Hackers Broke Into The Rolls-Royce Network

It has happened before, but this time, hackers bit the dust as they didn't manage to access valuable data stored on the computers. Rolls-Royce, a famous company
based on the production of luxury vehicles and airplane engines, was the victim of a Chinese hack attack targeting the private data stored on the firm's computers, "TerraNet" reported citing "The Times". According to the same website, some anonymous sources told the online publication that hackers attempted to break into the computers, but they didn't manage to reach the valuable information before being disconnected.

"The Chinese -- the People's Liberation Army -- have been up to it for a good while, but it has really come to the fore recently. They tried to get inside Rolls-Royce -- their IT systems. They did not get enough inside, but it was a sufficiently big attack to get very worried. They got to the so-called not very important information before being rooted out," the anonymous source told "The Times", according to "TerraNet".

It seems that the entire attack was based on a Trojan horse, installed into one of the computers, but nobody knows for sure how did it manage to reach the system. An interesting fact is that a Trojan horse is usually deployed by another malware/infection or directly by the user, after managing or downloading a malicious file. As we're talking about such a powerful company like Rolls-Royce, I really believe their computers were protected with some sort of antivirus, so we're now talking about the second option.

Sure, it's only pure speculation, but there have been lots of reports about companies that have been infected or attacked by hackers, after their employees visited dangerous malicious pages equipped with all sorts of infections. And even worse, some people took their workstations at home and lost all the information stored on the hard-drives, after connecting the computers to the Internet. Quite smart...

VAVE100, The Vista-Friendly Bluetooth Universal Remote Control

Since the number of devices that make up our home entertainment systems has seriously increased over the past few years, the same has happened with the demand for advanced universal remote controls, capable of controlling all the aforementioned electronics from a single terminal.
And one very good example of such a product is the VAVE100, the latest Bluetooth universal remote control presented by the people over at RicaVision that, besides its many other features, is designed to work with Window Vista's famous SideShow technology.

Thus, the VAVE100 allows users to control over 20 different entertainment devices from a distance of over 50 feet (15 meters) via IR. The device sports a built-in database of over 1500 worldwide brand names, so chances are that the codes for most of your home devices are already stored in the remote's memory. However, like all advanced universal remote controls, the VAVE100 also includes a learning function, while the user-definable macro functions allows the owner to to set-up one-button access for all the controlled equipment.

Furthermore, in addition to IR, the VAVE100 also includes a Bluetooth module (Class 1 SPP/A2DP), as well as the very important 2.4-inch QVGA color LCD display, which can be used either for viewing the various control options, or, more importantly, for the SideShow features.

As mentioned earlier, one of the remote control's main selling points is the compatibility with Windows Vista SideShow technology. This means that the VAVE100 is capable of connecting via Bluetooth (which supports a higher data rate than infrared) to a Windows Vista PC or Media Center and displaying such information as headline news, weather, e-mails, pictures, etc., which it receives from the gadgets running in Vista.

Unfortunately, the VAVE100 will arrive only in February 2008 (to late to be paired directly with the new "toys" one might get for Christmas this year) and will be priced at around 275 US dollars, which is a bit much, but not quite unfair, taking into consideration the features this thing has to offer.

YouTube Clones for All, Courtesy of Microsoft

YouTube clones for all, courtesy of Microsoft. This perspective, although it might seem somewhat far fetched, is actually close to taking contour. And the Redmond company, together with Vertigo Software, made one step closer to such scenarios, having updated Video.Show to Release Candidate 1.0 stage. Vertigo Software is the development company that has put together an "end-to-end reference-quality sample for user-generated video content" as a project commissioned by Microsoft and centered around the Silverlight technology.

Video.Show went live in mid November. The concept behind it is rather simple. Video.Show is
designed to do all the heavy lifting in building a video community website. Until now, in beta, Video.Show has evolved into the first Release Candidate stage bringing to the table a range of improvements.

"Role management, allowing for hosted installations in which new users do not have upload rights. Users now fall into one of three categories: untrusted users (not able to upload videos); trusted users (who also have the "upload user" right), and an administrator role. Basic debugging information is written to the database when video processing (encode, upload to Silverlight Streaming) fails. [And] general code cleanup, commenting, and bug fixes," revealed Tim Sneath, Microsoft group manager for client platforms.

With this update for Video.Show, Microsoft has also introduced support for the RTM version of Visual Studio 2008. The beta build of Video.Show was designed to integrate with Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. Sneath added that the final release of Video.Show is on the horizon.

"We're close to releasing this as a production-quality sample. We're currently doing a security audit on the code to make sure there aren't any nasty SQL injection-type issues. As mentioned above, we're also working on some documentation and other pieces; we're doing some componentization work to make it easier to swap various pieces out (e.g. to replace the Silverlight Streaming hosting with a local IIS / Windows Media Server-based hosting model)," Sneath added.

