ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Beta Makes Debut
Microsoft's foray into the cross-platform realm of Web functionality development is now official. Today, the company released Beta 1 of what it now calls ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 - essentially its Web development toolkit for Asynchronous JavaScript.
The company's goal at this point is to develop a series of small libraries that a browser can load into memory as necessary -- rather than loading one huge library -- that will give Web developers the framework for implementing on-page controls. These controls provide animated functionality, and more importantly, can be loaded with variable amounts of new content as necessary by resuming HTTP contact with the Web server; thus, the "asynchronous" aspect of the language.
Address Redirection Cause of IE7 Issue
In a test conducted by BetaNews on a fresh installation of the release version of Internet Explorer 7, on a "clean" environment set up within Virtual PC 2004, the browser failed the MHTML content retrieval test. The issue involves redirecting the Web browser to a local resource.
In examining the source code of Secunia's page, we found that a JavaScript function first generates a resource location using pieces of strings, plus a randomly generated number as a throw-away parameter. The location points to a page that apparently triggers an HTTP 302 signal, purportedly that the site location has been rerouted.
Sony Quietly Delays Blu-ray Player Again
As members of the AV Science Forum were the first to discover yesterday, Sony has once again pushed back its estimate of availability for its first wave of Blu-ray Disc player consoles, the BDP-S1.
According to the company's SonyStyle Web site, US customers should expect to see the player on December 4, with MSRP remaining set at $999.95 USD. The BDP-S1 had been slated for release next week.
Secunia: Exploit Truly Does Affect IE7
UPDATE: In a test conducted by BetaNews on a fresh installation of the release version of Internet Explorer 7, on a "clean" environment set up within Virtual PC 2004, the browser failed the MHTML content retrieval test. The issue involves redirecting the Web browser to a local resource.
On Wednesday, as BetaNews reported, security services vendor Secunia stated that a long-standing, unpatched MHTML redirection exploit, found to affect Internet Explorer 6.0 as early as November 2003, affects the final release version of IE7. Yesterday, Microsoft security team member Christopher Budd responded to that claim by saying the exploit in question actually affects Outlook Express, even though IE7 may continue to provide the "attack vector" for this exploit.
MS to McAfee: Stop Lying to the Public
A statement released to the press very early this morning from Ben Fathi, Microsoft's corporate vice president for security technology, gives some subtle but clear indications that, if McAfee wants to take its claims against Windows Vista security features off the streets and into a more formal setting, Microsoft might be willing to make a battle of it.
"It's unfortunate that McAfee's lawyers are making these kinds of inaccurate and inflammatory statements," Fathi's statement opens, apparently referring specifically to claims made against Microsoft's forthcoming 64-bit kernel protection scheme before the European Commission, and not to open letters from McAfee executives published by the Financial Times and ZDNet.
Vista SP1 to Include Common Security APIs for Partners
A spokesperson for Microsoft Thursday evening characterized as "grossly inaccurate" reports from earlier in the day, including from Reuters, stating that a technical glitch in the company's Live Meeting services led to a dissolution of a meeting between Microsoft and security products vendors.
These stories were wrong, said the spokesperson, on three major counts: 1) the exclusivity and number of vendors attending the meeting (20 security vendors participated in this one meeting, possibly including Symantec and McAfee, though this was one of several such meetings); 2) the subject of the meeting (it did not involve a possible revelation or licensing of PatchGuard code or methods); 3) the damage caused by the technical glitch (it only delayed the meeting for 15 minutes, after which, representatives from all 20 companies remained on the call).
Google to Share Revenue with Video Content Providers
Over the past several weeks, and continuing into the present time, Google has been actively attacking the problem of copyright violations for videos posted to its search properties by entering into complex revenue sharing agreements with major content providers, such as studios. This news was revealed during Google's third quarter 2006 conference call late Thursday afternoon.
But many of the formulas and the variables for those deals, these same executives admitted, are too complex to be explained to analysts, and some are actually still being determined, especially as the Web continues to evolve.
Glitches Shut Security Firms Out of MS Meeting
UPDATE: A spokesperson for Microsoft Thursday evening characterized as "grossly inaccurate" reports from earlier in the day, including from Reuters, stating that a technical glitch in the company's Live Meeting services led to a dissolution of a meeting between Microsoft and security products vendors. Read the full story here.
