The consensus on the Web echoes the Wall Street Journal’s review of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system, finding it fresh and interesting but only a start. – Windows Phone 7, the new operating system with which Microsoft has rejoined
the mobile phone market, is quot;novel, quot; with some nice and attractive
features that distinguish it from the mobile OSes of market dominators Apple
and Google. But it’s not enough to make consumers with an eye on th…
An Avnet security researcher reports several security vulnerabilities in major social networking sites that could be used to compromise accounts. – A security researcher recently uncovered numerous cross-site
scripting vulnerabilities in Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.
The social networking sites have patched all the bugs, which were discovered
by Nir Goldshlager of Avnet Information Security Consulting and shared with the
sites a few weeks…
A long-predicted phenomenon has turned up in an unexpected place
IN 1974 Stephen Hawking, pictured, had a startling theoretical insight about black holes—those voracious eaters of matter and energy from whose gravitational clutches not even light can escape. He predicted that black holes should not actually be black. Instead, because of the quirks of quantum mechanics, they should glow ever so faintly, like smouldering embers in a dying fire. The implications were huge. By emitting this so-called Hawking radiation, a black hole would gradually lose energy and mass. If it failed to replenish itself it would eventually evaporate completely, like a puddle of water on a hot summer’s day.
Unfortunately for physicists, Dr Hawking also predicted that the typical temperature at which a black hole radiates should be about a billionth of that of the background radiation left over from the Big Bang itself. Proving his theory by observing actual Hawking radiation from a black hole in outer space has therefore remained a practical impossibility. …
The more they are understood, the more mysterious they become
THE black holes that get the most press these days are the microscopic sort expected to pop out of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva and, some misguidedly fear, gobble up the Earth in the process. But not every black-hole buff’s gaze has turned to the collider. Plenty of physicists still look to the skies in search for clues to the nature of what is now believed to be as humdrum a cosmic occurrence as stars and planets. Some of what they see poses more questions than it answers.
Apart from the as-yet-unobserved microscopic variety, physicists have spotted numerous telltale signs of black holes that weigh several times the mass of the sun. These are believed to be the remnants of stars that have run out of nuclear fuel and thus collapsed through the pull of their own gravity. There are also signs of the even-more-massive brethren of these star-sized black holes—monsters which are thought to weigh between 100,000 and 50 billion solar masses and found at the centres of galaxies. …
Here’s the scoop: BP’s attempt to stop the oil spill using the “Top Kill” method has failed.How do I know?Well, as the New York Times notes:BP officials, who along with government officials created the impression early in the day that the strategy was…
Google said it is plugging more privacy flaws in Google Buzz and is mulling a version of the social service that is not integrated with Gmail. Google told Business Insider it is working on two more controls with regard to Google Reader, which along with Twitter, Flickr and YouTube connects with Buzz. These came in response to an angry blogger who found her personal info was made accessible to an abusive ex-husband through the connection between Buzz and Google Reader. Google is also considering a version of Google Buzz that does not run in Gmail, according to Search Engine Land.
– Less than one day after Google improved the privacy controls in its Google
Buzz social service, the company said it is plugging more privacy flaws and is
mulling a version of the social service that is not integrated with Gmail.
The search engine launched Google Buzz Feb. 9, offering its 176 mill…
Microsoft hasnt made it easy to move from Windows XP to Windows 7. LapLink’s PCmover line of personality transplant tools moves applications and their configuration settings to a new operating system without requiring reinstallation or reconfiguration. eWEEK Labs put the consumer edition (PCmover Professional) and the business-focused edition (PCmover Enterprise) to the test.
– Microsoft hasnt made it easy for consumers or corporate IT workers to move from Windows XP to Windows 7 without the potential for a significant loss of time and productivity.
While there are a few scenarios in which a Windows Vista PC can be upgraded to Windows 7 while retaining existing applicatio…
Switzerland’s finance minister acknowledges that he had a rough time this year after the Swiss bowed to international pressure on banking secrecy under the onslaught of US lawsuits and a crackdown on tax evasion. Yet, the Swiss banking industry insists that it was stirred rather than shaken
Microsoft releases its biggest Patch Tuesday update ever, bundling fixes for 34 vulnerabilities in a baker’s dozen of security bulletins. Most of the bulletins deal with security issues in Windows, including six bulletins affecting Windows 7.
