Mozilla posted Firefox 1.0 release candidate on their FTP servers.

This move has come after a relative long period of time since they released the preview version of FireFox.. There are almost no changes from the preview release, and this version mostly contains bug fixes and security enhancements.

Search enabler Google says it has acquired digital mapping company Keyhole for an undisclosed sum.

Keyhole maintains a multiterabyte database of digital images of geographic locations, culled from satellite and aerial snapshots. Users can enter an address and pull up an image of the specified area; they can also create flyover animations of locations such as venues and neighborhoods.

Google said it is not ready to discuss how it will integrate Keyhole’s technology with its other services, which include its flagship search engine. However, the company immediately slashed the price tag on Keyhole’s consumer-aimed Keyhole 2 LT downloadable software from $70 to $30. Keyhole also offers a more expensive Keyhole 2 Pro application, which allows more extensive data manipulation.

Source: PCWorld

Yahoo for the first time is letting mobile phone users query its search engine, giving them access to conventional Web results, local business listings and related information, as well as images such as pictures and maps, the company says.

The service will launch Wednesday on several U.S. carriers. Users can access the services from a data-enabled phone by going to mobile.yahoo.com.

The mobile search service also features “search shortcuts” that let users request specific information, such as weather data, stock quotes, sport scores and flight information.

Yahoo had previously provided mobile-phone access to its e-mail and instant messaging services.

The Yahoo service should benefit users of Internet-enabled multimedia phones, because many of those users have found it difficult to access that type of content, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group in San Jose, California.

Source: PCWorld

Apple on Wednesday posted Security Update 2004-10-27. Also available for download through the Software Update system preference pane, the update “delivers a number of security enhancements and is recommended for all Macintosh users,” according to Apple. The release includes an updated version of Apple Remote Desktop v1.2.4 running on Mac OS X v10.3.

The problem only affects Macs running Mac OS X v10.3 and Apple Remote Desktop v1.2.4, where:

* A user on the client system has been enabled with the Open and quit applications privilege;

* The username and password of the Apple Remote Desktop user is known;

* Fast user switching has been enabled;

* and a user is logged in, and loginwindow is active via Fast User Switching;

“If the Apple Remote Desktop Administrator application on another system is used to start a GUI application on the client, then the GUI application would run as root behind the loginwindow,” explained Apple in detailed technical information available from their Web site. “This update prevents Apple Remote Desktop from launching applications when the loginwindow is active. This security enhancement is also present in Apple Remote Desktop v2.1. This issue does not affect systems prior to Mac OS X 10.3. Credit to Andrew Nakhla and Secunia Research for reporting this issue.”

Source: Mac Central

Apple Computer Inc. on Tuesday offered a crowd of developers, consultants and IT managers here a preview of Mac OS 10.4, the next version of the company’s Macintosh operating system, code-named Tiger. The software is due in spring 2005, Apple managers said.

Demonstrated at the O’Reilly Media Inc.’s Mac OS X Conference here, Apple provided attendees perhaps the second up-close look at Tiger, since its premiere at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June.

Bourdon described the new Apple audio/video architecture slated for Tiger: Core Audio, Core Image and Core Video. These Xcode components, built into Tiger’s system, will allow the system-wide addition of special effects to music, image, and film-editing applications.

Three frontline features in Tiger are a system-wide search utility called Spotlight; a version of the Mac OS X browser, Safari, that supports RSS (Real Simple Syndication); and the new Automator scripting environment.

The new internal search engine, which categorizes everything in a computer and uses metadata for seek and discovery, uses some familiar Apple software—the iTunes music storage and cataloging system—as a foundation, Bourdon said. Attendees commented that the functionality is similar to Google Inc.’s Desktop Index internal search engine, now in beta release.

Read full article at: eWeek.com