Firefox Mobile 1.0 Burrows Onto Nokia N900s

Firefox Mobile crawled into its first pockets last night, going live on Maemo5. The mobile version retains the full awesomeness of the Awesome Bar and includes WeaveSync for keeping tabs, passwords, and bookmarks straight across desktop and mobile versions.

The Nokia N900 sports a lot of impressive unofficial achievements on its resume, like dual-booting (sort of) and playing Starcraft and Duke Nukem 3D. Now it gets the benefit of Firefox's first o-fficial mobile version.

As mentioned above it comes with the Awesome Bar and synchronization capabilities as well as tabs, location-aware browsing and some add-ons. Flash support is experimental but can be turned on in the settings.

Firefox Mobile 1.0 is currently available for download. You can find out more at Mozilla's Firefox Mobile page

Virgin Mobile Launches GSM Services in Southern Circles

Virgin Mobile on Thursday announced the launch of its GSM services in the country, starting with five Southern circles.

Announcing the launch, CEO, Virgin Mobile India, MA Madhusudan said that the GSM Services would be rolled out in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

"This launch will help us further consolidate our position as one of the leading, youth mobile service brands," he said.

The services come with innovative offerings like 'vMingle', an integrated social networking service which brings all social networking sites at one place. It allows users to stay in touch with friends across all social networks at one time through a single log-in.

Another service is 'vGenie', which offers prompts and alerts like birthday reminders, wake-up calls and social networking updates. Another offering 'vBelong' enables users to create and design their own WAP sites for their group, college etc., he said.

For now, consumers in South Indian circles will be charged 20 paise per minute for STD and local calls to any Virgin mobile number without any special pack. Virgin Mobile customers calling any other network will be charged at 40 paise per minute for local and 50 per minute for STD calls.

Bollywood actors Ranbir Kapoor and Genelia D'Souza have been roped in as brand ambassadors for Virgin Mobile in India.http://www.kitnakuch.com

Twitter Cuts Feature on Site Over Security Flaw

Twitter has temporarily disabled one of the features on its website after a security researcher warned of a programming flaw that left the login credentials of its users vulnerable to hackers.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in an email that the company had temporarily cut off access to a feature that lets users display Twitter updates on their websites by using Flash technology. "Our team has disabled the Flash widget while we look into the problem," Stone said. Mike Bailey, a senior security analyst with Foreground Security of Orlando, Florida, said that the problem exploits a widely known vulnerability in Adobe Systems Inc's Flash programming language. Adobe has told programmers how to address the vulnerability, which was first discovered in 2006, Bailey added, but noted the operators of many websites have failed to respond to those warnings. The microblogging site's huge popularity has made it a prime target for hackers looking to spread malicious software to Twitter's millions of users. "As simple as the attack is, I've been finding them all over the place," Bailey said. Officials with Adobe declined to comment. A hacker last month briefly hijacked the Twitter site and redirected it to one that claimed to represent a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army. That high-profile attack - by a perpetrator who stole credentials to the account that Twitter uses to route its traffic -- did not compromise credentials of any Twitter users. Bailey said his analysis of the Twitter site showed that it could have been vulnerable to attacks for more than a year, but that it was impossible to know whether hackers had actually exploited the Adobe flaw. He is scheduled to discuss his research on the Twitter flaw at the Black Hat DC security research conference in Washington, which begins on Feb. 2. 

Google Founders Brin and Page To Sell 10 mln Shares

Google Founders Brin and Page To Sell 10 mln Shares

Google Inc founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin plan to sell about 10 million of the company's shares over the next five years, the company said in a regulatory filing on Friday.

Page and Brin currently own about 57.7 million shares of Google's Class B common stock -- roughly 18 percent of Google's outstanding capital stock and about 59 percent of the voting power of Google's outstanding capital stock. If the two founders both sell 5 million shares as planned, they would own about 47.7 million shares, which would represent around 15 percent of Google's outstanding capital stock and 48 percent of the voting power of Google's outstanding capital stock. Page is currently Google's president of products and Brin is its president of technology. 

