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Browser Choice Boosts Downloads of Opera 10.5

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:38:43 +0000

In the wake of the browser choice screen in Europe, Opera Software is reporting a dramatic uptick in browser downloads. The company said more than half the European downloads of Opera 10.50 have come directly from Microsoft's choice screen since early March.

Microsoft used to configure Internet Explorer as the default browser for its Windows operating system, but under pressure from the European Commission, it agreed last October to test-market measures to give Europeans an option to download and install competing browsers like Opera, Google's Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox.

European Windows users are getting a choice through a browser screen that is displayed automatically and lets users make any browser the default. Users can even turn Microsoft's Internet Explorer off, although Microsoft has said there's no need to do that to make another browser the default.

Doubling Downloads

"This confirms that when users are given a real choice on how they choose the most important piece of software on their computer, the browser, they will try out alternatives," said H?kon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software. "A multitude of browsers will make the web more standardized and easier to browse."

According to Opera, the increase represents more than a doubling from the normal download numbers -- even only after a short period with the choice screen. The choice screen rollout will continue well into May for existing Windows computers and for five more years on new Windows installations, giving Opera reason to believe it will continue to see more downloads.

Of course, Internet Explorer remains dominant with 61.58 percent of the browser market. But Opera is nevertheless rejoicing over the browser screen and has rolled out Opera 10.50, which it bills as the fastest-ever browser for Windows computers. Opera 10.50 also has a new design and private browsing.

Mobile Competition

Opera is also pressing to...

Basketball, Facebook and Gossip Are Malware Targets

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:55:29 +0000

Cybercriminals have been busy this week running scams that target Facebook users, college basketball fans, and celebrity gossip watchers. Security experts are warning about recent attacks with nasty payloads.

One widespread attack was a common ploy security researchers call the Facebook Password Reset Scam. The cybercriminals send an e-mail addressed to "user of Facebook" that reads, "Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed. You can find your new password in the attached document."

McAfee reports that this scam is global. The attachment is malware with downloaders, password-stealing Trojans, fake antivirus software, or bots. The scam ranked six on McAfee's Global Virus Map Top 10, and accounted for as much as 10 percent of the infected e-mail that its software-as-a-service unit is witnessing.

"As we had previously discussed in our 2010 Threat Predictions, social-networking sites will continue to be a favorite social-engineering lure for cybercriminals to distribute malware," said David Marcus, research labs manager at McAfee. "Make sure you are protected and educated."

March Virus Madness

At a time when college basketball fans are going wild, cybercriminals are actively pursuing opportunities for scams. Basketball fans go online to fill out bracket selections, and when they do, hackers are also playing their own game of spamdexing, i.e. manipulating search results to promote sites, according to James Duldulao, a security researcher at McAfee. In this case, he explained, cybercriminals are spamdexing malware-infected sites.

This week, the top results for terms like "ncaa bracket" and "march madness predictions" were poisoned. McAfee reports that five out of the first 10 hot searches on Google Trends are being promoted by a network of legitimate sites that were hacked to serve malware. One site had an embedded Flash file that downloads malware from another site and installs it without user interaction.

"Who would have thought...

Apple Files Patent for Mobile Social Networking

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:27:29 +0000

Apple is tapping into the social arena with plans to launch a social-networking application. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has filed a patent with the U.S. Patent & Trade Office describing a social-network application dubbed iGroups.

The application for patent, made available on Thursday, reveals that Apple is working on an ad-hoc social network that would enable users to communicate with one another without using a central access point or mobile-device networks such as Bluetooth's personal area network (PAN) or piconet (an ad-hoc computer network that links a group of devices using Bluetooth technology).

Instead, iGroups would enable users to use the Bluetooth-enabled devices to communicate by setting the devices to a Token Exchange mode.

Targeted Content

While set in this mode, all device owners or group members within a geographic range of one another would be able to broadcast and receive tokens. Tokens can be exchanged using a communication link within limited range.

The tokens received by members are stored locally on the device or sent to a trusted service operating remotely on a network such as Apple's MobileMe.

"In some implementations, the tokens can be stored with corresponding time stamps to assist a trusted service in matching the tokens with tokens provided by other devices," writes Apple in its patent application. "The trusted service can perform an analysis on the tokens and time stamps to identify devices that were colocated at the geographic location at a given contact time, which can be determined by the time stamps."

Members would then be able to set up accounts with the service by registering through a portal or web site managed by the trusted service.

