IE9 Subject to Old, Unpatched IE Vulnerability

Microsoft has confirmed that an old known vulnerability has struck their newest version of their browser, Internet Explorer 9. According to Microsoft: "Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability in all supported editions of Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to cause a victim to run malicious scripts when visiting various Web sites, resulting in information disclosure. "

Graphics-enabled CPUs to take off in 2011

Half the notebook computers and a growing number of desktops shipped in 2011 will run on graphics-enabled microprocessors as designers Intel and AMD increase competition for the units that raise multimedia speeds without add-ons. Processors with built-in graphics capabilities will be installed this year on 115 million notebooks, half of total shipments, and 63 million desktop PCs, or 45 percent of the total, according to analysts.

Debian 6 Squeeze: Not Good

Writing about Debian is not a simple thing. You know it's the giant that has spawned pretty much every other distro out there. It's almost like a Roman Empire, almost a taboo. Furthermore, it's not a desktop distro per se. It's more sort of a template you use to build your platform. It's also a SOHO server distro, therefore it more fits into the business category, comparable to CentOS and similar.

Mozilla To release Firefox 4 March 22

According to a post on the mozilla.dev.planning Google Group by Mozilla Senior Director of Engineering, Damon Sicore, the ship date for the stable version of Firefox 4, Tuesday 22 March, has been approved by Mozilla's IT and Marketing teams. Sicore notes that, should the developers discover any last-second blocker bugs that would prevent the final release, a second release candidate would be issued "as soon as possible" and the ship date would be reset. So far, the first RC has "received a very warm welcome", said Sicore.

The Right Office Apps For Android At Work

InfoWorld's JR Raphael provides an in-depth comparison of Android productivity suites, including DataViz's Documents to Go, MobiSystems' OfficeSuite Pro, Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, ThinkFree Office Mobile, and the Google Docs mobile Web app. Each tool is vetted for word processing, spreadsheet editing, and presentation management. Raphael also examines additional tools for accomplishing other basic office tasks, such as dealing with PDFs and Photoshop files, piecing together the best overall package for your Android smartphone at work.

Don’t Write Off Nokia and Qt Yet

When Microsoft and Nokia announced Nokia's move to Windows Phone 7, most people assumed the worst for Nokia's stewardship of the open source Qt, and indeed the company quickly sold its Qt licensing interests to Digia. But it looks like the company still has plans for Qt - and for the Symbian OS. Aaron Seigo, a Qt hacker employed by Nokia, told blogger Brian Proffitt that "Nokia is predicting over 150 million Symbian devices still to come" and "I think they've underestimated the longevity of Symbian".

WebM, H264: Encoder Speed Benchmark

A comment on the recent article about the Bali release of Googles WebM tools (libvpx) claimed that one of the biggest problems facing the adoption of WebM video was the slow speed of the encoder as compared to x264. This article sets out to benchmark the encoder against x264 to see if this is indeed true and if so, how significant the speed difference really is.

Linux 2.6.38 Released

Linux 2.6.38 has been released. This release includes support for a automatic process grouping ("the patch that does wonders" ), significant scalability improvements in the VFS, Btrfs LZO compression and read-only snapshots, support for the B.A.T.M.A.N. mesh protocol (which helps to provide network connectivity in the presence of natural disasters, military conflicts or Internet censorship), transparent Huge Page support (without using hugetblfs), support for the AMD Fusion APUs, many drivers and other changes. You can read the full changelog as well.

Report: Piracy a “Global Pricing Problem”

"A major new report from a consortium of academic researchers concludes that media piracy can't be stopped through 'three strikes' Internet disconnections, Web censorship, more police powers, higher statutory damages, or tougher criminal penalties. That's because the piracy of movies, music, video games, and software is 'better described as a global pricing problem'. And the only way to solve it is by changing the price."

Calxeda To Offer 480-core ARM Server

"While Intel may already be worried about ever gaining a foothold in the mobile chip market. ARM is starting to push into the high-end server market too with news of a 480-core, low power server in the works. The company behind the new server is a data center startup called Calxeda. Its focus is on building a processor platform that will have a significant impact on IT costs and energy consumption. They go so far as to claim a factor of 10 reduction in costs and a 5x, or even 10x performance gain over what is currently available."

Why Nokia Failed: ‘Incompetence’, ‘Mismanagement’

"When Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced that Nokia was abandoning its development of its own smartphone platforms and APIs, and betting the farm on somebody else's, many people asked why it was necessary." The answer is incredible: for years different Nokia teams were fighting amongst themselves, developing competing user interfaces that were all eventually abandoned by new CTO Rich Green. And while all this pointless development continued, nobody bothered to modernise the Symbian UI, leaving the company with a user experience that was almost as bad as it had been four years before.

10 Best Alternative Operating Systems

"Right now, someone, somewhere is developing the killer operating system feature of the future - a feature that will change computing and make us wonder how we lived without it. However, the person responsible probably isn't grafting away in the labs of Microsoft, Apple or Red Hat - he or she is more likely to be working in a bedroom or loft. We'll look at the best alternative operating systems, with the potential to change the computing landscape over the next decade."