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Microsoft Piracy Pleas Fall on Deaf Ears in China          Today in international tech news: China continues to ignore Microsoft's patent complaints while Germany continues to honor Microsoft's patent complaints. Also: Samsung celebrates the iPhone launch by announcing plans to expand its litigation against Apple, the Philippines outlaws cybersex, and Google ditches its music service in China. Microsoft has asked China to crack down on pirated Office software used by four major state-run companies, according to Bloomberg. Speaking to a government panel last month, Microsoft named China National Petroleum Corp., China Post Group, China Railway Construction Corp. and Travelsky Technology as serial users of pirated software. Microsoft alleged that 40 percent of Office and Windows server client software used by China National Petroleum -- which according to Bloomberg is the parent of China's most valuable company -- is unlicensed, while 84 percent of China Railwa

IT Security Police: 'Step Away From That IE' A flaw in Internet Explorer unknown to researchers was recently uncovered and poses an immediate threat to users. While Microsoft has offered a series of steps to take to avoid damage, Kaspersky Lab security researcher Kurt Baumgartner has other advice: "In my humble opinion, it seems like a smart idea to switch to another browser for now, like Google's Chrome, if you can." Internet Explorer is too dangerous to use, according to warnings from throngs of security experts, including Germany's Federal Office for Information Security. The German government agency issued an alert that advises citizens to avoid using Internet Explorer and use an alternate browser until a patch can be found for a vulnerability discovered last week. The flaw allows hackers to execute code on infected computers. "There really isn't any great defense against this," Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer for the SA

Linux and Windows: Peaceful Coexistence           Having two operating systems on one computer hurts nothing. Today's hard drives have more than enough storage capacity to handle all of the files from both systems and then some. The trick is to access your data whether you run Windows or Linux. You could solve this problem by storing your data in the cloud or on a USB drive. Read on to learn how to keep your files in one location without maintaining duplicate sets of files for Windows and for Linux. One of the stumbling blocks in migrating to the Linux desktop is the mistaken view that you can't take it with you. Your data must remain captive to the Microsoft operating system. Not true at all. A related misconception that stalls many Windows users from adopting the Linux OS is the belief that when you buy a new computer or install Linux to an existing computer, you must give up one operating system for the other. Again, not true at all. Like an evangelist, I

Living Without Audio CDs             If you're hunkered down for the winter with nothing to do -- or broke - you can download free and paid software to rip audio CDs yourself. Tip: Copyright statutes come into play when ripping music and are different throughout the world. Many jurisdictions do not allow making any copies of copyrighted media at all, even if it's solely for your own use. During a recent apartment move, I became aware of how much stuff I had that was redundant. It was with great pleasure that I was able to dump a lot of it rather than paying guys to move it all across town -- again. Books and CDs were the principal weighty items I got rid of, along with a svelte cherry laminate IKEA CD rack that my girlfriend told me made my pad look old-fashioned. Horrified, I threw it out too. I no longer needed my books, due to a tablet-based Web -- and I could ditch my CDs with the availability of streaming services, software downloads, hard drives an

Microsoft Sketches Out Holodeck-ish Tech in Patent App Microsoft has gone far enough in its thinking about a 360-degree virtual reality environment to have submitted a patent application for the technology to enable it, but whether that means homes of the future will have holodeck rooms is far from certain. "For now, we will add this technology to our list of really cool ideas," said George Chronis, editor of DFC Dossier.           Microsoft apparently is looking to make so-called virtual reality an actual reality with what it calls an "immersive display experience," based on a patent application published last week.        The patent application, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2011, would allow a standard video game system with a connected "environmental display" to project an image that "appears to surround the user." This certainly sounds like something out of science fiction, but can it become so

GoDaddy Outage: Anonymous Attack or Maintenance Goof?         Despite claims from a self-proclaimed member of the hacker collective Anonymous, an outage of the domain name registrar GoDaddy could have been the result of maintenance oversights. Such a mishap "could happen to anyone and is normally more often the negative end result of cost cutting and overtaxing human resources than it is the skill of the engineers," said Frank Artes of NSS Labs. Web hosting company and self-proclaimed world's largest domain registrar GoDaddy suffered a major outage on Monday, taking down what's believed to have been millions of websites. A hacker with the handle of AnonymousOwn3r claimed responsibility in a Twitter feed. The hacker is apparently not connected with Anonymous, one of whose Twitter feeds, @YourAnonNews, urged readers to look to AnonymousOwn3r as the culprit. GoDaddy tweeted during the outage that it was aware of the "trouble" it was h

