Gates: 'IT revolution just beginning'

Former Microsoft boss tells assembled CEOs that technology can beat the economic crisis

Bill Gates has said that the world is only at the beginning of the software/IT revolution, and that it has a key role to play in helping to pull the US and the world out of recession.

Speaking at Microsoft's annual CEO summit, Gates said that software and IT could help make key markets such as the financial and pharmaceuticals sectors more efficient, thereby boosting productivity, reports Reuters.

"The drug companies will get back in high productivity mode. The software, IT revolution – we're just at the start of that," he told a panel of guests, which included billionaire Warren Buffett, News International chairman Rupert Murdoch, and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.

"What we can do for education, communication, and what that looks like for the efficiencies of world markets, we are just at the beginning of that, he continued. "The opportunities for innovation are stronger today than ever."

Taken From PCR-Online.biz

Virgin to roll out 50Mb broadband

Announces free migration to 10Mb for 4Mb customers

Cable provider Virgin has announced that it is to upgrade its broadband services, with it planning to roll out a 50Mb service to replace its current 10Mb offering.

The company also announced that as part of the upgrade, it would begin a gradual roll out of upgrades to customers subscribing to its 4Mb service that will see them migrated on to 10Mb.

Speaking about the upgrades, acting CEO of Virgin Media, Neil Berkett said: "Virgin Media's cable network gives us a natural superiority over other broadband services and we're delighted to reward our customers with this free upgrade.

"We've barely scratched the surface of what's possible with our cable network, and we will continue to look for new ways to satisfy the growing demand for even faster broadband in the UK.

"We're proud to be leading the country's superfast broadband revolution."

Taken from PCR-Online.biz

Macs fall prey to Botnets

First real security threat to Apple PCs spreads through unlicensed copies of iWork and Photoshop

Symantec has found that two separate types of Trojan horse malware found on Macs combine to make the first Apple focused botnet.

According to Ars Technica, some pirated copies of iWork contain a program called OSX.Trojan.iServices.A, while some unlicensed copies of Photoshop CS4 contain the OSX.Trojan.iServices.B variant.

When combined, the two Trojans create a backdoor with root privileges that allows an attacker to steal or view personal information as well as integrate the target PC in to a botnet.

It is estimated that this malware has infected more than 20,000 computers and it has already been implicated in at least two DDoS attacks.

Taken from PCR-Online.biz

Sony Ericsson rolls out Wii-style gaming phone

Sony Ericsson has unwrapped a gaming-focused phone with Wii-like motion-sensing technology. It also introduced a second handset, with PlayStation 3 support.

Yari’s been described as the first "gesture gaming" handset available outside of Japan. Based on accelerometer technology, the phone has several Wii-style games, such as boxing and tennis, that require you to move, shake, rattle and roll the phone to control the on-screen action.

Quite how easy it is to play such games while not even looking at the screen remains to be seen. But by the looks of SE’s Yari promo video, shown above, bowling’s a great sport to play on the bus.

SE also unveiled Aino, which uses the PS3’s Remote Play feature to let you control the Sony console and access its media content over a wireless connection.

You can’t play PS3 games remotely on Aino, though.

However, UK users can use the phone to access PlayTV on the PS3 and a PC application called Media Home which automatically “pulls media content from your PC over Wi-Fi to your phone”.

But aside from Yari’s Wii-like games and Aino’s PS3 entertainment connectivity, both devices are basic phones.

The 100 x 48 x 15mm Yari has a 2.4in display and the media-centric Aino – which measures 104 x 50 x 15mm - has a 3in screen. Aino’s 8.1Mp camera with 16x digital zoom also outranks Yari’s snapper: a 5Mp model with 4x digital zoom.

Both phones' cameras feature face detection and geo-tagging, but only Yari is equipped with the ability to stop the shutter firing until it sees the subject is smiling.

All the standard music features are included on both phones, such as MP3 and AAC format support, stereo Bluetooth and PlayNow compatibility – SE’s music download service. Yari’s the only one of the pair to include TrackID, though.

