Bing Maps until recently only offered driving and walking directions for users of the maps service. Today the team announced that they have expanded this by adding transit information for 11 US American and Canadian cities to the information already displayed. While eleven may not sound like much, it is a solid start and the [...]

Adobe yesterday has released a preview version of Flash Player Square, a new version of the popular browser plugin. This preview version adds two core new features to Adobe’s Flash Player, namely enhanced support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Beta which was also released yesterday, and native 64-bit support for all supported operating systems including [...]

Some time ago I made the decision to dump the two popular Adobe products Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader from my system. Since then, Adobe did not come to rest, as the company was hit by one 0-day exploit after the other. What made matters worse was the reaction time to fix the exploits, which [...]

Microsoft’s latest game release for it’s ever popular XBox 360 console, Halo 4 is set to be available from midnight tonight as stores aim to cash in on the popularity of the Halo game series, and the inevitable popularity of this new game. Halo 3 previously held the title for the biggest selling game of [...]

After the Antennagate affair of a few months ago where it was revealed that if you held the new iPhone 4 a certain way the signal would drop out, and the resulting storm that hit the international media when Apple supremo Steve Jobs reported sent an angry customer an email telling him not to hold [...]

Ten years ago where were worms like Kournikova and I Love You that were infecting computers worldwide with malware and getting mainstream attention on the news.  In that time operating systems and anti-malware programs have improved but now a new sex worm is making its way around the world according to the BBC. Some variants [...]

If you are tech savvy, you usually notice things related to technology that friends, family and work colleagues may not. This includes a very broad realization that most computer users have difficulties staying safe on the Internet. Not because they do not want to, but because they do not know or do not care about [...]

Apple’s latest operating system version for the iPhone and iPod Touch was launched only one day ago, but already it’s official that it’s been jailbroken. A message posted by MuscleNerd on Twitter said… Jailbreaking, the process of unlocking the iPhone, has received a great deal of attention due to the fact that doing so allows [...]

In a way it’s odd and unusual that technology companies, that usually want you to buy the very latest version of the thing you only bought a year ago, are so willing these days to make it easy for you to update your device.  Now Apple has released the latest version of their iOS operating [...]

Ghacks regulars know that it is possible to configure Adobe Reader from the settings manager page on the Macromedia website. System administrators and security experts have addressed two problems with the online availability of the settings manager. Attackers can for instance fake certificates to make changes to the settings. Another problem is that it is [...]

Not logging out can be a huge privacy risk, especially on public computers but also on other computer systems that multiple users have access to. Why is that? Because everyone accessing the computer after the user may access that user’s profile on Internet websites. That was reason enough for Facebook to add a new option [...]

Microsoft have reached a big milestone with their new smartphone operating system, Windows Phone 7.  Today, Terry Myerson the Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering has announced that it has been finalised and released to manufacturing. This means that the version of the operating system Microsoft have released today, is the same version that [...]

Apple has just released a new version of their music organization software iTunes, bringing the version to 10. Probably the biggest new feature is Apple’s new social network Ping, which is designed to provide iTunes users with options to connect with friends, and receive updates about music and concerts. Ping allows them to follow friends [...]

Determining if a website is real or fake is one of the greatest challenges for many Internet users. Criminals have honed their skills in the past years to create websites that look in all design aspects as the real deal. Only information displayed by the browser aids in the verification process. What if there was [...]

Internet Explorer is the black sheep of the browser community.  It’s about as standards compliant as the overweight kid in the school athletics team, and as insecure as Fort Knox with the front door open.  Annoyingly though it’s still out there and being used. Now there might be some light at the end of the tunnel.  Social networking [...]

gHacks editor Mike Halsey will be appearing on BBC Radio Sheffield tomorrow (Thursday 26th Aug 2010) at 11:30am in the UK (06:30 est, 03:30 pst, 12:30 Europe, 20:30 Aus) talking about his work in ICT and how it led to writing two books about Windows 7 including his forthcoming Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out which [...]

Jailbreaking Apple’s iPhones has has a lot of publicity of late with new tools making it easier than ever before to unlock the iPhone so it can be used across networks and have any apps installed.  Now though Apple have applied for a patent that could allow them to remotely disable any iPhones that are [...]

