Adobe’s published a security bulletin for users of its Flash Player on “all platforms” warning them that a new critical vulnerability has been discovered that may cause crashes and potentially permit the hijacking of systems.
This also does affect Adobe Acrobat and reader softwares. Adobe says a fix is in the works and will be available early next week.
[Adobe]
The latest version of the Internet Explorer is now available for download. It adds a lot of tweaks and fixes over the previous version.
It also adds some interesting new features including :
The other thing that we personally noticed : This thing is blazing fast!
A quick look at benchmark results below shows the performance capabilities of the new browser
| Acid | SunSpider |
Peacekeeper | |
| Internet Explorer 9 | 95 | 175.4 | 6824 |
| Firefox 3.6.15 | 94 | 632.3 | 3526 |
| Chrome 10.0.648 | 100 | 234.9 | 11065 |
| Notes: the higher the score the better, except for SunSpider. | |||
Check ous Microsoft – LONG Press Release below
Microsoft Announces Global Availability of Internet Explorer 9
More than 250 top sites from around the globe join the launch of Internet Explorer 9 to celebrate a more beautiful, immersive Web.AUSTIN, Tex. ? March 14, 2011 ? Microsoft Corp. today announced the launch of the latest version of the world’s most-used browser with the release of Windows Internet Explorer 9 in 39 languages at an event at the SXSW Interactive conference. Internet Explorer 9 is Microsoft’s most-downloaded browser beta of all time, with more than 40 million downloads, and it has already has gained more than 2 percent usage on Windows 7. Already more than 250 top sites from around the globe are taking advantage of the capabilities in Internet Explorer 9 to deliver differentiated experiences to their customers, with many featured on http://www.BeautyoftheWeb.com. Together, these partners reach more than 1 billion active Internet users on the Web.
“The best experience of the Web is on Windows with Internet Explorer 9,” said Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president, Windows Internet Explorer, at Microsoft. “Today, the Web can unlock the power and performance of the best PC hardware through Windows and Internet Explorer 9. Websites also can act more like applications within Windows 7, with features such as Pinned Sites. In less than a year, Internet Explorer 9 went from early preview to final release with the help of hardware partners and the Web community.”
Top Sites and Designers Take Advantage of Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer 9 is designed to bring sites front and center through Windows 7, enabling a more immersive, more beautiful Web experience. Features such as Pinned Sites and Jump List enable people to put their websites directly on the Windows 7 Taskbar, as though they were native applications, and then to quickly and easily perform tasks related to those websites, such as check their inboxes, change the music station, accept friend invitations or see breaking news.In addition to 250 top sites, more than 1,000 other sites and designers are taking advantage of these new features with Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7. These sites include not only the largest sites on the Web, such as Facebook and Amazon, but also leading experiences from across the Web and the world.
– In social and information networking, Internet Explorer 9 partners include category leaders such as Facebook, Twitterand WordPress? the No. 1 global blogging platform ? in addition to leading professional networks in the U.S., Europe, Russia, Korea and Latin America.
– In e-commerce, partners include not only the leading worldwide shopping site, Amazon, and the No. 1 worldwide auction site, eBay, but also the leading site in the emergent “daily deals” space, Groupon.– Video and streaming partners include three of the top five video-on-demand sites in the U.S. ? Hulu, Break.com and Dailymotion ? and leading Internet radio sites Slacker, Pandora internet radio and Jango. In addition, partners include top global broadcasters CBC and CTV in Canada, Wat.tv in France, and CNN in the U.S.
– News website partners in the U.S. include the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Huffington Post, as well as dozens of leading news sites globally across all major geographies.
“What people care about on the Web is their sites, not their browser. That’s why Internet Explorer 9 is about making those sites shine. The browser is the theater, and the sites people visit are the play, and that is what Internet Explorer 9 makes better ? your favorite sites,” said Ryan Gavin, senior director, Windows Internet Explorer, at Microsoft.
eBay is the world’s largest online marketplace and a leader in mobile commerce. With pinning and Jump List features in Internet Explorer 9, everyone’s favorite eBay experiences are just a click away. “eBay’s integration with Internet Explorer 9 is like having a storefront on your desktop,” said Robert Chatwani, senior director, eBay Internet marketing. “We’re pleased that new functionality within Internet Explorer 9 allows us to innovate and bring new experiences to our customers, making shopping and selling on eBay more engaging than ever.”
