New Space Frontier For Women And Muslims

Wider Anti-Doping Net Snared Marion Jones

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday Plugs Holes in Vista, IE (NewsFactor)

One critical update addresses a vulnerability in Kodak image viewer. Another, which fixes a vulnerability in Outlook Express and Windows Mail, is rated critical for earlier versions of Windows and important for Vista. Meanwhile, security bulletin MS07-060 addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Word that's rated critical for earlier versions and important for more recent versions. Moving on to the browser, MS07-057 is a critical-rated cumulative update for Internet Explorer. Two final patches fix important vulnerabilities in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, and in remote procedure call (RPC) authentication. "Today's Microsoft patches emphasize the need for proactive browser protection and the risk of surfing the Web unprotected," said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager at McAfee Avert Labs. "Many of the vulnerabilities addressed by the fixes could be exploited if a Windows user simply clicks a malicious Web link, a favorite attack method among cybercriminals," he said. "Users need to be more careful than ever when surfing the Internet." Top Priority Updates Amol Sarwate, research manager of the vulnerability research lab at Qualys, offered a similar take. He said MS07-057, which describes a critical patch relating to an Internet Explorer issue, should be given top priority because it addresses two zero-day flaws. Attackers could use a spoofing issue the patch addresses to launch phishing attacks against unsuspecting users. The vulnerability opens the door to let attackers write malicious code that leads a victim to a Web site that looks legit, including even the address bar's URL. In addition to drawing attention to MS07-067, Sarwate pointed to another serious issue: MS07-058. This bulletin describes an update that allows attackers to send special RPC packets to a Windows machine. Those packets can cause the machine to shut down or restart. "This is unique from the other vulnerabilities the release addresses, as the victim does not have to do anything other than turn on their machine and connect to the Internet in order for this to be exploited," he explained. Microsoft Word Flaw One of the other four critical patches is MS07-060, which addresses previously reported "in-the-wild" Microsoft Word vulnerabilities that allow an attacker to send an infected Word document as an attachment or as a downloadable file from a Web site. When opened, the attacker can take over the machine and command it to download spyware, viruses, and Trojans, and conduct other malicious activities. "This is the same effect caused if MS07-055, the patch for the Kodak image viewer, is not applied and the host machine is exploited," Sarwate said. "As a default image viewing program that comes preinstalled on all Windows machines, users who open infected image files with the Kodak image viewer can be compromised." Microsoft initially planned to release seven security bulletins, but decided to remove one of the updates from the release schedule due to a quality-control issue, according to Tami Gallupe, the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) release manager.

Robot masseur in Japan gives facials (AP)

But researchers at Tokyo’s Waseda University hope the contraption will soon be deployed to hospitals and spas across Japan to give therapeutic facial massages. The WAO-1 robot, which stands for Waseda Asahi Oral Rehabilitation Robot 1, is being developed initially for patients with jaw-related medical problems who require facial massages as part of their treatment, according to project leader Atsuo Takanishi. The robot’s arms are fitted with ceramic spheres the size of golf balls, and the spheres roll over the skin. The arms’ movements are controlled by a complex set of algorithms designed to emulate massages, while six sensors at the base of the arms measure and adjust the pressure applied by the spheres, Takanishi said. The technology has to be more refined than those in electric massage chairs because the facial bone structure is much more fragile than back or spine bones, he said. Another research team member, Ken Nishimura, said the robot could be adjusted to give beauty and relaxation massages. “This technology can be applied very widely,” Nishimura said. “I’m looking forward to a time when this robot will give beauty facials at spas.” The team is set to start clinical trials using the robot in November, according to Takanishi. The robot, developed with Japan’s Asahi University, must be approved by a government safety panel before it becomes available to hospitals or to the public. Japan is a leader in consumer robots. A robot that gives shampoos is already widely deployed at hair salons across Japan.

China jails woman for Internet lies (AP)

The China Daily newspaper reported on its Web site that the woman, identified only by her surname Chen, pretended to be a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her stepfather. In July she started posing as the girl, calling herself Little Raindrop, the newspaper said. “She fabricated rumors and mislead the public,” said Wang Bing, an official with the propaganda department of the Tianqiao District Public Security Bureau in Jinan city. Chen was detained Sunday and would be held for ten days though she has not been charged with any crime, Wang said. “We’re discussing further punishment, maybe re-education through labor,” he said. It was not immediately clear how police managed to track down Chen. The UN, European Union and human rights groups have called on China to abolish its system of re-education through labor, which allows authorities to imprison people without trial. The woman, who is divorced and has one grown daughter, told people during online chats that her stepfather kept her locked up at home, arousing concern among her Internet friends who reported the case to local police, the China Daily said. “Some warmhearted netizens posted details of Little Raindrop’s story to the big Internet forums where it became a hot topic and got more than 300,000 hits,” Jinan’s local Qi Lu Evening News reported on its Web site.

