Kidz Rage !

Check the new browser which Google has in Beta phase now:

Google is launching a new web browser today that will challenge Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The software, called Google Chrome, is designed to handle video-rich or other complex web programs more quickly than traditional browsers, which were first designed to handle text and graphics.

A beta version will be available to Windows users in 100 countries from today and the internet search leader said it was working on versions for Apple and Linux users.

The launch of Chrome coincides with the recent introduction by arch-rival Microsoft of its Internet Explorer 8 last month.

Internet Explorer holds roughly three-quarters of the browser market, followed by Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers.

Google said its engineers have borrowed from a variety of other open-source projects, including Apple’s WebKit and the Mozilla Firefox open-source browser.

They plan to make all of Chrome software code open to other developers to enhance and expand.

‘We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser,’ said Google’s Product Manager Sindar Pichai and Engineering Director Linus Upson on a blog post.

They said Google Chrome promises to load pages faster and more securely, but also includes a new engine for loading interactive JavaScript code, dubbed V8, that is designed to run the next generation of not-yet-invented applications.

Chrome organizes information into tabbed pages. Web programs can be launched in their own dedicated windows.

It also offers a variety of features to make the browser more stable and secure, according to a comic book guide that was released by accident to a blogger.

Among Chrome’s features is a special privacy mode that lets users create an ‘incognito’ window where ‘nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer.’

Mozilla recently introduced its own upgraded browser, Firefox 3, and has collaborated with Google on a variety of technical issues, including a system for reporting software crashes and to make software browsers more secure.

John Lilly, Chief Executive of Mozilla said in a blog post that they would continue to collaborate with Google where it made sense for both organizations, but would also focus on keeping the web open by fostering its own community-developed browser.

via Daily Mail

My friend Dave did this latest piece for Wired.com…which i find quite interesting!

MENLO PARK, California — Wired.com recently toured the longest linear accelerator in the world, which resides beneath nondescript gray buildings here at Stanford University.

Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, or SLAC, labs have won three Nobel prizes and are currently amassing the first scientific evidence that there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, by smashing positrons and electrons together.

The lab’s next big project, the Linac Coherent Light Source, will go online next year. Its X-ray free electron laser will be roughly 10 billion times more powerful than existing X-ray sources and let researchers capture movies of atoms and molecules during chemical reactions.

Left (below): This 4,000-ton monster of an instrument sits at the intersection of two curved magnetic-beam paths, where it detects and measures elementary particles that are released when positrons slam in to electrons.

The Large Detector can measure every particle produced by this collision — except neutrinos, which can only be detected when they remove enough energy from the reaction that the scientists know something is missing.

Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

To view the full slideshow click here.

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via Wired

Streamizm is dedicated to dubstep music from around the world and to dj’s and producers without an outlet to perform their music - if you would like your tunes played on the weekly show, or would like to perform your own live event, get in touch!

http://www.streamizm.com

Streamizm Sessions
- feat guest DJ’s/producers from the dubstepforum
- live audio/video stream & live chat
- listen again stream & mp4 video/mp3 downloads
- podcast subscription feed
- outdoor live events - lock in at www.streamizm.com

Schedule
New Show! Every Monday 8pm GMT - Azlan Sound in Session, UK
New Show! Every Monday 6pm EST - DZ & Bowzer, Ottawa CA
Every Tuesday 8pm GMT / 4pm EST - Streamizm Sessions, Brighton UK
Every Tuesday 8pm EST - Loetech, Toronto CA

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http://www.streamizm.com

http://www.myspace.com/streamizm

TheEee PC from ASUS, just announced in four ultra-portable flavors. Models offer between 8GB and 2GB of solid state disk capacity, 1GB to 256MB of DDR2 memory, and 3.5-hour or 2.8-hour batteries. Each sports an Intel CPU and chipset supporting Linux or XP, a 7-inch display, and Ethernet and WiFi. A video camera is only available in the 8GB and 4GB models. Amazingly all for $199.99 usd, from Asus!

Trend Micro announces SecureCloud

Expanding on its consumer-software-as-a-service efforts, Trend Micro announced on Sunday SecureCloud for small and midsize businesses and the enterprise market. The idea is to provide clients with a range of services without requiring them to install software.

Services available include e-mail reputation, e-mail hosting, and botnet ID service. The latter will allow ISPs to filter command and control messages sent by customer’s compromised machines. One feature on the site is an IP reputation search; type in an IP address and Trend Micro will tell you whether the address can be trusted.

At present only two servers in the U.S.–east and west–are up and running. Plans include additional servers in Europe/Middle East/Africa region in the third quarter, Taiwan in the fourth quarter, and Japan in first quarter of 2008.

via News.com

Check out this GREAT German / English Dictionary! I use it regularly at work, and it is very useful.

