Windows Factor

The excitement is building! Today, at the first TechCrunch meet-up in Zurich, we will officially start the launch countdown, but we'd like to let you know first: We're thrilled to announce that we will launch the public beta on August 14!

After almost four years of development and about ten months in closed alpha, we're ready to open it up to everyone. We're overwhelmed by the positive feedback and we believe Wuala is the right tool for millions of people to securely store and share files online.

What will the public beta bring? Here are some highlights:

Webstart: After August 14, Wuala can be started directly from the web, no software installation required anymore. You can still install it on your desktop if you like, but you can also access it on computers where you can't install.

Web links: Send links to files to anyone, even to people who are not yet in Wuala. Since they can start Wuala directly from the web, they do not need to install any software or create an account. They can simply click on your link to download your recommended files.

Password-protected: You can password-protect folders and groups and then send the link along with the password to your friends. This is very convenient if you want to show private files to friends without having to share the folder or group explicitly with them. You can also post the link and password on private forums, etc.

Embed: Want to put a link to your files in Wuala on your website, blog, or MySpace page? Simply choose a button or a preview image and then put a link onto your page to point the world to your files in Wuala. By clicking on the button, they end up in your desired folder and can see your public files.

Last but not least, it will be public, so everybody can join. Only 28 more days to go! We can't wait!

Best,
Your Wuala Team

PS: If you want to help us promote Wuala, please blog about this!

PPS: As part of the celebration of the TechCrunch meet-up in Zurich, we open up Wuala for everyone for a sneak preview from July 17 to 21. Feel free to send your friends and your grandma to our homepage and tell them to create an account

Source: Wuala Newsletter

Today an update was released to Microsoft Silverlight 2 Beta 2 via Microsoft update.This update offers a new build that is an upgrade to earlier Silverlight 2 builds. This update is included in current Silverlight installers. If your computer does not have Silverlight installed, the installer will be offered to you by Microsoft Update or by Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

This update improves stability, media streaming, and the auto-update component. This update also improves support for Mozilla Firefox 3.

An updated version of silverlight 2 beta 2 containing this update can be downloaded from here- http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resou...tall.aspx?v=2.0

More info about this update can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955011

Source- Tech Today

Windows Live Mesh is Microsoft's software+services data synchronization platform. Because of its complex nature, most people assume that file synchronization is all there is to Live Mesh, but in reality, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft has big plans for the service and syncing files between computers and the cloud is just the start. When Live Mesh launched, it was currently a closed "technical preview" (that's Microsoft for "beta"). But now it appears that the Live Mesh guys have quietly opened up the platform for all of the U.S. LiveSide reported last night that folks were able to sign up for Mesh if they were in the U.S. and this morning, they confirmed this to be the case.

The official announcement was made in the Live Mesh Forum. It read:

Live Mesh is now openly available to anyone in the U.S.

The Live Mesh team is pleased to announce that anyone in the U.S. can now use Live Mesh just by signing in to www.mesh.com with a valid Windows Live ID. No sign up needed to participate!

International Customers

With Live Mesh open to anyone in the US, our international friends can join in the fun early as well - with one caveat: you must be willing to change your Windows operating system region and language setting to EN-US. Once you do this you will be able to immediately sign in to Live Mesh with a valid Windows Live ID. Please be aware that this may cause other applications that specifically require your native country region and language settings to encounter problems.

Feedback

Once you've begun using Live Mesh, we'd love to hear from you! We are working hard to create the best experience and appreciate any feedback you have. Please send us feedback using our online form. You can also submit (and view others') feedback and bugs here on the Microsoft Connect website.

Thank you,
The Live Mesh team

About Live Mesh
For those of you unfamiliar with the service, one of the main things you need to know is that at the moment, the service is Windows-only. However, Microsoft has confirmed in the past that a Mac client is in the works. Eventually it will work with mobile devices, too. Certainly those will include Windows Mobile, but also any other devices that permit it to run. They should have some takers, though, because Mesh isn't built with proprietary code, but rather with open protocols that most web developers are familiar with, including HTTP, RSS, REST, ATOM and JSON. Although Mesh's FeedSync is new, it is an XML protocol based on ATOM and RSS.

Source: ReadWriteWeb

Jul 15, 2008 12:17 PM

The future of a teenage computer hacker who accessed computers worldwide could be with the New Zealand Police.

Eighteen-year-old Owen Walker from Whitianga was caught after a global investigation into an international cyber crime ring. His arrest followed an 18 month investigation by New Zealand, Dutch and American authorities.

Walker was discharged without conviction at the High Court in Hamilton on Tuesday after pleading guilty to six computer crimes. He was ordered to pay costs and reparation for damage caused to Pennsylvania University in the US.

Police say they are looking at ways they can utilise Walker's skills, but outside the court the 18-year-old said he couldn't comment on any job offers he had received.

His mother Shell Whyte says she hopes whatever he chooses, it is on the right side of the law.

Walker was accused of being part of a group that had been botnetting, using viruses, spam and corrupt software to ruin large computer systems.

A botnet is a jargon term for a collection of software robots, or bots, which run autonomously and automatically. They run on groups of "zombie" computers.

