Security improvements in Internet Explorer 8

Security improvements in Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft is beefing up its upcoming Internet Explorer 8 browser with several security improvements against hackers and phishers. Eric Lawrence, Microsoft’s program manager of Internet Explorer security, says IE 8 Beta 1 will have more defenses against cross-site scripting, malware protection and URL highlighting. File upload paths will also be changed to read only. This will prevent hackers from reading direct paths to important files.

When you visit a site, the url will be checked against a database of websites known to contain malware. Suspicious sites will come up with a red background and a very large and noticeable warning box. This is designed to replace the rather innocuous warning box we currently see in IE 7 – the one that most people just ignore. URL highlighting will further protect users by highlighting good web addresses in black, while suspicious ones will be in gray.

Beta version of IE can be downloaded from here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/getitnow.mspx

Gmail Security Feature

Google is adding two important security features to Gmail that lets users monitor their accounts and log out all their sessions.

The session details can be seen at the bottom of the Gmail inbox page.






A single line shows the user’s last account activity and a details hyperlink will take them to a pop-up window that shows the last five session details. Users are given the access type (browser, mobile phone, pop3, etc), IP address and the date and time. Furthermore, Gmail will also say if there are other open sessions, something that is quite common when you’re using a web-based service.

Flickr images may bring $$ to photographers

Flickr images may bring $$ to photographers

Skillful photographers who post their pictures on Flickr will now have a chance to hit the big time. Flickr has teamed up with stock photography giant Getty Images to collate and possibly sell outstanding photos. Revenues from the photos will be split between Getty and the photographers.

Photographers could make several hundred dollars off of their pics, but this is definitely a case of we’ll call you and not the other way around. Getty Images will first invite photographers into a special Flickr group. Getty editors will then sift through the group’s images and select the best ones for syndication.

http://www.flickr.com/help/gettyimages/

Water Found on the Moon

Water Found on the Moon



Photo taken by astronaut William Anders from the Apollo 8 spacecraft in December 1968 - NASA.

Tiny beads of lunar volcanic glasses brought by the Apollo astronauts more than 35 years ago have now yielded the first evidence of water deep in the Moon’s interior.

A team of US scientists studying the geological souvenirs from the Apollo missions has used sophisticated instruments — not available in the Apollo era — and discovered chemical residues that point to water.

“This is the first sign that the Moon’s deep mantle may hold water,” geologist Alberto Saal, a team member at Brown University, told The Telegraph. The findings will be described in the journal Nature 10th July issue

Scientists believe the Moon was created when a Mars-sized object collided with Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. The intense heat generated by the impact melted or vaporised most of the light elements, according to the theory of the Moon’s origin. Researchers believe the Moon lost virtually all its hydrogen in its catastrophic creation.

“The volcanic glass beads now tell us that the impact was not enough to rid Moon of all the hydrogen,” Saal said.

Over the past four decades, researchers have repeatedly analysed samples of rocks and other material from the Moon. But in all that time, the limit for detecting water was about 50 parts per million (ppm).

“We developed a way to detect as little as 5ppm of water,” said Eric Hauri, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science. “We were surprised to find a great deal more in these glass beads, up to 46ppm.”

The scientists analysed volcanic glass beads formed during magma eruptions on the Moon about 3.5 billion years ago. Their calculations suggest that at the time of these eruptions, the magma had about 745ppm of water. “It suggests that the Moon’s interior might have had as much water as the Earth’s upper mantle,” Hauri said.

Copying Music from iPhone/iPod Touch to a PC, Using Winamp

Copying Music from iPhone/iPod Touch to a PC, Using Winamp

By using the iPod plug-in in Winamp, you are able to copy songs/videos from your iPhone directly to your computer hard drive, a feature that has been locked out of the new models. To download the plug in, go to

"http://mlipod.sourceforge.net/?page=home" and install.

Open Winamp and copy! Enjoy!