Apple Attacked By Facebook (FB) Hacker

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL : 446.52, -2.02) has been reportedly been attacked by hackers who infected the Macintosh computer of certain employees with malicious software, similar to the one that hit Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB : 27.34, -1.18) last week.

The malware had been designed to attack Mac computers by exploiting a flaw in a version of Oracle Corp.'s (NASDAQ: ORCL : 34.26, -0.76) Java software used as a plug-in on Web browsers, the company said in a statement provided to Reuters.

"We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network. There is no evidence that any data left Apple. We are working closely with law enforcement to find the source of the malware," Reuters reported quoting Apple's statement.

Apple intends to release a software on Tuesday, which it said customers can use to identify and repair Macs infected with the malware used in the attacks, the Reuters report quoted Apple as saying.

On Friday, Facebook disclosed that the social-networking site was also the victim of a malware attack last month many of which have been traced to China. It said the attack occured when its employees visited a mobile developer website that was infected.

"As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day. We have no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised in this attack," Facebook said in its official blog.

AAPL closed 0.04% lower at $459.99 on Tuesday, while FB ended up 2.26% at $28.96.

By: Balaseshan
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You’ve seen them everywhere, even on some state license plates.  But what does all those http’s and .com’s mean.  Here’s the website that I referenced for the following information: 

http://www.googleguide.com/web_address.html

Here is simplified explanation of what makes up a web address:

We take sample URL 1st :  http://www.crsd.org/buildings/nj/index.html

http:// stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and that basically tells the computer that we are looking to “Transfer” “Hyper Text” (a webpage) from the internet to your computer.  When typing a web address into Internet Explorer you usually don’t even have to type the “http://” because the computer assumes it.
www stands for World Wide Web which is the body of software rules and protocols that make up what we know of as the internet.  Just about every webpage you’ll ever view is a part of the world wide web.
crsd in this example stands for Council Rock School District and it is technically the “second level domain name”

.org is a an example of a “top level domain name”  “.org” is primarily used by Non-profits, “.edu” is commonly used by schools and universities, “.gov” is used by the government, and the now famous “.com” is primarily for commercial websites.  Togethercrsd.org could be described as the school district’s “domain name”

/buildings/nj/ if you remember the old old days of DOS (before we had mice and folders on the screen) you might remember switching folder levels using the “/”.  If you don’t remember its OK, but you should know that “/buildings/nj/” tells the computer to go to a folder labeled “nj” that is inside a folder labeled “buildings”.
index.html this is the actual file name of this webpage.  More specifically, “index” is the name of the file and “.html” is the file extension which tells the computer what kind of file it is.  “.html” stands for Hyper Text Markup Language which is the language most web pages are written in.

Now you know what the different parts of a web address are.

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Know Anatomy of a Web Address:

You’ve seen them everywhere, even on some state license plates.  But what does all those http’s and .com’s mean.  Here’s the website that I referenced for the following information: 
http://www.googleguide.com/web_address.html
 

Here is simplified explanation of what makes up a web address:

We take sample URL 1st :  http://www.crsd.org/buildings/nj/index.html

http:// stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and that basically tells the computer that we are looking to “Transfer” “Hyper Text” (a webpage) from the internet to your computer.  When typing a web address into Internet Explorer you usually don’t even have to type the “http://” because the computer assumes it.
www stands for World Wide Web which is the body of software rules and protocols that make up what we know of as the internet.  Just about every webpage you’ll ever view is a part of the world wide web.
crsd in this example stands for Council Rock School District and it is technically the “second level domain name”
.org is a an example of a “top level domain name”  “.org” is primarily used by Non-profits, “.edu” is commonly used by schools and universities, “.gov” is used by the government, and the now famous “.com” is primarily for commercial websites.  Togethercrsd.org could be described as the school district’s “domain name”

/buildings/nj/ if you remember the old old days of DOS (before we had mice and folders on the screen) you might remember switching folder levels using the “/”.  If you don’t remember its OK, but you should know that “/buildings/nj/” tells the computer to go to a folder labeled “nj” that is inside a folder labeled “buildings”.
index.html this is the actual file name of this webpage.  More specifically, “index” is the name of the file and “.html” is the file extension which tells the computer what kind of file it is.  “.html” stands for Hyper Text Markup Language which is the language most web pages are written in.

Now you know what the different parts of a web address are.

