Microsoft Corp. said Friday it fixed a glitch in its online advertising platform that overcharged some merchants by hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars.

In a statement on one of its blogs, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said the bug in its adCenter service had pushed up “cost per click” rates — or what an advertiser pays Microsoft each time a Web surfer clicks on an ad.

Microsoft launched adCenter last year, but still lags Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in making money from text ads on search results pages.

The software maker said the affected advertisers’ accounts will be credited the amount they were overcharged.

Source: AP

Mozilla released Firefox 2.0.0.2,. This release is a security update and also many enhancements and fixes for Windows Vista.

Firefox 2.0.0.2 Release notes

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Security watchers have discovered a string of malicious websites that install Trojan code, allowing hackers to compromise end-user banking credentials for more than 50 financial institutions and ecommerce websites.

Thousands of surfers a day are falling victim to the sophisticated attack, net security firm Websense warns.

The websites are hosted in Germany, England, and Estonia, and use a round robin DNS, resolving to five unique IP addresses that change on each occasion. Each site hosts the same code, exploiting the MS06-014 vulnerability in a bid to install a Trojan downloader without end-user interaction.

When surfers visit the sites, they are directed to one of the five servers which covertly downloads a file called “iexplorer.exe” onto vulnerable PCs. Meanwhile, users are informed that the site is temporarily busy. Hackers cheekily suggest that surfers might want to shut down any firewall and anti-virus software they have running.

If successfully downloaded, the “iexplorer.exe” file attempts to download additional malware components from a server in Russia that also acts as a bot controller, giving hackers access to compromised machines. The bot controller also has a database query interface that gives the attacker a simple search interface for additional information.

Source: The Register

Tiny computer chips used for tracking food, tickets and other items are getting even smaller. Hitachi Ltd., a Japanese electronics maker, recently showed off radio frequency identification, or RFID, chips that are just 0.002 inches by 0.002 inches and look like bits of powder. They’re thin enough to be embedded in a piece of paper, company spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi said Thursday.

RFID tags store data, but they need to be brought near special reading devices that beam energy to the chips, which then send information back to the readers.

There are no plans yet to start commercial production of the new chip, Takeuchi said.

Invisible tracking brings to mind science-fiction-inspired uses, or even abuses, such as unknowingly getting sprinkled with smart-tag powder for Big Brother-like monitoring.

“We are not imagining such uses,” Takeuchi said, adding that the latest chip is so new — and so miniature — Hitachi is still studying its possible uses.

Source: AP

A man who allegedly uploaded a copy of the film “Flushed Away” onto the Internet after getting a copy from an Oscar voter faces a felony charge.

Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, was charged with copyright infringement and faces up to three years in prison if convicted. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1.

Prosecutors said he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advanced to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put “Flushed Away” on the Internet, and a digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.

When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded “Flushed Away” and the Oscar-nominated film “Happy Feet” onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators only found a copy of “Flushed Away” in his computer hard drive.

Source: AP

Sony is giving away freebies to woo buyers to the new PlayStation 3 video game machine whose hefty price appears to be scaring away shoppers.

The latest giveaway from the Japanese electronics and entertainment company is being promised for the Australia launch for the PlayStation 3 set for March 23 - a Blu-ray Disc version of the Sony Pictures James Bond movie “Casino Royale,” for the first 20,000 Australian PS3 buyers.

Source: AP