While Microsoft’s unveiling of two own-brand tablet PCs has surprised the supply chain in Taiwan and brought worries on PC vendors, Acer founder Stan Shih has commented that Microsoft has no real intention to sell own-brand tablet PCs and the offering is an ploy to boost adoption of Windows 8.
via Microsoft own-brand tablet PCs a ploy to drive Windows 8 adoption, says Acer founder.
As mentioned above, Surface will be available in two flavors. One tablet will run Windows 8 Pro, and rely on a third-generation Intel Core processor. The other will feature Windows RT and run on an ARM processor. Both will feature 10.6-inch screens along with a kickstand and keyboard, but many of the other internal specs vary wildly:
via Microsoft’s Surface: Windows for a Cloud World.
As a result, she added, “Microsoft and its partners need to articulate a compelling strategy for how they will manage consumer expectations in the channel. Consumers aren’t used to thinking about chipsets.”
Nokia and RIM, the two former leaders in the early smartphone market, are now basically at the end stage of their downward spirals. This is an opportunity for Microsoft, which wants to make some inroads in the smartphone market, assuming Microsoft it can play its cards right.
via Microsoft Explorer : Which carcass is worth more for Microsoft’s vultures, RIM or Nokia?.
Microsoft certification authority signing certificates added to the Untrusted Certificate StoreWhile these security issues are not Flame-specific, and could be used in other forms of unrelated malware, Microsoft was able to identify components of the Flame malware that had been signed with a certificate that ultimately chained up to the Microsoft Root Authority.
via Microsoft Certificate Was Used to Sign “Flame” Malware | SecurityWeek.Com.
Microsoft did not say what algorithm was exploited in order to generate the rogue certificates, though SecurityWeek did reach out to Microsoft for comment and we will update the story if a response is recieved.
At the end of the 1990s, Korea developed its own encryption technology, SEED, with the aim of securing e-commerce. Users must supply a digital certificate, protected by a personal password, for any online transaction in order to prove their identity. For Web sites to be able to verify the certificates, the technology requires users to install a Microsoft ActiveX plug-in.
via For world’s most wired country, breaking Internet monopoly is hard.
But mandating the technology had a host of side effects that, according to Kim, the FSS either largely ignored or didn’t predict. It forced consumers to use Internet Explorer because it was the only browser ActiveX plug-ins were compatible with. By default, Web developers optimized not only banking and shopping Web sites for Internet Explorer, but all Web sites. For developers, this just seemed logical.
The result has been a decade-long monopoly in the Korean market, where virtually all Korean Web sites are optimized for Internet Explorer.
The change, which Immunity Security’s Kostya Kortchinsky said occurred about two months ago, represents a major departure from the design that has powered Skype for the past decade. Since its introduction in 2003, the network has consisted of “supernodes” made up of regular users who had sufficient bandwidth, processing power, and other system requirements to qualify. These supernodes then transferred data with other supernodes in a peer-to-peer fashion. At any given time, there were typically a little more than 48,000 clients that operated this way.
via Skype replaces P2P supernodes with Linux boxes hosted by Microsoft (updated).
What’s more, the boxes are running a version of Linux using grsecurity, a collection of patches and configurations designed to make servers more resistant to attacks. In addition to hardening them to hacks, the Microsoft-hosted boxes are able to accommodate significantly more users.
The Linux Foundation’s Linux Development Report, released Tuesday, summarizes who has contributed to the Linux kernel, from versions 2.6.36 to 3.2. The 10 largest contributors listed in the report are familiar names: Red Hat, Intel, Novell, IBM, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Nokia, Samsung, Oracle and Google. But the appearance of Microsoft is a new one for the list, compiled annually.
Overall, Microsoft contributed 688 changes, or about 1.0 percent of the accepted changes to the kernel, since version 2.6.36. Company engineers also signed off on 2,174 changes, or about 1.1 percent of all the changes in this review period.
via Microsoft counted as key Linux contributor, for now anyway.
So what should you do if you want to get rid of your Xbox 360 but you don’t want your personal information compromised? Podhradsky recommends detaching your 360’s hard drive, hooking it up to your computer, and using a sanitization program like Darik’s Boot & Nuke to wipe everything out. Just reformatting the system isn’t enough.
via Hackers Can Steal Credit Card Information From Your Old Xbox, Experts Tell Us.
The name ‘Outercurve Foundation’ speaks to our ambition to be a foundation on the leading edge of the open source world, representing the interests of the growing audience of developers and corporations engaging with the traditional FOSS community.
via Outercurve Foundation Overview.
Microsoft is involved in this organization.
CLDAP is most commonly encountered on Microsoft Active Directory networks where clients use it to retrieve server information.