Archive for November, 2009
Apple iPhone owners Down Under are reporting their jailbroken iPhones have been hit with a worm that hijacks their wallpaper, changing it to an image of 1980s pop star Rick Astley, and eats up their bandwidth. Although the worm may have spread beyond Australia, there are no confirmed reports yet.
The hacker, who calls himself ikex, claims to have infected 100 iPhones with the malware. The true identity of ikex is 21-year-old Ashley Towns, who shows no public remorse about the hack.
SophosLabs is analyzing the worm’s code, which suggests that at least four variants have been written. One of the attributes of the latest variant is that it tries to hide its presence by using a file path suggestive of the Cydia jailbreaking tool.
Click here to read the rest of my story on CIOToday.
November 10th, 2009
In a move to gain ground in an ultracompetitive mobile advertising market, Google on Monday announced it has agreed to acquire mobile-ad technology provider AdMob for $750 million in stock. Google painted a win-win portrait of the acquisition, noting it will enhance the company’s expertise and technology in mobile advertising and give advertisers and publishers more choice in this emerging market.
“Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and, while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time,” said Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management at Google. “AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup — generating impressive year-on-year revenue growth — and we’re excited to welcome this talented team to Google.”
Read the rest of my story on NewsFactor.
November 10th, 2009
Score one for Windows 
7. The initial sales of the latest version of Microsoft ‘s flagship operating system surpassed Vista’s performance during its first few days on the U.S. market, according to the NPD Group.
Windows 7 unit sales in the U.S. were 234 percent higher than Vista’s first few days of sales. A combination of early discounts on pre-sales and a lack of promotional activity for the Ultimate version resulted in dollar sales that were 82 percent higher than Vista.
“Microsoft’s program of early low-cost pre-sales, high-visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “In a slow environment for packaged software, Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles.”
Read the rest of my story on TopTechNews.
November 9th, 2009
On Friday, EMI won an injunction against BlueBeat.com, forcing the web site to stop selling Beatles songs without permission. The London-based record label alleged that the music site was breaching its copyrights.
A Los Angeles federal court moved swiftly to issue a temporary restraining order against BlueBeat. EMI, which represents The Beatles works, filed suit against the BlueBeat site on Tuesday.
BlueBeat.com was selling songs from the British band’s archives for 25 cents each. By contrast, Apple’s iTunes Store sells songs for about $1, but does not have The Beatles’ catalog. BlueBeat had all its Beatles bases covered, offering original recordings and remastered versions of Beatles classics.
Read the rest of my story on NewsFactor.
November 9th, 2009
It’s flu season. And according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), visits to doctors for influenza-like-illness continue to increase steeply and are now higher than what is seen at the peak of many regular flu seasons.
What’s more, the CDC reports, flu-related hospitalizations and deaths continue to go up nationwide and are above what is expected for this time of year.
As of 25 October 2009, worldwide there have been more than 440,000 laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 and over 5,700 deaths reported to the World Health Organization.
Read the rest of my story on aBetterOffice.com.
November 6th, 2009
On Thursday, Google launched a new feature that aims to silence privacy advocates who have criticized the search industry’s data-collection and storage practices. If the initiative appeases the critics, other search engines could move to adopt similar strategies.
The initiative is called Google Dashboard. For Google users who have wondered what data is stored in conjunction with their Google accounts, Dashboard offers a new level of transparency. Google Dashboard lets users see what data the search engine is storing and offers some control over how it’s used. Users can even delete some data.
Google software engineer Alma Whitten, Google product manager Yariv Adan, and Google Vice President of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer made the Dashboard announcement on the company’s blog.
Read the rest of my story on NewsFactor.
November 6th, 2009
Laptop-toting road warriors who don’t want to commit to a long-term mobile broadband data plan might be interested in a new offering from Verizon Wireless. On Thursday, the wireless carrier rolled out three new mobile data plans as part of the company’s prepaid portfolio.
The plans let customers tap into the mobile broadband speed they need on Verizon’s 3G network with daily, weekly or monthly pay-as-you-go access. The plans will be available beginning Nov. 15.
“As more and more people begin to use these devices in different ways, all of a sudden it’s not just the device. The network and the ability to connect to the network becomes very important,” said Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret. “Verizon has a very strong reputation for their coverage and connectivity. Prepaid mobile broadband is going to be more important going forward, particularly for people who don’t need it on a daily basis and don’t necessarily want to pay a monthly fee.”
Read the rest of my story on TopTechNews.
November 6th, 2009
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