The FBI tracked him down after he was involved in an attack on the University of Pennsylvania computer server.

A 20-year-old American student worked with Walker, known by his cyber ID Akill, and they called themselves the A Team, reportedly infecting 1.3 million computers and costing victims around $20 million.

Internet safety group NetSafe says the case is a reminder that large scale cyber-based organised crime is not something that only happens "over there".

NetSafe executive director Martin lollypoper says it is important that New Zealanders take precautions against computer infiltration.

Simple ways to secure your computer:
- Install and activate a Firewall
- Install both Antivirus and Anti-spyware software (some products do both)
- Keep all software on your computer up to date, especially the operating system and security software.

news from tvnz
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/1908416

Ina Fried: I've certainly given them a hard time about it, so it's only fair to point out that as of Friday morning, Microsoft's Vista Compatibility Center Web site is now live.

The site, in beta form, lists about 9,000 hardware and software products and their Vista readiness. Microsoft had planned on launching it on Tuesday, but encountered some unspecified issues.

View Full Article: CNET News

IBM looks set to join the seriously multi-core set with the Power7 chip. Internal documents seen by The Register show Power7 with eight cores per processor and also some very, very large IBM boxes based on the chip.

The IBM documents have the eight-core Power7 being arranged in dual-chip modules. So, that's 16-cores per module. As IBM tells it, each core will show 32 gigaflops of performance, bringing each chip to 256 gigaflops. Just on the gigaflop basis, that makes Power7 twice as fast per core as today's dual-core Power6 chips, although the actual clock rate on the Power7 chips should be well below the 5.0GHz Power6 speed demon.

View Full Article: The Register

The Scottish Government is investigating a cunning plan to use computer games to stop teenage girls becoming pregnant.

The idea is to develop a computer game where a girl has to look after a baby for 72 hours and comes from an Expert Working Group on Infant Mental Health. If girls played the game for 72 hours it would almost certainly reduce their wish to become parents at an early age, the study suggests.

The report said that the 'computer games culture' and the wide familiarity of such games to children and young people opens up new options for introducing health education to young people. While it has been shown that education on sex and contraception reduces teen pregnancy rates, those most vulnerable people will not be well educated.

However a game might interest them, the boffins reasoned. Of course after 72 hours of Counterstrike we doubt anyone would want to have a baby, or anything else other than a lot of sleep.

News Source: Fudzilla

Computer security researchers from ETH Zurich, Google, and IBM believe computer software would be more secure if, like a perishable food product, it were labeled with an expiration date. In a newly published paper, Stefan Frei and Martin May of the Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory at ETH Zurich, Thomas Dubendorfer of Google Switzerland, and Gunter Ollmann of IBM (NYSE: IBM) Internet Security Systems make this recommendation because they found that 637 million (45.2%) out of 1.4 billion Internet users worldwide are at risk from their failure to use the latest, most secure version of their chosen Internet browsers.

"Given the state of the software industry and the growing threat of exploitable vulnerabilities within all applications (not just Web browsers), we believe that the establishment of a 'best before' date for all new software releases could prove an invaluable means to educating the user to patch or 'refresh' their software applications," the paper says. "The same 'best before' date information could also be leveraged by Internet businesses to help evaluate or mitigate the risk of customers who are using out of date software and are consequently at a higher risk of having been compromised."

The issue of browser security matters more these days because more and more malware is targeting Web browser vulnerabilities. Remotely exploitable vulnerabilities have been on the rise since 2000 and accounted for 89.4% of vulnerabilities reported in 2007, according to the study, which claims that "[a] growing percentage of these remotely exploitable vulnerabilities are associated with Web browsers." Among the various Web browsers studied -- Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, Safari 3, and Opera 9 -- Firefox 2 is the most secure, according to the study. Firefox 2 is considered to be the most secure Web browser because 83.3% of its users worldwide are running the most current version. Second, third, and fourth places go to Apple Safari 3 (65.3% of users running the most current version), Opera 9 (56.1%), and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer 7 (47.6%).

Source: InfoWeek

Microsoft's Bill Gates, in an NBC interview with Tom Brokaw, said a deal with Yahoo is unlikely, according to a CNBC report Friday.

Yahoo fell 2.81 percent to $20.77 per share in late morning trading, as the broader markets also slumped.

During his interview, Gates said "I don't think that one is likely," in reference to a Microsoft-Yahoo deal. He added, however, that he believes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will find "plenty of other opportunities."

View Full Article: CNET News Blogs

In an unprecedented move, Microsoft has committed to providing support services for its soon to be retired Windows XP through 2014 -- a full 13 years after the operating system was originally released. In a letter sent to customers this week, Microsoft senior VP Bill Veghte said the software maker will provide security patches "and other critical updates" for Windows XP until April, 2014.

"Our ongoing support for Windows XP is the result of our recognition that people keep their Windows-based PCs for many years," Veghte wrote. That may be, but Microsoft normally terminates support for an OS within ten years of its release -- at the latest. For instance, it plans to end support for Windows 2000 in 2010.

Microsoft may have little choice but to support Windows XP for an extended period, given that the majority of its large business customers have not upgraded their personal computers and laptops to the newer, Windows Vista operating system.

Source: TechWeb