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Malaysian authorities have begun raiding computer retail outlets offering pirated software amid concerns that illegal copies of Microsoft Corp.’s newest operating system, Windows Vista, are on sale.

The strategy marks a shift from crackdowns over the past year that mainly targeted companies using unlicensed software, Ahmad Dahuri Mahmud, the Domestic Trade Ministry’s deputy director general of enforcement, said Friday.

“Computer dealers often sweeten computer purchases by offering consumers free (pirated) software pre-loaded onto their personal computers,” Ahmad Dahuri told a news conference.

The current clampdown started Thursday with the arrest of a store owner in a Kuala Lumpur suburban shopping mall. Officials seized three computers with pirated versions of Windows XP from a 28-year-old suspect’s premises, Ahmad Dahuri said.

The man is expected to be charged under copyright laws that provide for maximum prison sentences of five years and a fine of up to 20,000 ringgit ($6,670 Cdn) per infringement.

Officials were also investigating claims by the public that some dealers have been loading pirated versions of beta copies — unofficial versions released for tests — of Windows Vista, Ahmad Dahuri said.

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Apple Inc. has issued a security update for its Mac OS X operating system that repairs multiple vulnerabilities.

The security fixes, issued on Wednesday, repair a series of flaws through which an attacker could fool a person into taking actions that would let someone hijack, crash or obtain access rights to a computer.

The vulnerabilities exist in the Finder disk-handling software, iChat messaging and conferencing program, and user notification system.

Internet and computer security company Secunia rated the patch as highly critical, the fourth-most urgent rating on its five-point scale.

Mac OS users who have the automatic software update option enabled will receive the security fixes automatically.

The patches are also available at Apple’s downloads page

Google’s SEC filing on February 7th, 2007, finally revealed the breakdown of profits shared by YouTube’s investors after the sale of the company to Google for $1.65 billion in stock in late 2006.

The largest profits went to YouTube’s three founders and Sequoia Capital, the principal financier of the internet’s number one video-sharing site.

The NY Times reported that founder and YouTube’s chief executive Chad Hurley received 694,087 shares of Google and an additional 41,232 in a trust. Based on Google’s closing price yesterday of $470.01, the shares are worth more than $345 million.

Another founder, Steven Chen, received 625,366 shares and an additional 68,721 in a trust, for more than $326 million.

The third founder of YouTube, Jawed Karim, who left the company early on to pursue a graduate degree in computer science, received 137,443 shares worth more than $64 million.

Sequoia Capital XI, the Sequoia fund that invested close to $11.5 million in YouTube from November 2005 to April 2006, was listed as having 941,027 shares, which are valued at more than $442 million.

Source:  SECinfo.com

Nicholas Negroponte answered some questions during a Q and A session on the One Laptop per Child project.  Of special interest was the discussions with Microsoft in opening up the platform to MS software, and the battles with Intel.

Q. You’ve had some disagreements with Microsoft and Intel during the course of this project. Can you describe the nature of the disagreement and your position?

A. They are very different. Microsoft has a real problem with open source — a problem with which I sympathize. Nonetheless, we are working with them. They have laptops and are determined to put Windows on it. We are helping them do so. It would be nuts for One Laptop Per Child to advocate being “open” and then being closed to Microsoft.

Intel, by contrast, is just being silly. I went to them first (note: Intel founder Bob Noyce funded me to start the MIT Media Lab in 1979). They dismissed the idea. Advanced Micro Devices by contrast leapt at it. AMD CEO Hector Ruiz has been an excellent partner, deeply committed and genuinely devoted to issues of the developing world. After Intel Chairman Craig Barrett called One Laptop Per Child a “gadget,” Intel developed their own gadget and talks of “competing with One Laptop Per Child.” Huh? We welcome them and do not compete with anybody.

One Laptop Per Child is a non-profit humanitarian project partnered with the United Nations and development banks.

For Intel to be criticizing One Laptop Per Child is a bit like Johnson & Johnson picking on the Red Cross because they use Ace bandages.

Source:  MercuryNews.com

Sophisticated mobile phones like RIM’s BlackBerrys, Palms’ Treos, Danger’s Sidekicks and Windows Mobile devices are all smartphones which allow their users to do more than just make phone calls and take pictures. They are really pocket-size computers equipped for many functions, including e-mail, web browsing, PDA functions (contact management, calendar, etc.), and the ability to used MS Office documents on the go.

As the NYT reports, even simple mobile phone imay be able to do all this and more, depending on its built-in features and the available add-on software.

