Google to launch operating system

Google is developing an operating system (OS) for personal computers, in a direct challenge to market leader Microsoft and its Windows system. Google Chrome OS will be aimed initially at small, low-cost netbooks, but will eventually be used on PCs as well. Google said netbooks with Chrome OS could be on sale by the middle of 2010.

Last year Google launched the Chrome browser, which it said was designed for "people who live on the web - searching for information, checking e-mail, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends".

Related site: Google Blog
News Source: BBC

Five Reasons Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Rocks

Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 this week, and the Web browser has numerous improvements over its previous version. For those Microsoft Explorer holdouts, it's worth taking a look at. As of this writing, Mozilla reported approximately 4 million downloads. Here's five reasons Firefox 3.5 is a hit.

1. Speed:The number one criterion for a browser is fast speed. The 3.5 version of Mozilla Firefox is markedly faster than its predecessor. According to Mozilla, it ran the industry-standard SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, which measures how fast browsers render JavaScript, on versions 2, 3 and 3.5 of Firefox. The company claims the newest version performed with at least double the speed of Firefox 3 and is more than 10 times as fast as Firefox 2.

2. Privacy:Just as Explorer offers InPrivate Browsing, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 has Private Browsing. Once a Private Browsing session is activated, computer users can surf any site at all with no trace remaining when they are finished: no cookies, no temp files, no forms information and no search information.

Further, if a user isn't in Private Browsing mode, but still wants to eliminate traces of where he or she has been, there's the "Forget About This Site" feature. That erases the site from the History list, as well as all traces of the browsing session on your computer, including cookies and temp files, search history, forms and more.

3. Music and Video Support:Because Firefox 3.5 supports HTML 5 audio and video elements, users can watch video and listen to music directly in a Web page, without launching any plug-ins. The video or audio can be saved by right-clicking and saving it. That's a big improvement with the torrent of video viewing taking place on the internet.

4. "Awesome Bar:"The location bar -dubbed the "Awesome Bar" by some perhaps overly enthusiastic developers - has been made even more, well, awesome in Mozilla Firefox 3.5. Previosuly, you could simply type the name of what you were searching into that field, foregoing the search box altogether, and a Google search page would show results. Mozilla has tweaked the search functionality in the browser so surfers can show only bookmarks by using an asterisk after a query such as "Channelweb *", or show only tags by using a plus "Channelweb +".

5. Session Control:If Mozilla Firefox crashes, users can choose which tabs to resuscitate, a feature previously available through the Session Manager add-on. That's handy particularly if a Flash-based or heavy JavaScript site was the cause of the crash, so users aren't caught in a perpetual, and irritating, crash-and-restart cycle in their browser.

Source: Channel Web

YouTube doubles video file size to 2G

Video-sharing site YouTube announced on Wednesday that it was doubling the size limit for uploads to its website to allow users to post more high-definition (HD) video. YouTube, in a blog post, said the size limit for uploads to the site was being doubled -- from one gigabyte to two gigabytes. HD video is increasingly popular but the higher resolution results in larger files. A YouTube spokesman told AFP that while file size for individual videos was being increased to two gigabytes, the 10-minute length restriction for videos posted on the site remains in place.

Source: Yahoo! News

Facebook plans to simplify privacy settings

Facebook is overhauling its privacy controls over the next several weeks in an attempt to simplify its users' ability to control who sees the information they share on the site.

Privacy has been a central, often thorny issue for Facebook because so many people use it to share personal information with their friends and family and beyond. But as the 5-year-old social networking service has expanded its user base and added features, its privacy controls have grown increasingly complicated.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said Wednesday that the new settings will give people greater control over what photos, updates and personal details they share with their friends, family and strangers on Facebook and, eventually, the wider Internet.

Full story...
Source: Yahoo! News

First look: Firefox 3.5 released, ready to "upgrade" the Web

Mozilla has officially released Firefox 3.5, the next major version of its popular open source Web browser. Ars takes a close look at the new version and evaluates its enhancements. Support for HTML 5 video and other important emerging Web standards make this one of the most significant Firefox releases ever.

More story...

Smartphone Buyers Guide: The Best of the Best

As the dust settles from the last two weeks of mobile madness, one question remains unanswered: Which of the new generation of smartphones should you actually buy? We've collected everything you need to know.

We've selected the five phones that most feel like modern handsets to us—the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, the Palm Pre, the HTC Magic (or, as we soon expect, the T-Mobile G2) and the BlackBerry Storm—and broken them down by hardware, software and cost. This is a guide in the strictest sense, meaning we aren't declaring winners or losers, just giving you the information you need to make your own choice. So! On with the matrices.

Last-minute Conficker survival guide

Tomorrow -- April 1 -- is D-Day for Conficker, as whatever nasty payload it's packing is currently set to activate. What happens come midnight is a mystery: Will it turn the millions of infected computers into spam-sending zombie robots? Or will it start capturing everything you type -- passwords, credit card numbers, etc. -- and send that information back to its masters?

