Tag: digest

Internet Explorer 10 finally comes to Windows 7

The tenth major version of Internet Explorer has been available to users of Windows 8 for months , in both the operating system’s pre-release days and since it hit retail on October 26. But while Microsoft declared IE10 ready to go for Windows 8, users of Windows 7 could not download the browser—until today. Even now, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 is only available in a ” Release Preview .” It’s the first preview of IE10 to be usable on Windows 7 since last year’s Platform Preview . But what’s available today is a version of IE10 that is presumably ready for daily use, as installing it replaces the user’s previous version of Internet Explorer. IE10 is only for Windows 7 and Windows 8. The reason for the staggered releases hasn’t been confirmed, but as we noted in an article last month , “The extra time required for Windows 7 may be due to underlying platform differences—Windows 8 supports Direct3D 11.1, compared to 11.0 on Windows 7, for example. So if Internet Explorer 10 depends on Direct3D 11.1 features, either that dependence has to be removed, or Direct3D 11.1 has to be ported to Windows 7.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Internet Explorer 10 finally comes to Windows 7

Notorious BitTorrent tracker Demonoid back online, website still down

As of Monday, well-known BitTorrent tracker Demonoid is back online . Three months ago, the tenacious tracker was chased out of its Ukrainian host, likely under pressure from American authorities. It may also have been driven offline due to a denial of service attack. According to the IP address linked to the tracker, the new host appears to be physically located in Hong Kong . The website, meanwhile, remains down. TorrentFreak points out that in previous closures, Demonoid’s tracker appeared before its website came back online, indicating that the site’s return may be coming soon. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Notorious BitTorrent tracker Demonoid back online, website still down

Kim Dotcom has new “Mega” domain, says this one won’t be shut down

After the government of Gabon shut down his Me.ga domain , Kim Dotcom needed a new country to let him host the domain that will be home to the successor of file-sharing site Megaupload. That country will be New Zealand, as Dotcom is now the owner of Mega.co.nz . The exact same site that was originally hosted at Me.ga can now be found at the New Zealand domain. On Twitter, Dotcom announced “New Zealand will be the home of our new website: http://Mega.co.nz – Powered by legality and protected by the law.” When Gabon shut down Me.ga, Dotcom blamed “the reach of the US and Vivendi,” as the Me.ga domain was provided by Gabon Telecom, a subsidiary of the Vivendi entertainment company. Although New Zealand police raided Dotcom’s house 10 months ago because of criminal copyright charges filed against him in the US, he seems confident that New Zealand won’t shut down the domain itself. Ultimately, getting a domain will probably be among the least challenging aspects of running Mega, which is expected to launch in January. But Dotcom has a plan for that too. To avoid copyright charges, Dotcom promises Mega “encrypts and decrypts your data transparently in your browser, on the fly,” and that the encryption keys are only controlled by the user, not Mega. And to avoid the reach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Dotcom plans to run his servers with hosting services outside the US. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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Kim Dotcom has new “Mega” domain, says this one won’t be shut down

Judge blocks California’s new ban on anonymity for sex offenders

ax2groin On Tuesday, voters in California overwhelmingly approved Proposition 35, which ratcheted up penalties for those convicted of sex crimes, including human trafficking. The proposition included a provision requiring registered sex offenders to disclose to law enforcement all of their Internet connections and online identities. On Wednesday, two of the 73,900 registered sex offenders in the state who would be affected by the law filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of these provisions. The two plaintiffs argued that forcing them to expose their online identities would violate their First Amendment right to speak anonymously. Their appeal is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Late on Wednesday, Judge Thelton Henderson granted a temporary restraining order barring the law from going into effect until he had time to consider the plaintiffs’ constitutional arguments. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Judge blocks California’s new ban on anonymity for sex offenders

Researcher advises against use of Sophos antivirus on critical systems

Antivirus provider Sophos has fixed a variety of dangerous defects in its products that were discovered by a security researcher who is recommending many customers reconsider their decision to rely on the company. “Sophos claim that their products are deployed throughout healthcare, government, finance, and even the military,” Tavis Ormandy wrote in an e-mail posted to a public security forum . “The chaos a motivated attacker could cause to these systems is a realistic global threat. For this reason, Sophos products should only ever be considered for low-value non-critical systems and never deployed on networks or environments where a complete compromise by adversaries would be inconvenient.” A more detailed report that accompanied Ormandy’s e-mail outlined a series of vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit remotely to gain complete control over computers running unpatched versions of the Sophos software. At least one of them requires no interaction on the part of a victim, opening the possibility of self-replicating attacks, as compromised machines in turn exploit other machines, he said. The researcher provided what he said was a working exploit against Sophos version 8.0.6 running Apple’s OS X. Attackers could “easily” rewrite the code to work against unpatched Sophos products that run on the Windows or Linux operating systems, he said. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Researcher advises against use of Sophos antivirus on critical systems

