FLASH GOES MOBILE..!

Adobe Systems Inc. says it will license its video-enabling Flash software for free for mobile devices to help developers make mobile Internet experiences more closely resemble the experience on computers. The world’s fifth-largest software maker is launching what it calls the Open Screen Project with support from phone makers Motorola Inc., Nokia Corp., Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba Corp., from chip makers Intel and Qualcomm, and from content providers including NBC Universal, MTV Networks and the BBC, among other companies. With the Open Screen Project, Adobe said, it aims to improve Internet experiences on all electronics, including computers, TVs and digital video recorders. But mobile devices are a particular focus.

Many mobile applications have met with disappointment from consumers. And game and video developers have been burdened with cranking out numerous versions of applications for mobile devices, said Kevin Lynch, Adobe’s chief technology officer. “You have to make over 100 different versions of that game in order to actually make it work across all these different phones,” Lynch said. Notably missing from the list of industry supporters for Adobe’s project is Apple Inc. The iPhone maker does not use Flash on its smart phones, and Chief Executive Steve Jobs has publicly criticized Flash for being too slow. Adobe says it’s working on a version of Flash for the iPhone — now that Apple has released the information needed to custom fit the software to Apple’s operating system.

Windows XP SP3 Is Here - Well, not quite

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is here, according to Microsoft. The wait for the third and final service pack for Windows XP is now over, reveal resources made available by the Redmond company. And the fact of the matter is that not only is Windows XP SP3 here, but it has been here for quite some time. For no less than a couple of days. While there is absolutely no official word on the matter from Microsoft, the company’s official Support Lifecycle website offering information on its various products has managed to leak the small bit of info pointing to the delivery deadline of XP SP3. Nothing more and nothing less than the general availability date.

Hey! Group STaNDaLONE pre’d the XP SP3 finally :) Enough said about it actually so I wont go into any detail anymore now…

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system.

Note: Microsoft you lamers why release it on msdn AFTER general release, are you insane??

HTTP download available at:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/5/53519680-fcc0-4a00-86e0-e7d5cba84461/WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Microsoft_Windows_XP_Service_Pack_3_Final_d4323.html
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Windows-XP-SP3-Download-90001.html
http://digiex.net/applications/175-windows-xp-service-pack-3-rtm-build-5512-download-windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu-exe.html
http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=4452eea


Enjoy

This is What "Computer Virus" look like...

Cyber threats like NetSky, Mydoom and Parite are the bane of IT departments around the globe, but artist Alex Dragulescu has found subtle beauty deep within the dangerous computer code that can bring down networks and bombard e-mail inboxes with murderous spam. Dragulescu has peeled back the code behind the world’s worst tech bugs and rendered stunning images from it. The Romanian-born MIT researcher and artist was commissioned to do fashion the artwork by MessageLabs, a computer security company that sought to put a face — or at least a shape — on computer viruses.

















Dragulescu found interesting, recurring patterns. “These types of threats are very smart. Very intelligent in design. Digital organisms, really, that adapt themselves and replicate. We wanted to capture some of that complexity and uniqueness.” The process of creating the art was like none other. MessageLabs carefully sent Dragulescu the once-harmful files after modifying them so his computers would not contract the viruses. Dragulescu looked for the frequency of certain occurrences in a virus, such as particular network sockets that it was designed to compromise. He fed the resulting data into a program he created with an algorithm to grow the viruses and Trojans visually. Dragulescu’s next project will be creating abstract portraits of people based on the contents of their blogs and the types of online communities they inhabit.

Winlockpwn: Unlock Windows without password

A security consultant based in New Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in seconds without the need for a password. Adam Boileau first demonstrated the hack, which affects Windows XP computers but has not yet been tested with Windows Vista, at a security conference in Sydney in 2006, but Microsoft has yet to develop a fix. Interviewed in ITRadio’s Risky Business podcast, Boileau said the tool, released to the public today, could “unlock locked Windows machines or login without a password … merely by plugging in your Firewire cable and running a command”. Boileau, a consultant with Immunity Inc., said he did not release the tool publicly in 2006 because “Microsoft was a little cagey about exactly whether Firewire memory access was a real security issue or not and we didn’t want to cause any real trouble”.

But now that a couple of years have passed and the issue has not resolved, Boileau decided to release the tool on his website. To use the tool, hackers must connect a Linux-based computer to a Firewire port on the target machine. The machine is then tricked into allowing the attacking computer to have read and write access to its memory. With full access to the memory, the tool can then modify Windows’ password protection code, which is stored there, and render it ineffective. Paul Ducklin, head of technology for security firm Sophos, said the security hole found by Boileau was not a vulnerability or bug in the traditional sense, because the ability to use the Firewire port to access a computer’s memory was actually a feature of Firewire.

Adobe launches free online Photoshop

Adobe has released its Photoshop Express web-based imaging application as a public beta. Photoshop Express uses much of Adobe’s image editing technology and has been repurposed as a web-based application. Users can store up to 2GB of images online for free, make edits to their photos and share them online. Photoshop Express also allows users to download and upload photos from popular social networking sites like Facebook. The application provides ’standard edits’, such as removing blemishes and red-eye, converting to black and white, cropping and resizing.

Photoshop Express also offers tricks like Pop Color which selects an object in an image, mutes the background colour of the photo and allows the user to swap the object’s colour so that it “jumps off the page”. Sketch effects make photos look like drawings, and a Distort feature allows users to distort facial features or objects for a comical or artistic effect. Adobe said that even users with limited photo editing knowledge can simply select what looks best from a line-up of sample photos with visual hints showing different variations of the added effect. During the public beta period, Adobe will solicit user feedback on product features and functionality which will “continue to evolve over time”.