General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

“Gibberish” Malware Striking Printers Around The World

Posted: 24 Jun 2012 07:25 PM PDT

Printer FrustrationDuring my many years of covering technology I've seen all sorts of horror stories when it comes to the fallout of malware, but this one left me scratching my head. Malware authors usually set out with the goal of stealing private information, enslaving your machine, or perhaps forcing you to click popups, but printing hundreds of pages of junk? "Trojan.Millicenso" as it is known among security researchers has hit thousands of office printers around the world, and has destroyed countless reams of paper.

Symantec claims the virus penetrates company networks using good old-fashioned email attachments, compromised websites, or even posing as a fake video codec. Once it's open however, it instantly re-directs users to pages full of ads, and fills the print queue with a never ending batches of printer jobs that spit out nothing but gibberish. 

Its unfortunate to see malware maturing into a tool can cause real world damage on this scale, but I suppose it was only a matter of time.

Judge Calls for Patent Sanity, Throws Out Apple/Motorola Case

Posted: 24 Jun 2012 06:16 PM PDT

LawsuitSoftware patents, to put it mildly, are a bit of a mess. Its difficult for us to say that innovation which happens in bits, rather than hardware shouldn't be protected, but naturally a line must be drawn if progress is to be made. On Friday US federal Judge Richard Posner rendered a verdict that not only left the executives over at Motorola sleeping a bit easier, but could actually be an important precedent for patent litigation going forward.

According to Posner "No more can Apple be permitted to force a trial in federal court the sole outcome of which would be an award of $1." The victory, if you could call it that, clearly goes to Motorola who was facing an injunction on handset sales. From a much larger perspective however, it could force these companies to look more closely before they leap into court. The judge criticized both parties pretty heavily for pressing for damages, even though neither party was able to calculate exactly what these were. Apple argued for example that Motorola had cost them "consumer goodwill" by stealing methods of "blocking the notification bar partially", and "turning pages in e-books by pressing a button rather than swiping across the page". 

These are just a few examples, however the list doesn't get much better. These oblivious and intuitive bits of user interface make it almost impossible for modern handset makers to develop new products without navigating a mess of patents and licensing fees. Apple will appeal the verdict, however being forced to prove damages sounds pretty reasonable to us if you want to sue somebody. This certainly won't fix the patent office, but it's the first promising development we've seen in a very long time.

Mozilla Hints That “Something BIG” is Coming Next Week for Android

Posted: 24 Jun 2012 02:07 PM PDT

FirefoxMozilla isn't a company that I typically associate with grandstanding, so when their official Twitter account announced "Something BIG is coming your way next week", we take notice. The tweet contained the hash tag #Android, so it's safe to at least assume the announcement has something to do with it's mobile browser.

Firefox has struggled as of late to defend its market share on the desktop, so a big announcement on mobile could signify a shift in the company's efforts to move from heavy desktop development towards phones and tablets. The competition on these devices is just as stiff, but since everyone seems to be moving in this direction it is also a great area of potential growth going forward.

Right now I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what the company means by "Fast, Smart, and Safe", however its safe to assume they have more than a few tricks up their sleeve based on the tweet.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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