More Hacked Sites than Ever

According to the Websense State of Internet Security report covering the first half of 2008, compromised URLs continue to advance as the most popular means of online malware delivery.

During the first six months of 2008, over 75% of the sites Websense observed distributing malware were legitimate URLs that had been somehow subverted by attackers, a 50 percent increase over the last six months of 2007. Websense contends that a whopping 60 percent of the Web's most popular sites were either subverted or indirectly involved with some form of malicious activity over the past six months.

It does appear that the use of malware tool kits to launch online attacks has slowed, with Websense reporting that some 12 percent of the sites it saw infected with malicious code were created using Web malware exploitation kits, a decrease of 33 percent since December 2007. Websense researchers said the decrease may be related to attackers launching more customized threats to avoid traditional signature-based detection techniques.

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Windows 7 on its way

Microsoft has said it would ship by January 2010, but top executives have also said from time to time that it would be done by the end of 2009.

Microsoft has released few details on the product, largely assuring customers that it would be making big architectural changes and that it will have a new multi touch user interface, an alternative to the computer mouse. This means that users will be able to control the next version of Microsoft Windows with touch controls.

Bill Gates framed the new feature as an evolution away from the mouse. The ability to use touch to give users fingertip control of their screens could help revolutionize how computer desktops and mobile phones are controlled and would be an alternative to existing mice, keyboard and pen based user controls.

New enhancements to DirectX will help applications harness the latest innovations in GPUs and LCD displays, including support for scalable, high performance, 2D and 3D graphics, text, and images.

Hackers unlock newest iPhone software

A group of hackers known has provided an update to its iPhone unlocking tool that works with Apple's new 2.0 software release.

Jailbreaking (making it possible to install un-sanctioned apps) and SIM unlocking is supported for the first generation iPhone, while iPod touches can also be jailbroken. While the iPhone 3G is also supported in the new release, at this time it is only to jailbreak the device. No SIM unlock is available, which means it must still be used on AT&T or whatever network Apple has partnered with.

Performing the jailbreak and unlock is an fairly easy task. Upon opening the application, the user selects what device model they are using, then tells the program where the locations of the three necessary files are.

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Spammer Gets 30 Months for Inundating AOL

A 27-year-old man was sentenced to 30 months in prison Tuesday for blasting AOL subscribers with spam over a four-month period. Adam Vitale was also ordered to pay AOL US$180,000 in restitution.

Vitale and his partner, Todd Moeller, were busted after they offered their spam services to a government informant, according to an indictment filed in May 2006.

The two sent around 250,000 spam messages to more than 1.2 million e-mail addresses belonging to AOL subscribers. The spam messages contained false headers, or the set of information contained in an e-mail that identifies where it has been sent from. The information can be faked.

Google, Yahoo to Reach 3 Billion Mobile Phones

With a market size three times bigger than the Internet today, Internet search engines Yahoo! and Google both aim to bring the Internet to about 3.2 billion cell phone users as compared to the 850 million PC users today.

Since Google's business comes mostly from advertisements,enabling Internet like experience in cell phones is very important to them. Google's new cell phone platform, Android, could be "the ultimate Internet style luminated mobile phone" slated to be launched later this year or early 2009. Android is open-source platform for mobile phones. It allows developers to develop Internet-style applications on the phone. It has Internet style application features such as BreadCrumbz, PedNav, Fon11, Enkin, multiple weather applications, and various pocket PC games,among others.

BreadCrumbz is a first-person view navigation for tours and route-finding, while PedNav helps a user plan his foot-based itinerary, incorporating time estimates based on traffic and other variables. Fon11, however, is for social networking with real-time location, presence and status.

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Microsoft Hopes Office Subscription Plan Will Counter Free Software

With its Office franchise under attack from a host of competitors offering free software, Microsoft is hoping that a new subscription pricing model for its Office suite will encourage consumers to continue upgrading to the latest editions of the product.

Microsoft said that it will give consumers the option of buying an annual license for Office and its Windows Live OneCare security package for $69.99 per year under a program called Equipt. The license covers use of the software on up to three computers and includes access to all future product upgrades.

Microsoft is counting on Equipt's convenience factor to help it fend off competitive threats from Google, IBM, and other vendors that are offering free and open source desktop productivity suites.

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MD Releases New 140-Watt Black Phenom X4 chip

On Tuesday, AMD announced a new version of its flagship "Black" Phenom X4, as well as two energy efficient versions of the Phenom X4 chip.

However, the AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition does not command a flagship price: AMD is charging a suggested retail price of just $235 for the 2.6 GHz chip. AMD also released the AMD Phenom X4 9350e, a 2.0 GHz processor for $195; and the AMD Phenom X4 9150e, a 1.8 GHz version for $175.

All three chips are manufactured on AMD's 65nm process, contain 2 MB of a shard level 3 cache and include 512 KB of level 2 cache per core.

AMD's new Black processor consumes 140 watts at maximum, an increase over the 9850, which consumes 125 watts. However, the chip also ships with AMD's OverDrive software with clock multiplier control, allowing users to scale down the performance to save power, or dial it up for more performance. At Computex, Asus releaed a list of boards that could accept the new 140 watt Black chips.

The energy efficient Phenom X4s, on the other hand, consume no more than 65 watts in total.