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Showing posts from November, 2005

Security Fix for Gmail

Google Inc. has quietly patched a security bug in its Gmail service, but the company is downplaying the severity of the risk to its users. Google confirmed that it made "modifications" to Gmail to cover an attack vector that allowed malicious hackers to take complete control of a victim's Gmail account. The elhacker.net advisory described how a Gmail user token could be used in conjunction with other hacking tricks to take control of the victim account. However, Google spokesperson Sonya Boralv told Ziff Davis Internet News that a successful attack would require the victim to open up an authenticated token and willingly give it to the attacker. The risk of an actual attack is so slim, she said the company did not consider it a security vulnerability. Boralv said the authentication token is totally encrypted and cannot be sniffed by an attacker. "Nevertheless, we have made some modifications to Gmail to mitigate these kinds of issues in the future," Boralv added....

Google - Web Traffic Analysis

Google has officially launched Analytics , a robust new web analysis system that provides site owners with traffic metrics and massive amounts of useful marketing data. Based on technology originally developed by a Californian company called Urchin that Google acquired in March, Analytics integrates with Google's popular AdWords system, and will vastly improve the quality and quantity of data provided to existing AdWords users. Those of you that don't use AdWords can still use Analytics by adding a simple javascript snippet to your web site. Analytics features an elegant user interface that leverages modern web technologies like Flash and DHTML. Although it seems a little rough around the edges (the Flash components don't display correctly in Firefox on my Linux system) the service is moderately impressive. It can export data in several formats, including XML and CSV. With Analytics, you can determine where your visitors are coming from, which links on your site are getti...

Google Offers Free Wi-Fi Internet Service in Silicon Valley

Search Engine giant Google, is offering free wi-fi Internet service called Google WiFi in a limited way to two public sites near the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters -- a pizza parlor and a gym -- located in the heart of Silicon Valley. The company has already launched a sponsored Wi-Fi "hotspot" in San Francisco’s Union Square shopping district in April with a start-up called Feeva. "Google WiFi is a community outreach program to offer free wireless access in areas near our headquarters," the Google Spokesman described. The service is still in development stage and the company is collecting the feedback from the users. With the offering of WiFi service, Google expands to another competitive market of Internet Service Providers and telecommunication companies all the more since it introduced an instant messaging and Web telephone calling service called Google Talk in August. Google has submitted a bid to offer a free WiFi Internet Services across th...

Suse Linux Founder Exits Novell

Suse Linux founder Hubert Mantel announced his resignation from Novell Tuesday in a mass e-mailing. Mantel said in a brief letter, sent to recipients in a Suse mailing list, that he could no longer work for the company, which acquired Suse in January 2004. "Too late for me. I just decided to leave Suse/Novell," Mantel wrote. "This is no longer the company I founded 13 years ago." Mantel's exit is the latest executive departure from Novell’s Nuremberg, Germany-based Suse unit. In October, former Novell EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) and Suse channel chief Petra Heinrich announced her exit and took a new position at Open-Xchange, an open-source e-mail company based in Germany. And in May, former Novell EMEA president and onetime Suse president Richard Seibt left Novell. Mantel said Novell likely will fill his role at Suse, which was similar to those of Linus Torvalds and Andrew Morton in the development of the Linux kernel. Mantel also indicated that he sent ...

Microsoft sees up to 3 mln early Xbox 360 sales

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday said it expects to sell as many as 3 million Xbox 360s in the first three months after its launch -- a strong start in its battle to dominate the market for next-generation gaming consoles. Some big retailers in the United States have stopped accepting early orders for Xbox 360. The company set that target nearly two weeks after trying to play down industry expectations. At its latest earnings announcement, it warned that initial Xbox sales might not be as high as some in the gaming industry have expected. "In GameStop stores, the reservation process is closed," said Chris Olivera, a spokesman for GameStop Corp., the biggest U.S. video game retailer, adding that advance orders at GameStop's recently acquired Electronics Boutique stores were due to close "relatively soon." Best Buy Co. Inc., the No. 1 U.S. electronics chain, said on its Web site that it had stopped taking orders for the Xbox 360. Lee, the CFO of Microsoft's home ...

IBM releases software to promote Cell

IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) on Tuesday launched a set of software tools it hopes will spur wider interest in its upcoming Cell microprocessor that is key to the computing giant's return to profitable chipmaking. International Business Machines Corp. has developed Cell jointly with Sony Corp. (6758.T) and Toshiba Corp. (6502.T), for use in Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console due out next year. "We view this as the jumping-off point where communities of interest can get started surrounding Cell and people can explore the full power of the architecture," said Ted Maeurer, head of the Sony Toshiba IBM Design Center in Austin, Texas. IBM is banking on the chip to help revive its flagging microchip division, which has lost more than $1 billion since 2002.