Microsoft Explains Missing Mac Office Patches - PCWorld

Microsoft Explains Missing Mac Office Patches - PCWorld

Microsoft today explained why it has not patched older versions of its Office for Mac, but would not disclose a release schedule for doing so.

"We cannot give an exact date, but we expect to provide these updates during one of our normal monthly update cycles very soon," said Jerry Bryant, a group manager in the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).

Bryant was responding to questions raised Tuesday when Microsoft issued a multi-patch update for all versions of Office on Windows, including Office XP, 2003, 2007 and 2010, and Office for Mac 2011.

However, Microsoft did not deliver patches for the vulnerabilities in Office for Mac 2004 and Office for Mac 2008.

"The updates for Mac Office 2004 and 2008 were not ready for broad distribution at the same time as the updates for the affected products used by the vast majority of our customers," said Bryant in an e-mail reply to Computerworld queries.

The majority of Office users run the Windows editions of the suite, which greatly outsells the same software for Mac OS X.

According to the MS10-087 security bulletin associated with the Office updates, Office 2007 and Office 2010 users are most at risk because attackers can hijack their machines simply by getting them to view a specially-crafted message in the Outlook preview pane.

In a second e-mail Wednesday, Bryant said that Office for Mac users were not vulnerable to the same types of attacks, although hackers could try to dupe them into opening malicious RTF (rich text format) documents attached to e-mail messages.

Microsoft has delayed security updates for the Mac version of Office before.

In May 2009, Microsoft shipped patches for the Windows version of PowerPoint -- Office's presentation maker -- but delayed fixes for the same flaws in its Mac software until the following month.

At the time, Microsoft's security team defended the decision by saying that fixes for Windows were finished, but were still being tested on the Mac.

Today, Bryant said it was a matter of priorities, both in the number of users running Windows software compared to the Mac, and in the threat posed to each group. "Normally, we release updates for all affected products at the same time, [but] in cases where the vast majority of our customers are at potential risk and we can provide protections, we may decide to release updates for those products, if ready, ahead of products where the risk is very low," he said.

Last year, Microsoft took heat over the PowerPoint patch delay, with one security expert saying it put Mac users at risk. Others agreed with Microsoft's decision at the time.

Today, HD Moore, the chief security officer at Rapid7 -- and the creator of the popular Metasploit penetration toolkit -- dissed Microsoft's decision, up to a point.

"It's a bit surprising because on one hand they're giving away the key," he said. "The information in Microsoft's security bulletins isn't remotely useful to researchers, but now they're free, since Microsoft has officially patched the vulnerabilities [in Windows and Office for Mac 2011], to disclose technical information to the public."

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Office 2011 Update Boosts Security, Stability - PCWorld

Office 2011 Update Boosts Security, Stability - PCWorld

Two weeks after launching Office 2011, Microsoft has rolled out an update that aims to improve the security and stability of the latest version of its office productivity suite.

Release notes for the Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.0.1 Update say that the release fixes "critical issues" in the latest version of Office that could cause components of the suite to stop responding or quit unexpectedly. Microsoft says the update also fixes a security vulnerability that could allow an attack to overwrite the contents of a computer's memory with malicious code.

As for performance and stability improvements in the 14.0.1 update, the company says that the update includes form-based authentication for connecting to Microsoft Office SharePoint Servers, allowing user credentials to be transmitted through HTML forms that users complete. The update also allows images copied from an Office for Mac application to be edited when copied back to ChemDraw; previously, images were locked when copied to the molecule editor.

Excel for Mac 2011 gets fixes that stop the spreadsheet program from crashing when a macro is enabled and allow cells to update when revisions are made to related data. The update also improves reliability when the FORMAT macro command is used. The update improves the stability of Word 2011 when users build equations, while bolstering stability of PowerPoint 2011 slideshows. Microsoft also improved compatibility with the Windows versions of its presentation software that now allows numbered lists to be displayed correctly in PowerPoint 2011.

Outlook 2011 gets a number of improvements in this update, including better reliability for deleting messages from multiple IMAP accounts, a Sync Services fix, and improved reliability for importing Office 2008 identities into the new version of the suite. The update also allows Outlook to retain e-mail passwords in the keychain after users import new accounts into the mail client.

