Security researchers have found a “highly critical” flaw in the portable-network graphics plug-in for the latest version of Adobe Systems’ Photoshop Creative Suite, as well as for other versions of the software that run on Windows.

The portable-network graphics, or PNG, plug-in vulnerabilities were discovered in Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 3 (CS3), Photoshop CS2, and Adobe Photoshop Elements (Editor) version 5.0 for Windows, according to a report released Monday by Secunia, which cited a researcher named “Marsu” with the discovery. Marsu tested a public exploit against versions of the software running Windows XP SP2.

Improvements to the open-source Spring Java framework and a companion Web technology being unveiled Monday focus on annotations, scripting, and Java (Java Platform Standard Edition) 6, developers of the framework said.

Officials of Interface21, which oversees development of Spring technologies, will reveal plans for Spring Framework 2.1 and Spring Web Flow 1.1. Both will be available in a release candidate form at the JavaOne conference, which begins in San Francisco on May 8. Final releases are planned for June.

Having been downloaded 3 million times, Spring has become popular for Java application development because it combines simplicity and power and can be used in mission-critical applications, said Rod Johnson, founder of Spring and CEO of Interface21.

Google Inc. has expanded beyond a one-size-fits-all view of Web search to tie together its efforts to offer personalized Web searches under the iGoogle brand, officials said on Monday.

In recent weeks, the Web search leader has introduced a variety of new customization features to its basic personalized home page, first introduced two years ago. New features include a choice of themes with custom colors that users of Google’s personalized home page can select.

“We are working to bring all this together,” Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president in charge of search and user experience, told reporters during a briefing at the Googleplex, the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

“(Google is) renaming the product iGoogle,” she said.

Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, said on Monday it plans to offer a streaming video service that stores and hosts video for its new Silverlight online media platform.

Silverlight, which is now available for download in a test version, is a rival to Adobe Systems Inc.’s dominant Flash player and a new application to deliver video, games and animation through a Web browser.

Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live is one of the first applications announced by Microsoft to take advantage of the company’s heavy investments in building a data center infrastructure backbone for its Web services.

The company said it will store and host up to 4 gigabytes of video for Web developers.

“You should consider this as a sign of things to come in terms of our software and services platform,” said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, in a keynote speech at its MIX 07 conference for Web developers and designers.

Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in building a network of massive data centers filled with computer servers, data storage and network systems to provide the company with the computing power needed to compete with leading Web services provider Google Inc.

The company’s “software plus services” strategy aims to bring a host of new Web services — some supported by subscriptions and others provided for free with advertising — without compromising its cash cow desktop software business.

Computers and music have been linked since the earliest days of the mainframe, when giant machines controlled primitive synthesizers. Recently, however, a significant advancement has taken place in the field of computer music with the development of software that can not only transcribe polyphonic music in real time, but can also play back complex harmonies alongside human performers. For instance, at the annual Music Information Retrieval Exchange (MIREX) competition, Christopher Raphael of Indiana University demonstrated a system that can understand live music well enough to accompany a musician.

In an article on the ZDNet site ‘chief culture officer’ and HR boss Stacy Savides Sullivan describes the kind of traits that she’s looking for in potential Google employees. If you’re thinking about applying, she also goes over what kind of questions one might be asked in an interview, Google’s ‘happiness survey’ and the best perks that makes employees tick and stay with the company (Google ski-trips or paid paternity leave, anyone?).

‘I think one of the hardest things to do is ensure that we are hiring people who possess the kind of traits that we’re looking for in a Google-y employee. Google-y is defined as somebody who is fairly flexible, adaptable and not focusing on titles and hierarchy, and just gets stuff done. So, we put a lot of focus in our hiring processes when we are interviewing to try to determine first and foremost does the person have the skill set and experience potential to do the job from a background standpoint in addition to academics and credentials.’

Source: Slashdot

Britain’s publicly-funded broadcaster the BBC is to launch a range of web-based on-demand TV and audio services which could revolutionize the way people watch television.