No one knows, but we'll probably find out soon.

Or not. As Slate notes, Conficker is scheduled to go "live" on April 1, but whoever's controlling it could choose not to wreak havoc but instead do absolutely nothing, waiting for a time when there's less heat. They can do this because the way Conficker is designed is extremely clever: Rather than containing a list of specific, static instructions, Conficker reaches out to the web to receive updated marching orders via a huge list of websites it creates. Conficker.C -- the latest bad boy -- will start checking 50,000 different semi-randomly-generated sites a day looking for instructions, so there's no way to shut down all of them. If just one of those sites goes live with legitimate instructions, Conficker keeps on trucking.

Conficker's a nasty little worm that takes serious efforts to bypass your security defenses, but you aren't without some tools in your arsenal to protect yourself.

Your first step should be the tools you already have: Windows Update, to make sure your computer is fully patched, and your current antivirus software, to make sure anything that slips through the cracks is caught.

But if Conficker's already on your machine, it may bypass certain subsystems and updating Windows and your antivirus at this point may not work. If you are worried about anything being amiss -- try booting into Safe Mode, which Conficker prevents, to check -- you should run a specialized tool to get rid of Conficker.

Microsoft offers a web-based scanner (note that some users have reported it crashed their machines; I had no trouble with it), so you might try one of these downloadable options instead: Symantec's Conficker (aka Downadup) tool, Trend Micro's Cleanup Engine, or Malwarebytes. Conficker may prevent your machine from accessing any of these websites, so you may have to download these tools from a known non-infected computer if you need them. Follow the instructions given on each site to run them successfully. (Also note: None of these tools should harm your computer if you don't have Conficker.)

As a final safety note, all users -- whether they're worried about an infection or know for sure they're clean -- are also wise to make a full data backup today.

What won't work? Turning your PC off tonight and back on on April 2 will not protect you from the worm (sorry to the dozens of people who wrote me asking if this would do the trick). Temporarily disconnecting your computer from the web won't help if the malware is already on your machine -- it will simply activate once you connect again. Changing the date on your PC will likely have no helpful effect, either. And yes, Macs are immune this time out. Follow the above instructions to detect and remove the worm.

On the Net:

List of Conficker removal programs:
http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?nANY.RepairTools

Homeland Security's announcement of its detection tool:
http://tinyurl.com/c3petb

From: Yahoo! Technology

What you need to know about the Conficker worm (Macworld.com)

If you’ve been paying attention to general computer news, you may have read about the Conficker worm, and what may (or may not) happen to Windows PCs that are infected with Conficker on April 1. The worm has received a lot of attention, leading more than a few Mac users to ask about the worm’s impact on OS X. Mac security maker Intego received so many inquiries that the company added a Conficker entry to its blog.

So, as a Mac user, how worried should you be about Conficker? The short answer to the question is that, unless you’re running Windows inside a virtual machine or via Boot Camp, you really don’t have much to fear from Conficker. It’s a worm that takes advantage of Windows systems with unapplied security patches—a population that may be as high as 30 percent of the Windows machines out there. Conficker won’t work on OS X at all, so most Mac users have nothing to fear from the worm.

If you do use Boot Camp and/or Windows inside a virtual machine, however, you should make sure your system has the latest Microsoft patches, and may want to use a third-party anti-virus utility to check to see if your installation has been infected by Conficker. Microsoft also offers a free Conficker removal tool.

What exactly does Conficker do? At the moment, nobody really seems to know. Symantec’s security researchers, for instance, theorize that the network of Conficker-infected machines will be “rented out to criminals who want to send spam, steal IDs and direct users to online scams and phishing sites.” The reality is that, because Conficker isn’t active at the moment, nobody knows how it may be used. What is known, however, is that on April 1, certain variants of Conficker will take some active steps to further protect themselves from detection and removal. Infected machines are effectively under control of those who wrote Conficker, and they can install malicious code at their discretion.

If you’re using Windows—either on your Mac or directly on an Windows PC—I strongly recommend you take the necessary steps to make sure you haven’t been infected. If you’re only using OS X, you’ve got nothing to worry about, at least relative to the Conficker worm.

from Yahoo News!

Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft has launched the latest version of its web browser, Internet Explorer 8 (IE8)

Microsoft says that IE8 is more secure, allows users to cut down on common tasks and will be an integral part of its forthcoming Windows 7 system.

Although IE is still the most popular browser, it faces stiff competition from Google, Firefox, Opera and others.

The release is Microsoft's first major browser update since 2006, when the company released Internet Explorer 7.

Can Google Latitude get my stolen phone back?

Not yet – but with a bit of inspired app design, it could help.

We all know how annoying it is to lose your mobile phone, especially if you never did get round to backing up those valuable contacts. But with location-based services becoming ubiquitous, isn't there a way to track down your lost or stolen handset?

