Thursday, January 18, 2007
California offers former HP chairman plea deal
California's attorney general is offering former Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others charged in the HP spying scandal a chance to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, a source said Thursday.
Stephen Naratil, an attorney for data broker Bryan Wagner who is one of the defendants in the case, told the Associated Press that the plea agreement tendered by state prosecutors would allow all five defendants to avoid four felony charges stemming from an investigation launched last year by HP to find the source of a news leak.
A source close to the case, who asked not to be named, confirmed Naratil's statement. Representatives for Dunn declined to comment.
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Symantec Searches for Bugs
New SONAR security technology targets fresh software vulnerabilities as well as known flaws.
Starting in February, users of Symantec's Norton products will have a new tool to help them avoid unpatched software flaws.
Called the Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response (SONAR), the new security software will look at the behavior of programs running on the computer in order to decide whether they are malicious. This is a departure from Symantec's traditional signature-based antivirus protection techniques, which compare the program's code to a database of known malware.
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Botnet Gang Faces Jail
Dutch prosecutors seek prison, fines for two charged in international hacking scheme.
Dutch prosecutors are pursuing jail terms for two men charged in a large-scale computer hacking scheme in which more than 1 million computers may have been infected with adware and other malicious programs.
The case is the biggest cybercrime case prosecuted so far in the Netherlands, said Desiree Leppens, spokesperson for the organized crime branch of the National Public Prosecution Service in Rotterdam.
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Sun patches critical JRE security flaws
Sun Microsystems has issued a critical security patch to address vulnerabilities in Sun's Java Runtime Environment when it processes graphics interchange format, or GIF, images.
The security flaws could allow an attacker to gain control of a user's system via an untrusted Java applet, which in turn could allow attackers to grant themselves permission to read and write local files or execute applications on the user's computer, according to an advisory issued by Secunia on Wednesday.
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Cell phone didn't ignite California man
Fire investigators in California now say a cell phone did not cause a fire that severely burned a man last weekend.
The Vallejo Fire Department said on Thursday that it has ruled out a malfunctioning cell phone as the cause of a fire that on Saturday night caused second- and third-degree burns on more than 50 percent of Luis Picaso's body.
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Apple may open FairPlay (a crack)
Apple plans to make it possible for people to listen to iTunes' songs on devices other than iPods, according to a published report.
Apple will announce that electronics makers that make gear that sends music throughout the home will be able to play songs purchased from iTunes, according to Britain-based news site tech.co.uk. The publication cites an unnamed source.
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Overclocking Guide Part 3: How To Gain 81% For $27
We did a risk to benefit analysis, considered some of the best values in overclockable platforms, and now we're ready to "do the deed": pushing a low-cost Core 2 Duo system to its maximum performance level. As we detail each step, we'll avoid those that would lead to early system failure, staying away from excessive voltage or heat levels.
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SCO's FY06 Results: Not a Pretty Picture
The SCO Group on Jan. 17 reported financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2006. Had Warren Zevon been a business reporter, he might have described SCO's latest fiscal year as "not that pretty at all." He would have been right.
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RIM readies new UI, CPU for 3G BlackBerry 9000?
Research in Motion will launch a brand new user interface, along with the ability to back-up and restore a handheld's contents to MicroSD card, when it brings its BlackBerry 9000 series to market in Q4.
So claims handset rumoursite BoyGeniusReport, which adds that the device will be a 3G unit and contain a new processor.
There a no details about what the chip might be. In 2005, RIM made a big deal out of its decision to adopt Intel's ARM-based XScale processor. Last year, Intel sold the range to Marvell, which in November 2006 began shipping what would have been Intel's next-generation part, 'Monahans' aka the PXA300 series.
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Dell hit with class action suit over Inspiron
Dell, which struggled last year with a massive battery recall, now faces legal action in Canada from a user who complained the company continued to sell some models in its notebook line after it knew they suffered from problems.
The class action suit was filed in the Ontario Superior Court by Thad Griffin, a resident of Ontario, on behalf of other users of Dell Inspiron laptops. It alleges design defects make certain Inspirons susceptible to overheating and that this overheating will cause extra wear to the motherboard, resulting in premature failure.
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IE 7 reaches 100 million users
More than 100 million people have installed Internet Explorer 7, making it the second most used browser in the U.S., trailing only its predecessor--IE 6, the software maker said Friday.
