Kenai Systems announced at the Gartner IT Security Summit the availability of eXamineXT, an automated Web services vulnerability
assessment solution. eXamineXT makes it easier for software developers who lack security training to build, test, and deploy
secure Web services. The product ships with more than 20 Security Test Profiles that automatically generate test cases for
particular Web services vulnerabilities. eXamineXT supports SOAP with Attachments, including MIME and DIME, as well as SSL
client authentication. It offers authoring tools for creating customized tests with SOAP Requests, and integrated testing
for WS-I Basic Profile and WS-Security compliance. It is available in stand-alone and Eclipse plug-in versions. A free 30-day
trial of eXamineXT, priced at $800 per seat, is available for
download.
Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) investigates MSN Korea hack
June 3, 5:45 a.m. PDT
Microsoft had to take part of its MSN Korea property offline earlier this week after hackers attempted to compromise a section
of the site. A hack into the site's news section was discovered around noon local time on Wednesday and the news page was
taken down for around 24 hours to fix the problem, MSN Korea Marketing Manager Yena Kim said Friday. Kim confirmed that the
hack was a so-called iFrame attack, which exploits a flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, but declined to give any
further details. IFrame elements are inline floating frames in IE where content is displayed, according to Microsoft's Web
site. The software maker released a patch for an iFrame vulnerability in December. The MSN Korea property is hosted by a third
party and it was unclear whether their servers were patched against the flaw. Microsoft said it was not aware of any customers
having been affected as a result of the hack, but it is continuing to investigate the incident. The company is cooperating
with law enforcement agents and said it will take legal action against those responsible.
Latest Nvidia GPUs likely out in July
June 3,
5:45 a.m. PDT
The latest upgrade to Nvidia's popular Geforce 6800 line of GPUs (graphics processing units) for PCs should be out by July,
according to Taiwanese motherboard and graphics card makers at Computex. The new Nvidia GPUs will be the PC version of the
technology that's going into PlayStation 3 game consoles, which drew rave reviews at the recent E3 gamers conference in Los
Angeles. The mid-summer launch of the much anticipated chips could also play spoiler to dual graphics card technology from
the company's main rival, ATI Technologies, which will be on the market at about the same time. Motherboard companies usually
know far in advance the launch time of most PC components and technology because they have to prepare supporting parts well
in advance. A motherboard is the main circuit board inside a PC that holds and connects all of its chips, drives and other
parts. Nvidia officials at the show declined to comment on the launch date of their next generation chip, code-named G70,
allowing only that the GPUs would be out "much sooner" than the PlayStation 3. The PlayStation 3's RSX graphics chips are
still under development, said Keita Iida, director of marketing for Japan and Korea at Nvidia. The game console itself is
expected on the market in the spring of 2006.
eBay
buys Shopping.com for $620 million
June 2,
8:20 a.m. PDT
eBay continued its acquisition spree by agreeing to buy comparison shopping site Shopping.com for about $620 million in cash.
The move should benefit eBay's sellers by giving them access to a new sales channel and a new set of buyers, while Shopping.com
will be improved by the addition of eBay's listings on its site. eBay had annual revenue of $3.3 billion in 2004, and net
income of $778.2 million. In the same year Shopping.com made $99 million in revenue and net income of $12.2 million. But Shopping.com
has been adding customers at a faster clip, according to research company comScore Media Metrix. It attracted 22.6 million
unique visitors in April, up 15 percent from the same month a year earlier, compared with 63.8 million for eBay, an increase
of 6 percent over the same period. In December eBay agreed to buy property listings site Rent.com for $415 million, and a
month before that it bought Holland's top classifieds site, Marktplaats.nl, for $290 million. Earlier last year it acquired
a 25-percent stake in Craigslist of San Francisco, beefing up its classifieds business.
DITA approved as OASIS standard
June 2,
8:20 a.m. PDT
OASIS has approved Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Version 1.0 as an OASIS standard. DITA defines an XML architecture
for designing, writing, managing, and publishing information in print and on the Web. DITA lets organizations deliver content
as closely as possible to the point-of-use, making it well-suited for applications such as integrated help systems, Web sites,
and how-to instruction pages. DITA was advanced by users of documentation such as BMC, IBM (Profile, Products, Articles), Intel (Profile, Products, Articles), Nokia (Profile, Products, Articles), Oracle (Profile, Products, Articles), Sun, and the U.S. Department of Defense, working with product vendors like Arbortext and Idiom.
Eiffel releases plug-in for Visual Studio .Net
June 2,
8:20 a.m. PDT
Eiffel Software announced an update of EiffelEnvision, its Eiffel-language plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio .Net. EiffelEnvision
2.5 is a component of The Eiffel Development Framework, a system for creating scalable applications and reusable components.
Version 2.5 lets developers manage their project files and Eiffel cluster libraries directly from Visual Studio .Net's Solution
Explorer in real time. Other improvements include simplified integration in Source Code Control, enhancements to deployment
projects, a tool for converting EiffelStudio projects, and integrated HTML report generation. Free editions of the product
are offered at
www.eiffel.com/downloads.
Agilent expands laser-guided mice availability
June 1, 6:05 a.m. PDT
Agilent Technologies is equipping mice with laser sensors, the better to see on smooth surfaces such as highly polished wood
or frosted glass. The sensors are now available to all manufacturers, after an exclusive deal between Agilent and Logitech (Profile, Products, Articles) expired this month. That could mean cheaper, more sensitive optical mice for all. By using coherent laser light instead
of the more diffuse illumination of an LED, Agilent's new sensors can detect surface imperfections that are much smaller or
fainter than those visible to mice with LEDs, and so can work on many more kinds of materials.