Nokia to buy Cellity

Nokia to acquire cellity

from cellity.com

Nokia and cellity have reached an agreement for Nokia to acquire the cellity team. While we are thrilled by the new challenge of strengthening the Nokia team, this news has some implications on you, our valued customers. Beginning September 30, 2009 our service will no longer be available for public use.

Google Wakes Up – Https by Default for all Gmail Users

http://www.kitnakuch.com
There is certain amount of laxity when it comes to completeness or readiness of a product or a service. I am talking about Google, the big daddy of Internet. Be it Feedburner or Google wave or even Orkut, Google seems to be lethargic in fixing the bugs. Same with Gmail as well. All these are high quality products, mind you – leaders in their area of use, but still far from being perfect.
Especially Gmail, possibly the most popular free email solution on the web currently, has had lots of complaints with respect to security. Let us get it straight, no product is fool-proof, no email solution is hack-proof, but I simply fail to understand why it took so much time for Google to enable https by default to all Gmail users? It’s been more than 20 months since we wrote a post tipping our readers to Always Use HTTPS to make Gmail more secure. A month later Mike Perry demoed a utility called Gmail Hacking tool which showed how easy it is to break Gmail’s security.

Better late than never. Google is now rolling out default HTTPS for everyone. The total HTTPS connection will just ensure that none of the conversation between the GMail servers and your PC will be unencrypted. It must be understood that HTTP is not a secured protocol in its own. But HTTPS which is a Secured form of HTTP protocol encrypts your Data while it is transferred from your Client Machine to the Web Server. So if any Third-party malicious user interrupts in your connection then the encrypted data remains secure and cannot be recovered.
The whole thing is a direct result of the attempted hacking of some Gmail accounts in China. It’s good that Google takes its security seriously, and they’ve made that more clear by announcing that all Gmail accounts will now default to the encrypted version of the service.

9 Ways to Watch Australian Open 2010 Online for Free!

The first grand slam tournament of the season – the 2010 Australian Open Tennis Championship is about to begin. The tournament starts on January 18, 2010 and will last for 14 days till January 31, 2010. Online streaming sites such as UStream, Justin.tv and the official Australian Open website will be broadcasting the event LIVE. You can watch the top tennis players in the World including 15 times grand slam champion Roger Federer & his nemesis Rafael Nadal, as they all compete for one of the biggest prized crown of the year.
Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are the defending champions for this year’s first grand slam tennis tournament. If you have to work late and cannot get to a TV, you can catch all the Australian Open tennis action online. So bookmark now before you miss the thrilling games and have to wait for the Sportscenter highlights.

10 Ways to Watch Australian Open 2010 Live Stream online

1. Watch Australian open 2010 tennis live online for free on atdhe.net – one of the best sites for live sporting action
2. Watch Australian open online for free on Justin TV – another great site for live streaming of Australian open tennis
3. Watch Australian Open 2010 live streaming for free on UStream.tv – yet another great source for live tennis streaming
4. Watch Australian open tennis live online for free on ESPN360 – US only, but can use a free vpn service to access it.
5. Watch Australian Open tennis live streaming for free on Livefooty
6. Watch Australian Open 2010 Online for free on ChannelSurfing
7. Australian Open 2010 live streaming online for free on getsport.tv – another great source for live tennis action
8. Watch Australian open 2010 tennis live online for free on MyP2P - based on peer-to-peer technology, might need to install a custom software
9. 2010 Australian Open Live stream for free on tennis channel

Tomizone Enables Tata Indicom Broadband Users toSetup Wi-Fi Hotspots

Tata Communications Internet Services Limited (TCISL) and Tomizone have announced a partnership deal by which TCISL will use Tomizone proprietary software to usher in a Wi-Fi revolution in India. Auckland, New Zealand headquartered Tomizone is a leading Wi-Fi hotspot and metro Wi-Fi zone solutions provider across Australasia, India and China.
This service enables any Tata Indicom Broadband customer to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot. The software and user authentication systems have been designed in line with the Wi-Fi security guidelines mandated by the DoT.
The partnership would allow Tata Indicom broadband customers to set up Wi-Fi hotspots at their premises instantly. Besides his or her personal usage, the customer will also get an opportunity to utilize their unused bandwidth by offering it to others, say neighbors. In return, they will get credit of internet surfing time on their account, thus subsidizing the cost of their Broadband connection.