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The iOS keyboard is overdue for an upgrade

Apple broke ground with the iPhone's virtual keyboard in 2007, but it appears to be stuck in time. It turns out iOS has lots of keyboard options but Apple and third-party developers have been slow to implement them.

When the iPhone was announced in 2007, people loathed the on-screen keyboard. Blackberry users panned it and even I hated it at first. Then a week went by and I loved it. Many people can type faster on a virtual keyboard then they can on a tiny chiclet keyboard, and most would agree that more screen real estate is better value proposition that a physical keyboard that takes up half the surface of a device.
The problem is that the iOS keyboard hasn't changed much since the original iPhone debuted in 2007 -- and it drives me nuts. One of the advantages of virtual keyboards is that you can change them on-the-fly in software. Or so the theory goes.
As of iOS 6.1.2 Apple only slightly modifies the keyboard in its first-party apps:
•    In Mail, it replaces the spacebar with a smaller space bar and dedicated "@" and period keys when typing an email address.
•    In Safari, it replaces the spacebar with period, slash and ".com" keys when you're typing into the address bar field. But at the expense of the microphone/Siri button (I guess that Apple doesn't want us dictating URLs).

Lower-case
iOS provides zero feedback over which case I'm typing in. The iOS keys display upper-case characters whether I'm typing in upper-case or lower-case letters. It would be trivial for iOS to display lower-case characters when typing them, yet the iOS keyboard always shows upper-case characters. The Android keyboard has displayed the proper case for as long as I can remember. (Pictured above is a lower-case iOS keyboard -- only available on jailbroken devices running theShowcase app from Cydia.)

Dedicated Number Row
Apple should add a dedicated number row across the top of the iOS keyboard. The lack of a dedicated numbers row makes it difficult to enter strong passwords in iOS because you have to switch back and forth between the text and number keyboards. This could easily be a preference in the iOS keyboard settings. (Pictured above is 5-Row Keyboard, a jailbreak tweak only available in Cydia.)
But it's not just Apple that's been lazy in implementing extra iOS keyboards, developers have been slow to offer additional keyboard choices too. Luckily, some iOS developers use the UITextField, UITextView, and UIView objects in the iOS SDK to customize their keyboards.

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Facebook facing problems with its "like" button and other features

Today in international tech news: Facebook is sued by a company that says it owns the patents for Likes; broadband fans in the UK fret about what EU budget cuts will mean for rural Internet access; VLC might someday be able to stream BitTorrents; and a British tech company is under investigation for its financial reporting before it was acquired by HP.

Rembrandt Social Media is suing Facebook for its use of the Like button, according to the BBC.
Rembrandt claims that Facebook's success is owed, at least in part, to patents belonging to Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer, who died in 2004.

Facebook declined to comment, but a lawyer for Rembrandt, which owns the patents, said that the patents "represent an important foundation of social media."

A lawsuit has been filed in a federal court in Virginia by Rembrandt Social Media.
"We believe Rembrandt's patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence," said lawyer Tom Melsheimerfrom legal firm Fish and Richardson, which represents the patent holder.

Rembrandt now owns patents for technologies Mr Van Der Meer used to build a fledgling social network, called Surfbook, before his death in 2004.

Mr Van Der Meer was granted the patents in 1998, five years before Facebook first appeared.
Surfbook was a social diary that let people share information with friends and family and approve some data using a "like" button, according to legal papers filed by Fish and Richardson.
The papers also say Facebook is aware of the patents as it has cited them in its own applications to patent some social networking technologies.
Also cited in the same legal claim was another social media company called Add This.



Image. Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk

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Google wins High Court appeal over sponsored links

The High Court of Australia has dismissed a misleading and deceptive conducts case brought against search engine giant Google, ruling that Google does not create sponsored links.

The case centred around sponsored links in Google search results through its AdWords program by online trading company Trading Post and STA Travel between 2005 and 2008. In April last year, the full bench of the Federal Court ruled, on appeal from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), that Google advertisements with the headline of "Harvey World Travel" or "Harvey World" that redirected to an STA Travel website were in breach of section 52 of the Trade Practices Act. Similarly, ads headlined with "Honda.com.au" that redirected to car-trading website Carsales, ads headlined "Alpha Dog Training" that linked to The Dog Trainer, and ads headlined "Just 4x4s Magazine" that redirected to the Trading Post website were also in breach of the Trade Practices Act.