It is very simple to use and has over 280,000 words and idioms in each language!

http://www.quickdic.org/

A pretty amazing acheivement i must say! Check out this article i found on News.com

Absolutely amazing!!

The petaflop era has begun.

IBM has devised a new Blue Gene supercomputer–the Blue Gene/P–that will be capable of processing more than 3 quadrillion operations a second, or 3 petaflops, a possible record. Blue Gene/P is designed to continuously operate at more than 1 petaflop in real-world situations.

Blue Gene/P marks a significant milestone in computing. Last November, the Blue Gene/L was ranked as the most powerful computer on the planet: it topped out at 280 teraflops, or 280 trillion operations a second during continuous operation.

Put another way, a Blue Gene/P operating at a petaflop is performing more operations than a 1.5-mile-high stack of laptops.

The development of Blue Gene/P seems certain to extend IBM’s position atop the Top 500 Supercomputer list, which comes out this week at the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany. IBM had 93 computers on the list when the rankings last came out in November; four were in the top 10.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory will deploy the first Blue Gene/P in the U.S. later this year. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Max Planck Society and the Forschungszentrum Julich research center will start to install a Blue Gene/P in late 2007. Others will be installed at Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Labs (New York facilities that have collaborated with IBM on other projects) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council in Cheshire, England.

Like the vast majority of other modern supercomputers, Blue Gene/P is composed of several racks of servers lashed together in clusters for large computing tasks, such as running programs that can graphically simulate worldwide weather patterns.

Technologies designed for these computers trickle down into the mainstream while conventional technologies and components are used to cut the costs of building these systems.

The chip inside Blue Gene/P consists of four PowerPC 450 cores running at 850MHz each. A 2×2 foot circuit board containing 32 of the Blue Gene/P chips can churn out 435 billion operations a second. Thirty two of these boards can be stuffed into a 6-foot-high rack.

The chip inside the Blue Gene/L contained two PowerPC cores running at 700MHz.

The 1-petaflop Blue Gene/P comes with 294,912 processors and takes up 72 racks in all. Hitting 3 petaflops takes an 884,736-processor, 216-rack cluster, according to IBM. The chips and other components are linked together in a high-speed optical network.

Several companies will be in the German city this week to tout supercomputer accomplishments. Sun Microsystems will use the show to show off its Constellation System, which features a switching architecture that Sun says will greatly enhance performance. The first Constellation System, which Sun hopes will be ready by October and is building in Texas, will provide 500 teraflops of performance at its peak. Constellation is capable of 1.7 petaflops.

via News.com

Running WOS (Webserver On Stick) Portable on my thumbdrive is so cool!! Why didn’t I discover it earlier?! It would have saved me lots of headache synchronizing my files between office and home. Sometimes I forget to copy some files from office and can’t get anything done at home. Now I can store all my applications and run them any and everywhere. No more excuses reasons for missing the deadline. Wait boss.. what if I forget my thumbdrive

Apache/MYSQL/PHP are nicely configured and integrated. No more editing configuration files to make them work together. There’s also PHPMyAdmin, ImageMagick, Drupal, Joomla and of course Wordpress (v2.1.2 though). Even permalink works. Gotta love it!!

The only downside is my home PC is still on dinosaur USB1.1 standard. While it’s not exactly crawling, there’s still a noticeable lag. I need a new PC!!

[Found via Ericulous]

A look at new web threats & their landscape for the future…

Recently i attended a very interesting seminar hosted by Trend Micro, in London. The “Solutions Academy” was very helpful and the instructor (a British guy) was one of the best presenters and hosts i have had the pleasure to meet.

During the seminar various Trenders did short presentations of their respective sectors, which were a total help in all!

Laurent G (Director of Business EMEA) - Mobile Security & how web threats may affect companies and business owners.

Christophe M (Technical Support Manager EMEA) - Examples of how web threats may affect us in the office & help center.

David S (Antivirus Engineer EMEA) - Technical & specific explanations and examples of the new web threats we may face aswell as the changing landscape.

Thanks again and maybe one day these seminars will be broadcasted for more public consumption, as it is great information.

Ok lets move onto our topic of WEB THREATS…

Web threats are more pervasive today and the fastest growing threat vector. They are technologically sophisticated, comprised of multiple components, and spawn numerous variants.

