Google is set to offer Android Market - its own App Store-like content distribution system for the Android mobile phone platform which will allow users to buy, download and install content for the upcoming Android devices. On a posting for the Android Developers Blog, Eric Chuh explained that developers will be able to make their applications available via the service, which will be hosted by Google.

"Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it," he said. "We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings."

View: The full story @ vnunet

In March, Microsoft announced that their upcoming Internet Explorer 8 would: "use its most standards compliant mode, IE8 Standards, as the default." Note the last word: default. Microsoft argued that, in light of their newly published interoperability principles, it was the right thing to do. This declaration heralded an about-face and was widely praised by the web standards community; people were stunned and delighted by Microsoft's promise.

This week, the promise was broken. It lasted less than six months. Now that Internet Explorer IE8 beta 2 is released, we know that many, if not most, pages viewed in IE8 will not be shown in standards mode by default. The dirty secret is buried deep down in the «Compatibility view» configuration panel, where the «Display intranet sites in Compatibility View» box is checked by default. Thus, by default, intranet pages are not viewed in standards mode.

View: The full story @ The Reg

Microsoft has agreed to buy comparison shopping business Ciao in a deal worth around US$486 million, and plans to integrate the service into its Live Search sites, it announced Friday.

The deal is a sign that Microsoft's commercial search ambitions extend to Europe, where Ciao is present in seven countries. Microsoft launched a comparison shopping and search reward site, Live Search cashback, for U.S. surfers in May this year. The company said it expects to use Ciao to boost its MSN e-commerce services, in addition to incorporating Ciao's services into its Live Search sites.

View: The full story @ PCWorld

Comcast, the largest provider of cable-based broadband service in the U.S., will limit residential customers to 250GB of bandwidth a month beginning Oct. 1, the company announced late Thursday. Comcast will contact customers who go above the 250GB limit and ask them to curtail their use, Comcast said. If a customer goes over the monthly limit again during the following six months, Comcast will suspend service for a year.

Currently, Comcast contacts high-bandwidth customers and will suspend their accounts if they don't curb their use, but it has not set a firm bandwidth limit until now. Most customers contacted about their bandwidth usage agree to limit their activity, according to Charlie Douglas, Comcast's director of communications.

View: The full story @ InfoWorld

Advanced Micro Devices plans to announce its first desktop microprocessors produced using 45nm process technology on the 8th of January, 2009, the first day of Consumer Electronics Show. The code-named Deneb chips will not get truly high clock-speed boost, but will be able to offer substantially higher performance thanks to larger cache and architectural improvements.

The first desktop processors from AMD made using 45nm process technology will be AMD Phenom X4 chips clocked at 2.80GHz and 3.00GHz, sources familiar with AMD’s plans said. The new processors will support both DDR2 and DDR3 memory, but since the initial chips will be available in socket AM2+ form-factor, the chips will have to rely on dual-channel DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066MHz DDR2) memory.

View: The full story @ Xbit-Labs

Network giant Cisco has acquired email and calendaring software vendor PostPath for $215m, in a move seen as an attempt to compete with Microsoft in both the email and online collaboration markets. Cisco said PostPath's technology could interoperate with "many other email systems, as well as providing a browser-independent Ajax web client, and maintaining compatibility with a number of mobile clients, including RIM's BlackBerry and Microsoft's ActiveSync". It will also be integrated into Cisco's cloud-based Webex software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.

In a blog post, Alex Hadden-Boyd, Webex marketing director at Cisco, said, " PostPath offers Linux-based both client and server-based email and calendaring, uses innovative Web 2.0 architectures, and can be used by both large enterprises and SMEs, the technology has native compatibility with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange." The deal is subject to standard closing conditions, and PostPath employees will become part of the Cisco Collaboration Software Group (CSG), which also includes web collaboration vendor Webex and email security provider IronPort.

View: The full story @ vnunet

BBC engineers have solved a mysterious, long-running bug that has meant iPlayer and live TV streams have frequently prompted the BT Home Hub, UK's most common router, to reset itself.

The source of the problem has been identified after a lengthy, "tricky" search and a fix is currently working its way through the BBC's back-end systems, iPlayer and embedded media architect Andy Smith told El Reg. iPlayer catch-up streams of TV and radio no longer cause the crashes, while live webcasts of news programming should get the all-clear soon.

View: The full story @ The Reg

Panasonic will soon begin selling Blu-ray Disc-based video recorders in Europe, it said Thursday at the IFA electronics show in Berlin. The company put its first Blu-ray Disc burners on sale several years ago in Japan but the planned launch of the products in France later this year marks the first time they will be available in Europe.

Using the recorders, consumers will be able to record high-definition TV programs to Blu-ray Disc without losing quality. The only other options available are to record at standard definition to DVD or VHS tape or in high-definition to hard-disk drive, although the latter makes saving favorite programs difficult because of the limited amount of disc space available.

