- snydeq writes -
source :  http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/08/31/1832217/Your-Smartphone-Is-Safer-Than-Your-PC—-For-Now

adeelarshad82 writes
“According to a recently released video, Google is currently testing an ‘instant search’ feature that changes search results as you type. The feature was first spotted over the weekend. At the moment Instant Search seems to be implemented on very few accounts. A Google spokesman could not confirm or deny the accuracy of the video saying that at any given moment Google is running 50 to 200 experiments.”

source : http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/08/25/2058245/Google-Testing-Instant-Search-Feature

Black Forest Trifle

By Mara Betsch

A diabetes diagnosis doesn’t mean you have to eliminate sweets from your diet. But it does mean making simple substitutions when baking. Try these five decadent desserts that modify your favorite recipes into treats that fit your diet.

Who says you can’t have chocolate when you’re watching your sugar intake? Made with sugar-free chocolate-cake mix and instant pudding, this moist trifle will have your resident chocoholic licking her lips. Cool Whip trims the fat off traditional recipes and cherries add a boost of vitamin C and antioxidants, which are thought to reduce bad cholesterol.

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Cookies ‘n’ Cream Crunch

Don’t be fooled by this dessert’s sinful appearance. Made with sugar-free cookies and no-sugar-added ice cream, this dish can be made the night before a party and stored in the freezer. Sprinkling chopped pecans will add a nutty flavor and healthy monounsaturated fat.

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Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies

These festive treats will be a hit at any holiday party. By mixing sugar with calorie-free sweetener, these cookies have just the right amount of sweetness. Plus, studies have shown that peppermint may help with indigestion, in case you overindulge on the buffet

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Fudgy Cream-Cheese Brownies

Using less than half the sugar of traditional brownie recipes, these tasty treats sneak in 1/4 cup of calorie-free sweetener. Reduced-calorie margarine and low-fat dairy products knock off an additional 15 grams of fat. If you’re serving these at a festive occasion, add a few drops of red food coloring to the cream-cheese mixture!

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Peanut-Butter-and-Jelly-Sandwich Cookies

Kids and adults alike will gobble up this PB&J in cookie form. Use low-sugar strawberry spread (we like Smucker’s low-sugar jelly) to keep the same fruity taste without spiking your blood sugar. Also try all-natural peanut butter, which is naturally low in sugar and full of iron and immunity-boosting zinc. 

source : http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20307087_1,00.html

“An increase in the pace of change in IT has created new dynamics for jobs involving the Web, mobile computing and virtualization. For those looking to enter the marketplace in years to come, 30-somethings hoping to upgrade their skills, or those who’ll be winding their careers down by 2020, skill sets are drastically changing. For example, graphics chips are doubling in capacity every six months. That translates into a thousandfold increase in capacity over a five-year period — the average shelf life of most game platforms. ‘We’ve never seen anything like it in any industry.’ Colleges are in continual catch-up mode and have only recently added project management and soft skills training to computer science programs. According to one expert, ‘They’re about five years behind where they need to be.’”

source :  http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/08/23/1953234/Skills-Needed-For-a-Future-In-IT

Javascript server Node.js moves to 0.2.0
 The JavaScript-executing, event-driven network application server, Node.js, has been updated to version 0.2.0. The release sees a number of bug fixes, including a 100% CPU usage bug with OpenSSL, and an upgrade to the V8 JavaScript engine that underlies Node.js. The up-and-coming library is gaining attention with developers wanting to create scalable web services using JavaScript at the server side, using the same language as they use in the browser and to possibly share code between the browser and the server.

Inspired by frameworks such as Ruby’s Event Machine or Python’s Twisted, Node.js avoids thread based networking and moves to an event driven model, where one thread executes all the code as demanded by events, such as the opening of network connections, or the completion of I / O operations. This has the advantage of being memory efficient and avoiding dead-lock issues, as there are no locks. Within Node.js code, HTTP is a first class protocol, with a library designed to allow for the handing of streamed data through the framework.

The 0.2.0 release of Node.js has been tested on Linux, Macintosh and Solaris and also runs on Windows, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. The source can be downloaded from the Node.js site. Python 2.4 or better is required to build Node.js and the V8 engine (on which Node.js is built) only supports ARM and 32-bit and 64-bit Intel architectures. Node.js is licensed under a number of licences; V8 is under a BSD licence and other components are under the GPL2 or MIT licences, while the overall licence is an MIT like licence.

source : http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Javascript-server-Node-js-moves-to-0-2-0-1062661.html

However, Tap Snake and GPS Spy must be linked by entering specific data. This makes it impossible to launch tracking attacks without the potential attacker – such as a jealous partner – briefly having physical access to the (unlocked) target Android device.

