Morpheus security holes denied by owners

File-sharing service says vulnerability claims were false Last week we took a sceptical look at a BBC report that warned that a file-sharing service called Morpheus was vulnerable to hackers. The alleged hole was supposed to allow hackers permission to access and download every file on users' hard disks. The initial report was based on the claims of anonymous security experts, who approached the BBC but did not, according to MusicCity, contact anyone directly involved with the Morpheus service or software. ...more

HP in dock over claims of ink cartridge scam

A woman in the US is suing HP, alleging that its ink jet cartridges are designed to expire by a certain date, whether or not they have been installed in a printer. According to a report from Reuters, the suit, filed in the Santa Clara Superior Court in California says 'The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer'. The cartridges have a sensor inside them which are designed to detect when the ink reservoir is low and alert the consumer to buy a replacement. ...more

Netscape 8 snaps IE's XML handling

The new version of Netscape breaks XML support in Internet Explorer, according to a post on an official Microsoft blog. Dave Massy, senior program manager for IE, writes that Microsoft has confirmed reports circulating on Internet forums that Netscape 8 disables IE's XML rendering capabilities of IE. If you visit an XML file, such as an RSS feed, or an XML file with an XLST transformation applied all you will see is a blank page. ...more

OCZ makes first FireWire flash drive

OCZ has made the first thumb-sized flash drive using the FireWire interface. Jessica Luken, Global Marketing Manager, claims the FireWire drive will prove much faster than the conventional USB interface and had benchmarks to prove it. The test screens show the FireWire drive to be faster than a USB counterpart in every respect. ...more

Number of websites charging for content falls - AOP

The Association of Online Publishers has revealed that the number of websites that charge for content has dropped, the first time the figure has fallen in the four years since the AOP began tracking the market. The fall is substantial, from 63 per cent of member sites a year ago to 37 per cent. Rising advertising revenues are behind the fall. ...more