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Google Squashes 12 Chrome Bugs, Fixes Flash - PCWorld

Image via CrunchBaseGoogle Squashes 12 Chrome Bugs, Fixes Flash - PCWorld

Google last week patched 12 vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser, all of them rated as high-level threats by the company's security team.

The patched version of Chrome also included an update to Adobe's Flash Player, giving Google users an early fix for a critical flaw that hackers have been exploiting with rigged PDF documents. Adobe planned to release that Flash patch to users of other browsers later in the week.

The dozen flaws fixed in Chrome 7.0.517.44 include a pair related to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), a collection of XML specifications for describing two-dimensional vector graphics; one in Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine; and three involving aspects of the browser's text handling.

Google paid $7,500 in bounties to eight researchers who reported 11 of the 12 bugs, the most it's awarded since mid-August when the company handed out $8,674.

As usual, Google locked down its bug tracking database to bar outsiders from picking up technical details of the vulnerabilities. The company usually unlocks access to a flaw several weeks after a patch ships, to give users time to update before the information goes public.

Other browser makers, including Mozilla, do the same.

The update to the "stable" build -- Google maintains three separate "channels" for Chrome, ranging from stable to "beta" to "dev" -- included a revamped version of Flash Player, the popular media playing plug-in.

Seven months ago, Google and Adobe struck a deal that lets the former bundle Flash Player with Chrome and upgrade the plug-in using the browser's own silent updater, This is the second time in six weeks that Chrome users received a patched Flash Player before people running rival browsers, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox.

Last week, Adobe confirmed that Flash contained a critical bug that attackers were exploiting in the wild, and promised to fix the flaw by Nov. 9. Earlier this week, however, Adobe bumped up the release of the Flash update to, saying that it had wrapped up work faster than anticipated.

Although the bug is in Flash, hackers are actually using malicious PDF documents; Adobe's Reader includes code to render Flash from within a PDF, and that code is also flawed. Adobe is planning to issue a fix for Reader and the Acrobat PDF-creation software the week of Nov. 15.

Thursday's update was the second round of Chrome security fixes since the browser jumped to version 7 late last month.

According to Web metrics company Net Applications, Google's hands-off update technology -- which automatically applies not only patches, but also new features -- shifted the bulk of Chrome 6 users to the new Chrome 7 within days.

A week after the Oct. 21 launch of Chrome 7, that version outnumbered its predecessor in usage share by more than 7-to-1.

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The New OS Wars: Winners and Losers | Tim Bajarin | PCMag.com

The New OS Wars: Winners and Losers | Tim Bajarin | PCMag.com

The new OS war will be between operating systems that can work on all types of digital screens.

For decades, when people talked about OS wars, they were mostly referring to the Windows vs. Mac battle. These two operating systems have dominated the PC landscape with Windows owning about 90 percent of the market. This OS war has been great for the PC industry, because as Apple continues to innovate on its OS platform, it forces Microsoft to innovate as well, and in turn, consumers constantly receive new and more powerful OS platforms for their PCs.

Recently, Apple introduced some a new twist to the Mac platform with the creation of the Mac App Store. However, the reality is that while Apple can gain some new market share in the PC space, Windows will always be the dominant PC platform. There are too many vendors backing the Windows OS for any single company like Apple to gain much ground on the Windows monopoly.

Now there is a another OS war developing around smartphones, and if you think the PC OS wars were nasty, just wait for this OS war to heat up. We've already seen charged rhetoric from Apple CEO Steve Jobs over the iPhone, Andy Rubin at Google defending Android against the competition, and RIM's CEO Jim Balsillie ranting about Jobs and company during the iPhone antenna dilemma. All of these folks realize that the stakes are very high and that they need to do whatever is necessary to keep the market looking at them and pushing their platforms forward. To put these OS stakes into perspective, market researchers say that 1.2 billion cell phones will be sold worldwide this year. And while smartphones represent only 22 percent of the cell phone market for 2010, they will make up 60 percent of the market in the U.S. by 2012 and 65 percent of all cell phones sold worldwide will be smartphones by 2015. That means that by 2015 we could see as many as 750 million smartphones sold around the world, which is a massive market and will create amazing market opportunities.

The good news is that because the smartphone market is so huge, there clearly can be more than one major player in this game. And at the moment, it appears that the Apple iPhone and the many Android smartphones will mostly dominate the future smartphone market. But competitors, such as RIM, Palm, Microsoft, Nokia, and others, will also be vying for the hearts and minds of smartphone buyers. The OS battle to get apps written for all of these platforms is already in high gear.