User interfaces, filters and search engines would let users search and manage groups. The groups can be used with various applications, including calendars, address books, e-mail, and instant messaging.

Apple...

Microsoft Eases Windows XP Mode Requirements

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:45:52 +0000

Microsoft released a software update Thursday that eliminates some of the hardware requirements for running Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 PCs. The goal is to make it far easier for small and midsize businesses to migrate to Windows 7 while retaining access to critical legacy applications that are unable to run on machines equipped with Microsoft's latest operating system.

Windows 7 Professional users will no longer need to deploy hardware-virtualization technology in order to run their PCs in Windows XP Mode, noted Microsoft's in-house blogger, Brandon LeBlanc. "This change makes it extremely easy for businesses to use Windows XP Mode to address any application incompatibility roadblocks they might have in migrating to Windows 7," LeBlanc wrote.

Right from the Desktop

Available on the professional and ultimate editions of Windows 7 introduced last October, Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC will enable business PC users to run multiple Windows environments from the Windows 7 desktop. This week's upgrade also includes new features such as USB support as well as one-click launch of Windows XP Mode apps.

"The applications running in Windows XP look and feel like they are installed directly on Windows 7," said Microsoft Senior Product Manager Ran Oelgiesser. "Users will see icons for their applications in the Windows 7 start menu, [and] they can even create shortcuts for them on the desktop."

Windows XP Mode will continue to harness the power of CPU-based virtualization technologies such as Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) or AMD-V if available, LeBlanc noted, though these and other hardware-based virtualization technologies are no longer an absolute requirement. For larger enterprise-class customers, however, Microsoft continues to recommend the use of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), which is part of the software giant's desktop optimization pack for software assurance.

"Windows XP Mode is great as long as you are OK...

Yahoo Buying Fantasy Sports Company Citizen Sports

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:17:50 +0000

Yahoo is buying a fantasy sports company co-founded by an MIT graduate whose card-counting skills helped him win millions of dollars in blackjack and spawned a film and a best-selling book.

Citizen Sports offers fantasy leagues for sports such as football, soccer and basketball that fans can manage online at social-networking sites and through mobile applications for Apple's iPhone and smart phones running Google Inc.'s Android operating software.

With Citizen Sports, Yahoo is looking to boost its social-networking offerings, an area the company has struggled in even though, according to comScore, it commands the largest U.S. Internet audience in news, sports and finance.

Yahoo did not release financial details of its purchase, which it expects to close by June.

Millions of people participate in fantasy leagues. Participants rack up points based on the performance of the sports players they pick to be on their make-believe teams.

Jeff Ma, whose antics in Las Vegas and Atlantic City inspired "Bringing Down the House" and, more recently, the movie "21," started Citizen Sports with business partner Mike Kerns in 2004.

Yahoo said Wednesday that Citizen Sports will be integrated with content from its sports news and information site, Yahoo Sports, and vice versa.

Citizen Sports, which is privately held, now has 39 million unique visitors in the U.S. each month.

Yahoo Buying Fantasy Sports Company Citizen Sports

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:17:50 +0000

Yahoo is buying a fantasy sports company co-founded by an MIT graduate whose card-counting skills helped him win millions of dollars in blackjack and spawned a film and a best-selling book.

Citizen Sports offers fantasy leagues for sports such as football, soccer and basketball that fans can manage online at social-networking sites and through mobile applications for Apple’s iPhone and smart phones running Google Inc.’s Android operating software.

Yahoo did not release financial details of its purchase, which it expects to close by June.

Millions of people participate in fantasy leagues. Participants rack up points based on the performance of the sports players they pick to be on their make-believe teams.

Jeff Ma, whose antics in Las Vegas and Atlantic City inspired “Bringing Down the House” and, more recently, the movie “21,” started Citizen Sports with business partner Mike Kerns in 2004.

Yahoo said Wednesday that Citizen Sports will be integrated with content from its sports news and information site, Yahoo Sports, and vice versa.

Citizen Sports, which is privately held, now has 39 million unique visitors in the U.S. each month.

Leftover Phones Show Palm’s Market Share Is Falling

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:14:25 +0000

With more than half its latest devices left on store shelves at the end of the third quarter, things may be getting out of hand for Palm as the manufacturer struggles to hold market share in the rapidly evolving telecom market.

The company's projected fourth-quarter earnings will be about half the $300 million projected by Wall Street analysts. After Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein and CFO Doug Jeffries held a conference call with industry analysts to discuss the bad news, the company's shares fell 19 percent to $4.08, the lowest level in more than a year, and some advisers urged investors to sell.

