A new security vulnerability puts Windows users at risk of serious cyberattacks, Microsoft warned late Wednesday.

The vulnerability affects all recent Windows versions, including Vista, which Microsoft has promoted heavily for its security. The operating system software is flawed in the way it handles animated cursors, Microsoft said in a security advisory.

An attacker could exploit the vulnerability through a Web page or e-mail message with rigged computer code, Microsoft said.

“Upon viewing a Web page, previewing or reading a specially crafted message, or opening a specially crafted e-mail attachment, the attacker could cause the affected system to execute code,” Microsoft said in its advisory.

Animated cursors allow a mouse pointer to appear animated. The animated-cursors feature is designated by the .ani suffix, but a successful attack is not constrained by this file type, Microsoft said. As a result, simply blocking such files won’t protect a PC.

The RIAA is beginning to find itself in an awkward position. A few of its many, many lawsuits don’t manage to end in success for the organization. Typically, when they decide a case isn’t worth pursuing (due to targeting the wrong person or not having sufficient evidence), they simply move to drop the case. Counterclaims are usually dropped in turn, and everyone goes separate ways.

But recently, judges have been deciding to allow the RIAA to drop the case, but still allowing the defendant’s counterclaim through. According to the Ars Technica article: ‘If Judge Miles-LaGrange issues a ruling exonerating Tallie Stubbs of infringement, it would be a worrisome trend for the RIAA. The music industry has become accustomed to having its way with those it accuses of file-sharing, quietly dropping cases it believes it can’t win.

It looks as though the courts may be ready to stop the record labels from just walking away from litigation when it doesn’t like the direction it is taking and give defendants justice by fully exonerating them of any wrongdoing.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. will launch its backseat television service exclusively in several DaimlerChrysler cars and minivans later this year, the companies said on Thursday.

Sirius, which plans to acquire rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. in a deal that must first pass regulatory muster, said three live child-themed TV channels would be available in 2008 model year cars in the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge lines. Sales of those cars will start later this year.

The satellite radio provider has been promising such a service since 2004, but at that time it said deals with manufacturers and content providers needed to be hammered out. Last November, Chief Executive Mel Karmazin said the service would launch in 2007.

The system will cost about $470, which includes the first year of service, when packaged with Chrysler’s rear seat entertainment system in new cars. Customers must subscribe to Sirius Satellite Radio.

After that first year, TV service will be $7 a month in addition to the $13 a month for Sirius satellite radio.

Channels on the service include Viacom Inc.’s Nickelodeon, Walt Disney Co.’s Disney Channel and Time Warner Inc.’s Cartoon Network.

Microsoft Corp. has unveiled an early version of a new Web browser for mobile devices that it said will make browsing full-sized Web pages faster and easier on small smart-phone screens.

Deepfish, as the software from Microsoft’s Live Labs group is called, takes a Web page intended for a desktop Web browser and turns it into a small image that fits on a mobile phone’s screen. Users can zoom in on the part of the page they want to read or click on.

Apple Inc., the company that popularized selling songs online for 99 cents apiece, now hopes to buoy interest in albums, giving customers credit for purchases of full albums from which they have bought individual tracks.

Apple introduced the “Complete My Album” feature Thursday on its iTunes Store. It now gives a full credit of 99 cents for every track the user previously purchased and applies it toward the purchase of the complete album.

For instance, most albums on iTunes cost $9.99 so a customer who already bought three tracks can download the rest of the album for $7.02.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is planning a new version of the PlayStation 3 game console with a higher-capacity hard-disk drive, according to a U.S. regulatory filing made by the company.

The filing to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was made earlier this month to notify the FCC of a change to the game console’s Bluetooth module. The FCC is the radio regulator in the U.S. and as such all new products that use radio or changes to these products must be submitted to the organization for approval before they can be sold.

Included in the filing’s cover letter is notification of the new model: “The model CECHE01 to be added by the difference of the capacity of hard disk.” It then says the new model will have an 80G-byte drive.

Yahoo is opening up its Web mail platform to external developers, so that they can create plug-ins, utilities and applications for the popular Yahoo Mail service.

Late on Wednesday, Yahoo plans to deliver application programming interfaces (APIs) for Yahoo Mail, said Chad Dickerson, head of the Yahoo Developer Network. The move comes on the heels of an announcement to offer unlimited storage capacity for Yahoo Mail users starting from May.

Yahoo officials had indicated in September of last year their intention to let external developers write applications for Yahoo Mail, and the tools will now be available at the Yahoo Developer Network Web site.

Philips Electronics is introducing a mobile phone with a built-in compartment for an ordinary AAA battery to power the device when the main battery runs low.

The Xenium NRG handset was developed in collaboration with battery maker Energizer Holdings Inc. and Techtium Ltd., an Israeli chip maker specializing in battery management technology.

The AAA battery inserted into the phone can be of any brand or type, whether rechargeable or disposable. In the case of a rechargeable, the phone will recharge both the main battery and the backup AAA when it is plugged into an electrical outlet.

The companies say the AAA battery can provide up to three extra hours of talk time. They did not disclose how much the Xenium NRG would cost, when it would go on sale, or in which countries.

More than two months after first disclosing that hackers accessed customers’ financial data from its computers, discount retailer TJX Cos. has revealed that information from at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards was stolen over an 18-month period.

In a regulatory filing that gives the first detailed account of the breach initially disclosed in January, the owner of T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s and other stores in North America and the United Kingdom also said another 455,000 customers who returned merchandise without receipts had their personal data stolen, including driver’s license numbers.

The data that was stolen covers transactions dating as far back as December 2002, TJX said in the filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Codegear (now a subsidiary of Borland) has just released version 1.0 of Delphi for PHP, a RAD development environment (running on Windows) that produces standard PHP code. It features a large set of built-in components, including ones that use AJAX for database access; and Codegear is encouraging users to develop their own components.