Pandora Internet radio is announcing a new dynamic Jump List for Internet Explorer 9. Tom Conrad, chief technical officer and executive vice president of product for Pandora, said, “This new feature allows our listeners to have immediate access to their personalized Pandora stations right from the taskbar with Internet Explorer 9, which will make for an easy-access listener experience.”
Partners such as Gilt Groupe are already seeing early results indicating that Internet Explorer 9 customers who pin the Gilt homepage to their taskbar show a higher purchase rate than those on other browsers. “While results are early, customers using Internet Explorer 9 appear to purchase more per order when compared to earlier versions of Internet Explorer and other browsers. Given that our business model is providing dynamic new shopping experiences online every day, the value of Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7 is potentially very exciting to us and our customers,” said Chris Maliwat, vice president of product management, Gilt Groupe.
Many partners are announcing special offers for Internet Explorer 9 customers that will be available in the coming weeks, including the following:
– Slacker. A free monthlong subscription for customers who pin the Slacker site to their taskbars
– Groupon. $5 in Groupon Bucks when making a first purchase from the Internet Explorer 9 Jump List
– Hulu. A free month of the Hulu Plus subscription for users who pin Hulu
– eBay. Offering coupons or eBay Bucks for bids or purchases made using the Internet Explorer 9 pinning and Jump List features
– Gilt. A series of product bundles for customers who make purchases of specified amounts via the Jump ListFast Is Now Beautiful: Internet Explorer 9 With Hardware Acceleration
The new version of Internet Explorer takes advantage of the power of modern Windows PC hardware to improve all-around Web browsing performance. It is the only browser with hardware-accelerated HTML5 spanning all graphics, text, audio and video. Internet Explorer 9 harnesses the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), unlocking 90 percent of the PC’s power that went previously untapped by Web browsers.Developers can now build faster, more immersive websites that feel like native applications using HTML5, as well as runtimes such as Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, both of which will take advantage of the hardware acceleration in Internet Explorer 9 in their next versions.
“Internet Explorer 9 has moved the bar in hardware acceleration, enabling Flash Player to tap into the GPU and creating a win-win situation for our mutual customers who want fast, rich content experiences,” said Paul Betlem, senior director, Flash Player Engineering at Adobe.
“With Internet Explorer 9 and Flash Player taking advantage of the GPU, we continue the collaboration with Microsoft to further optimize performance. Both companies are also working closely to advance and streamline controls for managing Flash Player privacy and security settings in Internet Explorer 9.”
“The next-generation Web is here today with Internet Explorer 9, accelerated by AMD’s incredible computing platforms ? our award-winning AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units with DirectX11-capable graphics and AMD Radeon graphics cards,” said John Taylor, director of Client Product and Software Marketing, AMD. “The next generation is defined by immersive gaming, rich video and fast, compelling, application-like experiences, validating the fact that GPU compute power and the ability to remove barriers between the CPU and GPU are highly relevant to the day-to-day computing performance that consumers expect and demand.”
“Thanks to how Internet Explorer 9 taps into the power of the GPU, the Web is now more visual, more immersive and more powerful with NVIDIA GeForce. We are incredibly excited that consumers can now experience their favorite sites re-imagined and accelerated. It’s a whole new Web,” said Drew Henry, general manager, GeForce Business Unit, NVIDIA.
Improving Privacy and Security Online
Because the Web is increasingly less secure and private, Internet Explorer 9 is designed to be a trusted browser because it contains a robust set of built-in security, privacy and reliability technologies that keep customers safer online.In December, Microsoft introduced Tracking Protection in Internet Explorer 9, which puts people in control of what data they are sharing as they move around the Web, by enabling consumers to indicate what websites they’d prefer not to exchange information with. Consumers do this by adding Tracking Protection Lists to Internet Explorer 9, and partners such as PrivacyChoice, TRUSTe, Abine and Adblock Plus have already published these lists.
Malware is now the No. 1 risk to people’s security online, and Internet Explorer 9 provides the first Download Manager with integrated SmartScreen malware protection. The browser also introduces SmartScreen download reputation, a groundbreaking browser feature that uses reputation data to remove unnecessary warnings for well-known files and show more severe warnings when the download has a higher risk of being malicious. Studies show that Internet Explorer 9 blocks 99 percent of socially engineered malware attacks, five times more than Firefox and 33 times more than Google Chrome.
Raise Expectations for a Better Web
Partners from around the world are re-imagining their websites using the capabilities of Windows and Internet Explorer 9, creating new experiences that make the Web feel as native as PC applications. The result is a more beautiful Web experience.