However, when I think about the future OS wars, I look way past smartphones to what some call a "digital ecosystem" that will enter our lives in the future. It seems, to me, that while smartphones are clearly an important part of our digital lives, the Internet connected navigation system in our cars, or the Internet connected screen in our refrigerators, or the Internet connected touch screen mirror in our bathrooms will become just as important. In fact, I believe that we will have a heap of screens in our digital lives, and all of them will beg to be smart. That means that they will need a solid OS with a powerful and easy to use interface, along with the intelligence to handle all Internet-related content and app specific content.

If this is the case, any of the smartphone or PC vendors who have created an OS just for a smartphone have made a strategic mistake. For example, while Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS is now a solid contender in the smartphone war, it does not appear to be useable in things like tablets, navigation systems, or any other digital screens. In fact, Microsoft has four distinct operating systems: one for PCs, one for game consoles, one for smartphones, and one for embedded devices. If it wants to take part in the coming digital screen explosion, it may need another OS for a grand total of five operating systems.

By contrast, Google's Android OS was initially designed for smartphones, but is now being extended to the Google TV platform and will soon be on tablets. Android can also be used as an OS in things like set-top boxes and navigation systems, and it can power a whole host of screens. And, it has an SDK that will allow apps to be created for all of these devices as well.

Apple also has an OS that fits this multi-use description. Its iOS is also highly extensible and is already used in the iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. In fact, Apple already has 125 million iOS devices on the market, giving it quite an edge on the competition. Given its cross device nature, iOS could eventually be used on dedicated navigation systems or whatever device Apple wants to create in the future. Apple iOS also has an SDK and an app ecosystem that could be used across any device it creates.

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Youth vote falters; Prop. 19 falls short - latimes.com

Youth vote falters; Prop. 19 falls short - latimes.com

California would have become the first state to allow marijuana to be sold for recreational use. Moderate voters opposed it.

John Hoeffel, Reporting from Los Angeles

12:39 AM PDT, November 3, 2010

After taking a serious look at legalizing marijuana, Californians voted Tuesday to reject Proposition 19, which would have made the state the first to allow the drug to be sold for recreational use.

The measure drew strong support from voters younger than 25, as the campaign had hoped, but those voters did not turn out in unusually high numbers, according to a state exit poll. The initiative also failed to win over the moderate voters who make up the state's decisive swing vote.

The San Francisco Bay Area was the only region to tilt toward the measure, but it did so just slightly. In Los Angeles County, where a quarter of the state's voters live, the initiative lost.

Despite a potential double-digit loss, marijuana-legalization advocates said the proposition had transformed talk about legal pot from a late-night punch line into a serious policy matter.

"This has been a watershed moment," said Stephen Gutwillig, the California director for the Drug Policy Alliance, which waged an extensive ad campaign for the measure. "Even in defeat, Proposition 19 has moved marijuana legalization into the mainstream of American politics."

Tuesday's vote was just the first round, say legalization advocates, who are aiming measures at the 2012 ballot in Washington, Oregon, Colorado and very likely California. But it's also the second time in two years that California voters have rejected an initiative to soften penalties for drug crimes.

"The cover of the book looked nice, but it didn't read very well," said Roger Salazar, the spokesman for the opposition campaign. "This specific initiative was massively flawed."

Richard Lee, the medical marijuana entrepreneur who spearheaded the initiative and spent $1.5million on the historic campaign, pledged to work with the initiative's critics to draft a new one.

"We won tonight. We won for the last six months, the last year, all the years we've been fighting. We're going to keep fighting," Lee told supporters who gathered inside and outside Oaksterdam University, the Oakland medical marijuana trade school he founded.

California's 1996 medical marijuana initiative, the first in the nation, has led to more liberal attitudes toward pot nationwide as similar programs spread to 13 other states and the nation's capital. On Tuesday, voters in Arizona and South Dakota were deciding whether to approve programs; voters in Oregon were weighing whether to allow storefront dispensaries.

Proposition 19's backers had hoped voters worried about the economy would embrace the measure as a way to raise new taxes. In 10 cities, including San Jose, Sacramento and Long Beach, voters appeared to be overwhelmingly approving taxes on medical and recreational marijuana.

