Adobe Patches Security Holes in Flash

Adobe has released a security update for Flash Player in order to address several critical vulnerabilities, including one that is being exploited in the wild.

The Flash Player 10.3.183.10 for Windows, Mac and Linux, and Flash Player 10.3.186.7 for Android, contain patches for six security flaws.

One of them is a cross-site scripting (XSS) weakness that can be exploited to execute rogue actions on behalf of web sites or webmail providers if victims click on maliciously-crafted links.

“There are reports that this issue is being exploited in the wild in active targeted attacks designed to trick the user into clicking on a malicious link delivered in an email message,” Adobe warns in its security advisory.

XSS vulnerabilities are the result of improper user input validation and allow attackers to execute rogue code in the context of the current web site. For example, they can be leveraged to extract session cookies or load rogue forms into legitimate pages, which makes for very credible phishing attacks.

Adobe credits Google for reporting this cross-site scripting vulnerability, which is identified as CVE-2011-2444. This means it might have been detected in attacks against Gmail users.

Two other patched vulnerabilities allow for arbitrary code execution and are located in the AVM stack. One of them can also lead to a denial of service condition. Two remote code execution logic errors and a Flash Player security control bypass have also been addressed.

Users should deploy the new update as soon as possible because browser plug-ins like Java, Adobe Reader or Flash Player are amongst the most attacked pieces of software one can have on a computer. However, unlike Adobe Reader X (10.0) which features sandboxing technology, Flash Player doesn’t have any anti-exploitation mechanism built-in.

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Samsung’s New Chip Line To Boost Flash Memory

Samsung Electronics, the world’s No.1 memory chip maker, said it began mass production at a new $10 billion chip line, as it seeks to raise its profile in the booming flash memory chip market fueled by robust demand growth in mobile products.

Samsung’s new production line, its first in about five years, will help the company sharply lower production costs of the chips and could exacerbate oversupply in the market, stifling smaller rivals.

Apple Inc, the maker of popular iPhones and iPads, and Sony, which joined the crowded tablet market last month with two new devices, buy flash memory chips from Samsung.

The cost-competitive facility will make it difficult for its major customers to shift away to other suppliers.

Apple, Samsung’s biggest customer locked in a series of patent legal battles with the South Korean firm, is trying to reduce sourcing from the emerging competitor.

“The new line won’t have any immediate impact on the supply side, as it will take some nine months to fully raise capacity run rates, but it shows Samsung’s attempt to take more share in the flash chip market,” said Song Myung-sup, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities.

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Flash Player 11 Launched With 3D Gaming

Adobe Systems announced Flash Player 11 and Adobe Air 3 software Wednesday to assist developers in building more sophisticated applications with dozens of new features across smartphones and tablets as well as desktop computers.

The releases are Adobe’s biggest in two years, and will be available free of charge in early October, said Anup Murarka, Adobe’s director of product marketing. The related tools, Flash Builder and Flex, will support new features in Flash Player 11 and Adobe Air 3 by the end of the year.

The releases will enable delivery of 2D and 3D games over the Internet to various devices, Murarka said. Developers of enterprise applications will also find the 3D capabilities popular for data-centric apps. Enterprises, for example, will be able to build application dashboards to “visualize complex data sets” with 3D images, he said.

Developers will also be able to use the tools to more deeply integrate business software like Excel and Outlook in devices and to access hardware programming interfaces for functions such as Near-Field Communication being used more widely in smartphones, Murarka said.

The new versions will also help developers build more secure applications with the ability to leverage cryptographically secure random number generation, he said.

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Is HP Going To Court?

HP and its top executives have been accused of misleading investors before a slump in its stock price.

HP is facing a class action lawsuit filed by Robbins Geller Rudman and Down alleging that CEO Leo Apotheker and CFO Cathie Lesjak misled investors before making announcements that included the possible spin-off of its PC business, dumping WebOS devices and the purchase of British software outfit Autonomy.

Those announcements, all made in one afternoon, led to a 20 per cent drop in HP’s share price the following day. That, according to Reuters, was the largest one day decline in HP’s share price since 1987.

