Consumer software and hardware

Microsoft plans to open two of its first retail locations in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., CNET News has learned.

The software maker confirmed on Tuesday that it has signed leases in both spots as part of an effort to launch its first retail outlets this fall.

"Over a billion people use our products every day yet we don't always have a way to directly connect with them," said Microsoft spokeswoman Kim Stocks. "We see the physical stores, as well as a consistent online experience, helping that."

The Orange County, Calif., store is in … Read more

Microsoft released an emergency patch on Tuesday to protect Internet Explorer users from a hole in technology used to build ActiveX controls and other Web application components that has been targeted in attacks.

A critical patch for all versions of IE will protect consumers, while a security update for Visual Studio will help developers fix the controls and components they built that could be affected.

Microsoft also has had discussions with Adobe, Sun, and Google about some components involving their software that are affected, said Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center. He declined to elaborate.

Internet Explorer … Read more

One year after launching three security programs designed to improve security industry-wide, Microsoft is finding that more security patches are beating exploits out the door.

Meanwhile, the Microsoft Security Response Center said that of the 50 security bulletins it published from October 2008 to June 2009, patches were released in response to 138 vulnerabilities. Of those, 17 had public exploit code available at the time of the release, and for 67, consistent exploit code was likely to be written, according to the software giant.

The news comes after Microsoft announced on Friday that it would be releasing security updates on … Read more

In a rare move, Microsoft on Friday said it would be releasing security updates on Tuesday--outside of its monthly patch cycle--for a critical vulnerability in Internet Explorer and a moderate vulnerability in Visual Studio.

The two security bulletins will address one overall issue and are being released separately "to provide the broadest protections possible to customers," Microsoft said in a statement.

The vulnerabilities affect Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 and Visual C++ 2005 and 2008, according to … Read more

The encryption functionality of the iPhone 3GS is so easy to crack that it is essentially "broken" as far as protecting sensitive personal data like credit card and social security numbers, according to a forensics expert and iPhone developer.

"I don't think any of us [developers] have ever seen encryption implemented so poorly before, which is why it's hard to describe why it's such a big threat to security," Jonathan Zdziarski told Wired.

With physical access to a 3GS iPhone and some free software data can be extracted within two minutes and an … Read more

In a reversal on Friday, Microsoft said it is now open to allowing users in Europe to select competing browsers in Windows 7.

Essentially, Microsoft is offering to put into Windows a way for consumers to easily install a rival to Internet Explorer. PC makers, as they can today, could still install a rival browser and could also disable Internet Explorer, if they choose.

"Under our new proposal, among other things, European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a 'ballot screen' from which they could, if they … Read more

Facebook has changed its application-programming interface to close a loophole developers were using to write applications based on access to photo albums set to be viewable by everyone.

The move has angered some developers who built applications that offer the ability to view photos of people the user is not friends with.

For example, the Photo Stalker app, which CNET News wrote about in March, previously allowed people to see photos of strangers who may or may not know their photos are exposed to the public. Notified of the app, a Facebook spokesman said at the time that it did … Read more

Adobe said Thursday that it will issue fixes next week for a critical hole in Flash that is being exploited in attacks against Adobe Reader version 9 on Windows.

The vulnerability exists in current versions of Flash Player for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat v9.x for those same platforms, Adobe said in an advisory.

The vulnerability could cause a system to crash or allow an attacker to take control of the computer, Adobe said.

An update for Flash Player v9 and v10 for Windows, Mac, and Linux will … Read more

Ever sign up for a newsletter and then regret it later and feel too lazy to go back to the source and unsubscribe? Well, instead of just marking the messages as spam and hoping the problem goes away you, can use a new Gmail feature to solve the problem.

Google has added an auto-unsubscribe feature to Gmail that will unsubscribe you from mailing lists that you may have signed up for but then decide you don't want after all.

The feature was being tested on Wednesday for certain Gmail users and was launched on Thursday and will be rolled … Read more