"I'm pleased to report that on January 8, we had the 100 millionth IE7 installation," Microsoft Group Program Manager Tony Chor said on the IE blog. "However, even more important than installations is usage. According to WebSideStory (the company we use to measure browser usage), as of this week, over 25 percent of all visitors to Web sites in the U.S. were using IE7, making IE7 the second most used browser after IE6."
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Apple's 21 million reasons to love the holidays
Apple's past holiday season was definitely filled with joy.
The company reported first-quarter profit of $1 billion as iPod sales increased by 50 percent compared with the same period a year ago, Apple said in a press release Wednesday.
Revenue was $7.1 billion, up about 25 percent from the previous year's first quarter of $5.7 billion. Earnings per share were $1.14, up sharply from the previous year's earnings per share of 65 cents, for Apple's first fiscal quarter ending on December 30.
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Security tools ready for Vista launch
Microsoft is promoting Windows Vista as the most secure version of its operating system yet--but it's still recommending outside help to shield against common cyberthreats.
All major security software makers, as well as many smaller ones, will have products available for Vista when the operating system is launched to consumers on January 30, Microsoft said Wednesday. That's a different story from last November, when Vista was released for businesses. At that time, only one major security company, McAfee, was ready.
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HP investigator argues California can't try him
An investigator charged with felonies connected to the Hewlett-Packard spying scandal told a judge Wednesday that he's immune from prosecution in California because he's already pleaded guilty to the same crimes in federal court.
Bryan Wagner is charged in California with four felonies, including identity theft and conspiracy. Prosecutors allege that the 29-year-old data broker persuaded telephone company employees to hand over private records belonging to journalists and board members.
In addition to Wagner, former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn and three others connected to the case are charged with the same crimes.
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Global PC shipments grow, but revenue remains flat
The PC industry is running hard, but staying in the same spot.
Shipments of desktops, notebooks and servers with processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices grew by about 10 percent worldwide in 2006, according to figures released Wednesday from research firm Gartner. During the calendar year, 239.4 million PCs left factories.
Hewlett-Packard, the largest PC maker in the world for two straight quarters, expanded its lead over rival Dell in the fourth quarter worldwide. HP also edged closer to Dell in U.S. shipments. IDC found similar results, which were also released Wednesday.
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Sun speeds Niagara servers
Sun Microsystems is expected to announce faster UltraSparc T1 "Niagara" servers Thursday along with a firmer launch date for higher-end "Rock"-based models.
Current T1000 and T2000 servers use 1GHz or 1.2GHz processors, but the new models' chips run at 1.4GHz. In addition, the maximum memory has been increased to 64GB from 32GB, which in combination with the faster chips mean overall performance increases 30 percent, said Fadi Azhari, director of marketing for multicore Sparc technology.
A high-end Niagara T2000 system with a 1.2GHz processor and 64GB of memory costs about $68,000, but moving to the 1.4GHz processor increases the price to $85,000, according to Sun's store.
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MySpace developing parental-notification software
Under fire from both the U.S. government and parental organizations, MySpace.com has announced that it is creating software to give parents a window into what their children are putting on their online profiles.
Once the monitoring software is finished and distributed, parents can install it on a home computer to see what any MySpace user who logs on from that computer lists as his or her profile name, age and location. It will also track updates made to those profiles. The software doesn't give parents access to the content of the MySpace profiles in question, and the members whose profiles are being monitored will be notified that the software is keeping tabs on them.
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Find toxic wastelands via Google Earth
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to make it easier for Google, Microsoft and other enterprising online mappers to spread the word about potentially hazardous sites in your neighborhood.
Agency representatives at a public meeting here on Wednesday unveiled what they billed as the first step in a new push to make the EPA's vast scientific data stores more readily accessible online for download and incorporation into popular applications like Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth.
The agency's ultimate goal is to boost public awareness of its activities--with a loftier aim of improving public health and the environment in the process--by allowing federal agencies, companies and even mashup artists to get their hands on the data more easily. Such data can play a key role in everything from land-use planning to real estate transactions, they said.
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Adobe ships Flash player for Linux
Adobe Systems on Tuesday made good on a promise to release a Linux version of the latest Flash Player, software that lets Web browsers view multimedia information such as YouTube videos or animated advertisements.
The software is one ingredient needed to make Linux computers competitive with Windows and Mac OS X systems, for which Adobe released version 9 of the Flash Player in November. The new version will be distributed along with the software from the two major commercial Linux powers, Red Hat and Novell, Adobe said Wednesday.
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