Hackers hitting Macs with virus

The computer security industry buzzed Thursday with warnings that more than a half-million Macintosh computers may have been infected with a virus targeting Apple machines. Flashback Trojan malware tailored to slip past "Mac" defenses is a variation on viruses typically aimed at personal computers (PCs) powered by Microsoft's Windows operating systems.

The infections, spotted "in the wild" by Finland-based computer security firm F-Secure and then quantified by Russian anti-virus program vendor Dr. Web, come as hackers increasingly take aim at Apple computers.

"All the stuff the bad guys have learned for doing attacks in the PC world is now starting to transition to the Mac world," McAfee Labs director of threat intelligence Dave Marcus told AFP. "Mac has said for a long time that they are not vulnerable to PC malware, which is true; they are vulnerable to Mac malware."

Dr. Web determined that more than 600,000 Mac computers may be infected with Flashback, which is designed to let hackers steal potentially valuable information such as passwords or financial account numbers. Hackers trick Mac users into downloading the virus by disguising it as an update to Adobe Flash video viewing software.

Apple has long boasted that Windows machines are more prone to hacking than Macs.

Computer security specialists contend that the reason for the disparity was that since most of the world's computers were powered by Windows, hackers focused on systems that promised the most prey. As the popularity of Macs has soared, so has the allure of hacking Apple operating systems, according to Marcus.

"There has been a significant increase in Mac malware in the last several quarters, so what we've seen with the Flashback Trojan isn't particularly surprising," Marcus said. "Cybercriminals will attack any operating system with valuable information, and as the popularity of Macs increase, so will attacks on the Mac platform."

Computer users, no matter their operating systems of choice, need to protect machines with tactics including up-to-date anti-virus programs and avoiding risky habits such as opening files or clicking links from unknown sources.

via Hackers hitting Macs with virus: industry experts.

Why are Google worried about Facebook?

Google co-founder Larry Page has a Facebook fixation. When he replaced his mentor Eric Schmidt as Google’s CEO last April, Page insisted that the company had to be more aggressive about countering the threat posed by Facebook’s ever-growing popularity. Page responded with a social networking crusade that is still reshaping Google Inc. as he marks his one-year anniversary as chief executive on Wednesday.

The Facebook obsession has already led to Google’s creation of its own social network, Google Plus, and inspired changes in Google’s privacy practices and Internet search results. Those changes have raised questions about whether the Internet’s most powerful company has forsaken its “Don’t Be Evil” motto in its zeal to protect its online advertising empire.

“Facebook awoke Google to its shortcomings in the social aspect of the Internet. It wasn’t something that could be ignored,” said Steven Levy, whose book “In The Plex” provided an inside look at Google’s origins and evolution over 14 years.

Fretting about Facebook may seem like overkill, given Google’s dominance of the Internet’s lucrative search and advertising market. Last year, Google’s sold $36.5 billion in advertising – 10 times more than Facebook’s $3.2 billion. But Page realized Facebook has been carving out a competitive advantage that could be leveraged to topple Google.

Since its 2004 inception, Facebook has been stockpiling valuable information about people’s social circles and interests. The volume of insightful data pouring into Facebook has mushroomed along with its service’s popularity. That has provided Facebook with the means to target ads more precisely and deliver content tied to a user’s hobbies and tastes.

Google couldn’t use most of that data to refine its search engine and other products, which is why it developed its own social network.

Since its debut nine months ago, Google Plus has attracted more than 100 million users. Although it lags Facebook’s 845 million, the number is far greater than Facebook’s tally at that stage in its history.

But Google Plus hasn’t proven it can hold users’ attention. Visitors have been spending an average of just a few minutes per month on Google Plus compared with six to seven hours on Facebook, according to the research firm comScore Inc.

Nevertheless, Google Plus and other social networking features introduced since Page took over allow the company to learn more about its users’ lives, just as Facebook has done for years on its online hangout. Now, Google can try to use some of that knowledge to sell more ads, the source of virtually all its revenue.

Edited from Facebook focus guides Google CEO’s 1st year on job.

Bendable e-books almost here

LG Display has set the production clock ticking for a plastic EPD (electronic paper display) product which in turn is expected to set e-book marketability fast-forward. In an announcement Thursday, Korea-based LG Display, which manufactures thin film transistor liquid crystal display, said it has already started up mass production of EPD for e-books. That leaves little guesswork as to the form factor and no suspicions that LG Display might instead be sending out vapor about a futuristic project that is still in R&D.

The company press release says the plastic EPD will be supplied to companies in China followed by completed products for release in Europe in early April. What’s more, some reports Thursday said the plastic displays were already being shipped to factories in China with target dates for completed products in April to debut in Europe. There was no word yet about any timetable being set for America. The report said it had begun producing six-inch e-ink panels on a plastic substrate for a Chinese-based ODM (original design manufacturer), for an end product with a release date of April, and that the end product would be in Europe.

The key talking point is “bendable.” The black and white electronic-ink product can bend at a range of 40 degrees from the center of the screen. This is an e-ink plastic screen that is 7mm thick, weighs 14g, and has slim protective film. The company’s comments regarding these details are that the product achieves “a super slim” thickness of 0.7mm which is one-third slimmer than existing glass EPD; and its weight of 14g is more than one-half lighter.