Windows Live Sync, formerly Live Mesh and part of the new Windows Live Essentials 2011 Suite is now available for the Apple Mac, as reported by Windows Observer.  The beta can be downloaded hereas a .dmg file. Live Sync is an excellent tool that I’ve come to rely on myself for automatically syncing files and [...]

Adobe in a security advisory yesterday released new versions of their popular pdf reading applications Adobe Reader and Acrobat. Adobe Reader 9.3.3, which was released less than a month ago, is replaced by version 9.3.4. Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3.4 fix several critical security vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader 9.3.3 and earlier for Windows, Macintosh and [...]

Intel, the world’s biggest manufacturer of computer processors has announced it’s to buy security technology firm McAfee for $7.68bn (£5bn) in cash the BBC reports.  The deal values the anti-virus firm at $48 per share, almost 60% higher than it’s closing share price yesterday. Intel says it will utilise McAfee to help it build security [...]

Facebook has been working on a location based service for quite some time now. Yesterday they revealed the new Facebook service Places at their mystery press event. Facebook Places is an location aware service similar to Foursquare. It basically allows users to check in from locations, and more. Places helps you “share were you are”, [...]

Facebook has come in for a huge amount of criticism this year over issues such as privacy and the complexity of their user controls.  Now the social networking giant has sent out mystery press-invites for an event tomorrow, according to neowin. According to the invite, this “news event” will be held at the company’s headquarters [...]

Many users of the social networking site Facebook have long been asking for a dislike button and now it looks like they’ve got what they were asking for… or have they?  Be warned, the latest offering of a dislike button on Facebook is, in fact, an elaborate scam.

Mary-Jo Foley of ZD Net has reported that Microsoft is readying another public beta of their forthcoming Windows Live Essentials 2011 suite, an update to the previously titled Wave 3 suite of programs. Windows Live Essentials is commonly described as being exactly that, essential, as it’s suite of add-on programs, including Mail, Photo Gallery and [...]

Facebook does not seem to come to rest these days when it comes to privacy. A new bug was discovered on Wednesday by researcher Atul Agarwal, which allowed anyone to match an email address to a Facebook user’s name, and profile picture. Facebook has designed the login process to provide additional information to the user [...]

Today is the second Tuesday of the month and that means it is Microsoft Patch Day. Microsoft is keeping a tight schedule when it comes to security patches. If they are not heavily exploited or very critical they are released on the second Tuesday of each month. Today’s patch day is already available via the [...]

The iPhone 4 has not been a phone launch without controversy, namely the Antennagate scandal.  Now Mark Papermaster, the executive in charge of engineering at the Cupertino company, has left only weeks later. Apple has refused to comment on his departure by a source told the New York Times that he had been “pushed out over [...]

What is it with Adobe Reader and vulnerabilities? It feels like new security vulnerabilities are found in the software at an accelerated pace this year. Adobe yesterday released a security advisory for Adobe Reader and Acrobat, to announce to the world that critical security vulnerabilities have been found – once again – in Adobe Reader [...]

Hackers have moved in the last few years away from attacking platforms such as Windows, and instead on to attacking software.  This is in a large part because the security of operating systems such as Microsoft Windows have increased incredibly in recent years while other software companies have remained complacent. The latest threat is another [...]

In times of economic uncertainty there have been questions asked by Microsoft shareholders about the company’s intentions with the slate / tablet PC form factor.  At the company’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting this week CEO Steve Ballmer said that Windows 7 slates were “job number one” according to ZD Net.

Microsoft has announced that it’s to extend it’s Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) to include vulnerability sharing information from Adobe. The programme, launched in October 2008 allows sharing of information about security vulnerabilities with security software vendors.  So far 65 companies have signed up to the scheme.

Just as Microsoft and Yahoo! have joined forces in search, now Yahoo! Japan and Google have linked up too. Yahoo!’s Japanese search engine will now use Google’s technology rather than stick with fellow partner Microsoft and their Bing search engine as reported by NeoWin.

It’s not all good news this, sorry to have to break that to you early on.  Apple have updated their iMac and Mac Pro computers for 2010 / 2011 and they have an impressive specification and an equally impressive price tag.  But it also looks like there’s a catch. The new Mac Pros have six [...]