The Tap Snake game secretly sends
GPS data to a remote server,
but still displays the GPS notification.
Source: Symantec

Anyone innocently installing the game might have their suspicions aroused because it requests access to the GPS receiver – although this privilege is also requested by many other apps for no obvious reasons. Applications requesting privileges not actually required have caused unjustified suspicions on various occasions in the past.

Such suspicions were proved justified in the case of a certain media player. Last week, AV vendor Kaspersky sighted the first SMS trojan for Android. The malware disguises itself as a media player and, once installed, secretly sends out SMS messages to premium rate numbers.

(crve)

source: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Android-game-secretly-transmits-GPS-coordinates-1060459.html

Advertisers are beginning to realize that ads on the Web have their own lifecycle. People who eventually click on an ad don’t always click on it the first time they see it. Just like on TV or in print, they need to be bombarded by the same message before they take an action. The more times people see an ad on the Web, the more likely they are to eventually click on it. As annoying as this may be to most consumers, this is how advertisers view the world.

Google also sees the world through this lens, and today it fully launched what it calls ad “retargeting.” If someone visits a page on an advertiser’s own site or YouTube channel, Google can now show a related follow-up ad to just that person when they visit another site which shows Google ads. Since there are millions of sites in the Google Content Network, chances are Google will see them again. The program has been in beta since March, but it is now being rolled out to all AdWords customers.

The term “remarketing” has multiple definitions, but Google uses it describe a way for AdWords advertisers to run campaigns throughout the Google Content Network, which the company claims reaches about 80% of Internet users around the globe. The idea is that while visitors of a certain advertiser’s website may have shown interest for a product or service, leads don’t always convert to sales and Google aims to make it easier for AdWords clients to try and win over the potential customer at a later stage. Retargeting can be applied to either text or display ads, and during the trial period was used for everything from boosting brand awareness to driving clicks and sales.

For example, a hotel site could retarget offers for Caribbean hotels to people who visited their Caribbean hotels section after they leave their site. Maybe if you are reminded that there is a special deal for a week-long stay in St. Barts when you are on a blog or news site, you will finally click on that ad and book the trip.

That’s the hope behind retargeting. It will work for a small percentage of people who need that extra nudge. For everybody else it will just seem creepy. If this does creep you out, you can go to this page to see what Google thinks your interests are based on a cookie, and you can also opt out entirely if you’re spooked about Google’s latest ‘interest-based advertising’ initiatives.

source : http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/25/google-ads-follow/

Google has released version 5.0.375.127 of Chrome, a security update that addresses two “critical” and six “high” risk vulnerabilities in its WebKit-based browser. According to the developers, one of the critical issues related to the file dialogue could lead to memory corruption, while the second could cause a crash on shut down due to a notifications bug.

Additionally, the stable channel update addresses a number of high risk bugs that may, for example, lead to memory corruption while SVG handling, in MIME type handling (2x) and with Ruby and Geolocation support. Two other vulnerabilities related to text editing and a possible address bar spoofing bug, both rated as high, have been closed.

A medium risk problem has also been fixed that caused the address bar that sits at the top of the browser window (also known as the Omnibox), which doubles as a search box, to auto-suggest if the user may be about to type in a password. Further details of the vulnerabilities are being withheld until “a majority of users are up-to-date with the fix”. All users are encouraged to update to the latest release as soon as possible.

As part of its Chromium Security Reward programme, launched earlier this year, Google has been rewarding those reporting security vulnerabilities. In total, Google has awarded more than $10,000 to those who discovered the above exploits in its browser, including Sergey Glazunov, Mike Taylor, kuzzcc and Team509‘s Wushi. Google Chrome developer Jason Kersey notes that Marc Schoenefeld was awarded with $1,337 for his help in closing a critical vulnerability in an external component, a Windows kernel bug.

More details about the Chrome 5.0 security update can be found in a post on the Google Chrome Releases Blog. Chrome 5.0.375.127 is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from google.com/chrome. Users who currently have Chrome installed can use the built-in update function by clicking Tools, selecting About Google Chrome and clicking the Update button.

source : http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Google-closes-critical-vulnerabilities-in-Chrome-5-1062480.html