The bug that helped a security researcher claim a big prize at a recent security conference also affects Windows-based systems.

The bug that helped security researcher Dino Dai Zovi claim a $10,000 prize at last week's CanSecWest security conference affects Windows systems too.

That's because the flaw that Dai Zovi exploited actually lies in the way Apple's QuickTime Media Player works with the Java programming language, according to Terri Forslof, manager of security response at 3Com's TippingPoint division, which put up the $10,000 prize. QuickTime runs on both Windows and the Mac.

View: PC World

Cisco Systems is showing no mercy in the unified communications market. CEO John Chambers wants to bury Microsoft and Nortel. Now, he’s calling on a massive software partner to help knock out the competition.

Indeed, Cisco is partnering with SAP to develop network-aware SOA business applications. That’s jargon for “we’re ganging up against Microsoft and Nortel,” according to The VAR Guy.

Sure, Microsoft and Nortel are partnering to develop unified network applications. It’s a pretty compelling relationship. Microsoft picks Nortel’s brain about the networking market, Nortel potentially gains access to Microsoft’s channel partners and the two companies develop unified applications for Windows.

Wonderful. Except Cisco isn’t standing still. For several months now, Cisco has been working behind the scenes to line up its own application partners. During the Cisco Partner Summit earlier this month in Las Vegas, a few dozen software companies offered support for the networking giant. One noteworthy advocate included Salesforce.com. Nice win, Cisco … but where were Oracle and SAP, The VAR Guy wondered?

Now we have our answer. Cisco held off announcing the SAP partnership until this week’s big SAP conference in Atlanta. As part of the agreement, SAP will use Cisco’s TelePresence hardware and software for next-generation video conferencing in its offices. Soon, every big-name customer who visits SAP’s offices will see TelePresence in action.

View: TechIQ

MIX07 is coming up in a week and a half and I wanted to provide an overview of the IE activities at the show. As most of you know, MIX is Microsoft’s conference for Web designers, developers and decision-makers who live and work on the consumer Web.

Last year at MIX06, Microsoft placed a lot of emphasis on Internet Explorer 7, showing off improvements in the rendering engine, the new RSS platform, and the new security features like Protected Mode and ActiveX opt-in.  Internet Explorer 7 has now been in the market for approximately 6 months, doing great, and we’re hard at work on the next release. This year, the focus of MIX07 is Silverlight, and creating rich interactive applications and media experiences for your customers.  

We’ve gathered input from customers for the next version of IE through formal research like user studies and surveys, and also at conferences, comments on the IE blog, and direct emails from you; we will continue to listen at MIX07. We will have more information to share about the next release in the future, but MIX07 is too early yet to discuss specifics. So what can you expect to hear from us at MIX this year? We’ve got 4 sessions specifically about Internet Explorer, including a presentation by one of our partners, Molly Holzschlag. Walter VonKoch, Molly and Cyra Richardson will focus on creating better experiences in Internet Explorer, by using RSS, CSS and creating fast AJAX applications.

View: IEBlog

Despite all the anti-malware roadblocks built into Windows Vista, a senior Microsoft official is lowering the security expectations, warning that viruses, password-stealing Trojans and rootkits will continue to thrive as malware authors adapt to the new operating system.

Mark Russinovich (right), technical fellow in Microsoft's Platform and Services Division, used the spotlight of the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver to discuss the implementation of UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista and made it clear that the feature is not meant to be a security barrier.

"It's a best effort to raise the bar and stop malware from making changes to the operating system but it's not a security boundary," Russinovich said of UAC, the oft-criticized mechanism that requires that all users run without full admin rights.

In a straightforward assessment of the threat landscape in a Vista world, Russinovich described malware authors as ISVs that will code for a standard user environment.

View: ZDnet

Open source hardware is a term we've used here on MAKE & CRAFT for describing some of the projects featured as well as some of our electronics kits and it was the subject of a talk we participated in at then SXSW conference, but what is it?

