NBC News said Monday it will offer “NBC Nightly News” and “Meet the Press” via video podcast free on iTunes.

While NBC has been streaming its video on MSNBC.com and offering audio of both shows as audio podcasts, this will be the first time that both shows will be available for video download.

“NBC Nightly News” will be available every weeknight at 10 p.m. EST; “Meet the Press” will be available via video podcast at 1 p.m. EST, both after their West Coast airings. The “NBC Nightly News” video podcast begins Tuesday.

Source: Reuters

A new study sanctioned by Mozilla declares Firefox 2 as a big winner over Microsoft’s IE 7 in the battle to block ID theft scam sites, but weaknesses in both browsers confirm that the battle against phishing has only just begun.

The open-source group on Nov. 14 released results of a third-party test that showed the embedded phishing protection in Firefox 2 was significantly more effective at flagging phishing attacks than IE 7 (final release).

Using 1,040 verified phishing sites from the PhishTank community portal, the study found that Firefox 2’s local blacklist feature blocked about 79 percent of the malicious sites from loading.

By comparison, IE 7’s whitelist-based Auto Check OFF blocked only 16 attacks, or less than 2 percent.

The study, conducted over a two-week period by software services and testing company SmartWare, also gave a victory to Firefox 2 in the Ask Google option, which does a real-time check against a list of suspect sites provided by Google.

Firefox 2 with Ask Google blocked 848 of the 1,040 malicious sites. By comparison, Microsoft’s Auto Check ON feature only flagged 66 percent, or 690 sites, as identity theft threats.

Source: eWeek

More than half of European organizations have no plan to upgrade to Windows Vista, according to a Forrester survey.

The survey, of 302 IT chiefs at European businesses, also found that 20 per cent are planning to wait up to two years after Vista’s corporate release, scheduled for the end of November, before introducing it. Just six per cent said they planned to deploy Microsoft’s long-awaited operating system within the first six months, and 18 per cent within one year.

Source: News.com

Microsoft Corp. on issued five “critical” security patches to fix flaws in its software that the company warned could allow attackers to take control of a user’s computer.

Microsoft, whose Windows operating system runs on 90 percent of the world’s computers, issued the patches as part of its monthly security bulletin.

The company said four of the “critical” patches fixed holes in its Windows operating system. Microsoft also issued another security update for Windows it rated at the lower threat level of “important.”

The other “critical” patch targeted Microsoft’s XML Core Services package.

Source: Yahoo

Apple Teams Up With Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM & United to Deliver iPod Integration. Apple announced the airlines will deliver the first seamless integration between iPod and in-flight entertainment systems. These six airlines will begin offering their passengers iPod seat connections which power and charge their iPods during flight and allow the video content on their iPods to be viewed on the their seat back displays.

Microsoft Corp. today followed the Federal Trade Commission’s lead in fighting deceptive spyware operations by filing an action against persons allegedly distributing a notorious spyware program, against which the FTC recently took action. Microsoft’s suit alleges that Timothy P. Taylor and others used screen savers and other seemingly benign programs as “Trojan horses�? to surreptitiously install unwanted software on consumers’ computers. Microsoft seeks damages from defendants on the grounds that their installation practices violate the Washington Computer Spyware Act and the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

“We commend the FTC for exposing this spyware operation,�? said Scott Stein, senior attorney with the Internet Safety Enforcement Team at Microsoft. “Microsoft was proud to provide technical assistance to the FTC and also to take legal action against one part of the operation targeted by the FTC.�?

Microsoft alleges that defendants distributed various seemingly innocuous software programs through Internet Web sites, including http://teamtaylormade.com. Many of these programs are presented as screen savers showing pictures of well-known celebrities such as Jessica Simpson. However, defendants’ programs included much more than pretty pictures. Once installed, the software would “call home�? and surreptitiously download numerous other programs that bombard users with unwanted pop-up advertisements, track users’ Internet activity, redirect their Internet browsers to unwanted pages, add icons to the Microsoft® Windows® desktop, and change the users’ Windows Registry settings. Microsoft alleges that these programs were downloaded and installed without appropriate notice to or consent from users. Notably, defendants’ software installs even if users try to stop installation by choosing the appropriate options.

“These defendants were packaging a broad array of unwanted and intrusive programs with seemingly innocent programs,�? Stein said. “They didn’t tell users about the numerous hidden programs that would be installed with the screen savers, and provided only an illusory option to stop installation. We have a responsibility to help protect our customers and to do whatever we can to prevent this kind of practice.�?

Taiwanese optical drive specialist Lite-On IT has launched what it claims is the world’s first DVD writer capable of burning discs at 20x speed - less than three months after Sony began shipping the first 18x DVD burner.

Lite-On launched two 20x internal models: the LH-20A1P and the LH-20A1H, the latter equipped with LightScribe to burn disc labels. The ATAPI-connected drives can handle all the usual formats: DVD°R/RW, DVD°R dual-layer, DVD-RAM and CD-RW at a variety of speeds.

Source: Reg Hardware

Sony Corp. said on Tuesday its new video game console, the PlayStation 3, does not run about 200 PlayStation and PlayStation 2 software titles properly, the latest problem the electronics maker has run into in its cash-cow game business.

The PS3, which Sony calls its most important strategic product of the year, went on sale in Japan on Saturday, setting the stage for a three-way showdown with Microsoft Corp.’s already available Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Wii.

Sony said audio features do not work on some software titles when played on the PS3, which is supposed to be compatible with games designed for its previous models, while some other titles do not work on the latest machine at all.

Source: Reuters

In its ongoing bid to be a central conduit of media, TiVo Inc. plans to broaden its digital video recording service later this year so users of its set-top boxes can download videos from the Internet and watch them from their television sets.

TiVo’s new broadband offering, however, will work only with downloaded videos that are not copy-protected, such as most user-generated clips and many video podcasts. Feature films and videos purchased from online stores like Movielink or Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes will not be supported, though company officials said they are seeking to offer such protected content in the future.

Source: AP

Gmail’s popularity may be viral, but the e-mail software is not a virus–despite a Microsoft alert.

From late last week until Sunday night, the Windows Live OneCare security software incorrectly flagged the Google e-mail service as a threat. A warning popped up when OneCare users opened the Gmail Web site, telling them that their systems were infected with a virus called “BAT/BWG.A.”

“This was a limited false positive issue with our antivirus protection,” a Microsoft representative said Monday. “After we became aware of the issue, we released a new antivirus signature that resolved the issue for our customers on Sunday evening.”

Source: News.com