Passage of Proposition 19 would have vaulted the state into unmapped territory, invigorated the movement to legalize marijuana and set up a dramatic confrontation with the federal government.

The initiative would have eliminated all criminal penalties for adults 21 and older who planted marijuana in a plot of up to 25 square feet or possessed up to an ounce for personal use. It also would have allowed city councils and county supervisors to authorize commercial cultivation and retail sales.

But the opposition was broad, according to the poll conducted by Edison Research for the National Voter Pool, a consortium of the major television news networks and the Associated Press. Men and women opposed it. Voters of every race opposed it. The campaign had hoped black and Latino voters would see the measure as a way to end disproportionate arrests of minorities caught with marijuana.

The measure drew intense interest. Foreign leaders weighed in. All the top statewide candidates opposed it. The federal drug czar denounced it. And the U.S. attorney general pledged to "vigorously enforce" federal narcotics laws whatever California did.

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Violent Video Game Ban Could Set Dangerous Precedent - PCWorld

Violent Video Game Ban Could Set Dangerous Precedent - PCWorld From P.C. World

Thank God Steve Jobs isn't on the Supreme Court.

Our nation's highest justices, you see, are in the midst of debating a case about violent video games. They're trying to determine whether the government has the right to decide which video games minors should and shouldn't be allowed to buy. In other words, they're trying to determine whether centuries-old guidelines about free speech still apply to modern forms of media like Playstations and Xboxes.

Their decision, needless to say, could have serious implications on the future of First Amendment rights. And I think we can all imagine how Steve Jobs would vote.

The Supreme Court Violent Video Game Case

The Supreme Court case revolves around a California law passed in 2005. The law makes it illegal for anyone to sell a video game deemed as "violent" to a minor. Breaking it would result in a fine of a thousand dollars per violation.

Thanks to legal challenges, the law has never actually gone into effect. And now, its fate rests in the hands of the high court justices.

We can only hope that the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with the federal courts that have struck down this law in the past. It isn't even limited to California; similar laws have been enacted in eight states overall, according to NPR, and have been deemed unconstitutional by federal judges in each instance. It's no small coincidence.

Let me be clear about one thing: I rarely play video games -- and I'm certainly not a minor -- but I have every reason to be concerned about this decision. And so do you.

Violent Video Game Ban: Questions and Concerns

Ultimately, the Supreme Court case comes down to the divisive question of how much the government should "protect" us from "offensive" materials.

Consider this: The video game industry has already established a ratings system similar to what we see with movies. If anything, it may be even more effective than its film-based cousin: A 2009 Federal Trade Commission report [PDF] found only 20 percent of minors were able to purchase "mature"-rated video games, compared to 28 percent that were able to buy tickets to R-rated movies. Does the government really need to intervene and get involved? Isn't this system -- not to mention that silly ol' thing called parental supervision -- sufficient enough?

Principles aside, the violent video game law poses plenty of practical challenges. According to the law's wording, a violent video game would be defined as one "in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being" in a manner that's "patently offensive," appeals to a person's "deviant or morbid interests," and lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

So who's going to make the call as to which video games are "patently offensive" and which aren't? Or, as Justice Antonin Scalia asked during the arguments, "What's a 'deviant' violent video game? As opposed to what -- a 'normal' violent video game?"

Like with Apple's arbitrary App Store approval system, we're looking at a purely subjective judgment. Unlike Apple's little world, however, this is the real government we're dealing with here -- and granting this type of power is a dangerous precedent to set.

"If you are supposing a category of violent materials dangerous to children, then how do you cut it off at video games? What about films? What about comic books?" asked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Supporters of the California video game law counter that argument with the notion that this scenario is different; because players are actively involved, they say, the violent acts are more damaging to their minds than the graphic violence in movies and on TV. They've even dug up some studies that suggest playing violent video games "increases aggressive thought and behavior" and "engenders poor school performance" in minors. Those studies, of course, conveniently make the mistake of assuming causation from correlation -- just because some kids who play video games also have behavioral problems doesn't mean that the video games caused those problems -- but hey, it's far easier to jump to that conclusion than to search for a real explanation.

