The time that it takes Apple to release patches for some publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in open source components of their operating systems is nothing less than abysmal, and it's only a matter of time before continued evolution of their security practices can be preemptive, and not reactionary.

Unfortunately, there's a big difference between Apple and Microsoft when it comes to bugs in their operating system. I would argue that Microsoft is in a far more advantageous position, oddly enough, because their operating system doesn't contain so much open source software.

The closed source and un-shared nature of the Microsoft Windows code base gives Microsoft the luxury of taking ... a long time to patch vulnerabilities that are reported to them. They can spend a year developing, testing, and rolling out patches.

Apple, on the other hand, is in a different boat. Many of the vulnerabilities that affect OS X are open source, and as such, technical information regarding the issue is publicly disclosed on a different timeline, and more importantly, a timeline that's completely out of Apple's control.
This situation is a virtual gold mine for attackers. When important vulnerabilities are publicly released on one timeline, and then patched on another, a window of opportunity is created where attackers can develop exploits for OS X using publicly announced vulnerabilities, for which no vendor-supplied patch is available. Attackers are handed the vulnerabilities on a silver platter, and the open source nature of the affected components takes all of the guess work out of the vulnerability itself.

The one thing that OS X does have going for it is a solid foundation, so we can be reasonably sure that it won't face the quantity and severity of vulnerabilities that we've seen littered within Windows. But there will be vulnerabilities, and some of them will be severe, and with the current patching speed for OS X, this paints a pretty scary picture.

While many people claim to be in love with their iPod and some are quite simply unable to function without it, a few are beginning to find that when they take their earphones out, that the music just doesn't stop. The problem is that portable music players are damaging users' hearing. The irritating hum that sometimes rings in our ears, known as tinnitus, is becoming a potentially serious issue for people playing their music at very high levels. Apparently the people worst affected by tinnitus are commuters, who try and drown out the sound of trains, traffic and other peoples music, by turning their own itunes up as high as they will go.

Tinnitus is a continuous buzzing in the ears which is heard only by the person with tinnitus. Many sufferers complain of buzzing, whooshing, chirping, hissing, ocean waves and even music in their ears. They’re not going mad, simply suffering with one of the most irritating afflictions there is. Some people complain of tinnitus appearing only occasionally and some unlucky people experience it 24 hours a day every day. There are quite a few causes of this debilitating problem, which is associated with the ‘sensorineural’ system; the transmittal of signals from the inner ear to the brain. It frequently occurs in older people as it is linked to loss of hearing. However one of the main causes of tinnitus is exposure to loud noises.

ooking to play catch-up with Apple's online music store, Yahoo said it would begin a wide-ranging ad campaign for its new online music service, Yahoo Music Unlimited.

Yahoo WPP Group roster shops Soho Square in New York and OgilvyOne in San Francisco created the "This is huge" campaign, which features miniaturized animations of music stars like Missy Elliott, Green Day and Ciara. The tagline for the ads is "Over a million songs—-5 bucks a month—-This is huge."

Yahoo also plans TV, print and outdoor ads, all featuring the miniaturized music stars.

The ad push launches Aug. 28 on the MTV Video Music Awards, and is slated to run for the rest of the year.

Apple, for the most part, makes eminently superior products, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things within the Windows universe that we can’t learn from.

And one of those things is how Windows handles, well, windows. In OS X some interface elements have curves, other do not. For example, the top toolbar in Photoshop is nice and straight-edged, but the document window itself has curved edges. This is and of itself is bothersome, but what drives me more bonkers is that windows don’t automatically line up perfectly with other elements of the Application GUI.

Now let’s take a look at Windows. One of the things that I like about Windows is that elements of the GUI fit in nicely together. They may not have as much “fit and finish” (otherwise know, somewhat disparagingly, as eye-candy) but when you maximize a window in Windows everything lines up perfectly. This is also a consistent behavior from application to application whereas in OS X things are not consistent.

The strengthening position of Linux and open source in the local and global arena is not leading to attrition of Microsoft's market share, which still has a huge hold on the worldwide market, a study on the Linux open source software and services market in SA has revealed.

BMI-TechKnowledge research manager Roy Blume told journalists yesterday that Linux has captured a small share of global paid client operating environment shipments since 2000, a trend expected to continue into 2007.

