Microsoft Adding Sony Blu-ray Support To Windows

Microsoft is developing software that will add native support for devices that play Sony’s Blu-ray high definition movie format to the Windows operating system, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said.”We’ve already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like,” said Ballmer, speaking at the Microsoft’s Mix ’08 conference. Ballmer also said that Microsoft is “going to support Blu-ray in ways that are important,” according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the company’s Web site.

The Mix ’08 conference was held last week in Las Vegas.

Microsoft until recently used Toshiba’s HD DVD format to add HD movie playback to its Xbox 360 gaming console. That practice abruptly ended last month when Toshiba announced its decision to kill HD DVD after virtually all major Hollywood studios threw their weight behind Blu-ray.

Many observers felt Toshiba’s move would prompt Microsoft to expand the range of HD content available on its Xbox Live online service rather than turn to rival Sony’s technology. But Ballmer’s comments at Mix ’08 indicate that the company hasn’t ruled out Blu-ray for the Xbox.

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Nessus 3.2 Now Available!

Tenable Network Security is proud to announce the availability of Nessus 3.2.0, as well as NessusClient 3.2.0. Nessus 3.2.0 is a major release, containing several changes from  Nessus 3.0.x :

New Features

• Support for IPv6 targets (for the Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Mac OS X flavors)
• Support for limiting the number of active TCP sessions in parallel  (per host, per scan, per scanner)
• A new nessuscmd tool that lets one run quick scans from the command-line
• A new nessus-update tool that lets one update the Nessus engine from the command-line (on select platforms)
• The Nessus daemon can now detect hosts which are being turned off during the scan and stop scanning them
• The Nessus daemon can now detect when the network is congested and change the TCP settings appropriately
• Nessus user account access control rules are now more granular and can be used to prevent the scanner from connecting to certain ports or to use certain plugins
• The nessus command-line tool can read and write to and from a .nessus file
• Improved WMI support (see http://cgi.tenablesecurity.com/tenable/WMI.html)

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Intel confirms 160GB solid-state drives will be unveiled soon

Intel Corp. today confirmed that it is close to unveiling a new line of solid-state drives for laptop and notebook PCs that will feature a storage capacity up to 160GB.An Intel spokesman said that the chip maker will introduce 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. solid-state drives offering between 80GB and 160GB diskless storage during the second quarter of 2008. The spokesman declined to provide further details about the ship date or disclose the storage density of the drives.

Intel had demonstrated the high-performance solid-state drive prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year. At the time, an Intel spokesman said the manufacturer had not decided whether to sell the drives directly to retailers or through laptop and PC makers.

The spokesman said in January that the solid-state technology would be shown again in April at the Intel Developer Forum, where some observers said it may be officially released.

Intel currently offers ultrasmall low-power solid-state storage offerings for mobile devices. These include the 2GB Z-P140 PATA and the 4GB Z-U130 USB offerings. The company has made no secret of its desire to significantly broaden its solid-state portfolio along with boosting flash performance for customers.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man Cruise

I almost forgot to post about our trip on the Simple Man Cruise hosted by Lynyrd Skynyrd. We had a frickin blast and here’s a link to all the pictures that we took. 4 days of nothing but fun:

http://www.pcsympathy.com/simpleman

And if you don’t know about these cruises, here’s the description of the 2008 event:

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man Cruise 2008 is a 4-day music vacation on board a luxury cruise liner with a visit to Key West and Calica. Departing Miami on January 10, 2008 on the Carnival Imagination and returning January 14, 2007, Skynyrd’s Simple Man Cruise 2008 features up-close-and-personal concerts from Lynyrd Skynyrd, with a dozen or so bands from the rock and country worlds still to be announced. The cruise features unique artist interaction, an Open Mic night and more, all while experiencing a world-class Carnival cruise with fine dining and 24-hour room service, a full-service casino, beautiful swimming pools, a gym and many other great services.

I’m certain they will keep doing it year after year as long as they keep selling out.  I highly recommend it.

http://www.simplemancruise.com/

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FTP Bug Leaves IE Users Vulnerable

A flaw in the way Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser processes FTP commands could let attackers steal or erase data from a victim’s FTP site.

The bug, which affects users of IE 6 and the unsupported IE 5 browser, gives an attacker a way of hijacking the victim’s FTP sessions. But a successful attack would be very hard to pull off and would only work in very precise, targeted attacks, security experts said.

The attacker would need to know the victim’s username on the FTP server and the victim would have to already be logged into the server, using IE. Under those conditions, the victim could be sent a malicious FTP link that would then execute commands on the victim’s FTP server.

This link could be sent to the browser via an invisible iFrame component, hidden on a malicious Web site, so the victim might not even know the attack was taking place.

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