Violent Video Game Ban: Broader Implications

Here's the kicker: Even if you accept the "video games are different" argument, opening the door to government-controlled content regulation is asking for trouble. Do we want to make the First Amendment a medium-specific form of protection? If evil, mind-warping video games warrant special consideration, what other modern media will need supervision next? Surely our smartphone app markets should be regulated too, right? There's an awful lot of interactive material there that we need to be protected from -- just ask you-know-who. If this law is green-lighted, we'd better brace ourselves for an awful lot of asterisks under America's "free speech" header.

Finally, with government-enforced fines on selling violent video games, how long will it be until the gaming industry itself starts to change? Forbes.com blogger Paul Tassi raises an interesting point:

"If video games are equated with pornography and it becomes a crime to sell them to minors, 'family-friendly' retailers might change their store policies and someone like Wal-Mart might ban all these games from their shelves entirely. This would in turn cause developers to tone down the violence in their titles to make sure that every outlet will sell them."

All factors considered, the outcome of this case is extremely consequential. When real world policies start to resemble those of Steve Jobs' world, there is definite cause for concern.

Contributing Editor JR Raphael writes plenty of things the state of California would find patently offensive. You can find him on Facebook, on Twitter, or at eSarcasm, his highly uncensored geek-humor getaway.

Adium 1.4 Arrives With Twitter, IRC, More - PCWorld

Adium 1.4 Arrives With Twitter, IRC, More - PCWorld

After debuting as a beta over a year and a half ago, Adium 1.4 has now been officially released, adding support for two new services and a ton of other new features and fixes.

The new Adium adds support for something old and something new-IRC and Twitter, to be exact. You can add multiple Twitter accounts and enjoy many of the basic features of the social networking service. IRC is also well supported, with a number of new preferences to help bend Adium to your chat room whims.

The Adium development team says this release is "jam-packed with hundreds of other new features and bug fixes." Stand-outs from Adium's lengthy list of release notes include: the contact list can display contacts in multiple groups; instant searching now works in any window configuration (select the list and start typing a name; super handy); a revamp of the built-in message styles; faster launch time; the ability to specify a different style for group chats (including IRC); and much more.

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Yes, Violent Video Games are Protected by the First Amendment - PCWorld

Yes, Violent Video Games are Protected by the First Amendment - PCWorld

Tomorrow the Entertainment Software Association will stand before the Supreme Court and argue on behalf of the video games industry that video games are protected by the same First Amendment rights as music, books, and movies. The law they'll be arguing against involves an attempt by California's legislature, signed into law by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to ban the sale of "violent video games" to minors.

Were the law to pass, stores found in violation of selling such games to minors would be subject to a $1,000 fine.

What's a "violent video game"? According to the California law, a game which depicts the "killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting [sic] of an image of a human being in a manner that a reasonable person would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors." If this first "prong" applies, it's then run through a second check that asks whether "the patently offensive, deviant level of violence causes the game as a whole to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

The law, known as AB 1179 and passed by California's congress in 2005 has already failed the judicial litmus test twice. In 2005, a U.S. district judge blocked the law before it could go into effect, arguing that it unconstitutionally restricted minors' rights and--just as importantly--questioned links posited by the law's proponents between "exposure to violent video games" and "psychological or other harm to children."

And again in 2009, three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court's ruling that the law was unconstitutional. The law, wrote Judge Conseulo Callahan, "violates rights protected by the First Amendment," citing California's inability to demonstrate "a compelling interest" and arguing that "less-restrictive means" exist "that would further [California's] expressed interests."

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• Battle Over Violent Video Game Law Heads to Supreme Court (cbsnews.com)
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BBC News - Facebook uncovers user data sales

BBC News - Facebook uncovers user data sales

Facebook has taken action against developers it caught selling user names and contact lists.

The sales were uncovered as Facebook investigated a web browser bug that let user IDs be shared inadvertently.

The user details were sold to data brokers who used the information to target adverts more precisely.

The developers have been banned for six months from connecting to Facebook and must be audited to check they comply with the social network's policies.

Facebook started investigating what was happening with user identifiers (UIDs) following media reports that the information and lists of contacts were being sold on to advertising firms.

In a blog post, Facebook said its investigation showed that the technical demands of some browsers meant that some user IDs were being leaked.

It also discovered that some developers that create applications for the social network were taking the user IDs of those who used their creations and selling them on.

Facebook said the investigation "determined that no private user data was sold and confirmed that transfer of these UIDs did not give access to any private data".