Web threats are any threat that uses the Internet to perform malicious activities. They arrive, spread, deliver additional exploits and entrench themselves via the Internet and may include trojan horse programs, spyware, adware, pharming and other malware. They also may be triggered by a hyperlink or an executable file attachment in a spam email.

some factors that are making this more and more of a problem:

* More and more people go online worldwide every day.
* The Web is becoming an intrinsic part of their lives replacing many activities that used to be accomplished offline, like banking, shopping and research.
* Web 2.0 and its associated technologies, sites, and services that emphasize online collaboration, sharing and user-generated content are more popular than ever.
* Hackers and cybercriminals are motivated by money.

New Threat Protection Strategies Needed:

In my opinion Trend Micro’s total Web threat protection strategy is the best. It is a multi-layered, multi-pronged approach that includes innovative technologies deployed at the gateway, in the network, and on the client that work seamlessly together to proactively respond to new and emerging Web threats. By adding Web reputation technology to this equation, Trend Micro provides a unique means for users to avoid fraudulent web sites where these threats first emerge.

Today’s URL filtering and content inspection solutions are reactive, protect against known threats, and require static updates. The threat landscape, on the other hand, is characterized by threats that constantly change and spawn new variants. A new solution—one that is dynamic, provides continuous updates and is able to work in combination with URL filtering—is needed to combat today’s threats.

Trend Micro’s new Web reputation technology protects against a variety of Web-based threats, including zero-day attacks, before they even enter the network. It assesses the trustworthiness of an URL based on an analysis of the domain.

* Comprehensive. Tracks lifecycle for hundreds of millions of Web domains.
* Real time. Provides continuous updates and live reputation feeds.
* Proven. Extends Network Reputation Service anti-spam protection to the Web.

The Benefits:

* Helps to combat phishing and URL usurpation
* Guards against spyware attempts to send stolen information to hackers and cybercriminals
* Complements traditional content inspection for optimum threat protection
* Does not impact PC performance or alter Web surfing experience

Here are some helpful links and tools i found on their US site:

Trend Micro Web Threat Whitepaper

Trend Micro Housecall

Trend Micro Web Threat Podcast

Trend Micro Web Threat Brochure

Info also via here

I found this interesting article on the BBC site & thought it was noteworthy and very good to know:

One in 10 web pages scrutinized by search giant Google contained malicious code that could infect a user’s PC.

Researchers from the firm surveyed billions of sites, subjecting 4.5 million pages to “in-depth analysis”.

About 450,000 were capable of launching so-called “drive-by downloads”, sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user’s knowledge.

A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user’s computer, the team report.

To address the problem, the researchers say the company has “started an effort to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious”.

Phantom sites

Drive-by downloads are an increasingly common way to infect a computer or steal sensitive information.

They usually consist of malicious programs that automatically install when a potential victim visits a booby-trapped website.

“To entice users to install malware, adversaries employ social engineering,” wrote Google researcher Niels Provos and his colleagues in a paper titled The Ghost In The Browser.

Finding all the web-based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web
Google researchers
Hi-tech crime

Avoiding attacks

“The user is presented with links that promise access to ‘interesting’ pages with explicit pornographic content, copyrighted software or media. A common example are sites that display thumbnails to adult videos.”

The vast majority exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser to install themselves.

Some downloads, such as those that alter bookmarks, install unwanted toolbars or change the start page of a browser, are an annoyance. But increasingly, criminals are using drive-bys to install keyloggers that steal login and password information.

Other pieces of malicious code hijack a computer turning it into a “bot”, a remotely controlled PC.

Drive-by downloads represent a shift away from traditional methods of infecting a computer, such as spam and email attachments.

Attack plan

As well as characterizing the scale of the problem on the net, the Google study analyzed the main methods by which criminals inject malicious code on to innocent web pages.

Spam email
Spam e-mails are a common way to infect a computer

It found that the code was often contained in those parts of the website not designed or controlled by the website owner, such as banner adverts and widgets.

Widgets are small programs that may, for example, display a calendar on a web page or a web traffic counter. These are often downloaded from third-party sites.

The rise of web 2.0 and user-generated content gave criminals other channels, or vectors, of attack, it found.

For example, postings in blogs and forums that contain links to images or other content could unwittingly infect a user.

The study also found that gangs were able to hijack web servers, effectively taking over and infecting all of the web pages hosted on the computer.

In a test, the researchers’ computer was infected with 50 different pieces of malware by visiting a web page hosted on a hijacked server.

The firm is now in the process of mapping the malware threat.

Google, part of the StopBadware coalition, already warns users if they are about to visit a potentially harmful website, displaying a message that reads “this site may harm your computer” next to the search results.

“Marking pages with a label allows users to avoid exposure to such sites and results in fewer users being infected,” the researchers wrote.

However, the task will not be easy, they say.

“Finding all the web-based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web as a whole,” they wrote.

via BBC News