Windows Pirates Take Internet Explorer 7 to the Top of the World

Internet Explorer 7 is slowly crawling towards the top of the world wide web, and Windows pirates are its vessels. Microsoft's latest strategy with IE7 is to apply an "all is fair in browser war" tactics. And to get the upper hand in the browser measuring contest that puts IE7 and Firefox 2.0 in the same arena of public audience, back in early October, the Redmond company
has made available for download a fresh version of Internet Explorer 7, stripped of the Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy mechanism. And it seems that Microsoft's gambit with its anti-piracy mitigations is paying off. Internet Explorer 7 currently accounts for in excess of 300 million users worldwide.

"It’s been a little over a year since we released IE7 on Windows XP and for Windows Vista, so I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about where we are after the year. According to internal Microsoft research based on data from Visual Sciences Corporation, there are over 300 million users are experiencing the web with IE7. This makes IE7 the second most popular browser after IE6. IE7 is already #1 in the US and UK, and we expect IE7 to surpass IE6 worldwide shortly," revealed Tony Chor, IE Group Program Manager.

Yes, opening up Internet Explorer 7 to all Windows pirates, as Microsoft itself has put it, was a move that simply revitalized IE7, which by October this year was going fast nowhere. And the fact of the matter is that, although at this point in time Internet Explorer 6 is still the dominant presence on the worldwide browser market, its foundation is shaking. At the current rate of growth, IE7 will take the lead from IE6 by the end of 2007, but no later than the end of January 2008. According to statistics made available by Net Applications, at the end of November, IE6 had still accounted for some 40.24% (down from 43.44% in October) of the browser market while IE7 had grown to 36.84% (up from 34.60%).

AMD Accuses Intel of Monopoly Abuse

Although things have finally started to move for number two chip manufacturer, the situation is still far from what AMD would have wished. When the Arabian company Mubadala announced that they have purchased Advanced Micro Devices shares that were worth $622 million, things have started
falling apart on the stock market. The company's stock has dropped almost $2 a share, which would translate in 20 percent loss. Of course, this might not be the result of silicon technology mixed with oil extraction, but it casts AMD into a deeper state of coma, given the fact that they are facing a pretty huge minus of over $5 billion.

In a recent interview, AMD's Head and CEO, Hector Ruiz, affirmed that the current stock price in AMD's shares has dropped because of an "extremely pessimistic" state of the technology market, that is due to end in two quarters at most. "But I think things will have to settle down. That may take one or two quarters to occur," Ruiz added. AMD has suffered market recessions since January 2006 and, during that time, the company has lost about 75 per cent of their value, from $42 to $10 a share – the current price.

Stock analysts say that AMD's drop is caused by the ruthless competition with rival Intel, as well as the company's precarious state of finances that occurred immediately after the ATI acquisition. Ruiz considers that Abu Dhabi's investment comes at the right time and would help AMD continue funding the research and development operations, the strongest point of the chipmaker. "If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel," continues Hector Ruiz.

The series of problems AMD is facing is completed by Intel's attempt at squeezing the competition out of the market by using their market share and production capabilities. "Intel continues... to abuse their monopoly and that's why around the world governments and regulatory agencies continue to go after them," claims CEO Ruiz. AMD is not the only to complain that Intel adopts unfair measures, as Intel has been accused of anti-competitive practices by both the European Union and the South Korea, but US's Federal Trade Commission said that they would stay away and wouldn't charge Intel with anti-competitive practices.

What’s New in Microsoft Land: 26th – 30th November 2007

Monday was a gush of fresh air for the 2.2 million members community of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) that were announced that as of that day they will be receiving new benefits that will help them successfully deploy and support new technologies by increasing the access to Microsoft’s internal resources and networking with their peers.

As Microsoft is preparing for the "Windows Server 2008" launch, the new benefits are being introduced and customers have already started taking advantage of the resources available. "As new technology is released, Microsoft is investing in unique benefits for MCPs that provide ongoing value that will help them improve their performance on the job while distinguishing themselves from their peers," says Lutz Ziob, general manager of Microsoft Learning.