Nintendo to boost Net support for Wii (AP)

A network connection not only allows people to download games but also play with others online, as well as see other content and information from the Net. Nintendo will work with Japan’s top telecommunications company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., to provide network connection services in people’s homes and technical support by phone, President Satoru Iwata said. More details will be disclosed later. Nintendo Co., the Kyoto-based manufacturer of Pokemon and Super Mario games, has scored a hit with its $250 Wii, which comes with a wandlike remote controller for mimicking the motions of fishing, golfing and other activities. Wii and Nintendo’s DS handheld machine have succeeded in drawing newcomers, including women and the elderly, to games. But more work is needed so that effort doesn’t run out of steam, Iwata told reporters at a hall in this Tokyo suburb. “People tend to get bored, and the skeptics are asking whether it’s just a one-time deal,” he said. “We must think of the next step.” Competition also is heating up with rivals Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. ahead of the key Christmas shopping season. Both companies in recent months have announced price cuts for their consoles. Iwata said only about 40 percent of Wii owners in Japan have the console connected to the Net. And more games will be available as downloads from the Internet, he said. During a media event Wednesday, Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto appeared on stage to demonstrate the “Wii Fit,” a game planned for December, which allows players to weigh themselves, check their balance and play fitness games. Nintendo has chosen a different strategy from Sony and Microsoft, with their more expensive machines, and has been trying to woo novices with brain teasers, sport games and virtual pets, instead of the usual shooters and role-playing games. Since Wii went on sale late last year, Nintendo has shipped 9.3 million units around the world, with supplies barely keeping up with demand. By the end of this fiscal year in March 2008, Wii global shipments are expected to have reached 22.3 million. So far, Sony’s 5 million PlayStation 3s, which went on sale late last year in Japan and the U.S. and in March in Europe. Microsoft has sold 11.6 million Xbox 360 machines in the last two years.

Koreans resort to Internet to buy sex (AP)

Major red-light districts throughout South Korea dropped 42 percent since 2004 to 992 this year, according to National Police Agency records released by a legislative office. But the number of alternative locations where sex can be bought — karaoke bars, barber shops and massage parlors — increased 26 percent to 139,273 during that period, the records showed. In a news release, the office of Ahn Myoung-ock, a member of the National Assembly’s health and welfare committee, said the Internet and mobile phones are emerging as key conduits for prostitution. The office cited data by the state-run Korea Internet Safety Commission showing it received reports that 11,724 Web sites and mobile phone content operators were arranging prostitution as of this past June, more than quadruple the 2,680 in 2005 (The commission didn’t provide figures for prior years). The office said sex Web sites are posting prices and services along with photographs. “In particular, female university students are looking for easy, convenient part-time jobs through these sites, but the oversight over these sites has been insufficient,” the office said in a statement. Prostitution is illegal in South Korea, and the 2004 law imposed tougher punishment on human traffickers, pimps and others involved in prostitution.

EBay launches ‘Neighborhoods’ feature (AP)

