tech-news

Asia To Get 1 Billion Mobile Users By Year End

The number of mobile phone users throughout Asia is expected to grow by 22% in 2006 to almost one billion subscribers by the end of the year.
That includes 100 million Japanese users, but much of the growth is expected to come from India and Indonesia and to be prepaid users, who are less likely to use expensive mobile content services. Still, with that number, you only need a small percentage to buy to get a good market going…

Apple has announced that it is launching video games for its popular iPod portable music and video player, downloadable directly from the iTunes Store, and including titles such as Tetris and Bejeweled.

According to the company, the iTunes Store now also offers $4.99 downloads of popular video games for fifth generation iPods, including Tetris, Mahjong and Mini Golf from Electronic Arts, Pac-Man from Namco Networks, Cubis 2 from FreshGames, Bejeweled and Zuma from PopCap, and Texas Hold'em and Vortex from Apple itself.

Symantec has fixed the much talked about critical flaw in its anti-virus software suit within two days of its discovery.

The highly critical vulnerability first discovered by eEye Digital Security endangered millions of machines using the software. It enabled remote hackers to take complete control of the target machine without any end user interaction.

In an advisory posted on its website, the security vendor stated that its security response team has made the patches for the 'high-risk" worm hole reported by eEye a couple of days ago.

Samsung Electronics said Tuesday that it will launch two mobile computers in early June that will do away with hard drives altogether, replacing them with 32 gigabytes of NAND flash memory. The notebooks will be the first to use flash memory as the main storage device.

The Samsung Q1, described as an "ultra-computing device," will be complemented by the Q30, a 12.1-inch notebook PC. The retail price for the Q1-SSD will be 2.3 million Korean won, (about $2,430), while the Q30-SSD will sell for 3.5 million won (about $3,700). Unfortunately for U.S. consumers, both will be sold in Korea only.

A flaw has been detected in Symantec's leading anti-virus software, by researchers from eEye Digital Security.

The anti-virus software, Symantec 10.x, which protects some of the world's largest corporations and US government agencies, suffers from a flaw that lets hackers seize control of computers to steal sensitive data, delete files, or implant malicious programs.

Symantec is investigating the issue, but could not immediately confirm the vulnerability. However, if confirmed, the threat to computer users would be severe because the security software is widely used, and because no action is required on the part of victims to bring on the attack.

Symantec says it has these anti-virus products installed on more than 200 million computers. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the company said that it is examining the reported flaw, but described the flaw as so new that the company does not have any details on the same.

icrosoft has released a public beta of Office 2007, making the forthcoming productivity suite available to a broader group of testers.

The first release was limited to a group of about 10,000 customers and partners, and the final product is slated for release in early 2007.

The beta is available as a download to the general public, but will expire on 31 January 2007.

Office 2007's most visible new feature is a user interface that will change according to the task that a user is performing.

The interface replaces current menus and toolbars with a 'ribbon' that will change according to the task. It aims to better advertise features that are available as part of the products.

Visually impaired herself, Elizabeth Goldring, a senior fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies has developed a desktop machine that is designed to help the blind access the Internet and view images. Goldring has spent 10 years and called on the help of 30 fellow students and researchers to develop the $4,000 system.
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Teheran - An Iranian organization affiliated to the Islamic High School Society has created a computer game about catching nuclear spies and saving the country, the news agency Fars reported Sunday. Read more

Microsoft Corp. is pushing a host of additional products along with the next version of its business software suite, dubbed Office 2007, including specialized tools to help employees work together even if they are thousands of miles apart.
The various versions of the Office 2007 suite, due out in late 2006, will cost about the same as the previous edition, Office 2003, which retails for $149 to $499. Microsoft does not release prices for versions it sells directly to businesses through licensing agreements, or through computer makers.