“I love the Web for the kinds of joyous experiences it can create!” said Ze Frank, who is launching new features within the social gaming site, Star.Me, in coordination with the Austin event. “HTML5 is a huge step forward for the browser because it brings the Web back to a unified platform for creation. By integrating HTML5 into Internet Explorer 9 and hardware accelerating the browser, Microsoft has signaled its commitment to pushing the Web forward, and that is certainly worth celebrating.”“HP and Microsoft have a long history of bringing meaningful innovations to our customers. Today, we celebrate with Microsoft the launch of Internet Explorer 9, a new milestone in enabling faster and more visually compelling Web experiences,” said Tony Prophet, senior vice president of operations, Personal Systems Group, HP. “Internet Explorer 9 is really an outstanding browser, and we’re pleased to make it available on most of our consumer PCs.”
“At Dell, we are focused on driving cutting-edge innovation in our consumer devices, and Internet Explorer 9 is the first browser to offer a richer, more immersive Web experience on our hardware,” said Michael Tatelman, vice president and general manager of North American Consumer sales for Dell. “We know customers will see ? and experience ? the difference, and we’re delighted to be working with Microsoft designers and developers around the world who are building this new, more beautiful Web.”More information is available at http://www.BeautyoftheWeb.com.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
For more information, press only:
Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, (503) 443-7070, [email protected]Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.
AndroidHD has posted an 11 minute video showcasing the qualities of the new Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1 inch. Although this video represents more video making capabilities than the hardware itself. Take a look at the handsome new upcomer from Samsung.
Sadly, if you’re waiting for the updated iMacs, there has still been no news on a 2011 Apple iMac refresh as yet. The last iMac refresh was in July 2010 and current prices start from $1,199 and we know that if you are thinking of purchasing an iMac but don’t want to make the move if an upgrade will be out shortly.
Apple for its Computers unlike the iPhone/iPod/iPad follows a 10 month refresh cycle. In that scenario the new upgrade could be out anywhere from April to May 2011. Current iMacs have screen sizes of 21.5-inches and 27-inches, there are certainly rumors of new screen sizes. Of course we would expect the new ThunderBolt (Light Peak) technology. Possibly a 30-inch option, improved graphics cards, 8GB base memory, and SSD options.
What do you expect from a iMac Refresh this year?
BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) has started upgrading its existing 3G network infrastructure to compete with new private players who offer better infrastructure.
“A nationwide project to upgrade the 3G network has begun which is expected to be completed in a fortnight. Kolkata is likely to be the first circle in the country to experience the upgraded 3G network,” Calcutta Telephones Principal General Manager (Consumer Mobility) AK Garg said.
He also said that the current 3.6 mbps network will become 14 mbps network. However, the ideal speed for a customer would be at least 1-2 mbps as against the current speed of 300-400 kbps. Following this, the speed issue on the 3G network would be resolved and on the other hand revenue from data usage would also improve, he said.The project involves some minor hardware and software upgradation, but it does not involve fresh capex from BSNL.Kolkata and Bengal circle have around 75,000 3G connections.
The Dev Team had earlier announced that they will release an Unlock come iOS 4.3. But, the method they were using turned out to be a dud. In a new report Musclenerd tweeted that the team is working on an NCA exploit method which was originally found by geohot in the first version of the jesus phone (iPhone 2g).
Another member from the Dev-team put together a quick FAQ for information about the unlock
Since there is a lot of confusion out there, and since I’m repeating myself all the time (which I do not really like), I made this little write up of questions that are continuously being asked (my personal FAQ). Please not that this is a global explanation. Don’t try to argue with me on specific details.
1. What happened?! I thought the unlock for basebands 02.10.01 & 03.10.01 would be released within the next 2 weeks?
As you know the Dev-Team (MuscleNerd) have been working on the unlock for quite a while now. They were making great progress on the unlock, but they found out that they (accidentally) unlocked “one particular SIM card” instead of the baseband itself. Which means that the unlock would only be an unlock you could use with MuscleNerd’s T-Mobile SIM. So, useless. If the unlock would unlock the baseband instead of “the SIM”, it’d probably be out within 2 weeks (reasonable timeframe which they had hoped). But things turned out to be different. Basically these <2 weeks predictions were a lack of information.
2. What is this NCK-key cracking? How does it work?
The NCK-key is the key generated by Apple if you’d officially unlock you iPhone, and with officially I mean, via your carrier. This “NCK-unlock” method is known over a few years now, actually since geohot started working on unlocking the iPhone 2G. He developed a program that could “crack” this 15 digits long key and unique for every device. Geohots NCKBF program could do around 100,000 keys/second which would produce a hit in many years, or complete a search in 317 years. To get to a point where this is actually doable we would need many orders of magnitude of improvement. Even if you use a PS3 (would we still want to use this??) or special hardware (within 1,000 US$ range) you will only get an improvement of 20-100 times.. which doesn’t help much.