That was exactly what San Francisco-based Nick Strada thought when he realised he left his Nokia E71 in the back of a cab: he'd activated Google's Latitude location service a few days earlier, so surely he could track down the culprit?

When he logged into Latitude online, he was surprised to see his phone floating around a good 3,000 miles away – in central Boston. When phoning and texting his own number failed, Strada realised the phone's keypad had probably locked, and eventually the phone's battery died, taking its location with it. Surely there's some interesting potential here to help retrieve, or at least protect, a stolen handset?

Thousands of application developers have begun to flex their creative muscles, and some have already started to address the problem.

Apple's App Store offers Password Trap, which tries to identify a thief's location while luring them with false personal data; the optimistic Owner Information, which is supposed to makes it easy for whoever finds you phone to return it to you; and GPS Thief Tracker, which, if the thief happens to open it, will send a discreet email with the phone's location.

On Google's Android platform, meanwhile, there's plenty of inspiration for a stolen phone tracker that could be "plugged in" to Latitude.

Textecution is designed to stop drivers texting, and so disables the phone if it moves faster than 10mph. Could a new app disable the whole phone if it is taken more than five miles from your home location? Or maybe Latitude's regular security alert messages could be reconfigured remotely so that your thief is bombarded by infuriating alerts every 15 seconds? Or how about a ­simple remote lock, that makes the phone unusable?

The more severe the repercussion, the more you'd have to trust the application. Strada's fantasy about a remote mobile detonator may be taking things a bit far, but this is a fascinating creative challenge and, for the developer that cracks it, could be a lucrative business.

And however you find out where your phone is, you will still end up with a more practical problem: how do you confront the thief? We don't know how seriously the police would take GPS "evidence", so you may just have to ­borrow some muscle.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Conficker Worm Gets an Evil Twin

The criminals behind the widespread Conficker worm have released a new version of the malware that could signal a major shift in the way the worm operates.

The new variant, dubbed Conficker B++, was spotted three days ago by SRI International researchers, who published details of the new code on Thursday. To the untrained eye, the new variant looks almost identical to the previous version of the worm, Conficker B. But the B++ variant uses new techniques to download software, giving its creators more flexibility in what they can do with infected machines.

Conficker-infected machines could be used for nasty stuff -- sending spam, logging keystrokes, or launching denial of service (DoS) attacks, but an ad hoc group calling itself the Conficker Cabal has largely prevented this from happening. They've kept Conficker under control by cracking the algorithm the software uses to find one of thousands of rendezvous points on the Internet where it can look for new code. These rendezvous points use unique domain names, such as pwulrrog.org, that the Conficker Cabal has worked hard to register and keep out of the hands of the criminals.

The new B++ variant uses the same algorithm to look for rendezvous points, but it also gives the creators two new techniques that skip them altogether. That means that the Cabal's most successful technique could be bypassed.

Conficker underwent a major rewrite in December, when the B variant was released. But this latest B++ version includes more subtle changes, according to Phil Porras, a program director with SRI. "This is a more surgical set of changes that they've made," he said.

To put things in perspective: There were 297 subroutines in Conficker B; 39 new routines were added in B++ and three existing subroutines were modified, SRI wrote in a report on the new variant. B++ suggests "the malware authors may be seeking new ways to obviate the need for Internet rendezvous points altogether," the report states.

Porras could not say how long Conficker B++ has been in circulation, but it first appeared on Feb. 6, according to a researcher using the pseudonym Jart Armin, who works on the Hostexploit.com Web site, which has tracked Conficker.

Though he does not know whether B++ was created in response to the Cabal's work, "it does make the botnet more robust and it does mitigate some of the Cabal's work," Support Intelligence CEO Rick Wesson said in an e-mail interview.

Also known as Downadup, Conficker spreads using a variety of techniques. It exploits a dangerous Windows bug to attack computers on a local area network, and it can also spread via USB devices such as cameras or storage devices. All variants of Conficker have now infected about 10.5 million computers, according to SRI.

Source: Yahoo!

Google launches software to track mobile users

Google Inc released software on Wednesday that allows users of mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.

Users in 27 countries will be able to broadcast their location to others constantly, using Google Latitude. Controls allow users to select who receives the information or to go offline at any time, Google said on its website.

"Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we've built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application," Google said in a blog post announcing the service.

"You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see."

Friends' whereabouts can be tracked on a Google map, either from a handset or from a personal computer.

Google's new service is similar to the service offered by privately-held Loopt.

Companies including Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, already offer Loopt's service, which also works on iPhone from Apple Inc.

Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd's Blackberry and devices running on Symbian S60 devices or Microsoft Corp's Windows Mobile and some T-1 Mobile phones running on Google's Android software.

The software will eventually run on Apple's iPhone and iTouch and many Sony Ericsson devices.

In 2005, Google acquired, but subsequently shut down, a location-finding service that used text messaging to keep mobile phone users aware of their friends' proximity.

Source: Yahoo News