Toshiba Folio 100 tablet now available
The Toshiba Folio 100 tablet is now available in Europe, however only the Wi-Fi model is currently available with 3G versions hitting in February.
Toshiba’s first Android tablet will run 2.2 Froyo and have a large 10-inch with 1024×600 resolution.
Additionally, the tablet has support for Flash 10.1, 16GB of internal memory, a front-side 1.3MP camera, HDMI out and an SD slot for added memory.
The Folio runs on a Nvidia Tegra 250 chip, making it one of the few mobile devices to use Nvidia’s powerful line of processors.
Toshiba has placed their own Toshiba Market Place on the tablet, as access to the Android Market is still not supported. The Toshiba Market has 2000 apps available.
The Folio 100 is selling in Europe for £329 now.
Jammie Thomas hit with another gigantic P2P verdict
Jammie Thomas-Rasset must be kicking herself today.
Thomas-Rasset, the American woman who has been fighting the RIAA in court for the last four years over 24 unauthorized songs she downloaded and shared online, has lost again in court, with a jury finding her liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages.
That equals out to $62,500 per song she shared.
The RIAA was ecstatic with the decision (via Cnet): “We are again thankful to the jury for its service in this matter and that they recognized the severity of the defendant’s misconduct. Now with three jury decisions behind us along with a clear affirmation of Ms. Thomas-Rasset’s willful liability, it is our hope that she finally accepts responsibility for her actions.”
In 2007, Thomas-Rasset was found liable for $1.92 million in damages, but a retrial saw the fine dropped to $220,000.
Earlier this year, however, a Federal judge found the fine to be “shocking” and reduced it to just $54,000. The RIAA told Thomas-Rasset that they would accept $25,000, if she would agree to ask the judge to remove the decision from the record. She did not accept the terms of the deal.
Lawyers for the Minnesota woman have vowed another appeal.
Supreme Court Justices probe violent games law
As reported during the weekend, the Supreme Court started examining legislation from California that would make the sale of violent video games to minors illegal.
The Schwarzenegger vs EMA case landed in the highest court in the United States and the reaction of the court can only fairly be described as very critical. Justice Antonin Scalia in particular had a lot of questions to ask the California attorney general, who was arguing for the law previously declared unconstitutional by a lower court.
“I am concerned with the First Amendment, which says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech,” Scalia said. “It was always understood that the freedom of speech did not include obscenity. It has never been understood that the freedom of speech did not include portrayals of violence. You are asking us to create a whole new prohibition. What’s next after violence? Drinking? Movies that show drinking? Smoking?”
Scalia also took issue with the use of the term “deviant violent videogames” used by proponents of the law. “As opposed to what? A normal violent videogame?” asked Scalia. “Some of the Grimm’s fairy tales are quite grim, to tell you the truth… Are you going to ban them too?” he added.
President Obama’s Supreme Court picks, Justice Elana Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, also pressured California attorney general, Zackery Morazzimi. “One of the studies, the Anderson study, says that the effect of violence is the same for a Bugs Bunny episode as it is for a violent video. So can the legislature now, because it has that study, outlaw Bugs Bunny?” Sotomayor said.
[More]>>
Unknown Interned Explorer bug exploited in attacks
A previously unknown Internet Explorer bug has been used in target attacked online, security researchers warned today.
An unidentified website has been breached by the unknown attackers, who injected code that can exploit a flaw in the Internet Explorer browser. The perpetrators sent e-mails to selected individuals who were part of targeted organizations, luring them to the hacked webpage.
If the user was running Internet Explorer 6, or Internet Explorer 7, they may have been infected with a backdoor trojan. No user intervention would have been required for the malware to be delivered if the flaw was exploted successfully. Internet Explorer 8 “might” be technically vulnerable to the flaw, but the browser’s built-in Data Execution Protection (DEP) would cause the webpage to crash instead.
“Looking at the log files from this exploited server we know that the malware author had targeted more than a few organizations,” Symantec reported. “The files on this server had been accessed by people in lots of organizations in multiple industries across the globe.”
The flaw lies in IE’s handing of Cascading Style Sheets. The browser under-allocates memory, allowing data to be overwritten in memory vtable pointers. This can allow an attacker to inject code and execute it.
Microsoft has not said when a patch will be made available for the flaw but it is not likely to be released out of cycle due to it being ineffective with Internet Explorer 8. For those running IE6 or IE7 who cannot update for any particular reason, there is always the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) provided by Microsoft to help IT Professionals protect systems from common threats. EMET works by applying security mitigation technologies to arbitrary applications to block against exploitation through common attack vectors.