Now, luckily, with the exploits they have now, they can’t unlock your baseband, but they *can* capture more information from the baseband to speed up this cracking process. Since the NORID and CHIPID (unique for every device) are known, you’d apparently only have to check 40 more bits (5 digits). A 40 bits key is theoretically crackable on “home hardware” within a week (24/7). The downside of this approach is that you’ll have to keep your computer turned on, and your iPhone has to be connected. And that is the reason why they never tried it before. Please note that this method is completely theorical and has been NOT tried at all till this moment.
3. Now what? Should I sell my locked iPhone 4?
I’d wait for more information on this “NCK-unlock”. Right now it’s pretty vague what timeframe we’re talking about. If the Dev-Team can pull this method off, it’d be very promising for those waiting for an unlock. If this method turns out to be not doable, I’d consider selling your iPhone 4 and save up for a factory unlocked iPhone 5.
4. Do you think there is every going to be an unlock?
Of course. But that’s unlikely to be any time soon (with soon being <1 month).
5. If the NCK method fails, how long do you think it will take for the Dev-Team to unlock the iPhone 4?
No ETA at all. Could be a few weeks, but it could easily be a few months as well.
What this means is that all those with a locked device could potentially get full freedom from the lock, once this method is truly exploited. The only thing that may bother potential unlockers, the time frame in which this would be released. another moth may get frustrating for those who have been waiting since october.
A solar powered table that can wirelessly charge things, what more could you ask for? This isn’t a device that is available right now but Panasonic seem to be readying the stylish technical table for retail towards the end of this year or the start of next year.
The only true problem we see with the design image – Well you cant be inside with the sun, and you possibly cant charge your device in direct sunlight either. Unless they come up with a design like this ambient-light powered display, we don’t see much use for this solar powered table.
Nokia has announced plans to roll out its new entry-level phone, “the Nokia X1-00”. The uniqueness of this music phone is its exceptionally loud speaker and that it offers a five-phonebook feature to enable up to five users to have their own phonebook on the same device.
The phone is said to be available in select markets starting in April and will cost around Rs 2,000 + Tax etc.
Don’t go spending your moolah on the super tabs of 2011. Remember the Galaxy tab, the 7 inch tablet that sported Android 2.2 . This tab was announced back on q3 2010 and made quite a stirrup with it’s capabilities. News is that the wifi only version of the said device is all set to launch in April this year for 16-18,000 INR.
Makes an excellent add on device if your existing smartphone has wifi hotspot capabilities.
Don’t fancy a new iPad 2, you don’t even have to wait for another year till it officially becomes available in India. The competition is bound to be here before Apple, and the Motorola Xoom goes up for Pre-Order at a whopping 35,000 INR/-.
Although, Infibeam is know to fake release dates and it does seem a bit early to take orders for something that ships in 2 months. But, we are trying to get an official word from our guys over at MOTO. So that we can get an exclusive details on Launch and pricing. So stay tuned.
[Infibeam]
The Folks over at iFixit have taken apart the iPad 2 in their trademark style. With high res pictures and all. Check out the video detailing the fact that the repairability of the iPad 2 is ranked at 4/10 making it quite a difficult device to repair.
Other important details that emerged:
[iFixit]
Marc Driessen, Nokia Benelux product manager has let out some details on the unannounced updates that Nokia will be offering to Symbian Lovers. Talks about a symbian revamp have been going on for quite some time now, but now the companys own people are spilling the juicy details. According to Driessen, Nokia is targeting a major UI overhaul in the fall, an update rumored to include
Any of those sound familiar to the “rejected by Nokia” OS?
It is also Rumored that that N8 and E7 will get this update faster than others, possibly by Summer 2011.
Here it is finally folks the Nokia E7 is up for grabs at the Nokia India website.
The Nokia E7
Check out the link for preorder and full spec list.
[Nokia]
If you are in the US or have friends or family in the US. You can skip the waiting period and get the iPad 2 which is shipping now on the online Apple Store. Pricing information is below:
If instead you prefer picking up the device in person, Sales start in stores at 5PM local time in the area of purchase head down to an Apple Store, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, AT&T or Verizon store .
The accessories you should consider buying:
Smart Cover (Starts at $39.00)
Digital AV Adapter ($39.00)
[Apple]
