MySQL plans to launch alpha and beta versions of several new free and open-source software products in September, including a release candidate of the latest version of its database software.

“We’re always announcing new open-source products, but this month we just happened to have a lot coming out all at once,” said Zack Urlocker, the Uppsala, Sweden-based company’s executive vice president. “This includes a release candidate of MySQL 5.1, our core open-source server.

This new version has row-based replication, events, partitioning and disk-based cluster storage as well as faster performance. And there’s some new scalability enhancements with the InnoDB storage engine.”

Company officials said four new products—MySQL 5.1 Community Server, the Falcon Database Engine, MySQL Proxy and MySQL Connector/ODBC 5.1—are scheduled to be available for download by the end of September.

A researcher has shown that a low-risk, year-old QuickTime bug can easily be turned into a high-risk attack on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Skype and other programs.

The researcher, Petko D. Petkov—aka pdp—on Sept. 12 posted proof-of-concept code showing how QuickTime media formats can be used to get into Firefox, leading to full browser compromise and perhaps even to compromise of the underlying operating system. QuickTime comes by default with iTunes, Petkov noted. “Therefore, iTunes users are most affected,” he said.

Petkov has been trying to get people to pay attention to a duo of QuickTime flaws since September 2006, when he demonstrated how to use QuickTime Movie files to trick users into executing malicious JavaScript code. The technique doesn’t rely on a vulnerability; rather, it’s caused by what Petkov said is an insecure feature that first appeared in QuickTime 3 and continues on up to Version 7.

Born 10 years ago, the Google Internet search engine has grown into the electronic center of human knowledge by indexing billions of web pages as well as images, books and videos.

On September 15, 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two 24 year-old Stanford University students, registered the domain name of “google.com.” The word is a variation of ‘googol,’ which refers to the number 10 to the power of 100, a term popularized by US mathematician Edward Kasner.

Page and Brin incorporated Google one year later, on September 7, 1998, in a household garage in northern California.

News of Google spread largely thanks to the efficient way the search engine classified results through algorithms, and it quickly became one of the most used methods to find information on the Internet.

From the beginning Page and Brin considered their role as global Internet researchers was crucial.

As if Yahoo didn’t have enough trouble already in social networking, a company employee tipped a New York Times reporter by mistake about a new, unannounced service called Yahoo Mash.

Recounting the faux pas in a New York Times blog Wednesday, Brad Stone reported that a Yahoo employee sent him an e-mail saying he had set up a profile for Stone in Yahoo Mash.

After Stone clicked on an e-mail link to visit the profile, he couldn’t get past a log-in page. Yahoo representatives later acknowledged to Stone that the service isn’t yet open to anyone outside of Yahoo and that the invitation was sent by mistake. They didn’t provide him with more details about Yahoo Mash.

Asked for comment by IDG News Service, a Yahoo spokeswoman said that the service is at an “alpha” stage of testing in which only Yahoo employees are participating.

Considering that the service apparently includes the creation of profiles for individuals, it would be safe to assume it is some sort of social network, an area where Yahoo officials have acknowledged the company is weak.

TechCrunch, a technology news site that focuses on the Web 2.0 space, reported in July that Yahoo has been secretly working on a new social-networking project called Mosh.

Sony Corp. is increasing its bet on Blu-ray Disc and plans to ditch DVD and use the high-definition video disc format in all future digital video recorders in Japan, the company said Wednesday.

The announcement was made at the same time as Sony, the biggest backer of the technology, unveiled four new Blu-ray Disc video recorders. They include support for dual-layer discs– something that was missing from models announced this time last year– and can transcode video into the more efficient MPEG4 AVC format to increase recording time per disc.

Search giant Google is offering a $30m prize pot to private firms that land a robot rover on the Moon.

The competition to send a robot craft to the Moon is being run with the X-Prize Foundation.

To claim the cash, any craft reaching the lunar surface must perform a series of tasks such as shoot video and roam for specific distances.

Firms interested in trying for the prize have until the end of 2012 to mount their Moonshot.