John Lister

At least five cities have already said they are interested in taking up Google's offer to build broadband networks running at a staggering 1 Gigabit per second (1Gbps). The comments come as analysts try to figure out what Google gains from the ... scheme. The firm says it will help fund networks serving between 50,000 and 500,000 customers. Cities whose officials have already said they are looking into the proposals include Winston, North Carolina; Peachtree City, Georgia; San Francisco, California; and Greensboro, North Carolina. Officials in Ontario County, New York have also shown an interest ... (view more)

Microsoft is releasing a set of tools aimed at detecting and undoing attempts to bypass Windows 7 anti-piracy checks. It's mostly meant for corporate networks, but the release is also intended as a security warning. The toolset is an update for ... Windows Activation Technologies, one of the systems which checks that a copy of Windows 7 is legitimate. The update will search for and eliminate 70 known tactics for attempting to bypass these checks. (Source: windowsteamblog.com ) Microsoft Touts Antipiracy Tools Obviously, anyone who is knowingly using a pirated copy of Windows 7 is not going to ... (view more)

Apple is said to be prepared to make quick price cuts for its iPad tablet if sales don't take off as planned. The news comes as a survey claims the public has actually become less interested after hearing about the device, though the figures don't ... necessarily bear that claim out. It's perfectly normal practice for a new gadget to be sold at a high price at first and then reduced later on. That makes commercial sense as it means the firm gets the most revenue possible from so-called "early adopters" and then drops the price to capture the mass market. In this case, however, it appears the ... (view more)

A Microsoft blogger recently posted a description of Windows 7's successor, internally codenamed as Windows.Next, otherwise known as Windows 8. The post, however, appears to have been removed from Microsoft's Development Network (MSDN) website at ... the time of this writing. Rumor: Windows Kernel Overhauled The post claims that the "minimum that folks can take for granted is that the next version will be something completely different from what folks usually expect of Windows." It also says that the "themes that have been floated truly reflect what people have been looking for years ... (view more)

In what would be a major change of policy, Microsoft is rumored to be removing multitasking capabilities in the next edition of Windows Mobile. That means that it likely won't be possible, for example, to write an email while checking a webpage. ... It's expected the system will be demonstrated next week at the Mobile World Congress industry event, though it's likely to be a glimpse rather than a detailed presentation. The PPCGeeks site reports that multitasking won't be available, though it will be possible to put one application on pause while running another. (Source: ppcgeeks.com ) Change ... (view more)

Microsoft has confirmed a flaw in Internet Explorer could be used by hackers to access the files on a user's computer. The flaw was demonstrated at a security conference this week. The man who discovered the flaw, Jorge Luis Alvarez Medina of Core ... Security Technologies, says that so far as he can tell, it's not something which can be easily patched. The good news is that Windows Vista and Windows 7 both have default options for Internet Explorer which can block the problem. Medina first noted the existence of the flaw last week, but held back details until this week's Black Hat Conference. ... (view more)

United States security officials have joined European officials in noting the potential security risks of running Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). But they haven't gone as far as issuing a formal warning to stop using the browser. The United States ... Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), part of the Department of Homeland Security has issued an advisory suggesting users review the recent Microsoft security patch and apply any updates which will improve security. That could be interpreted in two ways: patch IE6 immediately, or update to a later edition; the latter of course would make more ... (view more)

A recent report suggests that most users that use social networking sites have reported being spammed, with more than a third of those messages containing malicious links, or malware attached to the bogus messages. The security firm which ran the ... survey says the issue could be a serious threat to corporate networks. According to security experts Sophos, 57% of those questioned say they received unsolicited messages on their social networks last year, compared with 33% in 2008. The proportion who received either infected files or links to harmful material rose from 21% to 36%. Businesses Aware ... (view more)

Amazon appears to have blinked first in its stand-off with publishing giant Macmillan over the pricing of Kindle books. The online retailer had even briefly stopped selling printed Macmillan books over the dispute. The disagreement centered on ... Amazon's policy of charging a flat rate of $9.99 for the electronic edition of virtually all new titles it stocks. Macmillan demanded that it be able to set its own pricing, with most major books priced between $12.99 and $14.99. Royalties Replace Fixed Fees At the moment, Amazon pays publishers a fixed fee for each digital sale worth roughly half the ... (view more)

Apple's new iPad is making plenty of headlines this week. But Microsoft, and the PC sector in general, are quick to highlight the Windows-based tablet computers which will rival the device. The most conspicuous response to Apple's iPad launch came ... from Hewlett Packard (HP), which has released a YouTube video showing off its forthcoming HP Slate. That's a tablet computer announced earlier this month running Windows 7 and apparently set-up to handle electronic books bought from Amazon's store. Though the device is produced by HP, Microsoft is heavily involved in promoting it. Indeed, Microsoft ... (view more)