Technology in your hands.

Apple Inc. yesterday patched 40 security vulnerabilities in more than 25 different components and applications bundled with Mac OS X, including Flash Player, iCal and Apache.

The year’s third update fixed fewer than half as many flaws as the previous collection, which Apple issued two months ago to plug nearly 90 holes.

Apple tagged 16 of the 40 patches in Wednesday’s update with its “arbitrary code execution” phrasing, putting them into the category most other vendors would label “critical.”

According to the Security Update 2008-003 advisory, the most-patched components by vulnerability count were Apple’s version of the Apache open-source Web server (eight bugs fixed) and the version of Adobe’s Flash Player that Apple tucks into Mac OS X (seven flaws patched)…

Read Full Article

Greenpeace says the world’s most popular electronic game consoles contain high levels of toxic chemicals, though they do not pose an immediate danger to gamers.

A report by the environmental watchdog group says Nintendo’s Wii, the Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 use varying degrees of bromine, PVCs and other potentially harmful chemicals, including phthalates, which can affect human hormones.

Greenpeace acknowledged the level of toxic material does not violate European regulations, although some are banned from use in toys meant for small children. Though not harmful in the amounts used, some chemicals are released into household dust, inhaled and pile up in the body over time.

“Nobody will drop dead tomorrow,” Greenpeace campaigner Zeina AlHajj said today. “But these products are used by kids … They are persistent and they are accumulating through our life.”…

Read Full Article

Yves Rossy, the self-styled “Fusionman”, leapt into the skies 2500 metres above the small town of Bex in western Switzerland clad in his new carbon wing.

He performed various manoeuvres for five minutes before landing with the aid of a parachute.

His “wing” is 2.5 metres in diameter and comes with four tiny jets, which are lit inside the plane just before he jumps.

Once in full flight, Rossy can reach speeds of up to 300kmh, but he can only stay in the air for a maximum of ten minutes due to the small fuel capacity of his jets…

Read Full Article

Now these may look like normal AA batteries, but the magic is revealed when you pop the top open to reveal a USB plug. Instead of needing a bulky recharger you plug them into any powered USB port and they’re fully recharged in only 5 hours. Just think, you have so many potential chargers in your home. From PCs and laptops to keyboards, hubs, games consuls, even some monitors.

More Here

Adware pushers have found a new way to trick you into downloading their annoying products: fake MP3 files.

On Tuesday, security vendor McAfee reported that it’s seen a huge spike in fake MP3 files spreading on peer-to-peer networks. Although the files have names that make them look like audio recordings, they’re really Trojan horse programs that try to install a shoddy media player and adware on your computer, said Craig Schmugar, a researcher with McAfee.

“Once you run it, there is no content. You’re taken to this site to install this player which you don’t really need,” he said…

Read Full Article

In article introduces you to four built-in tools you can use to track down and fix performance problems.

Quote “I believe you have every right to expect excellent performance from Windows Vista, and I’m going to back that conclusion in today’s post, the latest in my Fixing Vista series, with details on how to use Vista’s built-in tools to find and fix the problems that stand between you and an excellent Vista experience. ”

Read Full Article

Futuremark (www.futuremark.com) brings users one step closer to understanding the performance potential of their personal computers with the launch of 3DMark® Vantage. Gamers, media and OEMs now have a modern gaming performance benchmark to measure native DirectX 10 and multi-core CPU performance with large amounts of physics, AI and graphics.

3DMark®Vantage is composed of four full-bore benchmarking tests (2 different CPU tests and 2 different GPU tests) and 6 feature tests. Four presets, a groundbreaking new feature, vastly augment the variety of PCs that can be tested with the product. Presets range from value through performance to high end cinematic rendering resolutions and features. By creating a new set of high end presets, 3DMark®Vantage is future proofed for the new multi-core CPU and Graphics Processing Unit products as well as supporting the Physics Processing Unit to expand the range of technology, testing and prevent the benchmark from being bottlenecked for its users.

Microsoft withdrew its $42.3 billion bid to buy Yahoo on Saturday, scrapping an attempt to snap up the tarnished Internet icon in hopes of toppling online search and advertising leader Google.

The decision to walk away from the deal came after last-ditch efforts to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price proved unsuccessful.

The talks reached a breaking point after Jerry Yang and David Filo, the co-founders of Sunnyvale-based Yahoo, flew to Seattle in the morning to meet personally with Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Kevin Johnson, who runs the software maker’s unprofitable online services division, according to someone familiar with the talks. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified.

“Clearly a deal is not to be,” Ballmer wrote to Yang in a letter sent late Saturday…

Read Full Article

Another peril can be added to the hazards of the innocent-looking computer keyboard. Not content with encouraging repetitive strain injury, the key pads sometimes harbour more filth than the average lavatory seat and house millions of bacteria which can cause diarrhoea and vomiting, a study has shown.

A microbiologist carrying out research published yesterday for the Which? Computing magazine examined samples from 33 keyboards and found a variety of bugs including E coli and S aureus, which can cause skin infections and make people ill.

The scientist swabbed a lavatory seat and a toilet door handle in a typical London office for comparison. One of the keyboards tested had to be removed from the office because it was five times dirtier than the lavatory seat and home to 150 times the acceptable limit of bacteria…

Read Full Article