AOL Pulls Rug From Under 'Magic Carpet'
After coming to a crescendo as key player in Liberty Alliance, AOL has disbanded the Magic Carpet product team and refocused its limited resources on core subscription and advertising businesses. This leaves the Internet giant with no viable alternative to Microsoft's Passport authentication service in implementation, which currently boasts 200 million accounts.
As first reported by BetaNews, Magic Carpet was a unified single sign-on similar in concept to Passport. The system was to provide AOL with leverage to yield against Microsoft, and ostensibly bring forth a rich alternative to AOL's more than 35 million subscribers.
Interview: Dr. David Feeney Offers 'Digital Concierge'
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Tool Unmasks Web Server Vulnerabilities
In response to increasingly militant attacks carried out by hackers, system administrators across the spectrum of IT have worked diligently in recent months to remove telltale signs that can classify their Web servers. However, this may fashion a false sense of confidence.
All it takes to pin the tail on a Web server is a trip to netcraft.com, where a specialized service identifies what type of Web server a target site is running by examining its nuances. From Apache, to IPlanet to IIS, servers are an open book – often by default.
OS X Receives New AOL with Gecko
A freshly retooled AOL client has arrived exclusively for Mac OS X users in a release AOL bills as its "best version for Apple Macintosh computers yet."
America Online announced Tuesday a completely overhauled application that melds into the aesthetics of the Mac - bringing the look and feel of a true Mac program to AOL subscribers.
AOL Dashes to Patch IM Security Hole
America Online has found a security hole in its popular messaging software that runs on the Windows operating system. A server side fix will be implemented within days, protecting users of versions 4.7 and 4.8 beta – two build that are currently vulnerable. A security advisory issued by Matt Conover, a researcher at the Web site w00w00.org identifies a buffer overrun issue in AIM's game request function that has the potential to give malicious users an all access pass to run arbitrary code on a target system.
Conover, a student at Utah State University, discovered the flaw in the code that parses a game request in AIM. According to Conover a self propagating worm similar to Melissa, ILOVEYOU, CodeRed, and Nimba could work its way through the buddy lists of AIM users be amended to dynamically download itself off the Web.
Amazon Takes Orders for Visual Studio .NET
Amazon is now accepting preorders for Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET. Customers must wait until January 17 for the shipped product, almost a month earlier than the official launch slated for February. Pricing in the Amazon online catalog is set at $999.99 USD for the professional edition of the programming suite. Other variants are available through the site including a January 10 release of Visual Basic .NET 2002, Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect, Visual Studio.NET Developer Enterprise 2002, and upgrade releases.
Visual Studio .NET and Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect introduce three significant new features: software modeling, database modeling, and development frameworks and templates. Over 20 different programming languages -- including Microsoft's latest implementation of Java -- are supported. It also yields support for Web standards such as XML, SOAP,
and UDDI to extend interoperability across platforms.
IBM Unleashes Blue Storm in Europe
Today IBM unveiled plans to construct its most powerful supercomputer to date, surpassing ASCI White –- formerly the world's fastest computer -- by nearly doubling the performance achieved by its predecessor. Once built, the computer will be known by the moniker "Blue Storm," and will have the capacity to execute in excess of 20 trillion calculations per second. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) commissioned IBM to build Blue Storm to improve weather forecasting throughout the continent.
According to IBM's projections, Blue Storm will be roughly 1,700 times faster than the company’s famed "Deep Blue" which defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov in a highly publicized 1997 matchup. IBM achieves this level of performance by clustering together multiple eServer p690 (formerly coded named Regatta) enterprise UNIX servers.
Sony VAIO Chokes on XP Upgrade
Many OEMs are counting on Windows XP to boost sagging PC sales amid the economic downturn. Advertisements have appeared both on the Web and in print, in combination with rebates and other incentives, to draw customers into what is promised to be a new experience.
Sony has used this momentum to showcase its series FXA series of VAIO laptops – designed for Windows XP.
A total of 36 laptops have been released by Sony - built specifically for Windows XP. A handful of these were ready for consumers early on, and came pre-loaded with the operating system prior to its official launch date. Sony touted a versatile product line equipped with the latest technology available. Alongside Bill Gates during his keynote address on October 25, a display of Sony PCs shared a glimmer of the spotlight as events unfolded.