The new MCP program features include:

Knowledge Base Access – that’s basically access to the extensive partner-level Microsoft Product Support knowledge Base that wasn’t available before to all, just to the Most Valuable Professionals and Microsoft partners. The whole point of it is to give the MCPs the chance to become more valuable to their peers and employers because of the inside track of important technical issues provided.
MCP Community Profiles – any MCP will be able to build and maintain his own landing page on Microsoft.com web site in order to ease the interaction inside the community and increase their visibility. Security levels include visualizing the personal profile by the worldwide public, MCP peers or just by Microsoft.
MCP Member Directory Search – it’s an option to plane locate other MCPs whereabouts for professional networking, mentoring and community involvement.
Transcript Manager – all credentials earned by MCPs are now combined into one single transcripts, available for download in both PD and XPS formats. The transcripts can easily be forwarded by MCPs to their respective managers because of the new option.
Certificate Manager – it really shortens the period within which new credentials can be downloaded as high-resolution Microsoft certifications.
Logo Manager – the option to download logos from the Library of Microsoft certification in order to be used for the MCPs resumes, web sites and business communications has been prolonged. "Microsoft certification gives you a way to connect with Microsoft because of the MCP program," says James Kovacs, a Microsoft MVP – Visual Developer, Solutions Architect. "You start getting the newsletter and seeing what other people are doing with certifications and what other training opportunities are out there. It’s a career builder."


After spending five years focusing on building software and services for mobile phones, Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it will be supporting the Verizon Wireless Open Development Initiative and Any Apps, Any Device option offered by Verizon Wireless.

It was Microsoft Corp’s Senior Vice President of the Mobile Communications Business Pieter Nook that announced the big step forward and he was reported as saying that "Microsoft is very excited to see Verizon Wireless make such a bold move to satisfy the demands of wireless consumers. As people’s mobile needs become more sophisticated and varied, they will require smarter and more adaptable mobile devices. We are proud to support any open access that puts more power in people’s hands to connect them to the information they want when and where they want it."

Microsoft’s rich experience with the mobile phones technology includes more than 140 phone designs created by more than 48 device manufacturers worldwide, more than 18 thousand applications are supported by Microsoft Mobile (MM) while just last year more than 11 million MM licenses were issued.


Wednesday brought in good news for the Redmond based giant, proving that despite not acquiring YouTube is still one of the worst managerial decisions made, steps have been taken to level the playing field with the now Google-owned video sharing service.



Numbers in from Compete showed that by taking Soapbox under the MSN Video umbrella, the visitors flocked towards it and thus created a so-far worthy YouTube competitor. "Extraordinary gains were realized by the Microsoft family of video sites, which includes MSN Video and Live Search Video, catapulting the Redmond rival into 2nd place, three spots ahead of its rank in September. MSN/Live Video grew 25.3% to 35M visits on the strength of 21M visitors.

Meanwhile, major losses struck Yahoo! Video, MySpaceTV and Heavy.com. MySpace’s decline is particularly troublesome given that it’s the 3rd straight month of double-digit losses for the social networking giant. Since July 2007, MySpace has seen its online video market share halved to 7.6%," revealed Compete's Alex Patriquin.


Thursday happily rolled around with the announcing of several strategic efforts to be made by Infosys Technologies Ltd. in order to deepen the services it already provides Microsoft Corp. with, among which a new dedicated vendor offshore facility (VOF) and a Microsoft Dynamics Concept Center.

The partnership between the two companies goes as back as 1998, the year when Infosys, a world leader in consulting and information technology, brought in to the table measurable enhancements to productivity, customer and partner experience and by that helping Microsoft be the giant it is today.

Moorthy Uppaluri, CEO of Microsoft IT-Global, stated, "Together with Infosys we are creating technology solutions that enable the businesses of our customers and stakeholders to be People Ready. At Microsoft, we firmly believe that the talented people we engage with are our fundamental and most important asset, helping us accelerate the transformation and growth of our business. I expect this relationship to grow deeper and broader with time. The infrastructure and support that Infosys has dedicated to Microsoft represents its commitment to our continued success."

Some examples of joint projects are the architecting and deploying a business intelligence platform built on Microsoft’s next gen BI technologies, architecting and deploying a download site to help with Microsoft’s improving their customer experience level, the establishing of a Test Center of Excellence focused exclusively on quality assurance of IT solutions for the Redmond giant and so on.


And in case you were wondering what’s with the subtitle, Microsoft had a party to close down the week and it had two reasons: one is that Windows Vista turned one year on Friday or more exactly the business SKU of it. The other is that Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2 was granted an upgrade, available for download.



While not doing much more than its not-upgraded predecessor, the IE7 version completely turns its face from the Vista users and delivers them nothing at all despite the fact that they are taking that version of the browser by default.

"Internet Explorer 7 has been designed to make everyday tasks easier, provide dynamic security protection and improve the development platform and manageability. End user improvements include a streamlined interface, tabbed browsing, printing advances, improved search functionality, instant feeds (RSS), dynamic security protection and more.

This download is for Microsoft XP Service Pack 2 in English only. This custom IE7 download will be available during November 2007 - January 31, 2008," Microsoft announced on the download page.

I know it sounds far-fetched but it looks like the engineers over at the Redmond headquarters seem to be turning into party-animals that are going at it week after week… No, it really is far-fetched, erase that last remark.