The most recent Mac OS X security update from Apple Computer includes a glitch that prevents users from running 64-bit applications on the company’s new Tiger operating system, AppleInsider has confirmed.

After being applied to versions of Mac OS X Tiger, Apple’s recently released Security Update 005-007 has been reported to break 64-bit application support. The update offered nearly three dozen fixes for several security exploits, including Apple’s Safari web browser, Bluetooth, networking tools, Mac OS X Server components such as Apache 2 and MySQL, and many more.

Wolfram Research, makers of the popular Mathematica software, began informing its customers of the issue in an email on Tuesday. The company said the security update disables its flagship Mathematica software: “Due to an error on the part of Apple, this update prevents any 64-bit-native application from running. In particular, this means that Mathematica 5.2 will not run on any G5 system if it has installed this Security Update.”

Source: appleinsider

Seeking to cash in on strong demand for notebook PCs and halt the momentum established by rival Intel Latest News about Intel in the mobile-computing space, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) unveiled the Mobile Athlon 64 processor family. The new set of chips Latest News about Chip is aimed at the latest high-performance portable computers.

Based on the company’s AMD64 technology, the new processors can handle both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. In addition, they include integrated virus protection and support forwireless Latest News about wireless networking.

“This processor marks the latest addition to our family of high-performance, 64-bit computing Latest News about computing products and is the only 64-bit processor designed for notebook applications,” said company spokesperson Jo Albers.

Albers said the Mobile Athlon 64 technology will offer more flexibility to laptop Latest News about laptop vendors trying to differentiate themselves from the pack. The chips are ideal for gaming and content-creation applications on full-sized mobile computers, she added.

Source: toptechnews.com

Adobe has discovered a buffer overflow in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. This issue has been addressed and a product update is available to proactively mitigate potential malicious activity. Adobe always recommends that users keep their systems up to date, and install the latest update of these applications.

If the vulnerability were successfully exploited, the application could crash with an increased risk of arbitrary code execution.

The identified vulnerability is a buffer overflow within a core application plug-in, which is part of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. If a malicious file were opened it could trigger a buffer overflow as the file is being loaded into Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. A buffer overflow can cause the application to crash and increase the risk of malicious code execution.

The search giant quietly acquires the startup, netting possibly a key player in its push into wireless, “the next frontier in search”

In what could be a key move in its nascent wireless strategy, Google (GOOG ) has quietly acquired startup Android Inc., BusinessWeek Online has learned. The 22-month-old startup, based in Palo Alto, Calif., brings to Google a wealth of talent, including co-founder Andy Rubin, who previously started mobile-device maker Danger Inc.
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Android has operated under a cloak of secrecy, so little is known about its work. Rubin & Co. have sparingly described the outfit as making software for mobile phones, providing little more detail than that. One source familiar with the company says Android had at one point been working on a software operating system for cell phones.

Source: businessweek

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom launched an initiative Tuesday to bring free or affordable wireless Internet service to all the city’s citizens within a year.

With the initiative, San Francisco joins numerous other cities across the country that say they have municipal wireless projects in the works. Until now, Philadelphia was the only large metropolitan area to do so.

Newsom acknowledged that he hopes San Francisco can learn from some of Philadelphia’s bumps in the road to WiFi, short for wireless fidelity or wireless Internet connections. Philadelphia, which is reviewing final bids for its service, encountered opposition from commercial Internet providers Comcast and Verizon, which viewed a city-run broadband service as a potential business threat. The 135-square-mile city is reviewing its final bids and puts cost estimates at $15 million to $18 million.

San Francisco’s project has an estimated $10 million to $18 million price tag, Newsom said. The city, which occupies 49 square miles, is smaller than Philadelphia, but its hilly topography will pose some challenges, he said.

Both San Francisco and Philadelphia’s initiatives were designed to bridge the so-called digital divide that keeps lower-income residents from benefiting from technology. Newsom said a municipal wireless network could also greatly help city employees, especially the police and fire departments.

Source: siliconvalley.com

Toshiba has begun shipping what it claims is the world’s first perpendicular hard disk drive.

The 1.8in unit is pitched at consumer electronics products - think iPod and Toshiba’s own Gigabeat player - and provides 40GB of storage on a single platter, the largest single-platter capacity yet achieved on a 1.8in drive, Toshiba claimed.

Toshiba’s non-perpendicular 40GB, 1.8in HDD, the MK4006GAH, requires two platters to achieve the same storage capacity as the one-platter MK4007GAL. The GAL is 5mm thick and weighs 51g, compared to the GAH’s 8mm thickness and 62g weight.