Cellphone manufacturers, carriers and independent application providers are now offering lots of programs and services that can be used on a wide number of phones. Not all services work on all phones. Some are carrier-specific, and some work only on certain phones.

Flurry, a free service that works with several carriers, is both an e-mail application and an R.S.S. (for Really Simple Syndication) news reader, which you can use to subscribe to frequently updated content. You start by visiting www.flurry.com from your PC and entering your cellphone number, carrier name, e-mail address and password, and any R.S.S. feeds you wish to subscribe to. The service then sends a text message to your phone with a link for
downloading the program.

Source: New York Times

The Real Dirt on Food, Unearthing the Controversies Behind the Food We Eat, an environmental conference on focusing on Food Sustainability, will have its website launch next week. The conference will take place on Saturday, March 17th, from 9AM to 5PM, at the University of Toronto’s Hart House. For more information, vist therealdirt.ca.

Netflix is introducing a service to deliver movies and television shows directly to users’ PCs, not as downloads but as streaming video, which is not retained in computer memory. The service, which is free to Netflix subscribers, is meant to give the company a toehold in the embryonic world of Internet movie distribution.

Netflix is entering a more crowded market that includes not only the likes of Apple and Amazon, but also MovieLink, CinemaNow and video-on-demand services offered by cable companies. And while Netflix’s DVD rental business has thrived in part because of the company’s superior logistics, that competitive edge will not mean much
in the world of digital distribution.

Like most other electronic distribution services, Netflix’s system will work initially only with a limited catalog — about 1,000 movies and television shows, only a tiny fraction of the more than 70,000 titles that Netflix offers for rent. It offers titles from NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers and others.

Source: New York Times

Nokia is launching a Developer Device Program to provide open source developers with Nokia N800 Internet Tablets at a discount. Maemo.org will be providing 500 devices at a price of 99 euros per device to selected open source developers. Eligible developers will be provided a discount code to be used at the Nokia N800 online shop.

Maemo is an open source development platform to create applications for Nokia Internet Tablet products like Nokia N800 and Nokia 770. The platform gives developers a powerful Linux based development environment and optimized end-user interface for handhelds.

Nokia officially launched the N800 internet tablet computer, which available from retailers and www.nokiausa.com for $400 USD, at the CES show in Las Vegas.

The N800 browse the internet via its built in Opera browser and access RSS feeds. , send and receive e-mail and instant messages, download audio and video and get RSS feeds. The N800 also has an integrated Web cam for videoconferencing and a microphone for Internet phone calls.

As a media player, the N800 handles MP3 and Windows Media files and other common audio and video formats, displaying images on a 4.1-inch color screen and playing audio through built-in stereo speakers or a headphone. Content can be loaded from SD or MMC memory cards, streamed from the Web or downloaded through a U.S.B. connection from another computer. The tablet uses Wi-Fi networking, but it can also connect to a compatible Nokia phone via Bluetooth and use it as a wireless modem.

The N800 has an on-screen keyboard, but can also recognize text written with a stylus. For a full list of features visit Nokia’s N800 page.

While Microsoft recently publicized the 100 millionth installation of Internet Explorer 7, Web measurement firm WebSideStory has indicated that IE7 is simply replacing oolder editions of IE. IE7 has not had an impact on Firefox’s ability to increase market share.

WebSideStory indicated that Microsoft’s quotation of its numbers was correct, but didn’t tell the whole story.
Geoff Johnston, an analyst with the Web metrics company, said that the growth of IE7 “… seems to be exclusively at the expense of IE 6,” says Johnston. “It’s not eating into the Firefox share at all.”

Johnston indicated that Firefox’s share of the U.S. browser market is at 14%, and has continued to grow each of the last three months. “I thought that IE 7 might flatten Firefox’s growth, but it’s not taken a hit from IE. All the movement there has been internal, from IE 6 users upgrading.”

Source: CRN

Tony Chor Group Program Manager reporteed that on January 8th, Microsoft had the 100 millionth IE7 installation. Chor stressed that even more important than installations is usage. According to WebSideStory as of this week, over 25% of all visitors to websites in the US were using IE7, making IE7 the second most used browser after IE6. Microsoft expects these numbers to continue to rise as it completes its final localized versions, scale up AU distribution, and with the consumer availability of Windows Vista on January 30, 2007.

Consumers who haven’t installed IE7 for Windows XP yet, can download it here. Windows Vista, which launches at the end of this month, has IE7 built in with all the same features as the XP version, plus Protected Mode.

Source: MSDN