the eMac to the general public.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:17 pm
News Source : MacWorld UK
Microsoft Strider Project to Stop Search Spam
Microsoft Research has embarked on a new project to automatically seek out search engine spam before it can be used to defraud advertisers on MSN, Yahoo and Google. Called Strider Search Defender, the tool combines two other projects from MSR: Strider Honey Monkey and URL Tracer.
The effort is being headed up by researcher Yi-Min Wang and focuses on a major problem now plaguing the Web: blog spam. The basic premise of Strider Search Defender is that spammers utilize what Yi-Min calls "doorway pages" -- sites at reputable hosts and blog services. The doorway pages pull ads from a "target page" operated by the spammer.
Instead of reading the actual content of a page to see if it could be classified as spam, Microsoft is taking a context-based approach that analyzes URL redirection. Because many Web sites will use redirection to serve up different pages to search engines and humans, this methodology could prove more effective.
In addition, Yi-Min notes that large-scale spammers create hundreds or thousands of doorway pages the either redirect to or retrieve ads from a single domain. By finding these target pages that are connected to a large number of doorways, an entire spam operation can be stopped in a single pass.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:14 pm
News Source : BetaNews
Microsoft extends lifeline for older PCs
Microsoft on Wednesday revealed software that turns older PCs into more modern and secure systems, but in the process also makes them less than full-fledged computers.
The software, known as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, is designed as a stopgap measure for companies with a significant number of older Windows PCs that they aren't ready to replace and that can't be easily upgraded to Windows XP.
Formerly known by its Eiger code name, Windows Fundamentals gives those PCs some of the security benefits of XP but essentially turns the machines into thin clients, able to run only a few programs locally, with most software needing to run remotely from a server.
As Microsoft announced in September, Windows Fundamentals is being made available as part of Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing program. It's one of several changes the company is making to the program.
"Software Assurance is certainly more than upgrades," said Mike Oldham, a general manager in Microsoft's licensing group. "We see it as a full offering that we are incorporating more value into all the time."
Oldham said that Microsoft developed Windows Fundamentals because corporate customers were looking for a way to get more years out of their PCs. "This gave them a key tool for expanding those life spans."
Turning PCs into thin clients is something new, Oldham said. "Typically we have not delved into that area."
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:13 pm
News Source : ZDNet
European Union Could Split Sony BMG
A day after announcing it was fining Microsoft 280.5 million euros for not complying with an antitrust ruling, the European Commission on Thursday said it planned to reevaluate the merger between Sony Music and BMG, and could end up splitting up the music company.
The decision surrounds a finding that the 2004 merger would not harm customers. Independent record label Impala filed a challenge stating European antitrust regulators made false assumptions that promotional discounts would inhibit the creation of a monopoly.
The European Court of First Instance agreed with Impala's assessment, saying, "The commission did not demonstrate to the requisite legal standard either the nonexistence of a collective dominant position before the concentration or the absence of a risk that such a position would be created as a result of the concentration."
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:13 pm
News Source : BetaNews
Microsoft Confirms PowerPoint Zero-Day Attack
First Word, then Excel, now PowerPoint. For the third time in two months, a zero-day vulnerability in a widely used Microsoft Office software application is being used in targeted hacker attacks. The latest attack exploits a previously undocumented flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation program used by millions of users around the world.
The attack comes just days after Microsoft's July Patch Tuesday and closely mirrors the situation in June when a zero-day Excel attack was discovered 24 hours after Patch Day. Virus hunters at Symantec linked the zero-day attack to a Trojan horse program called Trojan.PPDropper.B that arrives via e-mail from a Gmail address. The subject line of the mail and the .ppt file-name are in Chinese characters, suggesting that the attacks are emanating from?and attacking targets?in the Far East. If the PowerPoint attachment is opened, the Trojan drops and executes a variant of Backdoor.Bifrose.E, a keystroke logger that is used to steal sensitive information and send it back to a remote server controlled by malicious hackers.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:12 pm
News Source : eWeek
MySQL to draw curtain on older databases
MySQL has published its first "end of life" timetable for its open-source database and will no longer provide free updates for some older versions of the product starting next month, it said this week. The company has been relatively generous in the past in providing free updates for versions of its database as old as five years or more. Maintaining several releases at once costs the company money, however, and it will soon start charging for updates to the older versions, MySQL said.
"Keeping older versions alive for a long time is appreciated by our community and our customers alike. However, we are no longer in a position to maintain our older versions without remuneration," Kaj Arn?, MySQL's vice president for community relations, wrote in the company's blog Wednesday. Customers using MySQL 3.23 and MySQL 4.0 will have to buy a MySQL Network Subscription to receive binary updates for those products after Aug 1 (for 3.23) and Oct. 1 (for 4.0), Arn? wrote. A basic subscription starts at US$595 per server per year in the U.S., or ?495 in Europe.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:11 pm
News Source : InfoWorld
AMD to complain about Intel in Germany
AMD will formally complain to German anti-trust authorities about alleged attempts made by Intel to stop certain retailers selling PCs based on AMD processors, the chip maker said yesterday.Earlier this week, it emerged an unknown company has already filed a formal complaint about Intel with Germany's Federal Cartel Office (FCO). The organisation confirmed the complaint had been filed but would provide no further details - including the name of the grumbler. In briefings to journalists yesterday, AMD spokespeople claimed the company has written evidence to support the charges of anti-competitive behaviour it has levelled at Intel. But then it has said as much before, in the lawsuits it filed in the US and Japanese District Courts last year
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 14, 2006, 2:10 pm
News Source : The Reg
Tour-de-Google Earth
This year's Tour-de-France is already underway, and now you can get a taste for what awaits the 199 riders with Google Earth's 3D map of the course.