Google appealed the decision to the High Court in September, and this morning the High Court ruled that Google did not create the sponsored links featured in search results.

"Google did not create the sponsored links that it published or displayed. Ordinary and reasonable users of the Google search engine would have understood that the representations conveyed by the sponsored links were those of the advertisers, and would not have concluded that Google adopted or endorsed the representations," the High Court said in the summary of its judgment (PDF).

"Accordingly, Google did not engage in conduct that was misleading or deceptive."

In the High Court hearing last year, Google's barrister Tony Bannon told the court that finding Google responsible for what it produces from an inquiry would have had wider implications.

"The ramifications for the Full Court's approach are not limited to online advertising, but would extend to any travel agent, for example, who, in response to an inquiry from somebody who wanders in saying, 'I want to travel somewhere' and says, 'Europe, is it — you might like these brochures' and hands out a string of brochures because they perceive it might be relevant to their area of interest — and because it is the travel agency's response, that makes them responsible for the content of everything in those advertisements," Bannon said.

"That is an untenable outcome, we respectfully submit."

Google praised the judgment in a short statement.

"We welcome the High Court's unanimous decision that Google cannot be held responsible for the ads that advertisers create for Google's search engine," the company said.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said that the regulator took up the case to clarify the law around misleading or deceptive advertising online, and the court did not rule that the ads themselves were not misleading.

"The High Court’s decision focused only on Google’s conduct. In the facts and circumstances of this case the High Court has determined that Google did not itself engage in misleading or deceptive conduct," Sims said.

“It was not disputed in the High Court that the representations made in sponsored links by advertisers were misleading or deceptive. It remains the case that all businesses involved in placing advertisements on search engines must take care not to mislead or deceive consumers."

The ACCC has been ordered to pay Google's costs.


Source: zdnet.com

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Microsoft May Get Home Advantage

Microsoft has snatched R2 Studios out from under Apple's and Google's noses, rumor has it, and now the speculation is all about what it plans to do with the technology and patents it acquired. It could be looking to take its home automation efforts further. The technology "will help Microsoft extend the multimedia capabilities of Xbox to cover more than games," said tech analyst Billy Pidgeon.
Microsoft could be cutting new inroads into the world of home automation, based on rumors circulating Thursday that it has purchased id8 Group R2 Studios. This acquisition will reportedly bolster Microsoft's Xbox division, which is likely to introduce a next-generation game console later this year.

R2 Studios was launched in 2011 by entrepreneur Blake Krikorian, founder of Sling Media, maker of the Slingbox home TV streaming device.

Aside from an Android application that can control heating and lighting systems, R2 Studios currently does not have any products on the market. However, Microsoft reportedly also acquired a number of patents for technologies used to control electronic devices and device interfaces.

"While Microsoft could integrate R2 software into the next Xbox hardware, the tech could also be used for media control via PC, tablet and phone as part of the rebranding and replacement of Microsoft's Media Center," said Billy Pidgeon, senior analyst at Inside Network.

Microsoft did not respond to our request for further details.

Home Base

Since 2010, Microsoft has been working on a project known as "HomeOS," a suite that could control electronic devices. Microsoft Research has licensed the prototype technology to academic institutions, but so far it hasn't moved much further.

With R2's technology, Microsoft could now be looking to take its home automation efforts beyond just syncing electronic devices with one another.

"Microsoft is clearly serious about their TV efforts with the Xbox platform," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

"We are moving to a new TV model, and Microsoft has been talking about integrating this screen into the Microsoft suite of solutions since before Bill Gates left," he noted.

"This decade's war is over media and content, and R2 appears to be one of the minor battles Microsoft has won in an effort to win that war," Enderle told TechNewsWorld.

Microsoft's Touch
With this acquisition, Microsoft may have won a round -- but it remains to be seen how some of this newly acquired technology can be integrated with Windows 8. Although this new OS hasn't exactly been a smash with consumers -- so far, anyway -- the home automation offerings could open more possibilities going forward.

"This technology enables touch control with haptic and audio feedback via a smartphone or tablet using cellular and WiFi networks," said Pidgeon. "As the tech is software based, it should work on multiple platforms in a fashion similar to Xbox SmartGlass. The technology and the associated patents will help Microsoft extend the multimedia capabilities of Xbox to cover more than games."

Source :technewsworld.com

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