Author: jitheshb

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Microsoft moved up the Vista SP1 Release for Tech Users

SP1

It was the second time in three days that Microsoft changed the release of the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version of Vista SP1 for the IT professionals and developers who pay hundreds of dollars annually for the right to download and test software before it’s offered to the general public.

Microsoft Corp. has moved up the availability of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers, saying they will be able to download the update by Friday at the latest.

Saying “We heard you,” an unidentified Microsoft employee posting to the MSDN Subscriptions blog spelled out the new timetable: “Windows Vista SP1 anticipated to be available to MSDN Subscribers by end of week,” the blogger wrote.

On the TechNet Plus blog, where subscribers had denounced Microsoft’s decision to delay the final code until early next month — and then in a change announced Monday to a vague “later this month” — another Microsoft blogger confirmed that SP1 would also be available to TechNet subscribers on the same day. “It will become available for both programs at once,” said Kathy Dixon of Microsoft.

Dixon was responding to a user who noted the availability change for MSDN subscribers.

Although Microsoft did not specify the day, Friday is the most likely candidate; earlier this week, the company said it would let Volume Licensing customers download the bits on Friday.

Although Microsoft did not specify the day, Friday is the most likely candidate; earlier this week, the company said it would let Volume Licensing customers download the bits on Friday

source:pcworld

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Critical Security Flaws In All Versions Of Linux Kernels

Linux

Last month, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bug-fixing scheme uncovered an average of one security glitch per 1,000 lines of code in 180 widely used open source software projects.

Security researchers have uncovered “critical” security flaws in a version of the Linux kernel used by a large number of popular distributions.

The three bugs allow unauthorized users to read or write to kernel memory locations or to access certain resources in certain servers, according to a SecurityFocus advisory.

They could be exploited by malicious, local users to cause denial of service attacks, disclose potentially sensitive information or gain “root” privileges, according to security experts.

The bug affects all versions of the Linux kernel up to version 2.6.24.1, which contains a patch. Distributions such as Ubuntu, Turbolinux, SuSE, Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian and others are affected.

The problems are within three functions in the system call fs/splice.c, according to an advisory from Secunia.

“In the 2.6.23 kernel the system call functionality has been further extended resulting in… critical vulnerabilities,” said iSEC Security Research in an advisory.

Secunia disagreed about the bugs’ seriousness, giving them a less critical ranking.

Exploit code for the vulnerabilities has been released publicly on the hacker site milw0rm.com, and Core Security Technologies has also developed a commercial exploit for the bugs, researchers said.

Researchers advised system administrators to update their kernels immediately.

Secunia also previously discovered that the number of security bugs in open source Red Hat Linux operating system and Firefox browsers, far outstripped comparable products from Microsoft last year.

 source:pcword

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Global Mobile Awards 2008 Winners

 GSMA

The just-concluded GSMA 2008 in Barcelona, Spain, served to open consumers’ and developers’ eyes to the vast array of devices and platforms available. As in the years past, categories for awards this year included Best Mobile Game, Best Mobile Messaging service, Best Billing and Customer and Customer Service… and of course, the one we’ve been anxiously waiting for: Best Mobile Handset.

As expected, the night was quite star-studded, with the presence of writer and producer Isabella Rossellini, Bollywood actress Sherlyn Chopra, and, from the music world, Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, all of whom were at hand to present the awards.

“As we celebrate 20 years since the foundations for global mobile communication were laid, this year’s winners demonstrate not only how far we have come, but also the limitless possibilities of where innovation and inspiration can take us in the years ahead,” said GSMA CEO Rob Conway.

The Best Mobile Game Award went to Cellufun’s Call of the Pharaoh and Glu Mobile’s My Hangman, while the Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service went to Microsoft, for its Windows Mobile 6.

Finally, the Best Mobile Handset award went to the Sony Ericsson W910i. If you’re shocked, get in line.

For a list of the other winners in various categories, head here.

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Motorola Unveils 3 New Phones

Z6w Moto

Motorola Unveils 3 New Phones at GSMA 2008

The Wi-Fi enabled MOTO Z6w is fully compatible with Windows Media Player 11 on the PC, works on high-speed USB 2.0, and features a 2.0 megapixel camera and video capture, and has up to 4GB of optional removable memory.”We’re proud to add our latest Wi-Fi enabled handset to our growing portfolio, delivering a compelling wireless experience to consumers anywhere they go,” said Rob Shaddock, senior VP, feature and mass market handsets, Motorola Mobile Devices. “The new W series handsets offer both great mobile phone basics and a solid music experience, in a candybar form factor that you can show off with pride.”