Shipments of Linux as a client-operating environment, he said, have been growing swiftly since novice-ready commercial versions of this software were introduced in the late1990s.

However, Linux market share is increasing at a slower rate due to the overwhelming position held by Microsoft's pervasively deployed client-operating environment products.

Microsoft is close to patenting a technology that, for all intents and purposes, makes a Tivo out of your digital media player.

The technology in question, patent application number 20030221541, was filed in May of 2002 and "relates generally to systems and methodologies that facilitate generation of playlists," according to a summary of the invention patent. "It reduces effort and time required to generate a playlist that meets or is similar to desired characteristics or features by automatically generating a playlist."

In other words, the technology can create autogenerated playlists of various types of media based on usage patterns, with no intervention from the user. So if 1970s funk music is your thing, a portable MP3 player would generate such playlists on your behalf.

The patent has been the focus on media reports this week that suggest a connection between a digital media patent filed months later by Apple.

In truth, the patents in question might not even be directly related ... news articles suggested that Microsoft's patent surrounds the iconic iPod clickwheel. But its patent has to do more with the organization and delivery of digital media items.

There's been numerous ideas thrown around for GNOME Three Point Zero (ToPaZ) in the community - the Wiki, mailing lists, conferences, planet, etc. I took a bunch of them and created a mockup or "storyboard" of what I imagine 3.0 could look like.

The tagline is "A First Class Desktop". There are two key ideas:

Documents are First Class Objects - As a user, I don't want to "Run Firefox" or "Start Evolution". What I really want to do is browse the web and write mail. My applications should be ego-less - my data is the focus.

Search and Tagging as the Interface - Hierarchical folders are out - it can't handle both "wedding/photos" and "photos/wedding". Also, the current file system makes a distinction between "regular" files and my mail - I can't find the latter using nautilus. In Topaz, search (Beagle) and flat tags (if you've been living under a rock, think GMail labels, Epiphany topics, and del.icio.us) are the main interface to my data.

As cute as a jellybean, the WALKMAN Bean is equally tasty. The easiest (and smartest) MP3 player you'll ever use, it comes in four candy colors and is as cool on the outside as it is on the inside!

Everything about the WALKMAN Bean says 'cool'. So called because it looks like a jellybean, this new MP3 player comes in three tasty colors: white, pink and black. There is also an exclusive blue model which can be found at Sony Centers and online at Sony Style.

The WALKMAN Bean comes with a built-in pop-up USB plug which means that when you hook it up to your PC, you don’t even have to hunt around for a wire as it connects directly. Easy and convenient!

What's more, it's simple and superfast to charge up. Faster than all the other players on the market, you only have to charge it for 3 minutes to get 3 hours of playback, though if you charge it to capacity you'll then be able to use it for 50 hours non-stop.

Apple inadvertently broke support for 64-bit applications on OS X with a comprehensive but faulty Security Update it released this week.

Apple's engineering team rushed to repair the problem, releasing new versions of the update last night.

Apple explains the new version 1.1 updates: "Replace the updates for Tiger systems. Users who have already installed v1.0 on Tiger systems should install v1.1".

Mathematica developer Wolfram Research first confirmed that version 5.2 of its application had been affected because the update had broken its 64-bit support.

"Due to an error on the part of Apple, this update prevents any 64-bit-native application from running," the company said.

Xbox 360 will cost $399.99 in the US, Microsoft has just told an audience at the Games Convention event in Leipzig. That is the main package, including 20GB hard disk, wireless controller, headset, Ethernet cable, high-definition television cable and wireless television-style remote control.

A second package, called the Xbox 360 Core System, will be released at the same time, consisting of the bare bones console and a wired controller, for $299.99.

Microsoft has not confirmed a date, stating simply that it will be with us for "Christmas Season 2005" - an exact date should be pinpointed either at the Tokyo Game Show next month or, more likely, at Microsoft's showpiece X05 event in Amsterdam in early October.

Although Microsoft has yet to confirm a date, Xbox 360 is expected to be on European shelves on November 24th according to various retail sources.

Apple Computer has released what seems to be one of its larger security updates for Mac OS X, doling out fixes for 44 flaws.

Still, only a handful of the vulnerabilities are of major concern, according to security analysts. The package of fixes was released Monday.

