Diablo III delayed again

Posted: February 10, 2012 in game reviews
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Activision pushes action RPG to April-June quarter; company not expecting to ship both Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and WOW: Mists of Pandaria this year.

Hopefully Diablo fans have some patience. Activision today announced that Diablo III won’t be released during early 2012 as was previously expected.

As part of its latest financial report today, Activision said Diablo III is now targeted for the company’s second quarter, which runs April-June 2012.

Diablo III was at one time expected to be released in 2011, and a rumor from last month indicated the game could launch as early as February 1. However, Activision quickly shot down that speculation, and Blizzard later announced it was implementing a host of changes to the game.

Additionally, Activision today said it is expecting only one other title from Blizzard this year. The company has a number of announced projects, including Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

Will Windows 8 ARM devices offer a limited desktop interface?

Posted: February 2, 2012 in it topics
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Microsoft has been coy about certain details on Windows 8 ARM devices. But a new rumor suggests that some type of desktop interface may join the new Metro UI on such devices.

The folks in Redmond could be eyeing a limited or restricted desktop for Windows 8 ARM tablets and other devices, and one that will support only specific apps. At least, that’s the scuttlebut from the Verge’s Tom Warren, who wrote yesterday “that’s exactly what we are hearing the software giant plans to do.”

The move to Windows 8 initially stirred up confusion over exactly what we would see on different devices.

The version designed for PCs and other x86-based devices will offer the new Metro UI and the standard desktop, giving users an option of running applications in either environment. Tablets and other mobile devices powered by ARM chips will offer just the Metro UI, according to Microsoft.

Windows president Stephen Sinofsky initially broke the news last year that ARM will support only Metro apps, citing concerns over desktop applications affecting mobile battery life since they can’t be suspended.

But if the Verge’s sources are correct, Microsoft may be aiming for a compromise. Desktop apps running on an ARM device would require a trusted certificate to gain permission, and for now, Microsoft is said to be looking at including only Office and Internet Explorer in the mix.

Of course, this is all just a rumor for now. Microsoft did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment and isn’t likely to confirm such reports one way or the other.

But if the company did find a way to support specific desktop apps on Windows 8 ARM devices, the move would certainly benefit some of its core customers, both now and down the road.

An ARM processor can drive more than just tablets. The chip has been used in Netbooks and is expected to surface in more lower-cost laptops. We could even see ARM chips start to pop up in more powerful devices, including higher-performance laptops.

Tablet owners may be okay with just Metro apps. But those using ARM-powered laptops as their core computers will likely want to run certain legacy applications.

Of course, it’s still a balancing act for Microsoft as it wants to wean users off the old-fashioned desktop toward the “more modern” Metro UI. The company doesn’t want to encourage a reliance on desktop apps, yet it may not want to leave tablet users totally in the cold.

So if the rumors are true, Microsoft would certainly want to limit the supported apps through certificates to keep such a desktop from becoming an open and uncontrolled environment.

Twitter Acquires Antimalware Company Dasient

Posted: February 2, 2012 in it topics
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Twitter has acquired Internet security firm Dasient, the Sunnyvale, California startup said on its blog on Monday.

Dasient, which describes itself as a cloud-based Web antimalware technology company, introduced in 2010 a service to protect advertisement networks and publishers from malicious ads.

“Over the last year, we have been very active in securing the ads and content of the some of the industry’s largest ad networks and web sites,” Neil Daswani, the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said in a blog post.

Before that in 2009, the company launched its web antimalware platform, capable of scanning URLs (uniform resource locators) and websites for the presence of harmful content.

The acquisition fits with Twitter’s plans to expand revenue from advertising including promoted Twitter messages and accounts.

By joining Twitter, Dasient will be able to apply its technology and team to the world’s largest real-time information network, Daswani said. The Dasient team is joining Twitter’s “revenue engineering” team, he said.

Twitter said in a message that “Dasient is joining the flock!”, and referred to Daswani’s blog post. Financial details were not disclosed. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for information on how it plans to use Dasient’s technology and services.

As part of the merger, Dasient is winding down its business and is no longer able to accept new customers. The company, which was founded in 2008, was funded by Google Ventures among others.

Twitter acquired earlier this month Summify, a startup that summarizes content in people’s Google, Facebook and Twitter feeds and delivers a daily digest through email, on a website or to a user’s iPhone.

Drive-by-download Attack Exploits Critical Vulnerability in Windows Media Player

Posted: February 2, 2012 in it topics
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Security researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro have come across a Web-based attack that exploits a known vulnerability in Windows Media Player.

“Earlier today, we encountered a malware that exploits a recently (and publicly) disclosed vulnerability, the MIDI Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2012-0003),” Trend Micro threat response engineer Roland Dela Paz said in a blog post on Thursday.

The security flaw can be exploited by tricking the victim into opening a specially crafted MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file in Windows Media Player.

Microsoft released a security fix for it on January 10, as part of its monthly patch cycle. “An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system,” the company said at the time.

The so-called drive-by-download attack identified by Trend Micro researchers uses a malicious HTML page to load the malformed MIDI file as an embedded object for the Windows Media Player browser plug-in.

If successful, the exploit downloads and executes a computer Trojan on the targeted system, which Trend Micro detects as TROJ_DLOAD.QYUA. “We’re still conducting further analysis on TROJ_DLOAD.QYUA, but so far we’ve been seeing some serious payload, including rootkit capabilities,” Dela Paz said.

It’s not yet clear how victims are being tricked into visiting the malicious page, but the attack doesn’t appear to target a particular organization or group of people, said David Sancho, a senior antivirus researcher at Trend Micro.

According to the researcher, the attack is not widespread at the moment, but it is possible that other attackers will start exploiting the same vulnerability in the near future. “As mentioned, this is a publicly disclosed vulnerability so we can expect similar attacks in the future,” Sancho, said.

Trend Micro advises users to install the security patches described by Microsoft in its MS12-004 security bulletin. The vulnerability affects Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008, but not Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

As a general rule, users should always keep their operating systems and other software installed on their computers up to date in order to avoid becoming victims of drive-by-download attacks. Running an antivirus program capable of scanning Web content at all times is also recommended.