Security news February 28, 2006
America Online Inc. has filed three civil lawsuits against major phishing “gangs,” seeking $18 million from the groups, the company said Tuesday. (more…)
Multimedia 
If you have played games online in the last year or so, then World of Warcraft is a name that has been hard to avoid.
If you have played games online in the last year or so, then World of Warcraft is a name that has been hard to avoid.
Blizzard’s stunning MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) has swept all before it, breaking various genre records and notching up more than 5.5 million regular players in the process. (more…)
Internet news
Apple Computer on Tuesday introduced its third Intel-based Mac, a revamped version of its petite Mac Mini.
The new Mac Mini will be available, starting immediately, in two models. The low-end model sells for $599 and comes with a 1.5GHz Intel Solo single-core chip, a 60GB hard drive and a combo drive that can play DVDs and burn CDs. (more…)
Security news February 27, 2006
Google called the Bush administration’s request for data on Web searches as “so uninformed as to be nonsensical'’ in papers filed in San Jose federal court Friday, arguing that turning over the information would expose its trade secrets and violate the privacy of its users.
The 21-page brief filed by the Mountain View search giant angrily dissected the government’s claim that the search results would produce useful evidence regarding child pornography.
The Justice Department asked a federal judge to force Google to turn over the data last month, after Google refused to comply with an earlier subpoena. Government lawyers said the searches would help it defend the Child Online Protection Act, which was struck down as unconstitutional. The law is designed to keep children from sexually explicit material on the Internet.
(more…)
Internet news
The new ‘Google Purchases’ service (purchases.google.com) will be launched in a few days, and is to allow users to make micropayments within ‘Google Base’ (buy and sell all kinds of items), to acquire licences of ‘Google Earth’, non-free videos from ‘Google Video’, and to pay products of the Google Store. (more…)
Internet news February 23, 2006
The big question will be how much of a financial loss Sony will have to swallow on each box in order to get consumers to buy them.
The estimated total bill of materials for Sony’s next-generation game console will be between $725 and $905, according to various estimates. In comparison, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft comes with a component bill between $501 and $525.
Though Sony hasn’t disclosed the price of the PS3, analysts figure it will have to be in the ballpark of $299 to $399–the price for the two versions of the Xbox 360. PS3 pricing speculation has heated up in recent days, along with rumors that the long-awaited game console could be delayed for up to a year.
Security news
A million e-mails a day in a global business? It’s not impossible. How do you, how should you back them up or archive them? With Morgan Stanley near to being fined a cool and humungous $15 million for not being able to produce e-mails after a legal discovery request in the USA this question has being thrown into high prominence.
Internet news
Microsoft has released the first feature-complete beta of its Vista operating system.
The Community Technology Preview (CTP), as the betas are now called, includes for the first time the complete set of deployment tools built into the operating system and designed to ease the creation of Vista images and the distribution and installation of those images on desktops. The February CTP also includes the first release of Vista’s Sidebar feature, where users can link to mini-programs called gadgets. Microsoft is including a few gadgets in the CTP, including an RSS viewer and world clock.
Security news February 21, 2006
Security firm Secunia on Tuesday documented a possible exploit in Apple’s Safari Web browser that the company describes as “extremely critical.” Secunia calls the exploit Mac OS X “__MACOSX” ZIP Archive Shell Script Execution, and advises Mac users to take simple action to avoid the problem.
A preference setting in the Safari Web browser can lead to the execution of a malicious shell script, renamed to a “safe” extension in a ZIP archive, according to the security alert. (more…)
Internet news
BEIJING, China (UPI) — Google faces new obstacles in China after a local newspaper reported it does not have the required license to operate its Chinese-language platform.
The Beijing News reported Tuesday that the recently launched Chinese search engine Google.cn did not have the proper ICP, or Internet content provider, license, and that the Ministry of Information Industry was investigating the company. (more…)