With every stage, hill and bump mapped out in exquisite detail the only thing missing from the tiltable, scrollable and zoomable map is the riders themselves. Simply install the KML file (Google Earth's geographic markup language) and you can follow the race for yourself, on your PC.
This addition, via the official Tour-de-France website, is just another example of how Google's heavy web-presence is oozing its way into a major sporting event. Not only is it a great way of giving Tour-fanatics an accurate representation of their idols' fate, it's a great mainstream advert for the Google empire and its array of toys.
You can now download a variety of KML files from the Google Earth homepage, including commercially-driven top 500 hotel lists, Discovery Channel-endorsed national park lists and of course the giant Maxim poster erected to get the lads mag onto Google Earth.
With such a powerful tool now available for free, everyone can now shout "hey there's my house!" - even Mac and Linux users.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 10, 2006, 4:27 pm
News Source : Neowin
Are you Ready for Vista RC1
It was understood that if you registered a key for Beta 2 you would automatically be accepted for RC1 when it ships, this appears not to be the case. Participants will only be inviited to download RC1 if you have activated your copy!
This from the Vista Team Blog:
"Please let us underscore a very important point surrounding Windows Vista Beta2 that can be easily overlooked in all the excitement to download and install the code: it is very important that every user activate Windows Vista Beta2 within the first 14 days of installation. Activation allows us at Microsoft to test our support infrastructure as well as the activation process itself. In addition, we'll be unable to provide you with a copy of RC1 (Release Candidate 1, the release subsequent to Beta2) unless your copy of Beta2 is activated."
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 10, 2006, 4:26 pm
News Source : Neowin
Palm's Direction into the Future May Open New Windows
This week Palm mentioned two future devices, one which is expected in August or September and the other by the end of this year. Sadly though Palm has stumbled onto some blocks.
First, the Treo 650 will stop shipping in Europe because of new hazardous waste regulations that are taking effect that the phone does not comply with. Palm is feverously working to ready its next devices currently codenamed ?Lennon? and ?Nitro? to Europe and US markets as soon as it possibly can, but the company didn?t have any release dates available during the call. Not a lot of information is available about the new devices planned by Palm, but we do know that Nitro will be based off on the PalmOS and Lennon will run Windows Mobile 2005. It also looks like non-phone Palm products probably won?t last much longer as LifeDrive wasn?t the product Palm was hoping it would be and hasn?t sold as well as projected. This is further supported by comments made by Palm CEO Ed Colligan, indicating that the company continues to refocus on its smartphone products. Palm?s non-smartphone handhelds and other device sales numbers have also steadily declined over the last four years from 100% of sales in 2003 to only 25% of sales today.
There were also some other comments made during the call that lead us to believe that PalmOS may be on the way out. According to Palm, developing for two separate operating systems is too expensive, and more devices coming to market continue to ship with Windows Mobile. Although the change isn?t reflected in Palm's current device roadmap, the company mentioned that it would make sense. RIM devices run on RIM OS and although it faces heavy competition from Microsoft, RIM devices have a good deal of enterprise level penetration. From the sounds of things, Palm is in the same ballpark as other mobile smartphone makers. Try as it might, Palm doesn?t seem like it's gaining much headway against RIM and the Blackberry in the enterprise and business markets. With this in mind, we could be witnessing an entire new line of products from Palm shipping with Windows Mobile.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 4, 2006, 4:24 pm
News Source : DailyTech
Orange may acquire AOL UK
A REPORT in the Sunday Telegraph claims that Orange/Wanadoo - operated by France Telecom, should win the auction to buy AOL's UK internet business. The paper believes that the bid from Orange is motivated by fear of the prospect of arch rival, BSkyB, getting hold of it. However, the INQ believes that Orange would be well aware of the chaos that is surrounding the Carphone Warehouse's offer of free broadband for those on its Talk Talk fixed line service.
Mobile magazine reports that waiting times at the Carphone's dedicated Talk Talk call centres have typically reached 45 minutes. It also claims that new customers trying to get the free internet service may have to wait up to two months for the connexion to go live.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 4, 2006, 4:23 pm
News Source : The Inquirer
Worm poses as Windows Genuine Advantage
IT security experts have warned of a worm that purports to be Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy tool.
WGA has recently been branded as 'spyware' in that it collects unnecessary hardware and software data from users' PCs.
The Cuebot-K worm spreads via AOL Instant Messenger, registering itself as a new system driver service called 'wgavn'. It carries the display name 'Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Notification', and runs automatically during system startup.
Users who view the list of services are told that removing or stopping the service will result in 'system instability'.
Once in place the worm disables the Windows firewall, and opens a backdoor to infected computers which allows hackers to gain remote access, spy on users, and potentially launch distributed denial-of-service attacks.
"People may think they have been sent the file from one of their AOL IM buddies, but in fact the program has no friendly intentions," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.
News Posted by : GoogleFreak On
: July 4, 2006, 4:23 pm
News Source : Vnunet.com
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