Advanced Micro Devices is launching the last of its single-core Opteron processors, and both Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems are both offering systems running on the chips.

AMD, of Sunnyvale, Calif., announced April 11 that the 256 and 856 models are immediately available, and the 156 will be ready within 30 days.

The chips offer a speed bump up to 3GHz. AMD officials said they plan to continue to offer the single-core chips as long as there is a demand for them.

Source: eWeek

Microsoft on April 11 is expected to unveil a new Internet search engine to locate scholarly material, as it steps up its features war with rivals Google and Yahoo.

Windows Live Academic Search, as the feature is known, “has some unique features, and is a worthy competitor,” said Dean Giustini, a reference librarian at the University of British Columbia Library, in a blog posting about his experiences with the new facet.

Source: eWeek

As part of a major revamp of its Web site, McAfee on Monday introduced the McAfee Threat Center, a new section offering security information, tools and insights. It includes details on the latest malicious software, vulnerabilities, spam activity and phishing scams. The McAfee Threat Center is similar to Symantec’s Security Response site, CA’s Security Advisor and others.

Source: News.com

Microsoft released today patches for 3 critical problems, 1 important and 1 moderate.

The critical patches are:

• Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (912812) - This update resolves several vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer that could allow remote code execution.
• Vulnerability in the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) Function Could Allow Code Execution (911562) - This update resolves a vulnerability in MDAC that could allow remote code execution.
• Vulnerability in Windows Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution (908531) - This update resolves a vulnerability in Windows Explorer that could allow remote code execution

Yahoo News is further expanding its site by adding political commentary from RealClearPolitics.com. Under a content agreement Yahoo News reached with RealClearPolitics.com (RCP), the political Web site will offer a daily selection of columns, news and analysis to the opinion section of Yahoo News.

Source: News.com

The built-in procedure that Intel Pentium-powered computers use to blow off their digital steam could put users in hot water by making the machines vulnerable to cyberattacks, computer security researchers announced at the CanSecWest/core06 conference last week.

When the processor begins to overheat or encounters other conditions that could threaten the motherboard, the computer interrupts its normal operation, momentarily freezes and stores its activity, said Loïc Duflot, a computer security specialist for the French government’s Secretary General for National Defense information technology laboratory.

Cyberattackers can take over a computer by appropriating that safeguard to make the machine interrupt operations and enter System Management Mode, Duflot said. Attackers then enter the System Management RAM and replace the default emergency-response software with custom software that, when run, will give them full administrative privileges.

Every computer that runs on x86 chip architecture may be vulnerable to this attack, including the millions of computers that the U.S. government and industry use.

Source: fcw.com

Aladdin Knowledge Systems (Nasdaq: ALDN), today announced it has been granted U.S. patent 7,013,483, titled “Method for emulating an executable code in order to detect maliciousness.” The new patent covers the detection of viruses, spyware and other kinds of malicious code by emulation — one of the most powerful methods for identifying malicious activity.

An emulator, as described in the patent, creates a virtual environment under which the code of the tested sample is examined instruction-by- instruction. The viral activity is then detected by correlating the changes with the viral behavior. Emulation features several advantages in comparison to other methods of detecting and/or preventing viral damage, since it helps to detect polymorphic viruses, encrypted viruses and unknown viruses, which cannot be detected by other methods.

Europe’s brand new .eu top level domain has been hijacked, according to one of the internet’s leading registrars.

GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons has laid into .eu registry owner EURid for approving hundreds of what he calls “phantom” registrars who have walked away with the bulk of the 1.4m .eu domains registered since the domain was opened to the public earlier this week.

In a blog post, Parsons accused EURid of “grand manipulation and lax administration” for allowing hundreds of companies to be registered with the same contact details. The way the process worked, each registered company was effectively put in a line and was entitled to make a bid for a single .eu domain. If the domain was available, it was given to the company, if not, it wasn’t. That registrar then was sent to the back of the line to queue up again.

However, out of the 1,570 accredited registrars, we have calculated that at least 630 were not separate registrars. One company in New York - whose backers Parsons claims to know - are responsible for at least 350. This meant effectively that one company had several hundred times its usual opportunity to get hold of particular .eu domains.

Source: The Register

Over on the Apple.com discussion boards, a number of people are reporting that Boot Camp–Apple’s new software that allows Intel-based Mac owners to install Windows XP–is causing some serious problems.

To be precise, the common crisis is that after partitioning their hard drives and installing Windows XP–which seems to work fine–these people find they can no longer boot back into OS X.

Source: News.com

Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), plans to open source major elements of the Sun Java Studio Enterprise, an enterprise-class development tool, as a project on NetBeans.org. This new project, which will be released as the NetBeans Enterprise Pack.

“Java Studio Enterprise is the crown jewel of Sun’s tools, providing a complete solution for architecting and implementing large-scale enterprise applications,” says Jeff Jackson, senior vice president of Java, Enterprise, and Developer Software at Sun. “Making it available to the NetBeans community, we’ve expanded the range of features that developers can adopt, customize, and deploy for more productive development with the Java Enterprise System. The NetBeans Enterprise Pack represents a significant step in Sun’s renewed commitment to developers by sharing technology, cultivating community, and investing in open source.”

Aircraft in-flight entertainment (IFE) system providers have held talks with Apple Computer on the possibility of licensing its iTunes media download software for airlines’ own systems, enabling passengers to use frequent-flyer miles to download music and videos on to iPod MP3 players in-flight.

Source: flightglobal.com

Fujitsu Ltd. said on Tuesday it would launch desktop personal computers equipped with Blu-ray disk drives in June in Japan, becoming the first company to release PCs compatible with the next-generation optical disks.

The announcement comes one day after Toshiba Corp. unveiled a plan to launch in mid-May notebook computers that can handle HD DVD disks, which compete with Blu-ray disks in the market for high-definition optical disks.

Fujitsu also plans to launch notebook PCs with HD DVD drives in June, catering for both camps.

Source: Reuters