Taliban Spies Posing as Facebook Hotties            Today in international tech news: The Taliban are using "attractive women" on Facebook to lure soldiers into dangerous friendships. Also: China's top e-commerce outlet, Alibaba, taunts its domestic competition and sets its sights on Amazon and eBay; Microsoft tries to get in the EU's good graces; and the mother of detained Pirate Bay co-founder chides Swedish authorities. Taliban insurgents are using photos of "attractive women" on Facebook to gather intelligence from coalition soldiers, according to The Daily Telegraph's Australia page. The threat is such that Australian soldiers are being given pre-deployment briefings about Taliban using social media to dupe the opposition. Australia is reportedly also telling soldiers that geo-tagging -- the process of adding geographical information to updates -- poses a risk. Social media's risks were reportedly detailed in a report that

 Apple Needs to Rethink Its TV Strategy       Amid reports that Apple's efforts to penetrate the television market are foundering, industry analysts are urging the company to try a new approach. What worked in the past with the iPhone and iPad might not for television, so it may be time for Apple to heed its own advice and Think Different.        Reports that Apple's ambitions in the television arena have snagged in negotiations with media companies are an indication that the gadget maker's big screen strategy  is flawed, according to Trip Chowdry, managing director for equity research at Global Equities Research. "Apple's approach is wrong," he told MacNewsWorld. Apple is trapped in a chicken-and-egg problem, he explained. "Content providers won't jump on the Apple TV [set] until it has a massive consumer base," he said, "and consumers aren't going to jump on Apple TV until it has a content base." "Apple&

In Google Attack Aftermath, Operation Aurora Keeps on Hacking            The Operation Aurora hackers, who compromised Google's infrastructure a few years ago, are still at it, targeting defense contractors and other companies in their supply chains. The group is persistent, sophisticated and most likely government-sponsored, said Grayson Milbourne, director of threat research at Webroot. The gang behind Operation Aurora, a coordinated attack that hit Google and tens of other large United States corporations, is alive, well and hacking away, Symantec said. Over the last three years, the gang has used lots of zero-day attacks against not just defense corporations, but also the manufacturers in their targets' supply chains. "The group actually utilized at least eight zero-days over a three-year period, which is unheard of," Vikram Thakur, manager, Symantec Security Response, told TechNewsWorld. Overview of the Attacks The attackers are sy

Microsoft Makes Staffing Push Into China              Today in international tech news: Microsoft will add 1,000 employees in China, hoping to tap into a market fraught with cheap competition and endless piracy. Also: The U.K.'s years-long debate about online pornography could be nearing an end; a pair of Samsung's new-age OLED TVs go missing en route to a tech show; Starbucks Goes Grande on Social Media in China; Facebook's organ donation tool spreads to Asia.            Microsoft plans to hired an additional 1,000 employees in China over the next year, bringing the company's total in the country to 4,500, according to Reuters.        The move is designed to tap into what Microsoft sees as an integral market for future growth. The company has struggled to gain ground in China's IT market, which is flooded with cheap software -- much of which comes in the form of pirated products, a market that China dominates. To that end, Microsoft in Janu

Amazon Fires Up Kindle for Battle With iPad Amazon took square aim at iPad's tablet dominance Thursday with the release of a high-definition Kindle Fire that undercuts the Apple product on price. "They've done their homework in terms of learning from the major player in the world -- Apple -- and they've focused much more on the user experience, and brought in a bunch of features for that," said Rhoda Alexander, a research director at IHS iSuppli. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday announced a slew of new tablets in the company's Kindle line that could give that device family new life. The Kindle Fire HD dominated the announcement. It will be offered in three versions -- with a 7-inch screen to be listed at $200, with a 9-inch screen and an   OMAP4   processor, to cost   $300, and the same 9-inch tablet with 32 GB of memory plus   4G   LTE, which will be listed at $500. ta king Aim Bezos also listed a number of new capabilities that