Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category
Yahoo vents frustration over App Store process
August 19th, 2009 | 
Author: Yahoo appears to be a little miffed that Apple’s App Store reviewers are still sitting on an update to the Yahoo Messenger for iPhone application.
Yahoo’s ready for the new Yahoo Messenger for iPhone update to be released.
(Credit: Yahoo)
In a post titled “And so we wait…on Apple,” Yahoo’s Sarah Bacon calls out Apple for “the somewhat unpredictable process for getting apps approved and released” on the App Store. Yahoo said it submitted an update for the Yahoo Messenger app (iTunes link) two weeks ago, but has nothing to show for it.
Now, as App Store approval delays or rejections go, two weeks is nothing. Yahoo could just ask Sling Media how it felt about the month-long delay in the approval process for SlingPlayer Mobile, or rival Google about the rejection of Google Voice from the App Store. But Yahoo’s decision to publicly call out Apple is interesting, given the possible thawing of relations between iPhone developers and Apple following Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller’s outreach to bloggers and developers.
“Anyone want to bet that Facebook’s app, which was submitted after ours, gets approved first?” Bacon asked. No action, Yahoo, especially now.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10313434-265.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Microsoft’s plan to get back in the phone game
Microsoft’s efforts to regain lost ground in the mobile phone business will see the company offering two different versions of its operating system next year.
The company will continue to broadly sell Windows Mobile 6.5 to a large variety of handset makers, while working more closely with several handset makers to sell phones built on a new version of Windows Mobile that has been several years in the making, according to a source familiar with the company’s plans.
While Windows Mobile 6.5 is a fairly interim update to the mobile operating system that Microsoft has been selling, Microsoft has also been working on more radical efforts to overhaul the operating system. Both its plans for Windows Mobile 7 and its long-running “Pink” project aim to match the kinds of experiences seen on the iPhone and Android, using more advanced voice and touch interfaces and higher-end hardware.
Microsoft demonstrated Windows Mobile 6.5 at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. That interim update to Windows Mobile will start arriving on phones this fall, while a more radical overhaul of Redmond’s cell phone OS is due next year.
(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET News)
A Digitimes report this week called the effort a “dual-platform” strategy, although I’m not sure I’d use that term to describe two versions of Windows Mobile being sold at the same time.
What is clear is that Microsoft needs to do something serious if it hopes to live up to its mobile ambitions. For years now, the company has made rather modest updates to the Windows Mobile operating system, which dates back to the days of code powered PDAs and other organizers that were neither phones nor, in some cases, even connected to the Internet.
In that same time, Palm has gone back to the drawing board and reinvented itself with the WebOS-based Pre, while the iPhone and Android have entered the market and even Research In Motion has arguably done more to capture consumer interest than has Microsoft.
Internally, Redmond has shifted a number of its people into the mobile unit. In addition to former server executive Andy Lees, who now runs the phone business, former Mac Business unit chief Roz Ho has been leading a top secret “premium mobile experiences” team responsible for some of the “Pink” work. The company purchased Danger, known for creating the teen-centered T-Mobile Sidekick, and Ho heads that unit as well.
Full Story…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10313302-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Source :
CNETNews Microsoft’s plan to get back in the phone game http://bit.ly/iAn8H
Posted in Communication, Tech | 
Tags: Apple, cell phone, iPhone, Mac, Microsoft, Sidekick, T-Mobile, Windows | 
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New virus infects programs built with Delphi
Researchers said on Tuesday that they are seeing something unusual in the malware world–a virus that targets a development environment.
The virus, dubbed Win32.Induc, was written to infect applications built with Delphi, according to Nick Bilogorskiy, manager of antivirus researcher at Sonicwall. Delphi is used to write Windows programs, including database applications.
When an infected program is run on a machine running Delphi, the virus infects any software that gets compiled on that machine. The virus spreads the executable file of itself as well as the source code. It looks for a compiler on the infected system and re-compiles the source code, inserting its code into any programs compiled on the system.
“This malware just spreads; it doesn’t delete files or do anything malicious,” he said. “But if you create software and you have this code in it, the software will be blocked by antivirus (technology).”
Developers whose systems are infected will pass the infection on to the programs they are creating, Bilogorskiy said.
Already, two free tools that are included in certain magazine CDs and are among the top 100 downloads on some portals–Any TV Free 2.41 and Tidy Favorites 4.1–have been infected, he said. “As many as 30 percent of developers who use Delphi have this,” he added.
Sonicwall and a number of antivirus vendors have updated their software to block the virus.
Sophos has more details on its SophosLabs blog.
Source :
New alliance aims to unite malware fight
A new alliance has been created to formalize information sharing on security protection and develop industry standards.
The Industry Connections Security Group (ICSG) is parked under the IEEE Standards Association and includes mostly security heavyweights and antivirus players. The founding members are AVG Technologies, McAfee, Microsoft, Sophos, Symantec, and Trend Micro.
Announcing the group in a blog post on Monday, Mark Harris, vice president of SophosLabs, said security researchers have had a tradition of sharing virus samples but that the sharing arrangements “are still based on individual relationships rather than formal agreements.”
The formation of the group makes for a “more organized” security industry, he added, in the current landscape where attacks are increasingly structured and malware samples grow at “astonishing rates.”
The ICSG currently has a malware working group, but intends to add other working groups over time.
According to a July 20 presentation document (PDF), the group aims to improve the efficiency of the collection and processing of the millions of malware file samples handled by security vendors each month by focusing on an XML-based metadata sharing standard. The standard is expected to undergo ratification by the end of this month.
Graham Titterington, principal analyst at Ovum, said the announcement of the group was both interesting and confusing. The rationale for the new alliance was the need for a more comprehensive approach to countering malware writers, he said, but the focus of the group appears to be limited.
The group addresses “all aspects of malware and its membership includes most of the main antimalware vendors–Kaspersky being the most notable absentee–and so the ICSG represents progress on countering the so-called ‘blended threats,'” he told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail. “However, it does not seem to be taking the battle to the criminals or probing the criminals’ business networks. The focus is on setting up the infrastructure and protocols to allow rapid information sharing on threats and making the day-to-day operation of the members more efficient.
Titterington added: “I would have expected a body affiliated with the IEEE to be putting more emphasis on the development of improved methods for disrupting criminal activity and on new ways of protecting users.”
Vivian Yeo of ZDNet Asia reported from London.
Source :
Posted in antivirus, Tech, World News |
Tags: antivirus, AVG Technologies, malware, McAfee, Microsoft, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro |
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Energy-aware Internet routing coming soon
Researchers have come up with a new way to route Internet traffic that could save big Internet companies like Google millions on their electricity bills, according to an article published by MIT’s Technology Review.
Researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon University and the networking company Akamai recently published results from a study that suggest big Internet companies could save up to 40 percent on their electricity bills by using an algorithm to send Internet traffic to data centers where electricity is less expensive.
Data centers consume a lot of energy, which costs operators like Google and Amazon millions of dollars to run each year. And now as more digital information is “virtualized” and accessed in the cloud, centralized data centers are getting even bigger and are consuming even more energy.
Full Story…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10312408-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Source :
CNETNews Energy-aware Internet routing coming soon http://bit.ly/4wlbfr
