Articles by Jay Lyman

The first reported malicious code to target Apple's Mac OS X operating system, a potentially damaging Trojan Horse computer program, is serving as both a validation of the platform's security and a warning that more may be coming Announced by Mac security vendor Intego, the Trojan horse, dubbed MP3Concept or MP3Virus.Gen, exploits a weakness in Mac...

RealNetworks is warning users of some of its RealPlayer and RealOne media players to remove a plug-in that could allow a remote attack and the running of arbitrary code on their machines While Real's media players are among the most popular user applications around, with more than 200 million deployed worldwide, the Seattle-based company said in a ...

What happens when you cross controversial peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technology with regulation-debated Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone capability? Meet the new, free PocketSkype software, which enables VoIP-based calls on the Skype network using a WiFi-enabled PocketPC handheld device Skype, which has its desktop VoIP software d...

What happens when you cross controversial peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technology with regulation-debated Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone capability? Meet the new, free PocketSkype software, which enables VoIP-based calls on the Skype network using a WiFi-enabled PocketPC handheld device Skype, which has its desktop VoIP software d...

Perhaps the biggest part of and reason for Microsoft's dedication to security is the pain of the software-patching process. On one hand, Windows customers are told that to be as secure as possible, they must keep up with and promptly download and install all patches from Microsoft. While the recent deluge of worms and other computer attacks makes ...

Microsoft appears to be cutting out middleman ATI with its announcement of a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, to make processors for future Xbox gaming consoles and services The companies said the "breakthrough agreement" expands an ongoing relationship, but rather than work throug...

Providers of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services may get their way, preventing state governments from taxing or regulating them, if proposed U.S. federal legislation is approved. Parallel bills from Sen. John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) and Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Mississippi) could keep VoIP classified as an information service and free from state regulation.

Software giants Microsoft and Computer Associates are heading up the National Cyber Security Partnership, a task force that is calling for security in software development from the start. The NCSP also is suggesting a more prominent role for government in securing software during the development process The group, which released its first round of ...

By making final chip designs more flexible and opening its Power processor architecture to more partners and developers, IBM is pushing its microprocessor technology to the widening category of electronic devices that require chip customization Calling it an "unprecedented step," IBM outlined its plans to collaborate openly on the Power microproces...

Hoping to steer its next-generation Windows operating system -- code-named Longhorn -- into the developer community, Microsoft released previews of the software toward the end of last year. The actual Longhorn operating system, the company's next-generation SQL Server known as Yukon and the company's next-generation development tools code-named Whidbey are as many as two to three years from arriving.

Internet search giant Google has rolled out new features aimed at making Web searches more personal with user-selected preferences and keywords, plus delivery of search results via e-mail The Mountain View, California-based company sits atop the search engine market but is poised to face an avalanche of increased competition as former partner Yahoo...

Contrary to claims made by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has launched a campaign of lawsuits against peer-to-peer (P2P) network users and blamed them for plunging sales, unlicensed downloading and Internet file-sharing of copyrighted music has no effect on CD sales, according to researchers at Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill...

Promising a more integrated and economical development environment, Microsoft has released a beta of its newest embedded operating system (OS), Windows CE 5.0, at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco The company touted cost savings that can be achieved using the new OS, thanks to the blending of command-line and graphical integrated dev...

It's bad enough when virus writers can download their worm code of choice and relatively simply unleash a new variant on the Internet, but Friday showed something even worse: Virtually zero effort is needed to entice people to open attachments. So far, the non-sophisticated, no-subject, no-text Bagle.U variant has spread to a substantial number of computers worldwide...

After failing to reach an agreement to renew technology licensing deals, computing giant Hewlett-Packard has filed suit against Gateway in U.S. District Court in San Diego, near Gateway's Poway headquarters HP is claiming that Gateway, which recently acquired budget PC maker eMachines, is infringing on several HP patents related to personal compute...

Microsoft unveiled a new software development environment this week that the Redmond, Washington-based company claims will remove the chains that have shackled developers to creating different versions of one gaming title Unveiling its XNA software development platform at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California, Microsoft said the pl...

The creators and distributors of the Gnome open-source desktop software project are investigating a server breach that reportedly did not affect released Gnome sources and the project's source-code repository, but nonetheless delayed the latest update scheduled to come out this week The sysadmin team of Gnome, a free Unix-Linux desktop suite and de...

A week after announcing it was putting Linux on more of its desktop machines for the Asian market, HP made bigger waves this week, disclosing a deal with Novell to put SuSE Linux on the entire HP portfolio of business desktops and notebooks in North America, to be followed by other markets later Analysts called the deal -- which is an extension of ...

The Recording Industry Association of America has done it again, putting another 532 alleged illegal file-traders in its legal crosshairs as it tries to push users from free, unlicensed peer-to-peer networks to legitimate song sites for purchasing music on the Internet The RIAA put particular emphasis on college campuses in the latest round of copy...

Norwegian company Opera is adding IBM speech-recognition technology to its free browser software. The company, which raised about $18 million in an initial public offering earlier this month, said it is aiming the standardized ViaVoice speech technology from IBM at enterprise customers and developers initially. Although we are nearing the finaliza...