The “Neighborhoods” feature encourages users to post photos, product reviews, tips and responses — creating a far more visual and interactive experience than eBay’s text-based discussion forums. The move is one result of a broad reorganization strategy started in late 2006, when the San Jose-based e-commerce leader’s scorching growth rate began to slow. Individuals listed 480 million items on eBay in the second quarter, down 6 percent from the first quarter and down 2 percent from a year earlier. The number of listings by “power sellers” who operated eBay stores was 79.1 million — unchanged from the previous quarter but down 25 percent from a year earlier. Many users complain that the site’s size — it listed 559.1 million items worth $14.46 billion in the second quarter — can make it tough to find and purchase a specific product quickly. Users are turning to rivals such as Seattle-based , Salt Lake City-based Overstock.com Inc. and Chicago-based uBid Inc. “We knew we had to change things internally because we couldn’t innovate with the effectiveness or speed we needed,” spokesman Hani Durzy said Tuesday. Marketplaces President John Donahoe spearheaded a “philosophical shift” this year in which engineers, product managers, quality assurance representatives and other employees were regrouped from traditional function-based “silos” into two teams — a buyer experience team and a seller experience team. Neighborhoods — which aggregates postings from eBay blogs, guides and reviews — was the brainchild of an “engagement” subgroup of the buyer-experience team. Among the 600 new neighborhoods is “Shoe Heads,” intended as a haven for footwear fashionistas. Others range from Beyonce to Battlestar Galactica, and still more will be formed based on popularity of search terms and community feedback. “People who are passionate about certain brands, trends, celebrities or products have been discovering and trading with one another for years,” said Jamie Iannone, an eBay vice president in charge of buyer experience. “Neighborhoods makes this even easier.” Later this year eBay will roll out “One Click Bid,” which should boost a buyer’s chances of winning during the final 15 minutes. EBay also plans to streamline its “My eBay” service and speed its cumbersome checkout process. And it is beta testing features called “Snapshot View,” the e-commerce equivalent of window shopping; “Best Match,” an automatic sorting option; and “Countdown,” which features improvements in real-time auction monitoring. Building a sense of community should keep buyers and sellers at eBay longer, experts said Tuesday. EBay building neighborhoods is the equivalent of Nordstrom or another brick-and-mortar retailer adding a cafe and lounge. “The idea is this will provide more ’stickiness’ so a user will come back more often, spend more time there and will more likely purchase items,” said Karsten Weide, an analyst at research firm IDC. “This should make consumers’ lives a whole lot easier.” ___ On the Net:

October's coolest gadgets (InfoWorld)

The show has grown greatly over the last few years and this year hit a milestone: attendance of over 200,000 people across its five-day run. Organizers had been looking to break the record for the last three years so it came with more than a little relief that they finally managed it. Read on for our pick-of-Ceatec and other new gadgets from the last month. Sony OLED TV Without a doubt the coolest thing at Ceatec this year was . This is something we've been promised all year and the first commercial product doesn't disappoint — except perhaps on price. The set has an 11-inch OLED panel and is 3mm thick. OLEDs offer other advantages over LCD and PDP technology, including wider viewing angles, faster response time, and better contrast and colors. However, the technology is difficult to manufacture and the OLED material degrades over time. Sony said the XEL-1 has a viewing life of 30,000 hours, which allows a user to watch eight hours of television each day for 10 years. The television goes on sale in Japan on Dec. 1, and will cost ¥200,000 (US$1,740.50). Currently, there are no plans to sell the television outside Japan, as Sony plans to manufacture just 2,000 sets each month. Panasonic Blu-ray Disc recorders Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic) kicked off Ceatec by unveiling of three new Blu-ray Disc recorders. The recorders can cram up to 18 hours of high-definition video onto a 50G-byte Blu-ray Disc — something that hasn't been possible until now. Previous recorders took the MPEG2 digital TV stream as it was transmitted and recorded it directly to disc resulting in a recording capacity of about 4 hours on the 50G-byte discs. However the new Panasonic recorders can convert this into the more efficient MPEG4 AVC compression system and thus the greater storage capacity on each disc. They also have built-in hard-disk drives. All three recorders will go on sale in Japan on Nov. 1 with the top-of-the-range BW900 costing ¥300,000 (US$2,600). There are no immediate plans to sell them overseas but Panasonic said it is examining the possibility. Toshiba SpursEngine laptops One of the cool gadgets being demonstrated by Toshiba was a prototype Qosmio laptop that includes a , based on the Cell Broadband Engine processor core. It's based on the same processor core found in the PlayStation 3 and aims to provide better video-processing capabilities for computers. One laptop offered facial-recognition capabilities that find a user's face, and then allow virtual makeup and different hairstyles to be applied and viewed in three dimensions. A second demonstration used the SpursEngine to search a video, and then break the video clip into scenes based on facial expressions, allowing a user to find a particular scene more easily. Toshiba has yet to finalize plans to commercialize SpursEngine. Omron Okao Vision While not strictly a gadget,  is a software application that could certainly make other gadgets cool! A new addition to the facial-recognition family finds a face in a video image and then provides an estimation of how much a person is smiling (from 0 to 100 percent). The technology could be used, for example, in a digital camera to sense when photo subjects are smiling and ready for their picture to be taken. Sony's recently launched DSC-T200 has just such a feature — branded Smile Shutter by Sony — but it's not based on the Omron system. Omron hopes to find customers for the software this year. Sharp LCD with optical scanner If you think the iPhone screen's two-finger touch is cool then Sharp has something for you! The company showed a  that integrates an optical scanner pixel alongside each LCD pixel. This means the screen can scan objects such as name cards placed on its surface and recognize fingers or other objects. Because it's determining the position of fingers from a scanner input and not a touch screen, it's possible to touch the screen in more than two places and have all fingers recognized. The panel is still a prototype but commercialization is expected in the first half of next year. Samples are already in the hands of potential customers but Sharp wouldn't name those companies. Whoever they are, you can be sure some are trying to outdo Apple's iPhone! Samsung music phones Away from Ceatec, Samsung unveiled a refreshed line-up of  that are targeted at music lovers. The top-of-the-range SGH-i450 boasts an amplifier developed by high-end audio specialists Bang & Olufsen and runs the Symbian S60 smartphone software platform. It has a 2.4-inch display and a 2-megapixel camera. It works on WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) networks and supports HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) data service up to 3.6M bps (bits per second). The phone will first appear in Italy at the end of October and will follow in other European countries. It will cost about €360 (US$508) before carrier subsidies. One weak point of the handset is the amount of built-in memory, which is just 35M bytes. That's about enough for 7 to 10 songs, which is disappointing for a music phone. Memory can be expanded up to 4G bytes with a Micro SD memory card. Sony Video Walkman with TV Sony is adding mobile digital TV viewing and recording to the video Walkman it sells in Japan. The "OneSeg" system, as it is marketed, has proved a popular addition to many portable gadgets and can now be found on many high-end cell phones, laptop PCs, car navigation systems and even electronic dictionaries. The only difference between the three new Walkman devices with TV is their memory capacity. The NW-A916 has 4G bytes of memory, the NW-A918 has 8G bytes and the NW-A919 16G bytes. Compared to the last players the screen size has been increased to 2.4-inches from 2-inches. They'll go on sale in November in Japan only. The NW-A916 will cost about ¥30,000 (US$260), the NW-A918 ¥35,000 and the NW-A919 ¥45,000.  

