Apple Computer on Tuesday released QuickTime 7.0.1, an update to its media player software that promises several enhancements, but also fixes a security flaw, the Mac maker said in an advisory. A QuickTime movie containing a maliciously crafted Quartz Composer object could give an attacker access to local data and send it to an arbitrary Web location, the Apple posting said. The QuickTime update modifies the Quartz Composer plug-in to fix the issue, the company said.

Source: News.com

The Internet’s primary oversight body approved a plan Wednesday to create a virtual red-light district, setting the stage for pornographic Web sites to use new addresses ending in “xxx.”

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said it would begin negotiations with ICM Registry Inc., run by British businessman Stuart Lawley, to iron out technical issues and prices for the new Web addresses.

Source: AP

EBay Inc. said Wednesday it would acquire comparison shopping and consumer review site Shopping.com Inc. for about $620 million in cash.

Executives at the San Jose, Calif.-based online auction giant said the purchase, expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2005, puts eBay sellers in touch with a new set of potential buyers and boosts the number of fixed-price sales listings, which are growing more popular with online shoppers.

Source: AP

From ZDNet Blogs: ‘Rodi is a small-client P2P application, written in Java, that improves on BitTorrent by allowing both content searches and full anonymity. It’s released under the General Public License (GNU). Even your IP address can be hidden using Rodi through a process called “bouncing.” That is, if A wants a file from B, they get C to agree to stand-in on the exchange. B gets C’s IP address, not A’s. Through IP Spoofing A can even hide their identity from C. Rodi can also be used from behind corporate firewalls and LANs using Network Address Translation (NATs), something most home gateways have.

Source: Slashdot

After a long wait, the critically acclaimed anti spyware, Spybot – Search & Destroy 1.4 is finally out.

Some of the new features it offers:

• First native multi-installation scanner - On PE boot CDs as well as on any system with multiple installations of Windows 2000 or later, Spybot-S&D 1.4 is able to scan the other installations as well, including the registry.
• Spybot-S&D 1.4 should work noticeably faster than 1.3 during scans.
• Improved Tools section that Spybot-S&D offers in advanced mode
• New user interface and much more.

You can download the software for free Here

As part of its mounting U.S. rollout of content-enhanced and copy-protected CDs, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is testing technology solutions that bar consumers from making additional copies of burned CD-R discs.

Since March the company has released at least 10 commercial titles — more than 1 million discs in total — featuring technology from U.K. anti-piracy specialist First4Internet that allows consumers to make copies of original discs, but blocks users from making copies of the copies.

Under the new solution, tracks ripped and burned from a copy-protected disc are copied to a blank CD in Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio format. The DRM embedded on the discs bars the burned CD from being copied.

Source: Reuters

Adobe, Canon, Fujifilm and Nikon are working with Microsoft to provide seamless digital camera RAW support in Windows.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), together with leading companies in the digital imaging industry, today announced enhancements to the family of Windows(R) operating systems that will enable consumers to easily work with RAW files in current and future versions of Windows. Working closely with digital imaging industry leaders including Adobe Systems Inc., Canon Inc., Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd. and Nikon Corp., Microsoft plans to deliver native support for digital camera RAW images in the next major version of Windows, code-named “Longhorn.”

In addition, Microsoft is enhancing the digital imaging experience for Windows XP with the upcoming availability of the Microsoft(R) RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP, allowing consumers to view thumbnails and preview and print Canon and Nikon RAW files from Windows Explorer in Windows XP. These features, as well as the ability to organize and edit Canon and Nikon RAW files, will also be available in a future version of Digital Image Suite.

Microsoft also announced it is developing a certification program for third-party RAW image codecs that will ensure their solutions provide a consistent experience for consumers who are using RAW image files. With this new RAW support across the Windows platform and products, Microsoft is enabling a seamless experience for consumers working with RAW digital images and delivering an extensible architecture for hardware and software industry partners.

Advanced Micro Devices was second in coming to market with a dual-core desktop chip, but it’s first in benchmark scores, according to sites that test the chip.

Both Anandtech and Tom’s Hardware–two hardware benchmarking sites–have published reports stating that, in their own tests, the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chips generally edge out the Intel Pentium D and the dual-core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, although the results vary by the tests.

Anandtech found that the fastest dual-core Athlon, the 4800+, and often other dual-core Athlons, typically outperformed the Intel chips on tests for single applications, such as running Adobe Photoshop or DivX.

In multitasking tests, however, the Intel chips often edged out the equivalent AMD processors. In these tests, AMD chips outscored Intel on multitasking trials that involved games, but Intel had an advantage in tests involving Web surfing or burning DVDs.

The tester at Tom’s Hardware, meanwhile, came to similar conclusions, but generally gave slightly higher marks to the AMD chip, nothing that the dual-core Athlon also consumes less energy.

Source: News.com