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Apple releases iPhoto '11 update for data loss issues | Photography | Digital Photo | Macworld

Image via WikipediaApple releases iPhoto '11 update for data loss issues | Photography | Digital Photo | Macworld

Apple released an update for iPhoto '11, version 9.0.1, that addresses a data loss problem some users have experienced when upgrading from an older version of iPhoto to iPhoto '11.

When you first open iPhoto '11, the application requires that you upgrade your existing iPhoto library to make it compatible with the new software. Some users have reported losing anywhere from a handful of images to entire libraries during this upgrade process. There have also been complaints of lost metadata and events. There are many similar problems posted in the Apple forums, but Apple says the issue is actually "extremely rare." The full iPhoto 9.0.1 update description reads, "This update addresses issues that, in extremely rare cases, could result in data loss when upgrading a library from an earlier version of iPhoto."

Along with the update, Apple has posted a support document that acknowledges the data loss problem, and gives specific recommendations for avoiding it. In addition to installing 9.0.1, the support document recommends that that all iPhoto users backfup their library before attempting the move to iPhoto '11. If iPhoto '11 unexpectedly quits, Apple warns against force quitting the application during subsequent attempts at upgrading. During the upgrade process, the program may appear to be inactive for extended periods of time. This delay is especially common with large libraries, but eventually a progress bar should appear.

The upgrade is 35.4MB and can be downloaded through Software Update, or manually downloaded from the Apple site here.

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Will antivirus die in the post-PC era? | Anti virus - InfoWorld

Will antivirus die in the post-PC era? | Anti virus - InfoWorld

As smartphones and iPad-like devices become the preferred media for accessing information, antivirus companies may find themselves out of a job. End-users, however, will need more education to avoid falling for ploys that dupe them into giving away sensitive information.

That's the conclusion of a recent report by Forrester Research, which predicts that by 2015, half of devices on corporate networks will be post-PC devices, such as RIM's BlackBerry or Apple's iPad. Because such devices are typically sandboxed -- either programmatically, through a managed marketplace, or both -- exploitable vulnerabilities are harder to find and to attack consistently. Attacks that do succeed can be removed remotely by the operating system makers before they propagate too far.

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Microsoft Profits, Revenues Up Strongly : NPR

Microsoft Profits, Revenues Up Strongly : NPR

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that its net income in the latest quarter rose 51 percent, boosted by higher sales of Windows and Office software to businesses.

In last year's quarter, Microsoft deferred some revenue from Windows sales. Had it not done so, net income would have been only 16 percent higher this year in comparison.

For the fiscal first quarter, which ended in September, net income rose to $5.4 billion, or 62 cents per share, from $3.6 million, or 40 cents per share, in the same period last year.

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Revenue increased 25 percent to $16.2 billion, from $12.9 billion a year ago.

Microsoft beat Wall Street's expectations on both counts. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast net income of 55 cents per share on $15.8 billion in revenue.

Microsoft said the increase in sales to businesses of the newest versions of its Windows operating system, Office programs and server software made up for softer-than-expected revenue from consumer PC buying in the quarter.

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China's Tianhe-1A takes supercomputer crown from US | Technology | The Guardian

China's Tianhe-1A takes supercomputer crown from US | Technology | The Guardian

Tianhe-1A capable of sustained computing of 2.507 petaflops a second – 1.4 times faster than Cray XT5 Jaguar

China has overtaken the US as home of the world's fastest supercomputer. Tianhe-1A, named for the Milky Way, is capable of sustained computing of 2.507 petaflops – equivalent to 2,507 trillion calculations – each second.

The US scientist who maintains the international rankings visited it last week and said he believed it was 1.4 times faster than the former number one, the Cray XT5 Jaguar in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That topped the list in June with a rate of 1.75 petaflops a second.

The US is home to more than half of the world's top 500 supercomputers. China had 24 in the last list, but has pumped billions of pounds into developing its computational ability in recent years. The machines are used for everything from modelling climate change and studying the beginnings of the universe to assisting aeroplane design.

Housed in the northern port city of Tianjin, near Beijing, Tianhe-1A was developed by the National University of Defence Technology. The system was built from thousands of chips made by US firms – Intel and Nvidia – but domestic researchers developed the networking technology that allows information to be exchanged between servers at extraordinary speeds.

