TechEye |  |
- Microsoft is nuts for pulling plug on XP
- Hackers hijack Microsoft Word
- Aussies walk away from failed SAP project
- Nvidia comes up with an answer to Mantle
- Apple mulls extension to walled garden
- Tech heavyweights buy some artificial intelligence
| Microsoft is nuts for pulling plug on XP Posted: 25 Mar 2014 03:21 AM PDT AV software maker, Avast has waded into Microsoft for pulling the plug on Windows XP. Writing in his bog, Avast COO Ondrej Vlcek said that abandoning Windows XP was a big mistake, particularly as Microsoft has been rubbish at getting people to upgrade. He said that security products can only do so much to keep Windows XP users safe once Microsoft stops patching the operating system's future vulnerabilities. Abandoning XP will not only affect Windows XP users, but will create a big security problem for the whole ecosystem, says Vlcek. "Tens of millions of PCs running XP connected to the Internet, unpatched and without security updates, are just waiting to be exploited. The vulnerable OS will be an easy target for hackers and be seen as a gateway to infect other non-XP operating systems," Vlcek said. Plenty of essential devices, like ATMs, are running Windows XP, and will be left exposed, he warned. However to be fair to Microsoft, it has given its users a jolly long time to quit their XP addiction. We would have thought that there would be a market for a security product which stays ahead of the hackers – if only Vlcek knew of an AV company which could do that. |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2014 03:21 AM PDT Software empire Microsoft has warned the world of a remote code execution vulnerability which is being actively exploited in targeted attacks directed at Microsoft Word 2010. Microsoft explained in the advisory that the vulnerability allows remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted RTF file using an affected version of Word, or previews or opens an RTF email message in Microsoft Outlook while using Word as the email viewer. In other words if you see an RTF file coming from someone do not open it. Hard to think who sends RFT files these days, so it is probably a safe bet that you should not open it. If successfully exploited, an attacker could gain the same user rights as the current user, Microsoft said. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than accounts with administrative privileges, but home users would be toast. Vole says that people should disable opening RTF content in Microsoft Word, which prevents the exploitation of this issue through Microsoft Word. "In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a website that contains a webpage that contains a specially crafted RTF file that is used to attempt to exploit this vulnerability", Microsoft said. Compromised websites and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability, Microsoft wrote. "An attacker would have no way to force users to visit these websites. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the website, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker's website," Vole added. The vulnerability could be exploited through Microsoft Outlook only when using Microsoft Word as the email viewer, Microsoft warned. By default, Word is the email reader in Microsoft Outlook 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2010, and Microsoft Outlook 2013. As an initial workaround until the bug is fixed, Microsoft is providing a Fix it automated tool which uses Office's file block feature and adds a few registry keys to prevent opening of RTF files in all Word versions. |
| Aussies walk away from failed SAP project Posted: 25 Mar 2014 03:19 AM PDT The Northern Territory Government has decided that it will walk away from a failed SAP project and will write off the $70 million already spent on it. The asset management system (AMS), was started by the former Labor government, had a starting budget of $7.2 million. It looked fair dinkum at the time, after all who knows that SAP software is supposed to do any way, and besides it was expensive so it must be good right? More than 11 project managers were involved in the project over three years and even then it managed to be two years late. It was finally switched in April 2012, it was $12 million over budget and it did not work. It was supposed to unite nine different information technology systems and it didn't. A report by the Auditor-General last year noted that another $40 million would need to be spent on it. Treasurer Dave Tollner told parliament the AMS could only manage 11 percent of its intended purpose. It would be even more expensive to rebuild from scratch. An advisory group KPMG estimated would cost a further $120 million of taxpayer money and take another five years to deliver. Instead the Government will spend $12.5 million to set up a replacement called ASNET, to be developed from existing computer programs. ASNET will take about three years to introduce and work would start on the system immediately. |
