Who says Microsoft Vista sucks? If you’re looking online, it seems like it’s everybody. A Google search brings up entire blogs and Web sites solely dedicated to exposing fair use rights infringements, CPU-hogging mandatory security programs, and lack of application and hardware support. Specialized Web sites and blogs have the most vehement criticisms:

Responding to actual Microsoft documentation, Peter Guttman of University of Auckland has published an exhaustive article stating that the Vista Content Protection specification, which raises the bar on Digital Rights Management, “could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.” Bruce Schneier condenses many of the details , concluding that the OS makes a computer less reliable and less secure. This slows down processing, and media pirates, the intended target for this software, crack the security in days. BlimpTV’s “Vista Sucks ” video says it simply: “No One Does Bloatware Like Microsoft!” Read the rest of this entry »

One of five short-lived Apple [AAPL] iPhone applications is causing quite a stir. Notorious $999.99 “I Am Rich,” effectively does nothing: the program loads as a screensaver of a glowing red gem… That’s all. The app was in the iTunes store for only two calendar days before the Cupertino-based company pulled it off, but not after 8 people purchased it - at the maximum possible price for an item on iTunes.

The flurry of fussing since last Tuesday, the day “I Am Rich” was published, has been monstrous. The initial shock that Apple would support a useless Money Suck struck some as poor business or even a sign of incompetency. Two people bought the app “by accident,” at least one because he thought “it was a joke .” It turns out that neither Apple nor his credit card company thought it was a joke, but Heinrich claims he will return the money to both individuals. But the furious debate continues on whether this app was a scam, high art, or just a waste of time. Heinrich says to the Los Angeles Times , “The App is a work of Art and included a ’secret mantra’ — that’s all.” Read the rest of this entry »

Several weeks ago we wrote about the leaked DNS exploit that had fallen into hackers’ hands. Tuesday August 5th at the Black Hat 2008 security conference in Las Vegas, the exploit’s discoverer, Dan Kaminsky, explained that it is much worse than initially thought.

In fact, it seems that the DNS exploit can be used to attack almost anything on the web.

“The entire scope of the attack is even yet to be fully realized. This affects every single person on the Internet,” said OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch. Kaminsky estimates that only 42% (120,000,000) of worldwide internet users are currently protected from the exploit. 85% of Fortune 500 companies have patched their systems, though. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Cronin, chief investment officer for Putnam Investments, finds upside in four tech stocks in an economy he believes is currently suffering from inflation and deteriorating economic growth. “The tech sector and the utility sector have been two of the more defensive sectors over the course of the last year and we do find some attractive names there,” Cronin told Erin Burnett and Mark Haines on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street.

The four stocks Cronin believes have promise are Microsoft [MSFT], Adobe [ADBE], Apple [AAPL], and EMC Corp. [EMC]. EMC Corp., based out of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, specializes in information infrastructure technology and solutions. “We debate whether Apple is a consumer company or a tech company, but we like Apple as well,” Cronin said. Cronin recognized that the current deterioration of economic growth is not only an American issue, but a global issue as well. Read the rest of this entry »

A different kind of “march of the penguins” (the penguin being the Linux mascot) occurred as technology users and enthusiasts from around the world descended upon San Francisco, CA Aug. 4- 7 for the 18th annual LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.

In support of open source technology and Linux-based initiatives, the conference sessions and presentations highlighted Linux’s new role in consumer technologies, including operating systems, mobile phone capabilities, and the corporate desktop. Read the rest of this entry »

Widgets or gadgets, as they have come to be known for PCs, have become an easy and quick way for Web sites to attract traffic, but their rise has been accompanied with a new form of Internet spyware. Malicious widgets capitalize on the user’s assumption that all Google widgets are moderated, and some argue they are not. At the Black Hat Hacker conference in Las Vegas, consultants from SecTheory and Cenzic security companies demonstrated how a simple looking gadget could access personal information through an Internet web browser. Sites that encourage users to jazz up their pages appear to be the prime targets for such malicious gadgets.

But it doesn’t stop there. SecTheory and Cenzic believe that there are malicious widgets that steal information from other non-malicious widgets. Google discounts the SecTheory and Cenzic criticism. In a statement, Google retorts that the gadgets they distribute are regulated, and malicious gadgets are rarely found. When they are, the malicious widget is immediately blacklisted. Read the rest of this entry »

It appears that in a country where over 90 percent of the downloaded music is illegally pirated, if you can’t beat them, join them. Google, Inc. has launched a free and legal music download service that is available exclusively to internet users in China. The plan is for the Web site to sustain on advertising revenue, which will be split among Google, a Chinese music company named Top 100.cn, and the participating music record labels. The move symbolizes a potential shift in strategy against piracy, which is also a significant problem— albeit much less pervasive—in America and other countries. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that the music industry loses hundreds of millions in dollars as a result of piracy. Read the rest of this entry »

Mozilla Labs is calling developers, designers, and everyone else for their “concept series,” an initiative “to make it easy to contribute to the development of the online experience.” The task is to create visions for the future of online activity and projects for Mozilla labs at large. Three project videos are already available online: a mobile Firefox from Aza Raskin, a bookmark and history GUI from Wei Zhou, and an all-purpose collaborative browser called Aurora.

By far the most produced and didactic video, Aurora from Adaptive Path has an intuitive and extremely powerful interface. The browser analyzes the Pages and graphically-represented data, which become labeled groups floating in a 3-D environment. The Z-axis of the space points away from the user, representing time, and less recently used information starts to drift farther away. Read the rest of this entry »

On August 4th 2008, the US Court of Appeals permitted Cablevision Cable Company to offer the services of digital video recording (DVR) to customers who do not own personal Tivo hard drives. The alternative, endorsed by the Second Circuit in New York, allows cable companies to record the programs to a central datacenter, thereby mitigating capital expenditures. Redlasso, an online Web site recently forced to suspend their video search, post, and clip services due to legal action by Fox and NBC, may have a viable business plan as a result of this decision. If a Redlasso user purchases the right to record digital video from a cable company, what is to stop that customer from transferring those rights to his account with Redlasso?

In such a scenario, Redlasso is acting as the internet-provider of digital video to cable company DVR customers. Of course, this hinges on the cooperation between Redlasso and cable companies, who may want to develop this service independently. Another possible obstacle is that Redlasso’s video content is delivered over the Internet rather than over the television. Hank Williams of the Silicon Valley Insider does not see this as a problem: Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been covering the world of in-flight Internet access a few times these past months. Last Tuesday, August 5th, the airline company Delta Air Lines [DAL] announced that it will offer WiFi on all domestic mainline flights beginning next year. Delta’s entire domestic fleet will be outfitted by the end of 2009.

“Our customers asked for in-flight connectivity, and we’re responding by rolling out the most extensive Wi-Fi network in the sky. Beginning this fall, our passengers will have the ability to stay connected when they travel with us throughout the continental U.S.,” said Richard Anderson, Delta’s chief executive officer. Read the rest of this entry »