On the heels of a succesful clearance of previous generation iPods through online discounter Overstock.com, Apple is reportedly looking to dump existing inventory of Mac minis and previous generation G5 systems through similar outlets.

The company late last week held talks with several online retailers and discounters to discuss terms of the inventory liquidation, according to reliable sources. It’s believed that Apple will again team with Overstock to move the majority of the inventory.

Some of the Mac systems Apple is looking to discount include “finished goods” stock of Mac minis, first generation iMac G5s and Power Mac G5 desktops. Sources said a percentage of the G5-based systems are believed to be refurbrished items, while the stock of Mac minis are new retail models.

Source: AppleInsider

Zone Labs®, a Check Point® company (NASDAQ: CHKP), announced ZoneAlarm® 6.0, the much-anticipated update to its award-winning Internet security product family. ZoneAlarm 6.0 will offer consumers multi-layered protection against spyware, viruses and other insidious Internet security threats.

ZoneAlarm 6.0 utilizes a unique new behavior-based strategy to block malware and spyware from ever gaining a foothold on a PC. Rather than intermittently scanning for spyware infections after the damage has been done, ZoneAlarm 6.0 offers the first new defense mechanism, called OSFirewall™, to guard the health of a PC at the core. This kernel-level firewall monitors suspicious activity affecting the operating system, programs and files, and disables destructive programs. To complement the prevention technology, ZoneAlarm 6.0 also employs a new intelligent anti-spyware removal solution as well as DefenseNet™, a dynamic zero-hour system leveraging the community of millions of ZoneAlarm users to proactively protect against emerging attacks.

Kaspersky Lab plans to acquire its antispam partner, Spamtest Project, Kaspersky said Wednesday. The deal, which is expected to close this fall, will combine Spamtest’s ability to recognize and analyze spam via linguistic, graphical and signature-based methods with Kaspersky’s security software offerings. The Russian companies have been working together for the past three years, with Kaspersky using its partner’s technology in its antispam products.

Source: News.com

Mozilla has just updated the Firefox development roadmap to reflect a decision on the next major release of the popular open-source browser. The non-profit foundation has decided to increase the version number of the next major release to 1.5 from 1.1, reflecting the sheer number of bug fixes and features that have been worked into the next version of the browser. Mozilla still plans to ship the next version of Firefox (now Firefox 1.5: “Deer Park”) around September of this year.

Source: Neowin

A new instant messaging worm that masquerades as Apple Computer’s iTunes application and drops adware on infected Windows PCs has been found.

The pest is a new version of the Opanki worm and spreads using America Online’s AOL Instant Messenger, security companies said. It was first discovered on July 14 and isn’t currently spreading at a high rate, Bruce Hughes, a senior antivirus researcher at Trend Micro, said on Wednesday. “It isn’t infecting people at a high rate,” he said.

The worm, dubbed Opanki.Y by Trend Micro, arrives in a message with the text: “This picture never gets old.” It includes a link to a file that when downloaded is installed as “ITUNES.EXE,” possibly to trick people into thinking that it is associated with Apple’s popular media player.

If it runs, the worm opens a back door on the infected PC and downloads and installs four adware applications, Trend Micro said. Adware is software that displays pop-up advertising on a computer screen.

Source: News.com

Electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Corp. on Thursday unveiled a range of development tools so software companies can develop games for its next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console.

The company said it acquired Britain’s SN Systems Ltd. and formed strategic alliances with U.S.-based Ageia Technologies Inc., Havok and Epic Games to provide more tools.

Having led the worldwide console gaming market for the last decade, Sony is counting on PlayStation 3 to dominate in all aspects of networked home entertainment — games, movies, music and more.

The company had said in May at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that it planned to launch PlayStation 3 in 2006, but there had been concern in the development community about the immense cost of creating games with movie-quality graphics for a machine with unparalleled processing speed.

The video game industry on Wednesday changed to adults-only the rating of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” a best-selling title in which explicit sexual content can be unlocked with an Internet download.

The best-selling video game, which centers on gang violence, was being pulled from some shelves and slapped with a more restrictive “Adults Only” rating Wednesday after an investigation concluded that explicit sexual content could be unlocked on the game.

Source: USA Today

Internet telephony operator Skype has tens of millions of users but envisions attracting billions with the help of video phones, says the man who co-founded the company.

Niklas Zennstrom, who also serves as the company’s CEO, demonstrated a beta video version of Skype during his keynote at the AlwaysOn conference at Stanford University. The application is a plug-in based on Skype’s core telecommunications technology and is being tested internally. Speaking from his office in Estonia, the executive did not say when the product would be ready for release.

Source: ZDNet