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Microsoft uncovers, fixes 1,800 bugs in Office 2010

Microsoft uncovered more than 1,800 bugs in Office 2010 by tapping into the unused computing horsepower of idling PCs, a company security engineer said today. Office developers found the bugs by running millions of "fuzzing" tests, said Tom Gallagher, senior security test lead with Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group.

Fuzzing, a practice employed by both software developers and security researchers, searches for flaws by inserting data into file format parsers to see where programs fail by crashing. Because some crash bugs can be further exploited to successfully hack software, allowing an attacker to insert malicious code, fuzzing is of great interest to both legitimate and criminal researchers looking for security vulnerabilities.

"We found and fixed about 1,800 bugs in Office 2010's code," said Gallagher, who last week co-hosted a presentation on Microsoft's fuzzing efforts at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. "While a large number, it's important to note that that doesn't mean we found 1,800 security issues. We also want to fix things that are not security concerns."

Microsoft seen unveiling mobile phones

Microsoft Corp. is expected to unveil a pair of mobile phones geared for younger users at a public event scheduled for next Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Microsoft phones are expected to feature touch screens and keyboards, and will represent an evolution of the "Sidekick" devices offered by Danger Inc. -- a company that Microsoft acquired in 2008.

Messaging and social-networking applications will be featured prominently on the phones. According to media reports, they will be available for use on the Verizon Wireless network. A Microsoft representative did not respond to a request for comment. Microsoft has long been expected to start releasing tailored mobile devices that feature the company's software and services, in order to keep pace with similar undertakings by rivals including Google Inc. and Apple Inc.)

Lenovo ThinkPad T410i Core i3-equipped laptop starts selling

Lenovo has went under the radar and introduced its cheapest 14-inch ThinkPad model, the T410i powered by the 2.13 GHz Core i3-330M CPU. Starting at $829, the portable PC has a 14.1-inch (1280x800/1440x900) LCD screen, Intel integrated graphics, and can be configured with 2/3/4GB of RAM, a 250/320/500GB HDD or 128GB SSD, a DVD writer, a 2 megapixel webcam, and a 4-, 6- or 9-cell battery.

New HP Slate promo: Camera and iTunes and ports

HP's rolled out another promotional video for their Slate, again—not surprisingly—highlighting its advantages over the iPad. Like a camera! A built-in USB port and SD slot! And... iTunes. Well, we'll call that last one a wash. The previous HP promo video hit hard on its Flash capability, and this one does an equally nice job of showing off some very basic attributes that people might notice missing from their iPads.

Google gets Quake II running with HTML 5, WebGL

Khronos' WebGL working group has now been around for a little over a year, and we're getting to see the fruits of their labor. To be specific, Google staffers have updated the official Google Web Toolkit Blog with news of an HTML 5- and WebGL-enabled port of id Software's Quake II that runs right in your browser. Check it out:

This isn't the first Quake game to run in a browser, of course—id's own Quake Live has been publicly accessible since February 2009. However, that game relies on a custom browser plug-in that only ran on Windows at first, perhaps because it contained some pre-compiled game code. Google's browser port of Quake II, meanwhile, uses open libraries and already runs in the latest Chrome development builds for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

iPad jailbroken just hours after launch

As was the case for the iPhone, we all knew it would be just a matter of time before Apple's iPad would get the jailbreak treatment; but maybe not this quickly!

It's been accomplished in a matter of hours beyond the launch by a bunch of cluey folk' from the iPhone Dev Team which gives the ability to bring Cyndia onto the device; an unofficial app distribution system that allows for the installation of titles that Apple won't approve for the App Store.

Intel holding off new ultra-thin notebook CPUs

Intel has recently decided to hold off the launch of new ultra-thin notebook processors until the third quarter as Acer has halted the production of its ultra-thin notebooks and has turned to work on its new Calpella-based TimelineX ultra-thin notebooks, according to sources from notebook players.

However, whether Intel will launch its new ultra-thin notebook processors will still depend on market demand in the third quarter, the sources noted. Since most notebook players saw their ultra-thin notebooks account for only 10-15% of their total shipments in 2009, lower than original predictions of 20-30%, the players are reducing their orders to digest existing inventories.

Asustek Computer vice president Tony Chen pointed out that ultra-thin notebook demand from Taiwan and China is strong and the line currently accounts for about 40% of Taiwan's notebook shipments. However, worldwide, Asustek's ultra-thin notebooks only account for about 15% of total shipments.

Microsoft to launch Office 2010 in New York on May 12

Microsoft officials said a few weeks back that May 12 would be a big day for Office 2010. But Microsoft also is planning to hold an actual business launch event for its next-generation productivity suite in New York City on that date to complement its worldwide virtual launch events. Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop will be keynoting the event, which kicks off at 11 a.m. ET, company officials said.