It’s nice to see that both phones come with Micro SD memory cards: a 1GB card with the Yari, and an 8GB one for Aino buyers.

Expect Yari and Aino to appear in UK shops during Q4. Prices haven’t been disclosed. ®

Written By James Sherwood

October 23 release for Windows 7

Acer's vice president may have inadvertently outed the release date of Windows 7 in a press conference.

Speaking at the launch of a new range of laptops and netbooks, Acer's vice-president Massimo D'Angelo claimed that Acer would be shipping Windows 7-loaded machines by 23 October "and not a day before".

If true, it puts a Windows 7 release three months earlier than Microsoft's official January 2010 date. A date the company stuck to when we questioned it this morning.

A sheepish D'Angelo was quickly harangued by journalists asking if he'd just let the cat out of the bag on the Windows 7 release date, to which he replied "he had not".

The slip follows a similar incident involving Asus chief executive Jerry Shen, who earlier in the year noted that his company would be shipping a Windows 7-based Eee PC in the second half of 2009.

Microsoft is making a big push with Windows 7, effectively offering users a year's free use with the Release Candidate.

Written by Stuart Turton

Free support ends for XP and Office 2003

Mainstream support ends, future users will have to pay for the service

Microsoft’s Office 2003 software suite and XP operating system have ended their phase of mainstream technical support, meaning that future users of the service will have to pay for it.

According to a Microsoft announcement, after five years in service Office 2003 now moves in to its extended support phase. Security updates will continue to be available for free but non-security hotfixes will now only be available to those who purchase an Extended Hotfix Support Agreement.

Redmond Mag reports that XP’s mainstream support phase was due to end in 2006 but was extended during the furore surrounding the launch of Vista, however, this phase has now ended and both products will be in the extended support phase until 2014, when they will both go in to the custom support phase – another paid extension.

by Matt Grainger

Did The BBC Illegally Acquire A Botnet With 22000 PCs?

BBC Click could well be in serious trouble as the popular television tech series rented a botnet and launched a calculated DDoS (Distributed Denial Of Service) against security firm Prevx.

The controversial move is part of an ongoing investigation by Click into the murky world of global cyber crime and aimed at showing how easy personal computers can be infected and controlled.

The presenter, Spencer Kelly, was able to purchase a botnet by knocking at the right virtual doors online and got hold of a 22,000-strong botnet and launched a spam campaign against two dummy email addresses.

The TV programme claims to have controlled the thousands of PCs simply through the use of a piece of software (ed: it showed to many how easy it is to acquire such technology as well).

Click then went on to submerge the website of security firm Prevx in one giant DDoS and brought the site to its knees with only 60 machines. This means that PreVX servers could only serve 60 computers simultaneously, a fraction of the 22,000 PCs.

The BBC has confirmed that almost all the computers that made up BBC's botnet of hijacked computers have been disabled and their users warned about how to make their computers more secure by displaying a BBC message in their background

But whether the BBC can defend its decision to go ahead with what, in any other cases, would have been a criminal act remains to be seen and will be an interesting episode to follow.

Indeed, Sophos' Graham Cluley justly ponders whether the BBC has not fallen foul to the Computer Misuse Act by interfering with the victim's computer background as well as paying criminals for the botnet.

Like in the Brand/Ross scandal that hit the BBC some months ago, someone at the Beeb must have given his or her approval to what the BBC Click did. Bearing in mind that Gary McKinnon is being extradited for very roughly the same actions, will there be a backlash against what the BBC did? More importantly, what will happen if one or more users affected chose to sue the BBC.

Taken from ITProPortal.com

Microsoft squirts out Vista SP2

Windows 7's ugly older bro gets updated

Microsoft spat out the second and final service pack for Windows Vista yesterday.

Vista SP2 can now be downloaded from Microsoft’s Download Center. However, anyone who had been running the beta of the service pack, which was released late last year, will have to remove it before proceeding with the install.

Upgrading to Service Pack 2 also requires the user to have SP1 installed first.

More ...

Taken from TheRegister.co.uk