microsoft

Watermarking to replace DRM?

Editors' note: This blog initially misspelled the name of a writer from Wired. The writer is Eliot Van Buskirk.

Watermarking has been in the news twice in the past week. First, Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk revealed that Universal will insert watermarks in the DRM-free files it's distributing through Rhapsody, Amazon.com and other online stores.

Then, Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it's licensing audio watermarking technology developed by its research division to a company called Activated Content. (Microsoft Research used to be devoted entirely to building technology that would later be incorporated into Microsoft products, but a couple … Read more

Microsoft's anti-Google lobbyists, revealed

If it wasn't official before, we have it in writing now: Microsoft is directing at least a small fraction of its massive (by tech industry standards) lobbying shop toward Google's proposed purchase of DoubleClick.

According to a recent public disclosure filing with the U.S. Senate, Redmond has retained veteran lobbyists Thomas Boggs and Kathleen Ireland (no, not that Kathy Ireland), along with Antitrust Modernization Commission vice chairman and former Clinton White House attorney Jonathan Yarowsky. All of them work for the prominent law firm Patton Boggs.

Their charge, according to the paperwork? "Competitive issues surrounding Google-DoubleClick … Read more

Opera patches a critical JavaScript flaw

Security vendor Secunia on Wednesday reported a highly critical JavaScript flaw in Opera 9.22 and earlier. Fortunately, Opera already knew about the problem and on Wednesday released a more secure version of Opera, version 9.23. How did it know? The Norwegian browser company said it used a tool that was released during this year's Black Hat USA by rival Mozilla, the makers of the Firefox browser.

According to Secunia, the Opera vulnerability is the result of an unspecified error when processing JavaScript code. The error can produce a virtual function call using an invalid pointer. This can … Read more

The Internet as RX for medical info

Using the Internet to research medical information isn't new. We've all been typing our various ailments and symptoms into search engines for a while; it's so much quicker than calling the doctor.

And the major search sites are gearing up to bank on this trend, treating health and medical information as an important specialized vertical that merits its own treatment.

Ask.com released a survey this week that found that of more than 3,000 adults who participated in the online poll, 70 percent rely on the Internet as a primary source of health-related information, just two … Read more

Microsoft licenses audio watermarking technology

Microsoft said Wednesday that it has signed a deal to license audio watermarking technology from its research labs to Seattle-based Activated Content.

While watermarking technology is often used as an antipiracy measure, Microsoft said its technology allows companies to add-in other types of content and services into the watermarked audio. One of the big potential applications is adding advertising to streaming media, according to a report on MediaPost.

"We are excited about this agreement with Activated Content because they are uniquely positioned to extend this audio watermarking technology to new emerging applications and we feel great about supporting the … Read more

News flash: Novell doesn't want to be SCO - who knew?

Wow! Now there's a revelation. I'm not sure how this is news, but LinuxWorld has an article that suggests that, go figure, Novell isn't interested in going down the SCO road. That would be wise. SCO is an also-ran law firm that just ran out of capital to launch its next salvo, whatever it may be telling its customers and shareholders.

My friend and Novell spokesman, Bruce Lowry, declared:

We're not interested in suing people over Unix. We're not even in the Unix business anymore....[Lowry then goes on to suggest that] the cloud has lifted over Linux.

Actually, few of us have spent many sleepless nights thinking about SCO and its spurious claims. Rather, we're more concerned about Novell (and others) saddling up on the Microsoft patent horse.… Read more

Google, Sun to finally take on Microsoft?

Nearly two years after they were expected to announce a Microsoft Office killer, Sun Microsystems and Google may finally be planning to do it. Or not.

By way of background, following much hype about a partnership in October 2005, Sun and Google held an anticlimactic news conference in which all they announced was that they were collaborating on work on Sun's OpenOffice.org, Java and OpenSolaris and Google's Toolbar.

But now Mary Jo Foley, in her ZDNet blog, has reported that she got confirmation from a Sun representative that the company plans to make a StarOffice-related announcement on … Read more

Microsoft fixes 14 flaws in 9 patches; 6 are critical

Microsoft today released its August 2007 security bulletin, which includes nine updates: Six are designated as "critical" by the software giant and three are deemed "important." Two patches affect Microsoft products on the Mac, and one affects Windows Vista. All Microsoft security patches for Windows and Office software are available via Microsoft Update or via the individual bulletins detailed below.

MS07-042: CriticalTitled "Vulnerability in Microsoft XML Core Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (936227)" this bulletin affects users of Microsoft XML Core Services in Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista; it also affects Microsoft Office 2003, Office 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server; and it addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2007-2223. Successful exploitation could lead to remote code execution.… Read more

Microsoft fixes 14 flaws in 9 patches; 6 are critical

Adobe mulling a move into the Office market?

Wired is suggesting that Adobe Systems may launch a competitor to Microsoft Office. Not only would this not be surprising (though I see little evidence in the article pointing to the presumption), but if anyone were to do it well, it would be Adobe.

The only thing better would be if Adobe, Apple, and OpenOffice could get together. Open source plus two of the most innovative makers of software in the industry...I'm salivating. (In fact, don't you think that it makes a lot of sense for Apple to acquire Adobe, given the similar corporate mentalities/competencies? Me, too.)

From the article:… Read more