| Nvidia comes up with an answer to Mantle Posted: 25 Mar 2014 03:17 AM PDT Nvidia has announced details of its answer to AMD's Mantle which was all set to clean the outfit's clock on 3D performance. However, it does not appear to be doing anything new. Instead of creating its own competing API, Nvidia is going to see what it could do with its own drivers to speed up Direct3D. Yep, they are hoping to overcome Mantle's advantages with a driver update! Word on the strasse is that the upcoming driver update promises some substantial gains and will beat AMD's best performance with Mantle. Of course, that requires faith in Nvidia's numbers which is a bit like believing in the history of a Mel Gibson movie. Nvidia did clarify that its new driver has a higher average frame rate, but still has more slow frames than Mantle. It thinks that it can improve that. For the game Thief, which just got Mantle support, Nvidia's showing off its new gains from optimising Direct3D, which is now faster than Mantle. The lead between Mantle and Nvidia's D3D driver is just a few frames, but the slow but steady gain from each new driver will be a nice sight for GeForce GTX 780 Ti owners. Nvidia did admit that there is a lot of room for efficiency improvements in DirectX 11, which is why the company is putting its weight behind DirectX 12. We will see all this in action when the new driver is released in April. |
| Apple mulls extension to walled garden Posted: 25 Mar 2014 03:15 AM PDT Apple is so worried about its flagging iTunes sales it is thinking of flogging an app on the more popular Android site. The fruity cargo-cult is worried about a double-digit drop in iTunes downloads and opened exploratory talks with senior label executives about the possibility of launching an on-demand streaming service. Of course, the tame Apple press is saying that such a cunning plan will cure cancer and rival Spotify and Beats Music. This is Apple heresy as the great Apple Messiah Steve Jobs said unto his followers "that fans would never subscribe for music". Of course he also said no one would buy small tablets or big smartphones so it appears that his gift of prophecy was not up to snuff. To make matters seem more desperate, Apple is looking at adding an iTunes App for Android phones, the Google rival. The move would, Apple hopes, mean that it will get its lucrative iTunes software on another platform and no longer depend on the ever shrinking iPhone sales. The only difficulty with that is that iTunes is pretty dire software which people use because it is on the iPhone. Placed on an Android phone it would probably be ignored in droves. Other ideas that iTunes executives like Eddy Cue and Robert Kondrk are said to be contemplating include exclusive album-release windows in which digital versions of the albums would go on sale ahead of the CD release. Individual tracks would not be available for sale until the CD versions hit the shelves. Not that there many shelves selling CDs these days, of course. Apple already has a streaming service with iTunes Radio, which launched last September. However, the free ad-supported service, similar to Pandora, has limited control over the songs they can hear. But then again Apple users are not used to control, that is something they surrender when they buy an iPhone. |
| Tech heavyweights buy some artificial intelligence Posted: 25 Mar 2014 03:12 AM PDT Tech industry big hitters Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ashton Kutcher have decided that they are short on the intelligence that nature gave them and want to buy a bit more. The three wrote a cheque for $40 million to invest in an outfit called Vicarious. This is the second major cash injection in two years for the AI company, which is building software that mirrors the computational capabilities of the human brain. Well not ours, of course, otherwise it would not work until at least 11AM without a major coffee or candy crush. Vicarious intends to replicate the part of the brain that sees, controls the body, understands language, and does the adding up. It wants to translate the actions of the neocortex to create a computer that thinks, but does not need to waste any time eating or sleeping, having sex, going through puberty, watching reality TV, or writing to the Daily Mail. Musk, Zuckerberg, and Kutcher could not be reached for comment; none are listed yet on the company's website as investors and the source of the story is the Wall Street Journal. Vicarious is rather secretive and has already created software that interprets photos and videos as any human would, or so it is said. A Facebook spokesman told the Journal that Zuckerberg's Vicarious investment was made on a personal level, and will not affect the social network's plans for development. Earlier this year, Google stepped into the ring when it wrote a cheque for $400 million to buy DeepMind which is a "cutting edge artificial intelligence company" with commercial applications in simulations, e-commerce, and games. |
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