Vudu starts ‘Toy Story 3′ digital copy promotion with physical purchase
Wal-Mart and Vudu have announced this week that all buyers of physical copies of the new release Toy Story 3 from Wal-Mart will receive a free digital copy from Vudu.
The only catch is you will need to purchase the Special Edition 3-Disc Set on either DVD or Blu-ray. Single-disc sets are not included in the promotion.
Buyers can play their Vudu digital copy anywhere with an Internet connection, including via Blu-ray players, the Boxee Box and other set-tops.
The new offer seems to be following a trend started by Amazon last year with the launch of Disc+ which gives users a free digital copy of over 10,000 titles when they are purchased through Amazon.
Wal-Mart acquired Vudu last year.
Firm finds 88 serious security flaws in Android 2.2
A security firm researching the safety of the mobile Android operating system has discovered a long list of security bugs, with at least some being thought of as a serious risk.
In a report, security firm Coverity claims to have identified several hundred bugs in the Android operating system. The researchers scoured over 60 million lines of open source code in their Coverity Scan Open Source Integrity Report, including the Android OS source used with the HTC Droid Incredible.
In total, 359 bugs were discovered by the team, with 88 of them categorized as being a “high risk”. Coverity praised Android for having a lower density of bugs per thousand lines of code than average open source software, but said it had a higher bug density than the Linux kernel. Some of the bugs, it argues, should have been caught before release.
All Android distributions are different in some way or another, but it is thought that most Froyo-based Android phones will be vulnerable to the discovered bugs.
Google has responded by preparing over-the-air fixes that it says will be delivered by January at least. The availability of over-the-air fixes is a huge plus for the Android operating system all by itself. Coverity will not disclose details on the vulnerabilities it discovered until patches are available and are being delivered.
Samsung Galaxy S handset is first Wi-Fi Direct certified smartphone
Samsung certain likes to be the first a lot, like when it had the first DivX-certified handset, and now the company has done it again.
With the Wi-Fi Alliance just starting to certify Wi-Fi Direct devices last week, Samsung’s GT-I9000 handset has already been listed on the Wi-Fi Alliance website as Wi-Fi Direct certified. A lot of modern-era Wi-Fi devices are capable of becoming Wi-Fi Direct certified, most likely through system updates as there is no hardware change in the protocol.
That is likely how the Samsung handset will become Direct-capable, a firmware update of some sort.
Wi-Fi Direct allows compatible devices to communicate with each other using Wi-Fi but without the need for a wireless access point or wireless router. This functionality could be added to a lot of existing smartphones on the market with system updates if the manufacturers follow Samsung’s lead.
Skyfire 2.0 app brings Flash to iOS devices
The SkyFire browser has been accepted into the iOS App Store today, finally giving million of users a chance to watch Flash videos on their devices.
Skyfire 2.0 will go on sale in the App Store tomorrow morning with a price tag of $2.99.
Lack of Flash has been one of the largest drawbacks of owning an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, especially since over 75 percent of online videos are encoded with the standard.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has made it abundantly clear, however, that native Flash will not be supported on Apple devices, ever, as they kill battery life and generally perform poorly.
Skyfire gets around this ban by taking Flash video, renders and translates it to HTML5 and redisplays it, showing users a thumbnail they can click to play the video.
“We will attack those pesky blue Flash error messages,” added CEO Jeffrey Glueck.
It is important to note, also, that over 50 percent of videos online are also encoded with HTML5.
Chrome OS notebooks coming this month?
Digitimes is reporting this week that global vendors are expected to begin selling netbooks and notebooks running the Google Chrome OS starting later this month.
Furthermore, Google will also launch its own Google-branded Chrome OS notebook, following a strategy similar to their launch of the Nexus One smartphone earlier this year.
The sources of the report are component makers in Taiwan.
Google’s branded device will be manufactured by Inventec with 70,000 expected to ship at launch. The Google Chrome OS notebook will run on “an ARM-based platform” and Google will not sell it through retail channels.
After Google’s initial launch, Acer and HP will launch Chrome OS notebooks in late December. ASUS is said to be watching the market before entering.
Apple releases iOS 4.2 update to developers
According to AppleInsider, Apple has just released the updated iOS 4.2 firmware to developers, meaning consumers should be getting the update in the very near future.
The release is build 8C134, and available for all iOS platforms including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
Coming with 4.2 is AirPlay, which will give iOS owners the chance to stream content from their devices to an Apple TV and then pick up the content on their device again if they leave the room.
Additionally, 4.2 should bring AirPrint, Apple’s new “powerful new printing architecture that matches the simplicity of iOS—no set up, no configuration, no printer drivers and no software to download.”
Finally, 4.2 should bring multi-tasking, iOS folders, GameCenter and enhanced enterprise support to the iPad.