Report: Microsoft going to production with 7-inch “Xbox Surface”

When Microsoft first revealed its Surface tablet back in June , many in the rumor mill were expecting the company to reveal a gaming-focused “Xbox Surface,” based on leaked documents pointing to such a tablet. Those rumors have resurfaced again, with The Verge reporting  today that Microsoft is working on a final implementation of a 7-inch tablet tuned for gaming. The Verge’s unnamed source says the previously leaked specs for the tablet were indeed accurate, meaning the system would include a 7-inch, 1280×720 screen, 288MB of RAM, and a “custom IBM engine for scale-out workloads.” Those specs could be altered to allow for different models independent of one specific hardware architecture, however. The tablet will supposedly run a small Windows kernel rather than the full version of Windows that the 10-inch Surface tablet uses, and will work in conjunction with a “stationary computing device” that could be a next-generation Xbox, as outlined in another leaked Microsoft document from the summer . The Verge claims that the full console will be built by contract manufacturers like Pegatron and Foxconn, but that the tablet will be built by the same secret manufacturing process used for the Surface. The Xbox tablet would be released in 2013, ahead of a next-generation console. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: Microsoft going to production with 7-inch “Xbox Surface”

Sharp says there is “material doubt” over its corporate survival

Sharp , the century-old stalwart of Japanese electronics, is in deep trouble . On Thursday, the company said it sustained a ¥249.1 billion ($3.12 billion) loss for its latest quarter, the second year it had suffered record deficits. The company still has about $10 billion of debt. “As operating and net loss for the six months ended September 30, 2012 were huge, continuing from the previous year, cash flows from operating activities were negative,” the company wrote in its quarterly earnings report (PDF). Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Sharp says there is “material doubt” over its corporate survival

First look: Pandora 4.0, the new mobile frontier

Enlarge / Pandora 4.0: the new look Pandora Here comes Pandora 4.0, a big remake of the music service’s mobile listening environment. If you are a Pandora fan, get ready for expanded playlist, station-making, lyric-reading, personal profile, and social networking power on your smartphone. The new service creates a “unifying” experience across web and mobile devices, the company proclaims. It also represents about six or seven years of planning, thinking, and development for the outfit. Back in 2005, iPhone and Android mobile gadgets were gleams in the eye of Apple and Google. Pandora, however, was transforming radio and music distribution with its sophisticated “genome” powered song recommendation algorithm. Millions of users were clicking thumbs up or down to millions of tunes on, well, millions of Pandora channels. By 2007, Pandora was a huge hit. It was, however, mostly a desktop computer hit. “We started thinking about creating a mobile service in 2004,” Pandora CTO Tom Conrad told us in an interview. “We wanted to unify the Pandora experience.” That meant an experience that was easy from the start, that allowed users to individualize their environment and get more of what they wanted, and that was “ubiquitously available.” Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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First look: Pandora 4.0, the new mobile frontier

Apple updates iPad with Lightning, A6X, “global” LTE support

At a special media event on Tuesday, Apple announced that it would begin shipping a new fourth-generation iPad on November 2. The updated device features Apple’s new Lightning connector introduced on the iPhone 5 and fifth-generation iPod touch. In addition, it will also include a custom-designed A6X processer and a newer Qualcomm 4G LTE baseband chip that is compatible with more LTE networks around the globe. The revision comes just six months before Apple typically launches new iPad hardware around late March or early April. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple was “putting its foot on the gas” and revising the iPad even faster than before. Jacqui Cheng The new A6X processor is built around the custom ARM core Apple designed for the iPhone 5, which offers twice the processing performance of the A5X. However, it has apparently included some changes to the graphics cores used, as Apple claims it also has double the graphics performance as well. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple updates iPad with Lightning, A6X, “global” LTE support

US federal agency dropping 17,000 BlackBerrys in favor of iPhones

It’s no secret that Research In Motion, the maker of the fabled BlackBerry, is on the decline . If falling subscriber numbers last month weren’t bad enough, last week, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) said that it will end its contract with RIM , replacing over 17,000 employees devices with iPhones in a deal worth $2.1 million. “The RIM technology, however, can no longer meet the mobile technology needs of the agency,” the agency wrote in a 10-page document , adding that “no other company’s products can meet the agency’s needs.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US federal agency dropping 17,000 BlackBerrys in favor of iPhones