Microsoft is expected to release to manufacturing both Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 some time in the coming month. Business users will be able to get their hands on those products on May 12. Consumers will have to wait until June to buy the product online and at retail, Microsoft officials said a few weeks ago. At the end of May, Microsoft is holding another event — its replacement for the former Windows Hardware Engineering Conference event — known as Windows Summit 2010.

Acer TimelineX laptops to become available next month

Interested in getting one of Acer's hot, new Calpella-based TimelineX laptops? No problem, just take a seat in the waiting room and we'll call you back sometime in May as that's when the portable PCs will go on sale, at least in Europe.

According to Acer, the first models to ship are the 13.3-inch 3820T, 14-inch 4820T and 15.6-inch 5820T which feature a Core i5 or i7 processor, up to 4GB of RAM, a HDD of up to 640GB, integrated Intel graphics or Mobility Radeon HD 5650/HD 5470 (switchable) graphics, a Crystal Eye webcam, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, plus, optionally, Bluetooth 2.1 and 3G. These laptops come with Windows 7 Home Basic or Home Premium pre-installed, have a battery life of up to 12 hours, and will bear a starting price tag of £599.99 / $914.4.

HP and Dell to reduce investment for 10-inch netbook, say sources

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell have both significantly reduced their investments in the 10-inch netbook segment, with HP reportedly even considering quitting the 10-inch netbook market and turning its focus to AMD-based 11.6-inch notebooks because profits from Intel Pine Trail-based netbooks have been lower than expected, according to sources from notebook makers.

Most of the second-tier and white-box netbook vendors have already quit the market after first-tier players started cutting their netbook prices in the second half of 2009 to compete for market share.

But Acer, Asustek Computer and Samsung Electronics remain active in the netbook market, with netbooks accounting for large portions of their overall notebook shipments, the sources said.

Windows 7 blows past 10% usage share for March

Five months after its retail release, Windows 7 is slowly but surely winning hearts and minds—or at least, grabbing additional market share. According to Net Application's latest round of numbers, Windows 7 broke 10% usage share in March, settling in at about 10.23%.

At the same time, Windows Vista garnered a 16.01% usage share, while Windows XP still reigned supreme with 64.46% in total. Windows 7 looks to have made some nice gains since February, when the same three operating systems had usage shares of 8.92%, 16.51%, and 65.49%, respectively. The new Windows OS's usage share growth seems to have happened at the expense of Windows XP more than Windows Vista, too. That suggests Windows 7 is seducing folks who stuck with XP through the Vista years—good news for Microsoft, surely.

Next-gen Ion netbook accelerates IE9 graphics

Nvidia rarely misses a chance to show its graphics products giving their Intel rivals a good whupping. Just yesterday on the official nTersect blog, Nvidia posted a video of the Internet Explorer 9 platform preview running on both a regular netbook and an upcoming Asus netbook with a next-generation Ion GPU.

The demo includes three activities from Microsoft's IE9 Platform Demos page: zooming in and out in Bing Maps, rendering flying 3D images, and playing an HTML 5 Asteroids clone with SVG graphics. And, of course, the IE9 platform preview has GPU acceleration. You can guess how the two machines fared...

Enchanting folding-out laptop with utopian specs

No matter how advanced, progressive, sleek and lightweight our laptops get, the one thing that we sorely miss is an elaborate keyboard. I know of someone who uses his Macbook but in conjunction with a wireless keyboard. Many hybrids and self-built versions are out there being used by folks, so the question really is, are we happy with what the industry is dishing out to us? Or do we have to lust after Utopian concepts like the iWEB 2.0…with really drool-worthy features!

Designer: Yang Yongchang

iWeb2

iWeb2_2

Acer announces Acer Aspire Ethos T5943G and 8943G multimedia notebooks

Acer has announced two new models entertainment notebooks; Acer Aspire Ethos T5943G and Acer Aspire Ethos 8943G. These entertainment focused notebooks are equipped with large 18″ and 15.6″ displays and a will be equipped with powerful Intel Core i5 or i7 processors as well as ATI Mobility Radeon HD5000 series graphics cards.

acer_aspire_ethos_5943g_1_cover

Additionally, these notebooks will be equipped with true 5.1 Dolby Home theater surround support (including subwoofer), fingerprint reader, webcam, USB ports, Firewire, eSATA port, Storage up to 1.28 TB (combining 2 640 GB hard disk) and an optional Blu-ray optical drive upgrade.