"This one is a big update. I don't recall seeing as many updates as we see today," said Thomas Kristensen, Secunia's chief technology officer.

By comparison, Apple last May released an update for 20 vulnerabilities and in March distributed an update for a dozen flaws.

Secunia is rating the overall update as "highly critical."

In November, Creative Technology Ltd. CEO Sim Wong Hoo declared "war" on Apple Computer Inc., brashly predicting his firm's MP3 players would knock the ultra popular iPods down a peg or two.

So far, that war has proven more costly for Singapore's Creative Technology, which in late June warned investors to expect a fourth-quarter operating loss because of softer than expected sales of its MP3 players. Creative lays claim to second place worldwide for MP3 player sales, but it's a distant second behind Apple's iPod, which outsells its competitors by a 3 to 1 ratio.

Sim said his long-term vision isn't just to conquer the iPod but to get Creative's technologies into every home entertainment device, including DVD players, cable set-top boxes and home theater systems.

"Last year I declared war on Apple, but actually I was thinking of something bigger," Sim said. "The war is in the living room. We are going after the living room."

The centerpiece of what Sim calls a shift in his company's business model is new audio processing technology called Xtreme Fidelity, which he believes will extend the company's reach beyond computers and computer-related devices.

Xtreme Fidelity is designed to create fuller, richer sound reproduction in standard devices such as headphones, CD players, DVD players and video-game devices. Sim said the technology will even work with competing iPods.

Creative plans to release details about new X-Fi products later this month.

Since December, Creative has sold about 5 million units of Zen and Zen Micro MP3, which in the Bay Area are featured in colorful billboards often placed near Apple's famed silhouette iPod billboards. Apple, however, sold ... 6.5 million in the second quarter of this year alone.

Creative's share of the worldwide MP3 player market was only 9 percent by the end of 2004, although In-Stat analyst Stephanie Guza said that share has been increasing since the introduction late last year of the Zen Micro players that compete directly with Apple's iPod Mini.

The market for legitimate music downloads is booming, but the stumbling block of incompatibility will not go away.

Just ask anyone who has ever tried to put a Napster track on an iPod.

At the heart of the problem are duelling digital-rights-management (DRM) systems from bitter rivals Apple Computer and Microsoft. Files using either company's DRM are incompatible with players that support the other DRM.

The recording industry and many of its digital retail partners flagged this problem 18 months ago. Today they are no closer to finding a solution, thanks to a lack of co-operation among the tech heavyweights.

Microsoft's Windows Media DRM is supported on more than 60 devices and used for digital files sold by dozens of retailers, including Napster, AOL, Yahoo, RealNetworks, Virgin, FYE and Wal-Mart. Apple's DRM is called Fair Play and works only in Apple-controlled products and services like the iPod and the iTunes Music Store.

As more consumers go digital, the compatibility issues between Apple and Microsoft become more pronounced. Apple, the early market leader, has been particularly resistant to shaking hands in the interest of compatibility.

More than 184 million digital tracks were sold in the United States this year through the end of July, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That is almost double the amount sold during the same period in 2004.

Still, some digital-music executives say compatibility problems are slowing the growth of legitimate download sales and subscription services.

"It's unquestionably holding the market back," says David Pakman, managing director of Dimensional Associates and head of digital music retailer eMusic. "If everything was interoperable, then certainly sales would be higher."

Security Update 2005-007 delivers a number of security enhancements and is recommended for all Macintosh users.

This update includes the following components:

AppKit
BlueTooth
CoreFoundation
cups
Directory Services
HIToolBox
Kerberos
loginwindow
Mail
OpenSSL
QuartzComposerScreenSaver
Security Interface
Safari
X11
zlib

For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website.

On Tuesday, August 9, 2005, many of the major Debian-derivative GNU/Linux distros banded together to create the Debian Common Core Alliance. Essentially, the DCCA is a group of Debian heavy-weights who got tired of reinventing each others' efforts, and decided to implement the Linux Standards Base in a set of binary packages that will be common to their distros. The benefits are obvious. Applications designed to work on one distro will work on another. The Alliance members will save bunches of money on not duplicating each others' work. Customers of the DCCA members will have the option of getting support for DCC code from a broader array of vendors. And perhaps most importantly, it now becomes just that much harder for Steve Ballmer to whine about an absence of a "center of gravity" in GNU/Linux distros.