That will allow the likes of Apple to offer either slimmer, lighter music players or use the space freed up by the slimmer HDD to increase the size and capacity of the battery. Apple already uses Toshiba’s 1.8in HDD family in the iPod.

Toshiba said it expects to introduce a two-platter, 80GB version later this year. Both drives spin at 4200rpmm, provide a parallel ATA-100 interface and offer a 15ms average seek time.

Perpendicular recording increases disk capacity by aligning the millions of magnetic domains at 90° to the disk’s surface rather than parallel to it. The upshot is a data density of 206Mb per square millimetre, Toshiba claimed.

Source: The Register

Several new variants of a computer worm emerged Wednesday to attack corporate networks running the
Windows 2000 operating system, just a week after Microsoft Corp. warned of the security flaw.

As experts predicted, the Windows hole proved a tempting target for rogue programmers, who quickly developed more effective variants on a worm that surfaced over the weekend and by Tuesday had snarled computers at several large companies.

On Wednesday, four new variants of the worm had been detected by F-Secure Corp. in Finland, bringing the total to 11, said Mikko Hypponen, the company’s manager of anti-virus research. He said the creators of the variations had programmed them to compete with each other — one worm will remove another from an infected computer.

Estimates of how many computers are affected are difficult to come by because the worm travels directly over Internet connections rather than through e-mail. But Hypponen said reports of problems were isolated in Europe and Asia, and it appeared the worst damage was happening on U.S. computers.

Source: AP

Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 game console will retail for $299 in the United States and will be out “in plenty of time for the Christmas market,” European home and entertainment head Chris Lewis said.

Microsoft, which is racing rivals Sony and Nintendo Co. Ltd to get its new console to market, said on Wednesday the Xbox 360 would sell for 299 euros in Europe and 209 pounds in Britain.

Including accessories, the prices would be $399, 399 euros and 279.99 pounds, Lewis told journalists at Europe’s biggest computer games fair in Leipzig, Germany.

Microsoft has yet to give an exact date for the launch.

The company added that it would reveal pricing for the Japanese market at the Tokyo games fair next month.

Source: Reuters

Yahoo! unveiled next generation Yahoo! Local, which is designed to make it easier for you to browse community content and search by neighborhood.

In addition to the standard local searches we are all used to from sites like Google local and the old Yahoo! local, the new local search features user’s recommendations like the best restaurants around, local events and other local favorites.

The local information is displayed on an interactive map with popup information, traffic and even Wi-Fi hotspots.

Yahoo local also adds RSS feed for Events, restaurants and favorites.

Symantec Corp., of Cupertino, Calif., said on Tuesday that it had signed agreements to acquire Sygate Inc., of Fremont, Calif., for an undisclosed amount.

The deal will combine Sygate’s software for enforcing network security policies and securing so-called “endpoints,” such as servers, laptops and mobile devices, with Symantec’s stable of security wares, according to Symantec.

Sygate makes network access control technology for large enterprises.

The company sells a wide range of products, from enterprise and desktop firewall software to security policy enforcement tools for wired and wireless networks and devices.

Symantec is not disclosing the amount of the purchase, but De Santis said it was a cash-only transaction that was immaterial to Symantec’s earnings.

Symantec will begin reselling Sygate technology immediately after the deal—which must receive regulatory approval—closes, said John De Santis, Sygate’s CEO.

Source: eWeek

A computer worm unleashed over the weekend infected more computers on Tuesday that run Microsoft operating systems, with Windows 2000 users most seriously affected.

The Zotob worm and several variations of it, known as Rbot.cbq, SDBot.bzh and Zotob.d, infected computers at companies such as ABC, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, and Caterpillar Inc.

The worm is causing the most problems at companies with large, networked computer systems, rather than among individual computer users, said David Perry, a security analyst at Trend Micro Inc., a computer security company.

Caterpillar worked Tuesday to clean up effects from the worm, which disrupted computer operations at several company plants and offices over the weekend, the Peoria Ill.-based heavy equipment maker said. The problem was controlled by Monday afternoon, company spokesman Rusty Dunn said.

A week ago, Microsoft Corp. released a “critical” patch for the vulnerability, which is most severe on Windows 2000 systems. Those computers can be accessed remotely through the operating system’s “Plug and Play” hardware detection feature. Protective patches, plus instructions for cleansing infected systems, are available on the company’s Web site.

Source: AP