The Register reports that “Sun Microsystems in the next few days plans to issue an update that plugs a serious security hole in the most recent version of its Java Runtime Environment, more than a week after providing a fix for the same vulnerability in an earlier version of the program. The lag has prompted a prominent security researcher to lambaste the effectiveness of the company’s security team. ‘Sun is one of the few companies that is still unable to coordinate the simultaneous release of security patches,’ Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer at eEye Digital Security, wrote in an advisory warning of the flaw. ‘This organizational failure puts customers at undue risk. Hopefully in the future Sun will be able to bring their security and development process out of the dark ages.’”
According to Computerworld, Nielsen/NetRatings’ decision to no longer use page views as its primary metric for comparing sites but rather rank sites according to how much time people spend there “will affect the rankings of some companies immediately.” Thus, “while Yahoo and MSN likely would maintain their current rankings, Google will probably ratchet down on the list because while users visit the site often, they don’t usually spend much time there.”
The Los Angeles Times writes that Microsoft has decided against expanding its presence in the Northwest of the United States, instead opening a new office in Vancouver, Canada. The reason for this, according to Microsoft’s press release, is that “[t]he Vancouver area is a global gateway with a diverse population, is close to Microsoft’s corporate offices in Redmond and allows the company to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S.” As the LA Times points out, Microsoft’s decision is “just the latest in a series of monuments to the United States’ botched immigration policy, as well as a reminder of the Senate’s recent failure to pass a comprehensive fix despite bipartisan support.”
Internetnews.com points out that New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram is pushing MySpace for more data. According to the publication, “MySpace parent-company Fox Interactive Media (FIM) has until Monday to respond to demands from New Jersey’s new chief law enforcement officer to provide more details on convicted sex offenders who have profiles on the social networking site.”
Yahoo!News reports that “LiveStation, a Web TV service created by Microsoft and a software company called Skinkers, might soon make it possible […] to watch CSI: Miami or Survivor on your cell phone while you dash out to the store for some snacks. LiveStation, which would enable high-quality viewing of live television programs on a PC or other computing device, is being touted as an alternative to technologies like Joost that enable PCs to show pre-recorded TV programs, but not live shows.”