Two AOL employees have been fired, and its chief technology officer is resigning, after the release of Web search data from thousands of AOL members prompted widespread criticism of the company.

CTO Maureen Govern “has decided to leave AOL effective immediately,” AOL Chief Executive Jon Miller wrote in an e-mail to employees dated Monday.

The researcher responsible for the data being posted online and the researcher’s supervisor, who reports to Govern, were fired, according a source close to the matter, who asked not to be identified.

In the latest episode of stolen computers and compromised personal records, Hospital Corporation of America reported on Aug. 18 that 10 computers had been stolen from one of the health care provider’s regional offices.

The computers “held thousands of files listing unpaid bills from Medicare and Medicaid patients” who had treatment at hospitals managed by the company in eight states, HCA said in a statement on its Web site.

HCA is conducting an internal review of the break-in, and local law enforcement and the FBI have started a criminal investigation.

Source: eWeek

Virus writers have developed Trojan horse malware designed to exploit an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft’s PowerPoint software. The MDropper-BH Trojan spreads in malformed PowerPoint files either downloaded by the internet or pushed out by other malware.

Source: TheRegister

Google lost one per cent of its share of the US search market last month.

Its the first time Google has slipped in almost a year, after 11 consecutive months of gains. According to market research firm comScore, 43.7 per cent of Americans’ 6.7bn searches went through Google this July, up from 36.5 percent a year ago.

Yahoo! enjoyed a small month-on-month rise in its slice of the pie, at 28.8 per cent, comfortably taking second place ahead of MSN. Yahoo! had a 30.5 per cent share in July 2005.

Source: The Register

Eli Jerby and his colleagues at Tel Aviv University in Israel have developed a special drill that uses microwaves to make holes from 1mm to 1cm wide in concrete and glass simply by heating the materials past their melting point, (nearly 2,000 ºC) and pushing the drill bit through.

The drill bit is a needle-like antenna that emits intense microwave radiation. The microwaves create a hot spot around the bit, melting or softening the material so that the bit can be pushed in.

Source: OhGizmo

Sandisk Corp. is expected to announce product enhancements and price cuts on Monday aimed at attracting interest in its digital music player, which competes with Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod, the Wall Street Journal said in a report that quoted Sandisk’s CEO.

Sandisk, which holds the second-largest market share in digital music players behind Apple, plans to introduce a $249.99 MP3 player, the Sansa e280, with eight gigabytes of storage capacity.

Source: Reuters