First Patches For Windows 7

Early adopters running the latest release of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will also need to deploy the first patches offered for Windows in 2011.

Specifically, testers will have to make sure that Microsoft Security Bulletin MS11-002 is installed as it is designed to patch a Critical vulnerability which also affects the Release Candidate (RC) of Windows 7 SP1.

Bulletin MS11-002 is set up to resolve two privately reported security holes in Microsoft Data Access Components. According to Microsoft, customers running the pre-release version of Windows 7 SP1 are also impacted by the patches.

Of course, it’s not uncommon for the software giant to release security updates for software that is still in development, especially if the patches are designed to resolve Critical issues.

“Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Beta are affected by the vulnerabilities described in this bulletin. Customers running these beta releases are encouraged to download and apply the update to their systems.

“Security updates are available from Microsoft Update and Windows Update. The security update is also available for download from the Microsoft Download Center,” the Redmond company.

ADO Record Memory Vulnerability - CVE-2011-0027 is the most severe out of the two security problems resolved by MS11-002.

The software giant confirmed that this is a remote code execution vulnerability, associated with Microsoft Data Access Components validation of memory allocation.

“This vulnerability could allow code execution if a user visited a specially crafted Web page. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system.

“An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights,” Microsoft explained.

Windows 7 SP1 RC was released at the end of October 2010 and continues to be available for download to testers. The RTM version of the first upgrade to Windows 7 is expected by the end of March 2011.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate (RC) Build 7601.17105.100929-1730 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate (RC) Build 7601.17105.100929-1730 are available for download here.

Read More

IPv6 - A New Goal For Facebook and Google

The dwindling number of IPv4 addresses and the very slow adoption of the newer IPv6 has been a problem for years, but things are only now starting to move in the right direction, even as addresses are expected to run out sometime this year. Google, Facebook and Yahoo, which now account for a big percentage of internet traffic are working together to promote World IPv6 Day.

It's more than just a marketing thing, all of them will be enabling IPv6 infrastructure on that day, which may lead to problems for a small minority of users.

Google and YouTube offer IPv6 versions

Google has been working on getting ready for IPv6 for several years now. The main search engine is accessible through a IPv6 address from ipv6.google.com. When YouTube introduced IPv6 support, traffic over the new protocol surged.

Google is also offering its services by default over IPv6 for ISPs that have made the switch, by using a whitelist of providers with native IPv6 connectivity.

When it comes to major websites, Google has been leading the switch to the new protocol, but that's understandable since the co-creator of the TCP/IP stack, Vint Cerf one of the people that have made the biggest contributions to the internet as we know it, has been working for the company since 2005 and spearheading efforts to get the infrastructure ready for the switch.

"In the short history of the Internet, the transition to IPv6 is one of the most important steps we will take together to protect the Internet as we know it. It's as if the Internet was originally designed with a limited number of telephone numbers, and we're soon going to run out," he explained.

Google has been keeping track of the IPv6 traffic reaching its servers and, while it has seen an accelerated growth in the past year, it's still a tiny fraction, 0.2 percent, of the traffic Google gets in a regular day.



Facebook's IPv6 address is 2620:0:1cfe:face:b00c::3

But Google is not alone in this, Facebook, undeniably one of the most popular and visited websites on the planet, has been offering a IPv6 version since summer through www.v6.facebook.com.

Interestingly, the IPv6 address of Facebook is 2620:0:1cfe:face:b00c::3, the site is actually very proud of that.

"As a next generation protocol, IPv6 provides a vast number of addresses by today's standards — 4 billion times the number that are available under IPv4. Telecom carriers, ISPs, OS makers, hardware manufacturers, Web companies, and governments around the world are depending on IPv6 to continue growth of the Internet," Facebook's Donn Lee explained.

Suggested Readings:
With $500 Million Investment, Facebook Is Now Wort...

