Acer launches new notebooks, Tablet PCs

Acer, which recently became the number two notebook supplier in Europe, is looking to extend its market share with new ranges of notebooks and Tablet PCs in the run up to Christmas. The company is launching two models in the Acer Aspire range - the 2001 and 2003 - the former aimed at the high-end consumer market and the other at the professional market. The notebooks are based on Centrino technology and include the Pentium M processor with speeds of up to 1. ...more

MandrakeSoft acquires Linux support company Edge IT

MandrakeSoft is gearing up for a full scale assault on the French corporate and public sector with the acquisition of Linux support company Edge IT. Edge IT already counts OECD, the world economic organization, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, a French Political Science School, and Prisma Presse, a publishing company, among its customers. And with the French government recently talking up a renewed appetite for the cost-savings associated with open source, Mandrake is keen to be seen to have the stomach to cater for the support needed by the public sector and business. ...more

Symantec warns Mac users of a false sense of security

Mac users are living under a false sense of security, according to Symantec. The company, which makes security software for the Mac, said that although there have yet to be any widespread exploits of vulnerabilities in OS X, the system is increasingly becoming the target of malicious hackers. 'It is now clear that the Mac OS is increasingly becoming a target for the malicious activity, contrary to popular belief that the Mac OS is immune to traditional security concerns,' Symantec says in its latest Internet Security Threat Report 'As Mac OS X users demand more features and implement more ports of popular UNIX applications, vulnerabilities and exploits targeting this operating system and its underlying code base are likely to increase,' it adds. ...more

Intel commits $1bn for developing nations

Intel has committed itself to spending $1bn over the next five years to provide better access to technology in developing countries. According to Intel, its World Ahead Program will seek to boost education by providing training for teachers, promote WiMAX trials for wireless broadband Net access and develop 'fully featured, affordable PCs tailored to regional needs' (following on from the Intel-based Community PC developed for India, as part of its recent Discover the PC initiative). Specifically, Intel's stated goals are to train 10 million teachers on technology in education, reaching up to 1 billion students. ...more

Researchers highlight a router route to pharming

Researchers at Symantec, along with Sid Stamm and Markus Jakobsson of the Indiana University School of Informatics, have uncovered an almost trivial means of hijacking web browsing. The attack involves little more on the victim's part than simply visiting a web page. The attacker's web page runs a piece of JavaScript code which attempts to log in to your router in the background and reconfigures the settings, including the DNS servers. ...more