The BBC Trust, which oversees the corporation, said on Monday it had approved the service after examining the public demand and any impact it would have on commercial rivals.

Broadcaster Channel 4 said on Monday that its on-demand service had been used by “well over” one million people watching a total of 20 million programs since it was launched six months ago, far exceeding expectations.

The BBC said the new iPlayer system would allow viewers to catch up with programs from the previous seven days and store them on a computer for 30 days, while cable viewers will be able to use this service on their televisions.

IPlayer, which will be located on the www.bbc.co.uk Web site, will also allow viewers to watch programming on the Internet and listen to some audio downloads without anti-piracy software known as digital rights management.

By providing free consulting and some software, Google Inc. is helping state governments make reams of public records that are now unavailable or hard to find online easily accessible to Web surfers.

The Internet search company hopes to eventually persuade federal agencies to employ the same tools - an effort that excites advocates of open government but worries some consumer privacy experts.

Google plans to announce Monday that it has already partnered with four states - Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia - to remove technical barriers that had prevented its search engine, as well as those of Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., from accessing tens of thousands of public records dealing with education, real estate, health care and the environment.

These newly available records will not be exclusive to the search engines owned by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

A convincing twin of Darth Vader stalks the beige cubicles of a Silicon Valley office, complete with ominous black mask, cape and light saber.

But this is no chintzy Halloween costume. It’s a prototype, years in the making, of a toy that incorporates brain wave-reading technology.

Behind the mask is a sensor that touches the user’s forehead and reads the brain’s electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating. The player maintains focus by channeling thoughts on any fixed mental image, or thinking specifically about keeping the light sword on. When the mind wanders, the wand goes dark.

Engineers at NeuroSky Inc. have big plans for brain wave-reading toys and video games. They say the simple Darth Vader game - a relatively crude biofeedback device cloaked in gimmicky garb - portends the coming of more sophisticated devices that could revolutionize the way people play.

Technology from NeuroSky and other startups could make video games more mentally stimulating and realistic. It could even enable players to control video game characters or avatars in virtual worlds with nothing but their thoughts.

Google has removed paid links that advertised seemingly legitimate Web sites but actually tried to install nefarious programs on PCs.

The links were displayed as “sponsored links” after visitors entered specific queries into Google’s search service. Clicking the links would ultimately go to a legitimate site, but by way of another site that attempted a “drive-by installation” of password-stealing software. Miscreants placed the links using Google’s AdWords service for advertisers.

“Google identified and canceled AdWords accounts displaying ads that re-directed users to malicious sites,” a company representative wrote on a corporate blog on Thursday.

The malicious links appeared after people searched for terms related to the Better Business Bureau and cars, according to Exploit Prevention Labs, a security company. All the paid-for links masqueraded as legitimate sites and redirected Google users to the actual sites after sending them to smarttrack.org, which served up the malicious code, Exploit Prevention Labs said.

Microsoft is expected to show a new friendliness to the open-source community by unveiling plans to release the source code to a part of its Silverlight technology at MIX 07 next week, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans.

Sources said Microsoft will also release a beta of Silverlight, a recently unveiled browser plug-in that allows Web content providers to offer a rich video and interactive media experience from directly within Web sites. The technology leverages Vista’s new graphics framework, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and Microsoft is promoting it as a direct competitor to Adobe Systems’ Flash tool and delivery mechanism for rich multimedia content on the Web.

The Chilean government wants Google to fix its Earth geographical search program that places a village named after Chilean independence hero Bernardo O’Higgins in Argentina.

The satellite image shows Villa O’Higgins, a tiny hamlet 1,000 miles south of the Chilean capital, Santiago, on the Argentine side of the border.

“Chile has asked for this to be rectified, and it can only be hoped they do it soon,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Santiago told Reuters on Saturday. He declined to say when the complaint was filed.

Chile and Argentina share the southern cone of South America, where the border between the two nations runs through a complex landscape of islands, fjords and mountains.