Microsoft Changes Tune on Liberty Alliance
UPDATED Another key player has signed onto the Sun-led Liberty Alliance that is intent to forge a unified identity and authentication service for the Internet in lieu of Microsoft's Passport. American Express has joined the long list of allies that rallied to Sun's banner including leading airlines, financial, and security companies.
The announcement comes just days after Microsoft's bitter rival, America Online, consummated its partnership with Sun and gave its full backing to the project despite having developed its own Passport alternative, formerly code-named Magic Carpet.
Gates Revises Visual Studio .NET Release Date
At a forum for software developers in Prague, Bill Gates announced that Visual Studio .NET will be released within the next 30 days, according to reports by Reuters.
In the opening keynote address at COMDEX Fall 2001, Gates held February 13, 2002 as the official launch date. Launch events are currently scheduled to be held at select locations spanning the globe on the 13th.
Beta 2 was released on June 19th coinciding with the tenth anniversary of Visual Basic, a language that stood as the basis for an entire generation of Windows applications.
Journey to EA's Earth and Beyond Beta
EA's Westwood Studios is seeking dedicated testers with above average communicative abilities for a new Sci-fi action adventure game that is played entirely over the Internet. Once active, the game will require players to field a subscription fee in order to take part in the action. A limited number of testers will be accepted – all of whom must be at least 18 years of age.
The game, entitled, "Earth and Beyond, the first Persistent State Galaxy" borrows a smidgen of its storyline from the popular Stargate series where a portal transports its occupants to the distant reaches of the galaxy. That is were the similarity ends. In the "Earth and Beyond" universe, the natural tendency of mankind to break off into factions and fight it out over new territory builds into an intricate storyline that stands as the basis of the game. Keeping in the sci-fi spirit – there will of course be aliens.
Sun Touts High Availability Suite Beta for Netra
UPDATED Sun has reached another stepping stone on the path toward 6 x 9 (99.9999) application availability in its telecom stack solutions. A beta of the High Availability Suite 2.0 for the Netra line of servers achieves a 5 x 9 rating (approximately five minutes downtime per year), which the company claims is a first for an out of the box platform. This is accomplished by hardware and software redundancy, and a multitude of real-time failsafes.
Version 2.0 is intended to win over network equipment providers by offering cost effectiveness as an incentive while catering to the demand to rapidly build and deploy solutions for services such as voice over IP (VOIP), or to construct wireless networks.
IBM Announces Double Gate Transistor
This week during the International Electronic Device Manufactures (IEDM) conference in Washington, D.C. IBM will release a series of papers detailing a new type of transistor that promises to improve chip performance and reduce power consumption. The "Double-Gate" transistor is the product of a breakthrough in SOI, a special kind of material invented by IBM, design that overcame many obstacles IBM has encountered in its laboratories.
Double Gate transistors nearly double the speed of today’s transistors while improving control over the electric current that passed through. As conventional transistors are miniaturized it becomes increasingly difficult to manage their On/Off function. IBM estimates that double gate transistors will be needed in 5-10 years to avert being stuck in the "On" position.
Group Seeks to Secure Web Applications
Not too long ago, a subscriber to the www-mobile-code mailing list asked if a single centralized place focused on Web application security existed. After all, platforms such as Microsoft's .NET and Sun's SunOne are lauded as the future direction that applications will follow, and are steadily marching on toward their next phase of development. This request grew into a project known as OWASP when list moderator Mark Curphey, realizing the value of the idea, contacted security-minded colleagues.
A group of high profile security heavyweights was soon Grossman. Together they hope that the Open Web Application Security assembled including BugTraq's Elias Levy, Chris Wysopal (formerly of L0pht), noted author John Viega, Greg Hoglund, and Jeremiah Grossman will assist developers and security experts to test and secure their products. The group claims that although both Sun and Microsoft have taken great strides to provide a secure framework for their competing visions, it is still far too easy to program insecure and unmanaged applications.
ATTBI Gets the Green Light
Of the 1.4 million broadband Internet customers at AT&T, roughly 850,000 were served by the Excite@Home network. As previously reported, 86,000 of these customers in Washington and Oregon were immediately transitioned onto an AT&T owned and operated network. Since that time, the number has increased to 266,000. Reports are emerging that parts of the new AT&T system -- now re-branded as AT&T Broadband Internet -- are going live across various locales such as California, Georgia, and Texas.
BetaNews has learned from a well placed source inside AT&T that the company is planning for a period of 14 days maximum transition time for the entire country.
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