Steve Jobs wouldn’t have released the new ipad

Reading all the reviews for the new ipad it is obvious that it is a marvellous piece of kit. The new retina screen has blown all the early testers away. Along with the higher definition camera, the bump in speed and the addition of LTE it is pretty much guaranteed to keep Apple’s tablet in pole position for the foreseeable future. But would Steve Jobs be pleased with his company’s latest offering – not in our opinion.

Here at Deskarati, we are Apple fan-boys and have been since Steve came on stage in his black turtleneck back in October 2001 and declared “1,000 songs in your pocket”. We watched every year as he introduced the latest pod, phone and pad. Every keynote was pure entertainment, every product more beautiful than the last and every update was thinner and lighter than the previous model. It’s as if Steve’s product raison d’etre was – better, thinner, lighter.

So here’s the rub, without the hard nosed head man, this years latest offering has a new mantra – better, thicker, heavier. So OK its only slightly thicker and heavier, but in Mr. Jobs’ world – design is God. Steve would surely not be happy. Would he have allowed the design team to slide on these parameters or would he have insisted on better?

iPhone 4S and iPad 2 Finally Get Proper, Untethered Jailbreaks

While the once long list of legitimate reasons to jailbreak your iPhone has taken a hit with each new iOS release, that burning desire to “Free your device” and/or “Fight the power” and/or “Just do crazy stuff that other people can’t do” never really goes away.

3 months after the release of the iPhone 4S and 10 months after the release of the iPad 2, the ridiculously talented iOS hacking community has finally cracked the ultimate challenge for both devices: the untethered jailbreak.

I know these things can get a bit jargony, so a quick recap: to “jailbreak” means to modify a device to run code and applications not signed or approved by Apple, thereby allowing you to do things with your device far outside of what would normally be possible. “Untethered” means that once it’s jailbroken, it stays jailbroken (whereas a “tethered” jailbreak means the device resets to its normal, un-jailbroken state whenever it is reset)

The team behind this hack, Chronic Dev, is the same group that makes the greenpois0n tool that’s been jailbreaking iOS devices for years. Remember comex, the iOS hacker who went legit with an internship at Apple? He was a key member of this group.

iPad 3 screen production ramping up strongly

Production on the high-resolution displays that will adorn Apple's next-generation tablet is ramping up in the months ahead of the device's official unveiling, according to a new report.

Taiwanese news site DigiTimes claims that Sharp and LG Display are set to churn out 6 million to 7 million 9.7-inch QXGA panels in the next two and a half months, bumping that number up to 10 million produced during the second quarter.

Meanwhile, Apple is said to be scaling back on the volume of iPad 2 displays it's ordering to 7 million to 8 million panels in the first quarter of this year, down sharply from the 10 million it reportedly had on order in the last quarter of 2011.

All told, that means that more high-resolution displays will be in production in the second quarter than ones for the previous model, but Apple's not going cold turkey--suggesting that the iPad 2 may still be around for a while.

DigiTimes has repeatedly offered the suggestion that Apple will continue to offer the iPad 2 alongside the newer model, expanding its lineup to three models. The first- and second-generation iPads have differed from each other only in color, capacity, and cellular connectivity, while retaining core features across the line.

Of note, this latest report from DigiTimes contrasts with one that appeared last week on Korean industry site Electronic Times Internet News. That report claimed that Sharp was out of the running, with LG and Samsung set to produce the QXGA panels for the next iPad, which will feature 2,048 by 1,536 pixels in the same 9.7-inch screen. There's also no mention of Samsung, a company that Apple has sourced for multiple components in its products but has also targeted in a sweeping legal battle in courts around the world.

A third-generation iPad model is expected to arrive in March, bringing the aforementioned higher-resolution display and more powerful components. A high-profile report from Bloomberg last week suggested that Apple was also planning to make it the first of its devices to feature a 4G LTE mobile chipset, allowing users to hop on to high-speed cellular networks.

LG’s New MacBook Air Clone Is the Skinniest i7 Ultrabook

What makes LG's new Super Ultrabooksmore than Ultrabooks? The 13.3" Xnote Z330 is the skinniest laptop out there and the 14" Z430 ain't far behind.

We'd heard rumblings about LG's new ultrabooks, but they're finally official and boy are they impressive. The Z330 is tiny: it's only .57" thick and weighs just 2.67 pounds. It'll be powered by either an Intel i5 or i7 processor, and it carries 4GB RAM and your choice of either 128GB or 256GB of SSD storage. The Z430 is .78" thick and weighs 3.3 pounds. Like the Z330 it'll come with either a i5 or i7 processor, but will sport 8GB of memory, and up to a 550GB HDD with the option of adding 16GB or 128GB of SSD storage. LG's new Ultrabooks will be out sometime early this year. No word yet on pricing.

The Z330 in particular is pretty powerful machine crammed into all that slimness, but it might not be the skinniest i7 for long. With CES coming up next week we're likely to see all matter of new patter-thin, ultraportable goodness.

Samsung Galaxy Note is expected to be launched in the US this month

We recently heard that the Samsung Galaxy Note is expected to be launched in the US either this month or early next month, and now it would appear that the AT&T version may be slightly different than the European version.

According to the guys over at Sammobile, the AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note will come with NFC, and the device is also expected to feature LTE like we heard previously.

We don’t have an official launch date for the Samsung Galaxy Note for the US, although we suspect we may find out some more details at CES 2012 later this month.