Wireless Group Certifies First Products (PC World)

UWB is the radio technology underlying those systems. It is designed to deliver 480M bps (bits per second) throughput over a range of a few meters, making data transfers among PCs, peripherals and consumer electronics equipment faster. As data storage capacities grow, moving and synchronizing content among heavily loaded devices will take longer unless data-transfer speeds increase. Wired USB 2.0 already delivers as much as 480M bps, but consumers have grown used to connecting devices wirelessly through using IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs. UWB is better for close-range personal area networks than is 802.11, and it helps battery life with lower power consumption, according to supporting industry group, the WiMedia Alliance. "If you don't want to wait hours to make a transaction, you need a very, very fast communication link," said Stephen Wood, president of the WiMedia Alliance. WiMedia has certified chipsets from 12 vendors, including Intel Corp., Alereon Inc. and Staccato Communications, that include the physical and MAC (media access control) layers for UWB radios. The certification means no matter what those radios are used for, they won't interfere with each other when operating in the same area, he said. The certified chipsets, in turn, will go into devices that use higher layer protocols such as Bluetooth 3.0 and Wireless USB, Wood said. Third parties, such as the Wireless USB Implementers Forum and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), are responsible for certifying those implementations. In fact, the Wireless USB group already certified four products in July. The notebooks, adapters and hubs were approved after the essential testing had taken place on the UWB chipsets used in them, but the WiMedia Alliance took longer to finish its certification process, Wood said. The Bluetooth SIG plans to complete its 3.0 specification and start certifying products by the middle of next year. UWB is good as far as it goes, but it's more important that short-range technologies become easier to use, said Avi Greengart of Current Analysis Inc. "Their engineers focused on fast, and there's a market for fast," Greengart said. But Bluetooth and even wireless LANs are fairly complicated for most people to use, even though there are some implementations that make them easier, such as on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, he said. UWB uses a wide range of frequencies and has triggered worries in some parts of the world about interference with other networks. But now it is legal for use in the European Union, Japan and Korea and is expected to be approved in China, Canada and Singapore by year's end, WiMedia's Wood said. It won't use the same frequencies in all those countries, but vendors should come out with devices that can be switched from one country's mode to another for people who want to roam, he said. Once a critical mass of products gets into the market, UWB-based technologies could catch on, but the connections consumers are used to won't go away any time soon, Greengart said. "It's not like every cell-phone maker will suddenly stop using regular Bluetooth," Greengart said.