Facebook - The Big Story

Read More

The All new Yahoo Mail is Here- With New Themes amd Advanced Attachment Function

One of the most used Mail service across the world is going under major upgradation.
The new Yahoo is now under beta stage and giving the whole new experiance with new vibrant colour themes.

"To those of you who have been using our Yahoo! Mail Beta product: thank you. Your feedback on the Suggestions Board and on this blog has kept us busy fixing, building, and improving the experience," Yahoo said in a blog post.

"Thanks to your participation, we are launching a new batch of features that will go live this week for Yahoo! Mail Beta users around the world," it announced.

One of the 'features' that many people missed is the possibility to customize the look of Yahoo Mail. If the standard issue Yahoo purple is not your thing, you can go for a more serious blue or green or go all out with the hot pink theme.

"We heard you loud and clear: you miss our colorful, fun themes! Our team buckled down in December to build and release a gallery of themes for you to choose from. Go to the Help drop-down menu at the top left of the page, select Themes and check out our gallery," Yahoo added.

Those that need more than just plain email will welcome the addition of Calendar and Notepad links in the Applications section, in the lower left corner. Yahoo says that both Calendar and Notepad will eventually be updated with the look and feel of the new Yahoo Mail.

Also new in Yahoo Mail Beta is the possibility to attach multiple files in one go. Select all of the files you want in the file browser and Yahoo Mail Beta will upload them all.

For those using Yahoo Mail to keep in touch with what their friends are up to, there is now a dedicated Updates tab which makes it easy to focus on Twitter and Facebook updates and all the friend activity tracked by Yahoo Updates.

Read More

First Mac App Store Cracks Emerge

As Apple launched its highly-anticipated Mac App Store yesterday, some found that replacing the receipt and signature files in some paid apps with the receipt from a free one allows the app to run in full mode.

This apparently works only for some apps, while the paid application actually needs to be downloaded from a third-party site.

However, once the app is cracked, Apple’s Mac App Store will foolishly serve any subsequent updates for free, provided that the developer had released the update as a free one.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball is vocal on the matter. In a recent blog post, he begins by quickly enumerating the steps needed to crack an application:

“Copy the App Store receipt from any legit Mac App Store download — including from any free app — and paste it into a bootleg download of Angry Birds, and it’ll run.”

He claims the vulnerability exists only in apps that don't follow Apple's app validation advice.

“This isn’t true for all paid Mac App Store apps. For apps that follow Apple’s advice on validating App Store receipts, this simple technique will not work.”

Some applications are known to check only for a valid receipt. Others check whether the receipt matches the app's bundle ID, this kind of system being more difficult to crack.

The Apple pundit firmly upholds that Cupertino “should test for this in the review process, and reject paid apps that are susceptible to this simple technique.”

Apple’s Mac App Store is available for all Mac users running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

The service requires the user to download Mac OS X 10.6.6, the latest incremental update to the Snow Leopard operating system.

The update contains the Mac App Store, as well as a few system improvements.

Read More

ViewFun 3D Camcorders From ViewSonic

Given its increasingly important presence on the CE segment, we were actually expecting ViewSonic to bring forth some new and exciting products at CES 2011, and sure enough, that's exactly what the company did, as they've unveiled the ViewFun 3D line of products, that also includes a couple of 3D camcorders.

While we won't tackle the entire ViewFun 3D lineup, that also includes a 3D glasses-free digital photo frame and a 3D digital camcorder, we will talk about the 3D camcorders included in this series, that might prove to be some serious competitors for the better-known brands out there.

So, first of all, we'll go to the ViewFun 3D Palm Full HD Camcorder, the flagship product in the ViewFun series that delivers Full HD 1080p 3D and 2D recording capabilities at 60 fps, as well as dual LED lights for video, a night shot auto off mode, a built-in stereo microphone and speaker.

The device comes equipped with a glasses-free 3.2-inch 3D LCD panel, accompanied by white balance correction settings (auto, sunny, cloudy, fluorescent and Tungsten) and HDMI port, rechargeable Li-ion battery and flexible SD/SDHC storage slot options.





