The people who paid $2.5 billion for Skype two years ago are starting to look very astute.
A week or two ago that wasn't the case. Skype's IPO had been delayed. Google and Facebook were sniffing around Skype, but a buyout didn't seem likely -- too many samolies for Facebook to muster, and all sorts of potential problems for Google, including an antitrust hurdle of Brobdingnagian proportions.
Although Microsoft has patched multiple DLL load hijacking vulnerabilities since last summer, Windows and Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) can still be exploited, a security company warned today.
Microsoft confirmed that it's investigating the claims by Slovenia-based Acros Security. Researchers from Acros will demonstrate the new attacks at the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam later this month.
Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on a deal to buy Internet phone company Skype for between $7 billion and $8 billion, and a deal could be announced as early as tomorrow, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The report cited people familiar with the matter who said negotiations were ongoing and could still fall apart. Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft has announced an overhaul of the way it assess and publicizes the risk security problems pose to users of its products. The new technique will give added detail as well as highlighting the benefits of upgrading to the latest version of Windows.
The changes will affect Microsoft's monthly security update, which includes ratings for the potential damage that could be caused by a particular security flaw if the relevant patch is not applied.
Microsoft's free antivirus solution for all Windows users may be good in terms of usability - in particular, its impact on system performance - but when it comes to actual malware protection, it came almost dead last amongst its free and paid competitors in tests conducted during the first quarter of 2011 by German testing firm AV-Test. In fact, an almost identical observation can be made for AV-Test's previous tests conducted in the fourth quarter of 2010 on Windows Vista. Fortunately for Microsoft, despite these results the product did manage a pass and a certification from AV-Test.
Microsoft has begun notifying some Windows Phone 7 users that a new security-focused update for Windows Phone 7 is ready for download.
As MobileTechWorld.com first reported, the “7932? update is being delivered to users, as of May 3. It includes updates to a previously disclosed issue with fradulent third-party digital certificates from Comodo.
You'll have to look real hard to find IE9 in NetApplications April browser user share data. IE9 doesn't even make NetApp's browser-version breakdown chart for all operating systems, although its usage share was 2.41 percent. By comparison, Firefox 4.0, which launched 7 days later, snatched 5.43 percent usage share. Both browsers debuted in March.
In a few short months, Microsoft's Kinect has become one of the most exciting platforms around. Dozens of hackers are making use of the groundbreaking motion sensor, crafting projects ranging from quirky instruments to medical equipment replacements to art installations. Those thrilling projects all have one thing in common: Microsoft has nothing to do with them, and regular consumers have no access to them. You can't buy them in stores. And what you can buy in stores is disappointing at best.
Amid “plateauing” interest in Android among mobile developers, as detailed in the latest quarterly survey by Appcelerator and IDC is some mixed news for Windows Phone.
Among the 2,700-plus developers using the Appcelerator Titanium cross-platform development environment surveyed by the research outfits in mid-April, Microsoft is now considered the distant third horse in the mobile race, trailing Apple and Android, but edging out RIM.
According to published reports, Microsoft is appealing a ludicrous $1.3 billion fine for failing to comply with an anti-trust ruling laid down in the EU.
It seems to me that all this was taken care of by the U.S. justice system, and this EU activity is a way to gouge an American company. Hence, Microsoft has refused to pay. The EU routinely goes after strong American companies that dominate the scene world-wide. This has recently included IBM, Intel, and Google.
