Computer researchers at Johns Hopkins University have discovered a flaw within most recent version of Adobe's Reader and Acrobat software applications that could allow hackers to take control of vulnerable systems.
"Adobe categorizes this as an critical issue and recommends affected users update their installations," Adobe said in an advisory today.
It was an unprecedented and largely unexpected move by Nokia, which had for months allowed speculation that it may join the Open Handset Alliance and back Android. Now it's taking steps to own Symbian, and to put away its competition.
The Symbian platform -- or more accurately, platforms, plural -- already provided the software backbone behind an estimated 165 million deployed smartphones worldwide, at the end of 2007. But despite powering a good one-third of smartphones, by conservative analysts' estimates, many had already declared Symbian a "failure," using that very word, in comparison with Google's upcoming not-really-delayed Android Linux-based mobile platform, and the other mobile Linux platform openly developed by the LiMo Foundation.
Despite continuing rumors around delays in Android, the Google-spearheaded project remains on track to meet its previously stated goal of shipping the first Android-enabled mobile phone later this year, BetaNews confirmed today.
After reports of an an Android delay surfaced in a posting by The Street's Gary Krakow earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal published an article this morning -- citing unnamed sources -- stating that Android-based phones might not make it to market until the end of 2008, due to difficulties faced by T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel.
Some two-and-a-half months after its first declaration, Apple on Friday once again declared itself the "number one music retailer in the US," this time also proclaiming Apple's iTunes "the world's most popular online movie store."
In a press release dated last April 3, Apple claimed to have surpassed Wal-Mart in terms of tunes sold to consumers, referring to data from the NPD Group's MusicWatch survey for January and February 2008 to support that contention.
In a 4-1 vote on Friday, the US Federal Communications Commission said it has banned Verizon from using cable companies' customer data in efforts to persuade their customers not to switch.
Retention practices are nothing new for the communications industry. Most commonly, a wireless company will offer its customer special deals in return for remaining with it, after the customers informs the company of his intentions to switch.
Motorola today unveiled a new 5-megapixel camera brought to market with the aid of Kodak, with emphasis shifted to the built-in camera and away from the features on the phone itself.
During an official event hosted in Beijing, Motorola introduced the MOTOZINE ZN5 -- the first device in a newly created line of phones optimized for multimedia.
On Friday, the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) began an ongoing debate between McCain and Obama representatives on Twitter, moderated by prominent blogger Ana Marie Cox.
Representing Sen. John McCain is Online Communications Director for the Republican National Committee Liz Mair, and Georgetown professor and Technology, Media and Telecom advisor to the Obama campaign Mike Nelson (no relation to Michael J. Nelson from MST3K...although that might have been cool).
After the judge in the Jammie Thomas trial admits he may have made some serious mistakes, the organization helping to defend her in court is now seeking a retrial.
A hearing on the subject is scheduled for August, where the two sides will argue for and against throwing out the October verdict that found Thomas guilty and fined her $220,000.
Disney had attempted to break into the movies-on-demand business with movies.com, and had partnered with Fox, However, the company was unable to make that a reality.
On Monday, the Disney Company -- parent company of ABC Television -- announced that it had sold movie information site movies.com to Comcast, which would then fold the site into its Fandango service. As of today, we noticed Movies.com has already begun to integrate itself into that site; clicking on some links took us to pages on Fandango.
Despite high entry-level salaries and an abundance of jobs, the numbers of students completing undergraduate information technology programs in North America continues to fall, according to recent statistics.
The just released latest results of the Computing Research Association's Taulbee Survey -- an annual study conducted at universities with Ph.D. programs -- shows a 20% drop between 2005-06 and 2006-07 in students completing bachelors degrees in professional IT fields.
It's way too early to declare the battle between Microsoft and arch-rival Alcatel-Lucent over. Last week, a judge upheld a big jury decision against Microsoft and tacked on some interest. That just made the defendant a little angrier.
The state of affairs between Microsoft and French telecommunications firm Alcatel-Lucent, the current holder of patents developed by the old Bell Laboratories, remains contentious. Last Thursday, a US district judge in Southern California upheld an April jury verdict against Microsoft for violating a series of patents Alcatel holds for how a user selects a calendar entry from a menu ($357.7 million) and the use of styluses on touch-screen devices ($10.4 million). Judge Marilyn Huff opted to charge interest on both rulings in the interim, raising the award to $512 million.
A spokesperson for CA this afternoon confirmed to BetaNews that it is launching its registered beta program for its upcoming consumer-grade Internet security suite, and is looking for capable testers to help perfect the product.
New on CA's features list with this upcoming version is a firewall that can optionally grant or deny programs' access to the Internet without automatic notification to the user, an in-game suppression mode that stops CA from interrupting you while you're playing, and a mobile notification option that notifies you when you're about to enter a new Wi-Fi hot spot.
Talkster, a company that provides free ad-subsidized international calling, can now be used with Skypeout, which already enables Skype users to pay for calls to landlines as they go.
VoIP in Europe has been popular for several years, as it levels the formerly prohibitive costs of international dialing. Because of this, consumers currently have a wide selection of VoIP service providers, ranging from the now-classic desktop client, to mobile handset solutions in Wi-Fi equipped devices.
Like a side project of revered indie stars, Topspin features former stars from Yahoo Music, Digidesign, and Real Networks taking charge of the changing record industry landscape.
At a Billboard Magazine music industry panel discussion at CES 2008, Topspin's CEO Ian Rogers, then working for Yahoo Music, contributed to the dialogue about the value held by the subscription model for music sales.
In a move that could help boost the scalability of Linux for grids and other advanced 64-bit multiprocessor applications, HP has release its Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) source code to the open source community.
Originally limited mainly to 32-bit workgroup applications, Linux has been gaining ground on 64-bit platforms vs. Unix over the past few years, especially since the release of 64-bit processors from Intel and AMD.