– Microsoft issued a massive
Patch Tuesday update Oct. 13 to address 34 vulnerabilities across its
products.
The vulnerabilities are covered by 13
security bulletins, and span Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Office,
Silverlight, Forefront, Developer Tools and SQL Server. Eight of the bullet…
Microsoft is issuing 13 security bulletins next week, eight of them critical. In the batch are two critical Windows security bulletins – one for the zero-day in the Server Message Block protocol and the other for vulnerabilities in the FTP service in Microsoft Internet Information Services.
– Microsoft plans to release 13 security bulletins in a massive patch Tuesday update next week.
Eight of the 13 bulletins are rated quot;critical, quot; and the remaining five
are classified as quot;important. quot; All totaled, the bulletins cover 34 vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft Windows, I…
Data from Trusteer and Qualys puts the spotlight on trouble in the vulnerability management process. It still typically takes a month for a patch to be deployed to half of vulnerable systems, Qualys reports, while Trusteer says nearly 80 percent of the computers it scans are running vulnerable versions of Adobe Flash.
– Successful exploits need not be zero-day attacks. In fact, it is often older
vulnerabilities in popular applications that are the doorknob intruders turn to
compromise systems.
This point was underscored recently by separate research from Qualys and
Trusteer highlighting some troublesome findin…
Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0.1 update doesnt provide any compelling new features or functionality for users, but it does purport to fix the SMS vulnerabilities discussed in depth at Black Hat in late-July. Administrators and users are advised to install the update ASAP, before attacks surface in the wild.
– …
A security researcher is backing up his claims that the Apple iPhone 3GS is not enterprise-ready, with YouTube videos demonstrating how an attacker could get your private data.
– A security researcher who
has asserted Apples iPhone 3GS is not enterprise-ready has posted tutorials on
YouTube to back up his claims.
Jonathan Zdziarski, who
teaches forensic classes about recovering data from the iPhone,
has posted two tutorials to YouTube to demonstrate issues he contend…
There are still significant notspots when it comes to 3G mobile coverage in the UK, regulator Ofcom has revealed.
It has pledged to investigate why some places, particularly in rural areas, are still failing to get any coverage.
It also said it will investigate mobile broadband speeds, which vary tremendously in different areas and at different times of day.
Between February 2008 and February 2009 there were two million new connections to mobile broadband, said Ofcom.
3G (or Third Generation) services allow people to connect to the web via a wireless network, either using a phone, a dongle or datacard which can be plugged into a PC or a laptop.
In the UK such services are offered by operators such as Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and 3.
But there are questions about how reliable these services are and whether they can provide the speeds needed by consumers.
More spectrum
Research from broadband communications firm Epitiro recently found that the average download speed achieved with mobile broadband was just under 1Mbps (megabit per second).
"if mobile networks are going to become one of the key routes to the internet for million of users, they’re going to need to build more six-lane highways to replace those B-roads where the traffic keeps getting stuck."
Rory Cellan-Jones
BBC technology correspondent
At 0300 this average rose to 1.8Mbps, illustrating that contention issues – how many people use the service at any given time – plays a big role in limiting speed.
On average mobile broadband users were only getting a quarter of advertised speeds, found Epitiro’s study.
Increasingly consumers are dropping their fixed line phones in favour of mobile. While mobile calls increased by 11 billion minutes during 2008, the number of minutes on fixed lines fell by 8 billion.
Consumers are getting increasingly data-hungry. In 2003, just 1% of revenue per mobile connection came from data but by 2008 that rose to 6%, according to Ofcom.
The Digital Britain report pledged to free up more 3G spectrum, which should improve coverage.
Consumer Focus, an organisation dedicated to campaigning for a fair deal for consumers, welcomed Ofcom’s review of the mobile market.
"Some consumers find themselves excluded from mobile communications due to gaps in 3G coverage or the market’s failure to make new technology accessible to all," said Audrey Gallacher, telecoms expert at Consumer Focus.
She felt that Ofcom could do more to make it easier for consumers to sign up to mobile broadband.
"Accessing the best deal in a market where mobile operators offer a bewildering array of over 200,000 different tariffs is a real challenge," she said.
"With mobiles now treated as an essential service rather than a luxury, there is more pressure than ever before on mobile companies to give consumers a fair deal and make mobile services accessible to all," she added.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