Tianjin's weather bureau and the National Offshore Oil Corporation data centre are already using it for trial projects. "It can also serve the animation industry and bio-medical research," Liu Guangming, director of the National Centre for Supercomputing, told China Daily.

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Is the MacBook Air a Peek Into the Future of Laptops? - PCWorld

Image via WikipediaIs the MacBook Air a Peek Into the Future of Laptops? - PCWorld

"We think all notebooks will look like these one day." Those were Steve Jobs's words when he took the stage on October 20th to introduce a refreshed version of the MacBook Air, making it clear that Apple's newest computers were a harbinger of things to come.

Many people insist on calling the Air an overpriced netbook despite the fact that every single one of its specifications would easily blow any other computer in that category out of the water. But much of the analysis on this new product has been on its immediate usefulness as a mobile computing platform, rather than on its significance for the long-term evolution of the notebook computer.

A triumph of integration

There are a number of major changes in the Air that clearly tag it as a forward-looking system; it seems clear that Apple has gone out of its way to redefine the very concept of portable computers.

Those old enough to remember a time when laptops were still a niche area of computing will also remember how alien they looked inside. While the desktop industry was already well on its way to standardizing component sizes, specifications, and arrangements, laptop manufacturers were faced with the unenviable task of fitting a whole computer into some sort of portable format--and that was before loading it up with heavy, bulky batteries.

The early attempts at this process resulted in some rather bizarre contraptions that were called "portable" simply because they happened to be fitted with a handle: case in point, the 16-pound "luggable" Macintosh Portable. It wasn't until the industry started rethinking the components themselves that the form factor of laptops started to evolve into what we're used to today. The need for retooling and rethinking made laptops expensive for many years until, eventually, the entire market once again standardized on the components that make today's laptops possible: 2.5-inch hard disks, ultra-slim optical drives, smaller and less power-hungry processors, more efficient batteries, and so on.

If Apple wants to push laptop design to a new level, the newest Air clearly indicates that the roadmap it has chosen points in one direction: integration. A picture of the Air's underbelly clearly shows that no effort has been spared to squeeze every last cubic inch of space from the device's interior. This has meant letting go of the traditional 2.5-inch casing that solid-state drives have adopted in favor of a set of a chips on a circuit board (which is really all an SSD is, of course), shedding the optical drive, and tightly integrating every chip into a custom design that minimizes clutter and leave as much room as possible for those still bulky batteries.

From this perspective, then, the Air is much more than a thin laptop: it is a proof of concept that a powerful computer doesn't need to come into a big package. If Apple can squeeze a machine like the Air into a container that others have only been able to use for underpowered devices--such as the many netbooks currently on the market--imagine what it can do with a system like the MacBook Pro.

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Related articles

• Sizing up the 11-inch powerhouses: Apple MacBook Air vs. Acer TimelineX (reviews.cnet.com)
• MacBook Air flash-only rivals are few, fading (news.cnet.com)
• 2010 MacBook Air: Ultimate-edition Lab Tests (pcworld.com)

New Mac Trojan uncovered: "Boonana" | MacNN

New Mac Trojan uncovered: "Boonana" | MacNN

SecureMac and Intego, among other security firms, today alerted the Mac community to a new Trojan threat, trojan.osx.boonana.a (Intego gives it the name OSX/Koobface.a), which is spreading via social networking sites like Facebook and e-mail. The trojan appears as a link in messages with the subject "Is this you in this video?", and when users click on the link, a Java applet downloads an installer, which modifies system files to bypass passwords and other protections.

Boonana affects both Mac OS X and Windows, and sets itself up to run invisibly in the background at next startup, allowing outside access to files. It periodicially checks in with servers and spreads itself via further spam messages. Mac users are advised to disable Java on their web browsers and avoid clicking email links that claim to point to videos.

Although this is not the first trojan for the Mac to take advantage of exploits in browser Java, this is a rare instance of one that works on both major platforms simultaneously. SecureMac has released a free removal tool, directly downloaded here.

Related articles

• Critical security risk posed by new 'Boonana' Trojan horse for OS X (reviews.cnet.com)
• Mac Users Hit With Windows-style 'Koobface' Trojan (pcworld.com)
• Security firms differ on severity of new Mac malware threat (macworld.com)

Microsoft Launches Office 2011 - PCWorld

Microsoft Launches Office 2011 - PCWorld

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced the official release of Office 2011 for Mac, the latest incarnation of its popular office suite.