“There is a need for higher penetration of Wi-Fi hotspots where laptop and Wi-Fi enabled device users can connect to the internet. Currently there are less than 1000 Wi-Fi hotspots in India with Tata Indicom Wi-Fi having a share of over 50%. As a result of this partnership, the number of such hotspots can grow manifold in a much shorter time and also give retail consumers to take part in this exciting new business opportunity.” Prateek Pashine, COO, TCISL said.
India has among the lowest penetration of broadband in the world at about 0.6 per cent with 6.62 million subscribers as on June 2009. India is expected to take a leap in penetration with a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and IMRB Broadband Report forecasting 214 million subscribers by 2014. The partnership with Tomizone is a step in bridging the gap in broadband penetration in India.
Tomizone offers its customers’ low cost Wi-Fi Internet access through an interconnected network using the best built for purpose Wi-Fi Hotspot authentication and management system available, which will help in increasing Broadband penetration in any country.
Prateek further added, “Today TCISL is already the largest Wi-Fi player in the country. And with this association, we will usher in a Wi-Fi revolution that can potentially create thousands of hotspots and enable lakhs of users to access blistering internet on Wi-Fi technology in a far more ubiquitous manner than today.

Hallmark Launches Romantic Twitter Competition

Just when you thought that chivalry and romance were out the window and Valentine's Day was lame and overrated (but still go through the paces anyway), Hallmark Cards is reviving the entire saccharine, diabetes-inducing, sorry excuse for celebration - giving UK's wannabe romantic poets, writers and song-smiths the chance to show off their talents through a creative writing contest on nothing less than Twitter.

The competition - a world-first - is being launched by Hallmark's online personalised card service as part of its build up to Valentine's Day, with a luxury weekend break away on offer for the winning 'Twittermantic'.

The best entries collected before the end of this month (January 31st) - whether they are funny, soppy or plain old romantic - will be judged by an online public vote and by a panel of experts, including poet and published author, Christine Miller.

The judging panel consists of seasoned limerick writer and author William Clark, professional poet and published author Christine Miller, as well as Hallmark's own editorial team.

The overall winning verse will be featured on a 2011 Hallmark Valentine's Day card which will be available for the public to purchase through Hallmark.co.uk. The lucky winner will also scoop a luxury romantic cottage break for two courtesy of cottages4You.

Chinese Used 'Flaws' in Microsoft Explorer to Hack Google

The Chinese managed to hack Google accounts of human activists and many businesses thanks to flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser, according to reports Friday.

Google has threatened to close its operations and offices in China after hacking and "phishing'' attempts to break into gmail accounts of US, China and Europe based Chinese human rights activists.

The company, which agreed to censor of Google.cn at its launch in 2006, has also said it is "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn.''

Reports Friday quoted security researcher McAfee Inc. as saying that Chinese cyber attacks on Google accounts were engineered by using an unknown flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

According to McAfee, 'phishers' fooled users into clicking on a link to a website. This website then secretly downloaded malicious software onto their computers. The spyware allowed the hackers to take remote control of the computers.

Microsoft has already admitted in its blog that IE browser might be used by hackers to remotely spy on infected computers. It is likely to unveil a software update for the browser.

"We need to take all cyber attacks, not just this one, seriously,'' Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told CNBC.

"We have a whole team of people that responds in very real time to any report that it may have something to do with our software, which we don't know yet,'' he said.

Google has said that "these accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.''

It says it will soon hold discussions the Chinese soon whether it can operate an unfiltered search engine. "We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China," Google warned in a blog Tuesday.