View: The full story @ PCWorld

Microsoft yesterday warned users of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) that they won't be able to uninstall either the service pack or Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) under some circumstances. The warning was reminiscent of one Microsoft made in May, when Windows XP SP3 had just been made available for downloading. At the time, the company told users they wouldn't be able to downgrade from IE7 to the older IE6 browser without uninstalling the service pack.

In a post to the IE blog today, Jane Maliouta, a Microsoft program manager, spelled out the newest situation, which affects users who downloaded and installed IE8 Beta 1 prior to updating Windows XP to SP3. If those users then upgrade IE8 to Beta 2 , which Microsoft unveiled today, they will be stuck with both IE8 and Windows XP SP3. A warning dialog will appear to alert users. "If you chose to continue, Windows XP SP3 and IE8 Beta2 will become permanent," Maliouta said. "You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won't be able to uninstall them."

View: The full story @ InfoWorld

A British man accused of hacking into U.S. military computers lost a major court battle today and could be extradited to the United States within weeks. Gary McKinnon is alleged to have illegally accessed computers belonging to the Pentagon, NASA and the U.S. Army and Navy in 2001 and 2002. McKinnon lost his appeal today to the European Court of Human Rights to block his extradition.

A British man accused by the United States of "the biggest military hack of all time" lost an appeal on Thursday and could be extradited to the United States within weeks. Gary McKinnon, 42, had asked the European Court of Human Rights to block his extradition, complaining that he could face inhumane prison conditions if convicted there. He took his case to the court after losing an appeal to the British House of Lords last month.

View: The full story @ eWeek

Nvidia will authorize native SLI support on Intel X58 motherboards without the need for its nForce 200 chip, according to Tom Peterson, director of Technical Marketing for MCP products at Nvidia. Peterson detailed that the company's partners will need to certify their X58 motherboards through Nvidia and, after certification, will receive an approval key to place in the system BIOS. Nvidia's drivers will check for the approval key and the device ID of the chipset before determining whether to enable SLI support on the system.

Nvidia will charge motherboard makers for certification, but the price will be cheaper than that for its nForce 200 chip, costing around US$30, which until recently Nvidia insisted was required to enable SLI on motherboards not using its own chipsets. Peterson also noted that Nvidia will continue to support the nForce 200 solution.

View: ]The full story @ DigiTimes

It's not a secret, nor a surprise that laptop sales are soaring. People are constantly on the move and there is an ever increasing demand for their PCs to be equally mobile.

Just as purchasing a new desktop can feel overwhelming to the untrained eye, buying a new laptop tailored to your specific needs whilst remaining cost effective can seem virtually impossible with the sea of potential component combinations. Realizing this, we have analyzed the market and assembled a number of specification tables outlining the ideal components for the most in demand system types today:

* Desktop replacement notebooks
* Ultra-portable laptops
* Budget/Value-minded laptops

View: TechSpot Laptop Buying Guide - August 2008

Microsoft have released English, German, Japanese and Simplified Chinese beta 2 versions of Internet Explorer 8. The installer weighs in at 23.1 MB and users will be required to remove beta 1 before it can be installed.

Windows Vista users will have to dig deep to find the uninstaller for beta 1, it is located under: Control Panel, Programs & Features and in the left menu: "Installed Updates" under the listing Windows Internet Explorer 8. You will then be required to restart your system before beta 2 can be installed.

Neowin obviously needs some work, as some pages can only be viewed correctly in compatibility mode which can be activated in the address bar like so. IE7 mode is there, but has been changed to this handy new/updated feature which allows only certain sites to display in compatibility mode, while retaining native mode for other websites and/or tabs.

Screenshots: Click here for a gallery of the install process
Download: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 | 12 MB (x86) 23.1 MB (x64)
Link to: Neowin Forum Discussion + Feedback on IE8 beta 2

The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) has issued a warning for what it calls “active attacks” against Linux-based computing infrastructures using compromised SSH keys.

The attack appears to initially use stolen SSH keys to gain access to a system, and then uses local kernel exploits to gain root access. Once root access has been obtained, a rootkit known as “phalanx2″ is installed, US-CERT said in a note on its current activity site.

Phalanx2 appears to be a derivative of an older rootkit named “phalanx”. Phalanx2 and the support scripts within the rootkit, are configured to systematically steal SSH keys from the compromised system. These SSH keys are sent to the attackers, who then use them to try to compromise other sites and other systems of interest at the attacked site.

Phalanx, which dates back to 2005, is a self-injecting kernel rootkit designed for the Linux 2.6 branch. It allows an attacker to hide files, processes and sockets and includes a tty sniffer, a tty connectback-backdoor, and auto injection on boot.

Link: More at ZDNet