There are a few definitions, some come from "open source software" which is usually considered software's - "source code under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to study, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form"

So how does this translate to hardware?

Electronic hardware can be divided up into layers, each of which has different document types and licensing concerns.

View: MAKE

AT&T plans to market the iPhone to business users in addition to consumers, but analysts aren't so sure it's a good idea.

AT&T Inc. plans to market the iPhone to business users in addition to consumers but analysts aren't recommending that enterprises supply workers with the phones.

Cingular, which was acquired by AT&T, recently decided that the iPhone will appeal to business users and the operator is now working hard to ensure that its backend enterprise billing and support systems will accommodate the device when it ships, said a source familiar with the company's plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

An AT&T spokesman said he couldn't comment on the iPhone beyond when it will become available and its price. The phone is expected to become available in June. It will cost US$499 or $599 depending on the memory size. Initially, AT&T will be the exclusive provider of the iPhone, although other service providers are expected to eventually start selling it as well.

View: PC World

Amazon.com, the internet retailer, wants to launch an online music store next month to challenge Apple and is working on plans to sell music with reduced protection against copyright infringement.

The internet giant has approached all the music majors in the past fortnight and said that it wanted to sell unprotected MP3 songs in May as it tries to follow Apple in shaking up the music industry.

However, it remains unclear if Amazon will meet its deadline. The internet retailer has been trying, unsuccessfully, over 18 months to break into the market dominated by Apple iTunes, which has a share of about 80 per cent.

View: Times Online

Lenovo will cut 20% of its workforce at its Raleigh, NC headquarters

Just over a year ago, Lenovo announced plans to lay off 1,000 employees and the decision to transfer its headquarters from Purchase, NY to Raleigh, NC. At the time, the job cuts represented 5% of Lenovo's global workforce of 21,400 employees and were credited in helping the company return to profitability.

One year later Lenovo has managed to become the world's #3 manufacturer of PCs behind HP and Dell; however, the company is once again cutting jobs. The company will cut 1,400 jobs globally which will represent another 5% decrease. The cuts are expected to save the company roughly $100 million USD during the 2007-2008 fiscal year. The company will also take a pre-tax restructuring charge of between $50 to $60 million USD for its first fiscal quarter which ends on Jun 30, 2007.

View: DailyTech

Google has knocked Microsoft off the top spot and been named the most powerful global brand of 2007 in a recently published ranking.

It's the second year in a row a tech brand has beaten household names such as Coca-Cola, Marlboro and Toyota.

In the ranking, which factored in financial performance and consumer sentiment, Google ranked first with a brand value of more than $66 billion, nearly double its value in the 2006 ranking, according to market researcher Millward Brown Optimor.

Microsoft came in third this year with a brand value of $55 billion. Fellow tech companies in the top 10 are China Mobile, in fifth place, and IBM, in ninth.

View: C|net News

While less-than-technical observers have opined in recent months about the sudden ubiquitousness of the BlackBerry device, the truth is, only recently has it begun tapping into the power of the integrated handset. It has indeed proven the power of secure, portable e-mail (as well as how quickly it's missed when it goes down for a few hours), but manufacturer Research in Motion has decided it's time to penetrate the cell phone form factor.

RIM's forthcoming BlackBerry services for Windows Mobile 6 devices, announced this morning, appears designed to shore up defenses against an all-out assault from competitor Good Technology. When WM6 was announced a few months ago, Microsoft directly compared the appearance of its Mobile Outlook to that of BlackBerry's native applications, in order to attract customers who are expecting a more PC-like experience on their palmtops.

For BlackBerry to maintain its mindset share, it can't afford to engineer itself into a niche. Though the Pearl is a nice device, RIM will need to maintain significant brand presence beyond its BlackBerry Connect service and licensing its BlackBerry OS, even if that means BlackBerry users end up not really using BlackBerrys.

View: BetaNews