PalmSource, a subsidiary of Palm, has begun shipping a Web browser to licensees of its operating system, in an effort to distinguish itself from Palm's mostly hardware history.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based PalmSource made the announcement late Monday in a news release posted to its Web site. The company had previously said in late June that it was working with Access Systems America on a browser that would become the basis for Palm OS 5 Web Browser. At the time, PalmSource also said that it was working with several companies to make Java support and a virtual private networking client available for its new Palm OS 5. The company is hoping to attract the growing number of companies creating devices that can access the Internet wirelessly. The consumer response for wireless devices has been tepid, but with next-generation networks becoming available, the market could prove to be lucrative for manufacturers.
"Our new proxyless browser takes advantage of the performance of the ARM processor," said Steve Sakoman, PalmSource's chief product officer.
PalmSource's OS 5 is the culmination of the group's effort to switch over to the ARM processing technology to provide a performance boost to future devices as they compete against handhelds running Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 OS. Devices running the new OS are expected in the fall.
News source: ZDNet
View: The full story
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based PalmSource made the announcement late Monday in a news release posted to its Web site. The company had previously said in late June that it was working with Access Systems America on a browser that would become the basis for Palm OS 5 Web Browser. At the time, PalmSource also said that it was working with several companies to make Java support and a virtual private networking client available for its new Palm OS 5. The company is hoping to attract the growing number of companies creating devices that can access the Internet wirelessly. The consumer response for wireless devices has been tepid, but with next-generation networks becoming available, the market could prove to be lucrative for manufacturers.
"Our new proxyless browser takes advantage of the performance of the ARM processor," said Steve Sakoman, PalmSource's chief product officer.
PalmSource's OS 5 is the culmination of the group's effort to switch over to the ARM processing technology to provide a performance boost to future devices as they compete against handhelds running Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 OS. Devices running the new OS are expected in the fall.
News source: ZDNet View: The full story
It is the ability of Slapper to create its own network, experts said, that makes this worm different from its predecessors, such as last year's Code Red worm or this summer's Scalper worm.
"Slapper is new in the sense that [infected machines] keep in touch with each other using their own network," said Russ Cooper, Surgeon General of TruSecure in Herndon, Va.
"Code Red made no attempt to coordinate hosts. All the infected hosts had similar instructions--to initiate a DOS attack against a particular address--but it wasn't a coordinated attack," Cooper said.
Unlike Code Red, however, the current version of Slapper circulating the Internet does not appear to be programmed to carry out attacks.
"My understanding is that there is not code to send instructions. [Slapper hosts] can receive notifications from other hosts--send and receive packets--but they can't really talk to each other," said Cooper.
Still, Cooper cautions that future variants of the worm might include the ability to send and receive instructions, making sophisticated attacks possible.
"One thing the attacker may have planned was to get this little worm in first, find out what hosts [it infects], then send out a variant that lets me send out instructions. I know we had 10 versions of NIMDA and 3 [versions] of Code Red within a couple weeks."
Others experts, however, worry that even in its current form, the Slapper worm can still pose a considerable threat to organizations that are infected, and that might find themselves the target of attacks from Slapper hosts.
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