Next in line come the ViewFun 3D Pocket and PocketHD camcorders, that allow users to record 3D or 2D HD videos in Full HD 1080p on the ViewFun 3D PocketHD and HD 720p on the ViewFun 3D Pocket.

Similar to the ViewFun 3D Palm Full HD Camcorder, the pocket versions enable live 3D playback on the 2.4" LCD panel without glasses, using parallax barrier technology, and also include mini HDMI port and an USB rechargeable Li-ion battery and flexible SD/MMC storage slot options.

Plus, the dual 5-megapixel fixed focus cameras can also be used for capturing 3D still images.

The ViewFun 3D Palm Full HD Camcorder should arrive in stores in Q2 2011 for an ESP of $249.99, while the ViewFun 3D PocketHD is expected to hit the shelves in roughly the same time frame, at a price of around 200 US dollars.

However, the ViewFun 3D Pocket camcorder is already available on the market, for an ESP of $179.99.

Read More

ASTEROID Car Receiver Powered By Android Unveiled

Without a doubt, CES 2011 is gearing up to be full of pleasant surprise, the latest we've managed to come across being the Parrot ASTEROID, a car multimedia receiver that works on the Android operating system.

First and foremost, we'll have to point out that this 1-DIN device comes equipped with a detachable faceplate (in order to deter theft) on the left side, while its right side is occupied by a 3.2-inch TFT color display, that provides quick and easy access to a host of information, including phonebook, menus, music, playlist, album covers, internet applications and services.

Moreover, the left part of the receiver also houses the control buttons for the phone functionality (we'll detail this a bit later), plus a large rotary button for menu navigation.

The car receiver lets users play music from a variety of sources, including here USB flash drives, SD cards, MP3 players, the iPhone or iPod, and even web radios, when becoming 3G-capable with the addition of an appropriate dongle (and since we're on this topic, it's also important to point out that the receiver can also become a navigation device, by inserting into it the GPS dongle included in the sales package).

Naturally, since this thing includes a Bluetooth module, music files can also be sent to the car receiver from a mobile phone and via Bluetooth stereo A2DP.

Parrot ASTEROID also doubles as an advanced Bluetooth speakerphone, supporting the simultaneous pairing with up to two mobile phones and also offering users access a multi-user voice recognition feature.

Unfortunately, Parrot has not yet provided any pricing details for their Android-running ASTEROID Car Audio receiver, but they did reveal the fact that it should hit the shelves in the 1st Quarter of 2011 in France, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Benelux, while US customers will have to wait until Q2 in order to get their hands on it.

Read More

PlayStation Phone Full Details Leaked With Photos

Seeing as how Sony didn't reveal any details about a possible PlayStation Phone at the CES conference this week, a Chinese website got its hands on a prototype of the device and shared all of the juicy details, from its phone hardware to its gaming attributes.

Chinese website IT168 managed to score a version of the PlayStation Phone, which may not be the final one, mind you, but it's still the best look we had at the new device that is going to be manufactured by Sony's joint phone venture with Ericsson.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, as it might be named, has some pretty impressive hardware for a phone, including a 1GHz Snapdragon QSD8255 processor, a Qualcomm Adreno 205 GPU, 512MB RAM and 512MB ROM, as well as slots for a SIM card, obviously, a microSD memory card and a micro USB cable.

The PlayStation Phone will use this hardware to display images on a 4-inch screen, with an 854x480 resolution, as well as take pictures with a 5 megapixel camera.



When powered on, the device looks just like any other Sony Ericsson phone from the Xperia lineup, and runs the Android 2.3 operating system.

There's one special feature, however, an application called PlayStation Pocket, which, when you boot it up, puts the phone into "PlayStation" mode.



The menu interface changes to Sony's familiar XMB setup, and you can browse some of the games installed on the device.

The device pictured above and below isn't confirmed to be the production-ready PlayStation Phone, so a few things might change, but it's currently the best look we have at Sony's new product.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play hasn't been officially confirmed by Sony, but according to previous reports, expect it to appear around Spring or Summer of this year.