Apple software had more reported security vulnerabilities than any other company in the first half of 2010, according to security company Secunia, a reputable security company that tracks security vulnerabilities since 2002. Last years leader, Oracle, dropped to second spot while Microsoft managed to retain the third spot firmly in the last five years. Adobe [...]

Apple profits leapt past expectations for the three months to June 26th on the back of the iPad and iPhone 4 launches. The company’s income was $3.25bn (£2.1bn) for the period, up from $1.83bn for the same quarter last year.

The uninstallation of Flash Player can sometimes be problematic, and not as easy as clicking on the uninstall button. The first thing that Windows users should note for instance is that there are two versions of the Flash Player plugin available, one for Internet Explorer, the other for the remaining web browsers such as Firefox, [...]

Microsoft has released a second Office 2010 guide, after the previously reviewed Getting Started With Microsoft Office 2010 Guide. The new guide, Operations guide for Microsoft Office 2010, provides information on how to maintain and manage Office 2010 in an organization. It is in this regard even more specialized than the getting started guide, the [...]

Microsoft have warned of a critical vulnerability in Windows Shell, caused when parsing .lnk shortcuts that can automatically launch a malicious program through use of a specially crafted shortcut. The vulnerability afcects all versions of Windows including XP and Windows 7.   On Windows 7 the exploit can bypass the operating system’s security as it does not [...]

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has bequeathed the majority of his estimated $13.5bn (£8.8bn) to philanthropy after his death according to the BBC. Allen set up a charitable foundation 20 years ago to which he has personally donated $600m. He follows Bill Gates in pledging billion of dollars to charities and projects that help others. Paul Allen [...]

Yahoo and Microsoft have been testing Bing powered search results offline for some time now. A recent email sent out to advertisers confirmed that the testing will be moved to the live search results shortly. During that period part of Yahoo’s Live search results will be powered by Bing, “with paid search volume in particular [...]

Apple has called a surprise new conference for Friday 16th July to talk about the iPhone 4.  The company has refused to give details about whether they will talk about the antenna issues that have plagued the phone’s users and that have resulted in a great deal of criticism for Apple. The BBC has reported [...]

Facebook, love it or hate it. I never really used the social networking site much, not my thing to share quizzes, games and all the other things users share on the site. It has its uses to keep in touch with some friends but then again, there are other means to do that. Still, I [...]

Following the recent US / Russia spy drama, however Microsoft have now claimed that a 12th spy was working for them.  In an interview with Newsweek, they said that Alexey Karetnikov had worked for the company as a software tester for nine-months.  Russia’s foreign ministry declined to comment. Ten members of the spy ring were [...]

Microsoft is going to release the Facebook social connector for Outlook later today according to Neowin.  The connector allows you to integrate your Facebook contacts into Outlook to view things like their status updates.  It’s a good way to keep in touch with people, though businesses might find the concept irritating. Many people were expecting this [...]

How do you know if an online business is legit or a scam? Many Internet users share their personal information online even though they should not be doing so, at least not on websites that should not be trusted. Information can be used against the user, especially if they happen to enter social security numbers, [...]

Microsoft has just released a Getting started with Microsoft Office 2010 guide that gives customers an overview of the Microsoft Office 2010 suite and how to get started with Office 2010. The book’s core audience is mainly IT personal, help desk, deployment staff and consultants even though it contains valuable information for end users as [...]

In the last year or so there’s been an explosion in sites allowing you to use a third-party login to access their services.  Every major company except for Microsoft has so far jumped on the bandwagon but it appears we have an outright and runaway winner already. Read Write Web is reporting a study that shows [...]

Adobe just recently released updates to their pdf reader Adobe Reader, raising its version to 9.3.3. The update fixed several security issues of which at least one was actively exploited in the wild. Computer users who visit the Adobe website might notice that Adobe is not offering that version for download, anywhere on the page. [...]

It happens!  Technology moves to quickly and companies have such little time to actually socak test products these days that problems slip through.  Unless you’re Toyota though they’re not usually life-threatening which will come as some relief to Apple. The BBC has reported that Apple have acknowledged there’s an issue with people who “hold the [...]

An unpatched bug in the Windows XP Help and Support system is being increasingly attacked by  virus and malware writers, as reported by the BBC. Microsoft has reported it’s seen more than 10,000 PCs hit by the attack so far and it’s still not been able to find a fix for the problem.