Though officials from Microsoft had planned to hold an online briefing with representatives of security vendors, reportedly including McAfee and Symantec, earlier this afternoon, some of those participants were inadvertently shut out of the meeting. The cause, apparently, was technical difficulties with Microsoft's Live Meeting.
HP Tops Dell in Worldwide PC Sales
Dell's PC shipments in all categories to US customers during the third quarter of 2006 dropped by 6.7% over the year-ago quarter, according to numbers released this morning by the analysts of IDC's Quarterly PC Tracker. It's not Dell's exploding Sony batteries that caused this, IDC believes, even though the company's portable systems growth has shrunk into the single digits.
While the growth of the PC market worldwide continued to slip by almost two points by IDC's estimate, from 9.8% in the second quarter to 7.9% in the third, apparently no one sent that memo to Hewlett-Packard. The company enjoyed a surge of PC shipments numbers worldwide by an astounding 15.1%, from 8.5 million to 9.8 million units.
IE7 Final Vulnerable to Old Exploit
UPDATE: Microsoft has responded to the issue, saying the flaw actually lies in Outlook Express. The company is investigating the situation.
Less than 24 hours after its final release, Internet Explorer 7 has been found to be vulnerable to an exploit dating back to November 2003, which was discovered affecting IE6 last April. The issue surrounds Microsoft's handling of MIME HTML resources, security company Secunia said in an advisory.
AMD's Gamble: Stronger Earnings on Weaker Margins
After Intel’s introduction last July of its Core 2 Duo processor series, which tests showed performed far more strongly than anything else that company had produced to date, AMD took the risk it had to take: It dropped prices by almost 50% on all but its highest performing processors (the Athlon FX series). The market took note immediately and demand rose substantially, as AMD acknowledged in its third quarter 2006 report yesterday.
But financial analysts didn’t see that wave coming –- or, more accurately, that it had already come last summer -– until after the exchanges closed yesterday. While AMD’s net sales rose by 9.1% over the third quarter of 2005, from $1.21 billion to $1.32 billion, gross margin took a negative turn, down 5.4% to 51.4%.
Google Has its Own 'Live' Search Lab
It was Google that first made developers begin thinking of asynchronous JavaScript in the context of search technology, with the development and rapid expansion of its Google Earth, Maps and Gadgets features. But with Microsoft’s new, all-out effort with Windows Live Search to finally claim a serious share of searches, suddenly the question has become more pointed:
Should AJAX be employed for everyday searches, or should the search page be left uncomplicated?
Yahoo Results Raise Questions on Ad Viability
Last week, the question many analysts were asking openly was, why didn't Yahoo purchase YouTube when it had the chance? Today, investors are asking instead whether that chance ever really existed.
While Yahoo continues to make more money -- in fact, $1.58 billion, which is 19% more than it did during the third quarter of 2005 -- its cost of revenues and operating expenses rose, contributing to 37% lower net revenues for Q3 2006 than for Q3 2005. Net income for the quarter just ended was only $158 million, down from $253 million for this quarter a year ago.
Has Intel Turned a Corner Yet?
The first stages of Intel's latest massive corporate restructuring are just under way, but already, investors are looking for the first signs that the juggernaut is turning around and heading a positive direction. Yesterday's news from the company wasn't good, but wasn't unexpected either; and this morning, investors may be realizing that disaster is not on the immediate horizon after all.
During its third quarter 2006 conference call yesterday, Intel revealed its quarterly earnings are down somewhat over the same quarter in 2005 -- down 12% to $8.7 billion -- but slightly higher over the spring quarter. The company's release last July of its most important processors to date, the Core 2 Duo series, was very positively received.
Firefox 2.0 to Feature New JavaScript 1.7
Despite some indications to the contrary this week, the Mozilla Foundation did not release its next version of the Firefox browser, which is still being widely, publicly tested under Release Candidate 2. As Mozilla's vice president for engineering, Mike Schroepfer, told BetaNews on Friday, Firefox releases take place on a qualitative basis, not on a deadline or time scale. The organization will release the next production version of the browser when it feels it's ready for prime time.
One of the new browser's key elements, and perhaps the beneficiary of the greatest amount of change, is its new JavaScript interpreter. As more Web sites take advantage of the new benefits of Asynchronous JavaScript -- especially as they embed objects or functionality from Google and Microsoft Windows Live -- the JavaScript interpreter may play a much more active role, not only in the operation of the browser but in the implementation of Web-based applications.
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