Read More

Introducing World's Slimmest Windows 7 Tablet

As you might have found out earlier this week, Viliv brought two new Android Internet tablets at CES 2011, the X7 and X10, but that wasn't all the company had in store, as they've also taken the wraps off their X70 Windows 7 Slate, touted as being the world's slimmest-ever Windows 7-based tablet.

As Slashgear informs
us, the X70 Slate is, in fact, the second version of viliv’s existing model, the X70EX, but comes equipped with an upgraded hardware configuration, including a next-gen Intel mobile CPU (we're guessing that they're referring to the Oak Trail platform, since the current-gen tablet is also Atom-based).

As mentioned right from the start, this thing is truly super-slim, as it's only 14.3mm thick and weighs around 420 grams.

The portable system offers a choice of 1GB of 2GB of RAM memory, a 7-inch 1024 x 600 Clear Type LCD display with 16-million colors, while storage is provided by a 32 or 64GB SSD unit, reaching read/write speeds of up to 100/70 Mbps.

Other features worth mentioning include the two camera modules (rear 3MP/Front 1.3MP), the 5600 mA/h, 21W battery offering 6.5 hours of non-stop functioning, as well as the multiple networking and connectivity options, including 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, 3G HSPA or WIMAX or EVDO, HDMI , Micro USB and Micro SD/SDHC supporting 32GB cards, plus the built-in stand-alone GPS module.



“We face new information technology everyday and viliv tablets can be a solution provider to make our life easy and simple. This fast-changing environment creates demand and we are able to meet customer’s expectation with our decades-old experience in mobile technology.” said Dr. Seung-Jin Yoo, COO/Executive Vice President, viliv by Yukyung Technologies.

“Thanks to our understanding of mobile environments, viliv is able to see the opportunities in the field and its tablets take a unique position in the market. IT environments have been changing so fast and people’s expectations are higher than ever. viliv’s brand-new tablets can satisfy all these high expectations,” added the company's rep.

Unfortunately, Viliv has provided absolutely no info on the pricing and/or availability of the Viliv X70 Windows 7 Slate, so your guess is as good as ours regarding the specific time frame when this thing will officially make its way onto the market.

Read More

Mariah Carey Shows Off Growing Baby Bump

She’s kept away from the media for most of the time since announcing her pregnancy, but when she does step out in public, Mariah Carey does it in style. The diva went to see her doctor the other day – offering a glimpse of her growing baby bump to the paparazzi.

As RapUp can confirm, the singer was out and about in LA the other day, paying a visit to her doctor to check on the twins that are expected to be born sometime this spring.

Dressed all in black, and in casual clothes no less, Mariah offered a good look at the bump she once tried so hard to hide from view, thanks to a top that went sheer because of the camera flashes.

For once, she didn’t seem to mind the intrusion: she was laughing coyly as she tried to shelter her face somewhat from the paparazzi cameras.

“Mariah Carey is a show-off. The mom-to-be paid a visit to her doctor yesterday in Los Angeles, dressed in a sheer top that revealed her growing baby bump,” RapUp says.

“Mimi kept it casual in a black zip-up jacket and flowing stretch pants, taking advice from her hubby Nick Cannon to wear flats instead of her standard heels. The couple is expecting twins early this year,” says the same e-zine.

Indeed, as RapUp also notes, perhaps the most surprising bit about the outing was not the fact that Mariah was working the casual style but rather that this was the first time in many years when she was seen without heels.

In fact, as her husband also told her a while back, she was actually wearing flip-flops.

Moreover, reports in the blogosphere say that paparazzi also asked her a couple of questions as they were taking her picture, among which was also the one of whether she and Nick had named the twins yet.

Word has it Mariah said “yes” but refused to go into details, saying she wanted it to be a surprise. As we also informed you a while back, the singer has also refused to say when she’s due.

Read More