As former Debian lead Bruce Perens discusses in this article, Debian has long played a central role in helping people all over the world share the fun, frivolity, fascination, and occasional frustration that is the world of free Open Source software. Bruce has been present and intimately involved with much of this work as an author, advocate, and teacher of much of what it means for a project to be an "Open Source" project, so he is in a great position to give us penguinistas some insight as to what the new DCC initiative means for our favorite operating system, and the free Open Source applications that ride on it.

So what we're doing now is that we have gotten really all but one now of the leading Debian derivative distributions to gather to collaborate on having a common core which we will certify to the Linux Standard Base 3.0. Debian is very close to that standard now. We will have that core be distributed to application creators, so that they can make sure that their application works on the Debian Common Core, and then they will be able to say without doing any additional work that their application works on Linspire, Xandros, SUSE, Mepis, and a number of other derivative distributions that are named in our press kit. Currently, Ubuntu is not a member, but I believe that if you certify to this DCC platform, it should work on Ubuntu also.

I think it's very important for Linux and Open Source to go from the paradigm of a distribution with a single support vendor, which is really what we have now in the case of Novell and Red Hat, each having divergent distributions, and each being the main providers of support for those systems.

The godfather of modern 3D gaming speaks out about development on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 as well as the tribulations of tomorrow's developers.

Carmack's platform of choice for console development is the Xbox 360, and he explained why ... the Xbox 360 was designed to have a very thin API layer. In Carmack's words, he can "basically talk directly to the hardware ... doing exactly what I want."

Carmack heaped praise on the decisions that Microsoft has made with the Xbox 360. "It's the best development environment I've seen on a console," he says. Microsoft has taken a very developer-centric approach, creating a system that's both powerful but easy to code for. This is in contrast to Nintendo, Sony, and (formerly) Sega, who generally focused on the hardware.

In his QuakeCon 2005 keynote, John Carmack revealed that after some delays id is finally ready to release the complete Quake III source code for use under the terms of the GPL. He could not give an exact date, but was confident that this would occur "within a week". Currently id is making sure everything is licensed correctly and everything builds, and as soon as that is complete the whole package will be set free.

Carmack also noted that he is looking forward to some day seeing somebody ship a commercial title, probably a budget game, under the GPL. He'd like, for example, someone use the Quake III source to complete their own shooter and ship it with the full source code included on the CD. Carmack expressed frustration with people who get overly protective about code that is largely built on the work of someone else.

It's late, it's lame and installing it won't be cheap, so now is the perfect time for Linux desktop vendors to make a charge at Microsoft.

Microsoft recently said that the company was working on two different Vistas: one for everyone, which I'll call Vista Vanilla, and the other for enterprises, which I'll name Vista Pro.

The Linux desktop, whether it's from the big guys like Novell or Red Hat or from smaller, but interesting players, like Mepis or Xandros, has areas that still clearly need improvement ... of all the Unix/Linux-based desktop operating systems—all desktop systems, actually—I continue to favor Mac OS X.

The long and short is that TiVo just hasn't been doing very well financially, but the big problem it faces is one that's similar to what Apple and the other music services are facing: There's a fundamental understanding that this is the real deal -- that time shifting is a real feature people want that won't go away -- but now that TiVo has created the market, and demand, there are few reasons for the cable and satellite TV companies not to cut them out of the chain...

With something like the iTMS Store, Apple and others have a leg up in getting companies to include a third party at their table because content is such a key component in the service. TiVo doesn't change the content, and doesn't add to it, it just chops it up and modifies it. If you're someone like DirectTV, you're basically a distributor with content creators at the top of the funnel.

Sun Microsystems is now planning to release its next version of StarOffice in September, two months later than originally planned.

In May, Sun said that StarOffice 8, which has been in beta since February, would debut in July. But Simon Schouten, the U.K. desktop sales manager for Sun, said Friday that StarOffice 8 will be released Sept. 12, during the company's quarterly product launch event.

The date was changed to allow Sun to launch new versions of other desktop products on the same date, Schouten said. The other products include Java Desktop System, Tarantella and Sun Ray.

"Quite simply, there's a load of other stuff happening around the desktop portfolio, so the company decided that they'd rather do a September StarOffice launch," he said.