Technology in your hands.

Microsoft says it will discontinue sales of its subscription PC security service and instead offer free software to help protect computers from viruses, spyware and other threats.

With the move, the software giant appears to be taking aim at McAfee and Symantec, its chief rivals in the PC security market.

Microsoft plans to halt sales of its Windows Live OneCare service on June 30. The service being discontinued costs $US49.95 a year and covers up to three PCs.

The new security program, which the company has code-named “Morro”, will be available as a free download in the second half of next year…

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Microsoft, which has made billions of dollars selling packaged software, has opened its first online store in the US, selling its ubiquitous programs as downloads.

The Microsoft Store is a possible death knell for the practice of selling software on computer discs that buyers install on their machines.

The online store with EDS (electronic distribution of software) was launched on Friday with little fanfare. Microsoft already operates online stores in Britain, Germany and South Korea…

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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will today release its next-generation Opteron quad-core chip, code-named Shanghai, ahead of schedule as it moves to shift attention from its ill-fated Barcelona chip to this smaller and faster device.

The new 45nm Opteron chip’s release is getting a quick endorsement from IBM, which said today that it is producing four servers with AMD’s chip for use in high-performance applications, virtualization and collaboration environments, and big databases…

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Google is introducing new tools that will convert its free email service into a video and audio channel for people who want to see and hear each other while they communicate.

Activating the features, introduced on Tuesday, will require a free piece of software as well as a Webcam, which are becoming more commonplace as computer manufacturers embed video equipment into laptops.

Once the additional software is installed, Gmail users will be given the option to see and hear each other without leaving the email application…

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Global spam levels have dropped by as much as 75 per cent following the shutdown of a US web host that provided the backbone for most of the world’s spam.

The bust has sent spammers scrambling and, although it occurred on Tuesday in the US, spam volumes remain down today, security companies say.

The web host, McColo, counted customers including “international firms and syndicates that are involved in everything from the remote management of millions of compromised computers to the sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and designer goods, fake security products and child pornography via email”, The Washington Post reported…

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Microsoft is ramping up its battle for internet popularity with plans to make Windows Live services more social and build bridges to Twitter, Flickr and other popular websites.

Windows Live will let users keep track of friends in ways similar to those at hot social-networking website Facebook, which has a partnership with Microsoft.

It will also apparently incorporate Live Mesh technology launched early this year to let people combine “smart phones”, personal computers and websites into de facto networks that allow data to be accessed from almost anywhere…

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Security
vendor AVG said Thursday that the company will offer a free year of service, after its antivirus software misidentified a key Windows system file as malware.

Earlier this week, AVG identified user32.dll as a generic Trojan, offering to delete it. Those that did risked putting their PC into an endless reboot cycle.

AVG later apologized and offered workarounds for affected users.

Thursday, the company went one further. “As a follow-up to the rapid distribution of recovery instructions and repair CDs, AVG Technologies is offering all affected users a free license or license extension as follows,” AVG said in a statement.

Essentially, the offer covers a free year of AVG 8.0 service, or a free upgrade for AVG 7.5 users. The upgrade also includes users of the free AVG antivirus service. Not all customers will receive the license, just “affected users,” AVG said. The company said it will contact affected customers beginning Nov. 24, and advise them of how to obtain the free year of service…

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Attacks on operating systems may be decreasing since last year, but attacks on applications, incidents of malware, and unwanted software are rising and account for 90 percent of vulnerabilities, according to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, released Saturday.

The amount of malware and unwanted software removed from computers increased 43 percent in the first half of the year, according to the 150-page report, now in its fifth installment. Thirty percent of that malware was Trojan-based, usually in the form of a computer worm or virus disguised as another application that erases data, corrupts files, and reinstalls itself after being disabled.

China had the highest percentage of browser-based attacks at 50 percent, with the United States following with 23 percent. China’s infection rate of 6.6 percent, a 41 percent increase from the second half of 2007, was a bit lower than industry experts expected…

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