Important security update for Opera 10 H-Online
Opera 10.01 fixes an “extremely severe” issue in the browser. Opera is, according to the release notes, a security and stability upgrade, and should be installed by all users. The incentive for doing so becomes clear on reading the description of one of the security vulnerabilities processing certain domain names in the browser results in a memory violation which can be exploited to inject and execute code. Attackers were able to infect visitors’ PCs with malware by using crafted URLs on web pages.

Tough identity theft law passed CBC
The federal government has passed tough new legislation to give police and courts added powers to fight identity theft. “This legislation will better address identity theft and provide police with the tools they need to help stop these crimes before they are committed,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement released Tuesday in Ottawa. Bill S-4 creates three new Criminal Code offences related to identity theft, including: Obtaining and possessing identity information with the intent to use the information deceptively, dishonestly or fraudulently in the commission of a crime. Trafficking in identity information, an offence that targets those who transfer or sell information to another person with knowledge of, or recklessness as to, the possible criminal use of the information. Unlawfully possessing or trafficking in government-issued identity documents that contain the information of another person. All three offences carry five-year maximum prison sentences. In addition, the legislation gives courts the power to order offenders to pay restitution to a victim of identity theft as part of their sentence.

Music service Lala heralds MP3-killing iPhone app Associated Press
Online music retailer Lala is preparing to launch an iPhone application that its co-founder says paves the way for the end of downloading songs in the MP3 format.The app allows users to buy the right to stream songs from a digital locker forever for just 10 cents each. The song quality is lower than what Apple Inc.’s iTunes offers, but “intelligent caching” lets the tracks load and play in seconds, with playback possible even outside of cell phone coverage. An existing iTunes library can be synchronized with one’s Lala account, meaning a person doesn’t have to repurchase songs to listen to them within the app.

Microsoft selling crapware-free PCs in its stores Ars Technica
The computers at Microsoft Stores don’t have the crapware that Windows PCs typically come with, but they still have an assortment of Microsoft and Adobe software. Most controversially, they include Windows Live Essentials and Microsoft Security Essentials.

China accuses Google of ‘malicious’ censorship The Register
The Chinese Communist Party’s main newspaper is (apparently without a trace of irony) accusing Google of unfairly censoring its website for having reported on the search firm’s book-scanning copyright dispute. People’s Daily said its online book section was blocked from Google searches via a malware warning for three days beginning last Wednesday. It insists the blockage was “malicious revenge” for the book section prominently featuring stories about how Google’s rather dubious practice of scanning books without permission might violate the rights of Chinese authors. Search results for People.com.cn’s book channel read “This website may have malicious software, which might damage your computer,” reports Global Times.

Free All Music: Will This Ad-Supported Model Float? Digital Music News
Remember when ad-supported music was going to save the industry? Spiralfrog was lavished with praise and endless press coverage, and major labels extracted millions in licensing fees before the ship sank. Nowadays, the darling is Spotify, though according to inside sources, US-based major label executives remain leery of the revenue-challenged company. Others, including MySpace Music, Imeem, Grooveshark, and even YouTube face difficult monetization challenges. Why so rough? The problem comes from bottom-scraping CPMs, affinity concerns among big-name brands, and a reluctance byFree All Music (Main Store) consumers to upgrade into premium packages. Indeed, many have written this space off as a hopeless pursuit, though Atlanta-based startup ‘Free All Music’ (freeallmusic.com) begs to differ. The group is focusing its model on free MP3 downloads, and more direct, action-based advertising deals. So, instead of DRM-protected experiences with impression-based advertising (a-la-Spiralfrog), Free All Music plans to tie major consumer brands into direct downloading, sharing, and other engaged behaviors. “We’re confident that we’ll be in major [advertiser] budgets in 2010,” cofounder and CEO Richard Nailling relayed during a discussion Tuesday evening.

Los Angeles OKs plan to use Google Web services Associated Press
The Los Angeles City Council has tentatively approved a multimillion-dollar proposal to tap Google for government e-mail and other Internet services. The vote Tuesday shows progress in Google’s plan to wrest market share for office software from rival Microsoft.

SeaMonkey 2.0 Alpha 2 Mozilla
SeaMonkey 2.0 Alpha 2 contains the following major changes relative to SeaMonkey 2.0 Alpha 1: The first step towards customizable toolbars has been made: The icon size and whether to display icons and/or text can be chosen spearately for every major toolbar in in both the browser and MailNews components via their context menu. The MailNews component now includes support for reading RSS and Atom feeds, And the browser detects feeds offered by web pages. Since the support for previewing feeds in the browser has not yet been included, the feed icon at the right end of the URL bar currently is directly invoking subscription to the feed in the MailNews component, if an account for feeds has already been created there. Tracemonkey, the Just-In-Time (JIT) JavaScript compiler, has been enabled for web content by default, resulting in a significant speedup of scripts running on web pages. The Find As You Type functionality has been internally reworked to use the same code behind the scenes as the Firefox find bar, but keeping the function as presented to users unchanged from SeaMonkey 1.1.

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October, 2009

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