The widely anticipated release includes a completely reworked user interface, based on the ribbon menus that were first featured in the 2007 edition of Office for Windows; it also adds several new features, including support for document co-authoring and the inclusion of a Mac version of the Outlook mail and calendaring program, which replaces the Entourage application that shipped with previous versions of the suite.

Additionally, the new Office brings back an old favorite: macros, which can once again be written and run using Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications language. Macros are popular with power users, who take advantage of them to automate complex tasks.

Office 2011 comes in three different versions: Home and Student, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Messenger and costs $120 (or $150 for a family pack with three licenses). The base package doesn't include Outlook, which is only available with the Home and Business edition, which retails for $200 (with a "multi-pack" of two licenses available for $280), or with the Academic edition, which costs $100.

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Related articles

• Office 2011: Excel FAQ (pcworld.com)
• Microsoft Announces Office 2011 for Mac (pcworld.com)

Who's Afraid of the Office 2010 Upgrade? Most Businesses - PCWorld

Who's Afraid of the Office 2010 Upgrade? Most Businesses - PCWorld

What does corporate IT think of Office 2010?

While there's enthusiasm for the new version of Office, according to a survey of 950 IT professionals conducted by Dimensional Research, there's no rush to roll it out: Enterprise IT views Office 2010 as a complex and daunting upgrade.

Eighty-five percent of survey respondents plan to upgrade to Office 2010 eventually, but only 18 percent have plans to deploy broadly in 2010. As of now, only 4 percent have Office 2010 fully deployed in their environments, and 52 percent have not deployed it in any way. The rest are deploying Office 2010 on test machines or on new machines only.

A majority of survey respondents (78 percent) cited concerns keeping them from doing a migration this year, with the top concerns being the new ribbon interface, compatibility with current applications and licensing.

"At this time it seems that migration concerns are outweighing confidence of a speedy Office 2010 migration, said Diane Hagglund, senior research analyst for Dimensional Research.

The Ribbon user interface, where a set of toolbars are arranged on tabs across the top of an Office document, was introduced in Office 2007 and enhanced in Office 2010. Still, Office 2003 users remain intimidated by it. According to the survey, 45 percent of respondents are worried about training employees on the new Ribbon interface. Incompatibility with add-in applications was also listed as worrisome by 33 percent of survey respondents. Incompatibility with Office 2003 formats was listed as worrisome by the same amount of respondents, 33 percent.

More...

Related articles

• Who's Afraid of the Office 2010 Upgrade? Most Businesses (pcworld.com)
• Microsoft's Office ribbon hits Mac fans (go.theregister.com)
• Windows 7 Migration 'Sapping Resources' (pcworld.com)

Iranian Cyber Army Moves Into Botnets - PCWorld

Iranian Cyber Army Moves Into Botnets - PCWorld

A group of malicious hackers who attacked Twitter and the Chinese search engine Baidu are also apparently running a for-rent botnet, according to new research.

The so-called Iranian Cyber Army also took credit last month for an attack on TechCrunch's European website. In that incident, the group installed a page on TechCrunch's site that redirected visitors to a server that bombarded their PCs with exploits in an attempt to install malicious software.

Researchers with a security startup called Seculert have traced the malicious server behind those attacks and found indications that the Iranian Cyber Army may also be running a botnet.

They've found an administration interface where people who want to rent the botnet can describe the machines they would like to infect and upload their own malware for distribution by the botnet, said Aviv Raff , CTO and co-founder of Seculert. The company runs a cloud-based service that alerts its customers to new malware, exploits and other cyber threats.

"You provide the number of machines and their region," Raff said. "You then provide the malware download URL, and they will do the malware installation for you."

There are many computer crime gangs that create botnets, or networks of compromised computers, that can then be rented to other players in the cybercrime industry, such as spammers.

Raff said Seculert was able to see the administration panel as it was left unprotected. His company has since notified the provider where the page is hosted and contacted law enforcement.

More...

Related articles

• Microsoft Exposes Scope of Botnet Threat (pcworld.com)
• Two million US PCs hijacked (bbc.co.uk)
• Microsoft: Over 2 million U.S. PCs caught in botnets (news.cnet.com)