The new candybar W161 and W181 come with the patented Motorola CrystalTalk technology, and also feature FM radio.

The MOTO Z6w is expected to hit the market in Q2 2008, while the W161 and W181 will be available in Q1 2008. Prices are yet to be announced.

source:tech2 

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AMD Launches Hardcore Mobile Processor

AMD

AMD has enhanced its established line of open-standard handheld device technologies with upcoming AMD Imageon processors, as well as next-generation 3D and vector graphics cores, available for licensing. These new offerings are designed to allow device manufacturers and network operators to support today’s most popular applications, as well as cutting-edge applications that will thrill tomorrow’s mobile consumer.

The latest technology offerings to broaden the popular family of AMD Imageon processors will include:

  • AMD Imageon D160 mobile TV solution, a complete hardware and software package that will enable OEMs to design cutting-edge mobile devices that receive over-the-air broadcast TV signals transmitted in the DVB-T and DVB-H standards. This turnkey, antenna-to-display solution also will enable mobile TV functionality to be designed in a USB-powered device for watching live television on notebook PCs, PDAs, portable media players and other USB-enabled handheld devices.
  • AMD Imageon M210 audio processor is designed to enable a high-definition, fully integrated audio subsystem capable of delivering more than 100 hours of music playback in airplane mode.
  • AMD Imageon A250 application processor for feature phones will combine the best of AMD’s latest multimedia technology for video recording and playback, photo imaging, and high-res displays while maintaining long system battery life.
  • AMD Z180 OpenVG 1.x graphics core offers the only available hardware-accelerated native vector graphics solution, ideal for advanced user interfaces, navigational systems and portable devices optimized for animation and Flash-style content.
  • AMD Z460 OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics core will deliver fully programmable shader models for realistic 3D graphics, designed to revolutionize the mobile gaming experience for portable devices.

The new technology will be available for OEMs and silicon supplier licensees to sample beginning this month. Features enabled by these new products and technologies are expected to start appearing in mobile devices in late 2008 and 2009.

 source:tech2

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Microsoft is busy preparing its IE8

IE-8

Web site developers may be interested to hear promises made in blog posts by the IE8 platform architect Chris Wilson, who says there is a “lot of potential breakage” in the new browser.

With half a billion supposed IE users and thousands of sites already customised to work with earlier browsers, IE8 has the potential to make Web surfing slicker, or to screw it up for thousands of people.

The team wants IE8 to support the right standards without “breaking the existing Web”. The new hope is an opt-in approach to standards using a element rather than a blanket approach. In theory, this should help avoid the problems that plagued Web sites when IE7 first launched.

No matter what you think if IE, it’s clear that the developer team is aware of these problems. Their goals are certainly admirable, according to this blog post: “We must deliver improved standards support and backwards compatibility so that IE8 continues to work with the billions of pages on the web today that already work in IE6 and IE7 and makes the development of the next billion pages, in an interoperable way, much easier.”

As Chris Wilson explains, “many sites had worked around many of the shortcomings or outright errors in IE6, and now expected IE7 to work just like IE6… Sites didn’t work, and users experienced problems.”

source:itnews 

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Spore releases on Sep and Mass Effect in May

sporemass_effect

First, Electronic Arts (EA) and Maxis have announced that “Spore”, that highly anticipated game from the creators of ‘The Sims’ will be available with retailers across the globe the weekend of September 7, 2008. 

“Spore” will ship for the PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, and mobile phones.

A jubilant Will Wright, chief designer of Maxis, said “The wait is almost over. We’re in our final stages of testing and polish with ‘Spore’, and the team at Maxis can’t wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year.”

Among the most ambitious simulation games ever planned, “Spore” sees the evolution of life from single-celled organisms through the birth of tribes and the beginnings of civilization to the creation of whole new worlds including Space exploration and colonization of other planets.

Described by Maxis as a “massively single-player” game, “Spore” offers players their very own universe plus a wealth of creative tools to modify it in the way they want to.

