For computer security experts, 2003 started with the Slammer Internet worm and went downhill from there. The year, which included four major worm and virus outbreaks in August alone, has been labeled the "year of the worm" and "the worst year ever" by more than one computer security expert. All that activity meant good news for antivirus software companies such as Symantec. It was bad news for organizations of all kinds, which expended precious resources disinfecting everything from desktop ...

During his keynote address at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Bill Gates shed light on Microsoft's "seamless computing" vision. Windows Media Center Extender Technology will spark the evolution of Media Center Edition PCs into entertainment workhorses that broadcast digital media throughout the entire home. Gates also exploited the CES spotlight to announce Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) - wired gadgets that utilize Microsoft’s MSN services. R...

You've got: an advisory from the U.S. government. The newly ordained Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has asked its National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) to roll out the National Cyber Alert System. The system is intended to provide timely and actionable information to Americans with the explicit purpose of assisting the public in securing their computers and minimizing emerging threats. Threats are aggregated, analyzed, and graded by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (...

When you distribute an Office document electronically, the document might contain information that you do not want to share publicly, such as information you’ve designated as “hidden” or information that allows you to collaborate on writing and editing the document with others. The Remove Hidden Data add-in is a tool that you can use to remove personal or hidden data that might not be immediately apparent when you view the document in your Microsoft Office application. You can run the Re...

Before the finals bits are released this summer, a second release candidate of Windows XP Service Pack 2 will be released mid-May. Microsoft issued a technical preview of SP2 in March to familiarize developers with the changes it was making to secure Windows, and to ward off potential problems brought about by applications malfunctioning post upgrade. Under the umbrella of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft has fortified Windows XP with a new mix of security features. Service Pa...

A research company unveiled some details about the upcoming IBM Cell processor that is mostly known as the base for Sony’s PlayStation 3 game machine. The research firm Petrov Group believes that the new era of computing will open its doors once the Cell processors from IBM are unveiled. According to Spoksman of Petrov Group, a well known research companey, "The year 2004 marks the birth of a distinctly new cellular computing era. As with past watershed computing events, the driving and trend...

The most recent version of the e-mail worm uses search engines to find new victims to infect and may be the cause of delays on Google, AltaVista, MSN* and Yahoo. A new variant of the MyDoom worm that hit the Internet hard on Monday is causing massive e-mail slowdowns across the Web, and it may be to blame for problems plaguing several search engines. Variously named MyDoom.M, MyDoom.M@mm or MyDoom.O, the new worm is little different from its predecessors in most of its behaviors and chara...

Apple Computer Inc. is unhappy with RealNetworks Inc.'s move this week to make its RealPlayer music service compatible with Apple's market-leading iPod digital music player and may take legal action to counter it, the company said on Thursday. Apple said in a statement it is "stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod," adding: "We are investigating the (legal) implications." Apple said once its iPod software is updated it is "highly lik...

Caution in all things… While the eagerly awaited XP SP2 has finally got its release date, it looks like Microsoft's crown jewels of security revamps - thought to be costing the software behemoth $300m - could cause businesses as many headaches as it cures. Many businesses may find installing the service pack plays havoc with their custom-built software as well as bought corporate applications, for example, as their systems are reconfigured by SP2. It's a problem that has already hit t...

A 19-year-old Minneapolis man pleaded guilty Wednesday to unleashing part of the MSBlast worm attack that wreaked havoc on the Internet last summer. Jeffrey Lee Parson admitted creating the "MSBlast.B" variant, also called "teekids," by modifying the original version of the worm and adding a backdoor that granted him control of infected computers, federal prosecutors said. "Sending out a computer worm may be viewed as a harmless prank," John McKay, a U.S. attorney, said in a statement. "Bu...

With downloads of XP Service Pack Two due to begin on Monday, Microsoft is bracing itself for an expected flood of requests from users. On Monday morning US time (6.00pm in the UK) Windows users with Automatic Update turned on will be able to start downloading the 80MB (compressed) patch, albeit slowly at first. Microsoft estimates that 40 per cent of UK users use its Automatic Update service. "We won't be at full capacity on Monday. We'll be throttling the number of users who can downl...

The Norwegian hacker famed for developing DVD encryption-cracking software has apparently struck again--this time breaking the locks on Apple Computer Inc.'s wireless music-streaming technology. Johansen, an open-source advocate, has been critical of Apple's proprietary system, which largely restricts Apple's hardware and software products to work only with each other. On his Web site, for instance, Johansen praised a newly developed technology by RealNetworks Inc. that will make songs f...

Physicists have carried out successful teleportation with particles of light over a distance of 600m across the River Danube in Austria. When physicists say "teleportation", they are describing the transfer of key properties from one particle to another without a physical link. Long distance teleportation is crucial if dreams of superfast quantum computing are to be realised. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Science used an 800m-long optical fibre...

Microsoft is cutting back its Longhorn client's planned feature set so as to be able to make its current delivery targets: Beta 1 by next year and final release some time in 2006. Microsoft officially confirmed what had been leaked by developer sources late on Friday: changes to its future roadmap for the desktop version of Longhorn. And while developers and customers who expected they'd be required to rewrite their applications to take advantage of Longhorn may be happy with Microsoft's road...

Nullsoft Winamp is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity music player for Windows. Winamp supports MP3, CD, Audiosoft, Audio Explosion, MOD, WAV and other audio formats, custom appearances called skins, plus audio visualization and audio effect plug-ins. additional features including free-form skins, a new decoder, built-in cross fade, and an advanced Media Library. Change Log: a) Security bug fix Fix for upside down videos through DirectShow c) JTFE v0.96c d) Added prompt when loading a skin...