The Acer Aspire T5943G will support a Full 1080p HD (1920 x 1080) resolution and the Acer Aspire 8943G will support a (1366 x 768) HD resolution. Both of these models also come with Acer’s own unique software; Acer Arcade Deluxe which provides a single place to organize your multimedia files.

Acer Arcade Photo: This application will let you organize photos in slideshows and albums as well as do basic photo editing.
Arcade Music & Arcade Video: This software will let you organize and play music and video on the go. Arcade Video will also let you to convert home made movies to many formats.

Acer has not announced pricing or a firm release date on these models but it’s expected soon.

Microsoft to release “out of band” patch to fix zero-day IE vulnerability

Microsoft to release ‘out of band’ patch to fix zero-day IE vulnerabilityte

In what will be Microsoft’s second ‘out of band’ patch this year, the company will Tuesday release a security update – MS10-018 - to fix the zero day vulnerability that has, of late, been affecting Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, and has been used in targeted attacks over the last few weeks.

The flaw is a consequence of an invalid pointer reference within Internet Explorer (IE); and is accessible after an object is deleted – thereby allowing the hackers to carry out remote code execution attacks. Microsoft had cautioned the users against the attacks in its Security Advisory 981374 – the company’s official March ‘Patch Tuesday’ release.

According to a Monday statement on Microsoft’s official blog, the update will fix as many as nine vulnerabilities, some of which also affect the IE 8. Microsoft also added that the nine vulnerabilities “were responsibly disclosed;” and added that the company is unaware of any active attacks that are targeting these vulnerabilities.

Gmail Chat getting file transfers soon

Over at the Google Blog today they've announced new file transfer capabilities in iGoogle and orkut. That's fun! But what I'm most excited about is their promise of file transfer in Gmail Chat.

For now, file transfer works directly in the browser for iGoogle and orkut, allowing you to send files without saving them as attachments in email. It's also compatible with Google Talk software, so you can share with desktop users as well. It seems easy enough to use: once you've started a chat, just click on "Send a file..." in the "Actions" menu. The person on the other end of the line can then either accept or decline, depending on how they feel about you and the types of files you're inclined to send.

Japan considers end to cellphone “SIM lock”

It's a beautiful dream: buy whatever phone you want and then use it with whatever service you want. And it looks like that's a dream that will come true in Japan.

The Japanese government has launched a review of the SIM lock system that doesn't allow people to simply swap their SIM cards out to talk on different carriers, something all three major Japanese carriers prohibit. It's especially annoying to Japanese travelers who want to travel overseas with their standard phone; swapping in a SIM from an American carrier, for example, won't work.

Brightcove likes HTML5

As commercial availability of the Apple iPad draws near, we have been getting a lot of inquiries from customers looking for guidance on what they need to do to deliver great video experiences on these devices that exclusively support the HTML5 approach to video. These customers are excited about the possibilities of the iPad, but they also have concerns about what it will take to deliver great video experiences in this environment. They want to know what the tradeoffs and gotchas are, and what we're doing to help them navigate this new landscape.

Customers have been thrilled and somewhat surprised to learn that Brightcove has supported HTML5 in basic form since 2008, which is when we began to support the H.264 video format and released our open Media APIs for accessing content stored in the Brightcove online video platform. Since that time, it has been possible for customers to create HTML5 experiences on devices such as the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch and deliver video that renders beautifully. We have had several early adopter customers use our platform in this way.

As interest in HTML5 has continued to grow, it has become clear to us that we need to more crisply describe the HTML5 capabilities of our platform and our long-term roadmap for broadly supporting HTML 5 in our platform. So, today we are announcing the Brightcove Experience for HTML5, a new solution that captures what are doing with HMTL5 today and describes our vision for the future of HTML5 video experiences.

iPad App Store video tease offers brief glimpse into the near future

Curious about the iPad App Store process and unable to wait until launch day? Take a peak at this video and be satiated. For now.

iPhone Hacker Thinks He’s Cracked the iPad, Too

George Hotz, famously known as the first hacker to unlock the iPhone, says he’s done it again. The whiz kid on Thursday evening said he had cooked up a new hack for all iPhone OS devices, and he’s betting it will work on the iPad, too.

When the hack is released (Hotz won’t disclose a release date), it should be as simple to use as Blackra1n, Hotz’s one-click solution to jailbreak current iPhones, he said.

“It is completely untethered, works on all current tethered models (ipt2, 3gs, ipt3), and will probably work on iPad too,” Hotz said in his blog post.

It’s plausible to believe that an iPhone OS jailbreak will also work for the iPad. While the iPad will support apps that are exclusive to the device, its OS shares the same DNA as the iPhone’s.