Incidentally, Wright began work on the game way back in 2005 but due to development problems, it got delayed beyond last year when it was originally expected to hit stores.

While “Spore” hasn’t been officially rated or priced yet, online retailers are pegging it at around $50.
An EA company, has announced that the popular Space epic, “Mass Effect” is headed for the PC in May of 2008.

A futuristic game set in the 22nd century, “Mass Effect” sees humans stumbling upon objects that help them travel faster than light so that they are suddenly propelled into the Milky Way.

The PC version of the game invites players to don the hat of ‘Commander Shepard’, who’s assigned the honorable task of nabbing the villain, in this case ‘Saren’, and saving the galaxy from imminent destruction.

“Mass Effect” for the PC is fraught with conspiracy, treachery, courage, and heroism, not to mention all the alien monsters and interstellar mercenaries who spell doom for the galaxy. To make the game even more exciting, the PC version allows for a ‘Run and Gun’ style of game play — complete with graphics and all that jazz!

The list of features of “Mass Effect”, the PC version reads: optimized controls designed specifically for the PC, high resolution visuals, ‘Run and Gun’ control, new decryption mini-game, and new inventory screen GUI (Graphics User Interface) and functionality.

The game hasn’t yet got a rating from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

source:techtree 

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Supper High-Definition Astro Systems DM-3400

DM-3400

Don’t be too smug with your HDTV just yet – the Astro Systems DM-3400 could be the future even as America starts to warm up to high definition TVs. This 56″ behemoth looks like a standard LCD display at first glance, but it actually offers 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, making it meant to be used in digital cinemas, editing studios and broadcast facilities.

Features include a quartet of DV-D inputs and an equal amount of HD-SDI inputs along with RGB 4:4:$ signals. Users can even hook up multiple input signals for a quad display view on a single monitor. The system supports SMPTE 294M/292M/296M/372M (important for matching up video and audio). And the system weighs about 100 pounds and consumes 500 Watts of power.

There is no word on pricing as at press time, but one thing’s for sure – this ain’t no living room solution and will probably remain the domain of professionals in the meantime.

source:reuters

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Security Researchers At Linux Role In Botnets Btudied

LINUX
Over two-thirds of the malware infections suffered by Sophos’s Linux honeypots involve Rst-B, which attempts to infect ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) binaries in the current working directory and in /bin, and to create a backdoor to the system.

it a six-year old Linux virus is still in circulation, and Sophos suspects the high uptime exhibited by servers (compared with the typical home or office Windows PC that spends much of the day switched off or asleep) makes them valuable to bot-herders as central control points.

Sophos has created a detection tool specifically for this virus, and encourages administrators to use it and then forward any infected files to SophosLabs for analysis.

“If you don’t find Linux/Rst-B on your system, it’s good news but obviously doesn’t mean that you are not infected with something else, said Billy McCourt, SophosLabs UK.

“I’d encourage you to at least do regular on-demand scans on your Linux box but ideally run an on-access scanner.”

A previous analysis by McCourt suggested that Rst-B infections are not being used by intruders to gain access to systems, rather they occur as a side-effect of already-infected hacking tools being downloaded onto servers once a foothold has been gained.

source:itwire 

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Kaspersky launches ‘Mobile Security 7.0’ protection

Kasperky

Kaspersky says their new Mobile Security 7.0 application offers “powerful protection for data stored on smartphones in the event that the device is lost, as well as protecting against network attacks, malware and SMS spam”.

As it is a new product, it’s unsurprising to hear that it features a “series of technical and functional modifications, that have improved the performance of the product, making it more effective and user-friendly”.

According to Kaspersky, key new functions “allow users to completely block a lost device or to remotely delete all the data on it. Moreover, if a smartphone is stolen, the SIM-Watch function prevents the thief from accessing data on the phone without the original SIM card; as soon as the original SIM card is replaced, a message notifies its owner of the new telephone number”.

While a number of Windows Mobile devices do have the ability to have their data wiped, not all Windows Mobile owners are connected to a corporate environment where a system administrator can perform these functions.

This means that Mobile Security 7.0 should give consumers on the latest Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms a way for themselves to ensure their smartphones can be kept secure, which certainly sounds like a very handy feature to have, whether you’re accident prone or not, for even the most careful of people can still have their phone stolen.

source:itrire