Still Optimistic

"Our recent underperformance has been extremely disappointing to me personally and the entire Palm team," said Rubinstein in the conference call, according to Bloomberg. "We're very realistic about our near-term challenges, but the issues we're facing are far from insurmountable."

Palm said only 408,000 of the 960,000 handsets it shipped in the third quarter ending in January sold, amounting to an $18.5 million loss. That was far less than the $95 million loss during the same period last year. In January, the company introduced updated versions of its Pre and Pixi smartphones with added features and more memory.

But Palm phones, available through Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, have been losing market share amid a surge by Google's Android operating system, including the HTC-manufactured Nexus One, sold by Google and T-Mobile, and the Motorola Droid, sold by Verizon.

According to comScore, Android-based phones have doubled their share of the market to 7.1 percent, while Palm fell from 7.8 percent to 5.7 percent. At the same time, market leaders Research in Motion gained 1.7 percent to 43 percent, and Apple advanced 0.3 percent to 25.1 percent, comScore said.

Bad Marketing?

IDC senior research analyst Ramon Llamas sees bad marketing as at least part of...

iPad Pre-Orders Reported in ‘Hundreds of Thousands’

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:25:29 +0000

With Apple's iPad scheduled to go on sale on April 3, a new report indicates there may be strong pre-order demand. This could mean the iPad is on the verge of being a breakthrough product for tablet computers.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that, according to unnamed sources, pre-orders have totaled "hundreds of thousands of units," which could also indicate that the iPad will challenge the iPhone's phenomenal debut. However, it's not clear if these reported pre-orders are actual sales or simply non-sale reservations for later pickups.

Arranging Content for Launch

To help drive sales, Apple is reportedly working overtime to make as many arrangements as possible for media content. This includes deals with publishers of newspapers, magazines and textbooks, as well as with TV networks and Hollywood studios.

Apparently, though, Apple is running into resistance from the print publishers, some of whom are wary of cutting into their existing revenue. The Journal said Apple is "backburnering" its negotiations with print publishers and focusing more on such media content as TV shows.

Industry analysts are generally bullish on the iPad's prospects. For instance, Current Analysis' Avi Greengart said he expects the iPad's long-term sales prospects will be strong, because sales will increase as the initial price points inevitably drop.

"If these numbers from the Journal's sources are correct," he said, they could indicate that the market for early adopters of this new product could be "bigger than expected."

Clear Value Propositions

The iPad, Greengart said, "is the first tablet product that has a clear set of value propositions," so price is the main issue. He said these values include web surfing, media consumption such as movie watching, reading e-books, and access to the more than 100,000 applications available for the iPod touch, "without modification."

In addition, he expects we'll soon see "a huge number" of apps that...

Hacker Wreaks Wireless Havoc on Vehicles

Admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:45:10 +0000

A man fired from a Texas auto dealership used an Internet service to remotely disable ignitions and set off car horns of more than 100 vehicles sold at his old workplace, police said Wednesday.

Austin police arrested Omar Ramos-Lopez, 20, on Wednesday, charging him with felony breach of computer security.

Ramos-Lopez used a former colleague's password to deactivate starters and set off car horns, police said. Several car owners said they had to call tow trucks and were left stranded at work or home.

"He caused these customers, now victims, to miss work," Austin police spokeswoman Veneza Aguinaga said. "They didn't get paid. They had to get tow trucks. They didn't know what was going on with their vehicles."

Ramos-Lopez was in the Travis County Jail on Wednesday with bond set at $3,000. The Associated Press could not find a working phone number for his family.

The Texas Auto Center dealership in Austin installs GPS devices that can prevent cars from starting. The system is used to repossess cars when buyers are overdue on payments, said Jeremy Norton, a controller at the dealership where Ramos-Lopez worked. Car horns can be activated when repo agents go to collect vehicles and believe the owners are hiding them.

"We are taking extra measures to make sure this never happens again," Norton said.

Starting in mid-February, dealership employees noticed unusual changes to their business records. Someone was going into the system and changing customers' names, such as having dead rapper Tupac Shakur buying a 2009 vehicle, Norton said.

Soon, customers began calling saying their cars wouldn't start, or that their horns were going off incessantly, forcing them to disengage the battery. Norton said the dealership originally thought the cars had mechanical problems.

Then employees noticed someone had ordered $130,000 in parts and equipment from the company that makes the GPS devices.

Police said they...