The lawsuit against HP does not specify damages but it serves to highlight the growing concern at the way Apotheker is leading HP. The firm’s announcement that it was considering leaving the PC business was a shock to many, but its decision to dump its WebOS devices was perhaps the biggest shock of the lot.

While HP’s PC business was always seen as a low margin operation, WebOS was viewed as a core part of HP’s future strategy. The firm kept banging on about slipping WebOS into as many devices as possible, however all that talk evaporated, just like HP’s Touchpads when it sold them off at fire sale prices for a massive loss.

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RIM’s Woes Continue

PlayBook shipments dropped in half for Research In Motion during its second quarter, which also saw revenue continue its steep decline.

RIM shipped just 200,000 PlayBooks in the second quarter, down from 500,000 last quarter, when it started offering the tablet device.

Revenue was US$4.2 billion, hitting the low end of the company’s expectation and down 10 percent from the same quarter last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected $4.47 billion.

RIM’s net income was $329 million, or $0.63 per share. Adjusted net income was $419 million, or $0.80 per share. Analysts were expecting better: Those polled by Thomson predicted $0.87 per share.

RIM shipped 10.6 million smartphones during the second quarter. In June, RIM warned that the second quarter might be weak because of delays in shipping new phones. The delays meant RIM would miss the back-to-school sales period, negatively impacting sales, it said at the time.

Executives who spoke during a conference call to discuss the results put a positive spin on phone sales, however. The company only began launching phones running the new BlackBerry 7 software within the past few weeks, and so far it’s the “largest and most successful launch in our history,” Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, said during the call.

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Should HP Reconsider The TouchPad?

Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) should re-think its decision to dump its TouchPad tablet since the device could double the value of the PC division HP plans to spin off, technology research firm Canalys said in a statement to clients.

HP stunned markets in August by saying it may shed its PC business — the world’s largest after the $25 billion acquisition of Compaq in 2002 — while at the same time killing webOS-based phones and the TouchPad tablet which was launched only six weeks earlier.

HP slashed the price of its tablet to $99 the weekend after announcing the TouchPad’s demise, igniting an online frenzy and prompting long lines to form at retailers as bargain-hunters chased down a gadget that had thus far failed to excite consumers.

“The TouchPad was overpriced at launch and did not sell. This led HP to draw a premature conclusion that the product category had failed,” Canalys analysts said in a research note.

Canalys said the price cut had helped make TouchPad the hottest brand in HP’s entire portfolio, gathering more interest than anything from HP in more than 10 years.

“The TouchPad has become the ‘must-have’ technology product of 2011. Perhaps no other technology vendor, apart from Apple, has ever created such hype for a technology product,” the research note said.

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Intel Previews Android Tablet On Atom Chip

For the first time on Tuesday, Intel unveiled working prototypes of tablets computers with Google’s Android OS and the chip maker’s upcoming Atom low-power chip, code-named Medfield.

The tablet was about 8.9 millimeters (0.3 inches) thick and had a 10.1-inch screen, and was on display during a briefing at the Intel Developer Forum being held in San Francisco. The tablets ran on Android 3.0, code-named Honeycomb, and alpha software developed jointly by Google and Intel.

Earlier on Tuesday, Intel and Google announced they would ally on developing future releases of Android for smartphones and tablets. Intel CEO Paul Otellini showed off a Medfield smartphone running on Android 2.3, code-named Gingerbread.

The Medfield tablet is a reference design for device makers who want to launch tablets, said Steve Smith, vice president at Intel. Smith didn’t say when Medfield tablets would be released, but said Intel is currently optimizing the chips for tablets to balance power and performance.

Intel is banking on Medfield tablets to prove it is improving on power consumption with its tablet and smartphone chips.

Intel already offers tablet chips code-named Oak Trail and Moorestown, which haven’t been successful. Only a few companies such as Cisco and Fujitsu have adopted the chips for business tablets.

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Nokia Puts Free M$ Apps On Symbian Phones

Several of Microsoft’s business productivity applications will be available free of charge on Nokia’s latest Symbian Belle smartphones later this year, Nokia stated Thursday.

The move comes at the same time Nokia is developing its first smartphone on the Windows “Mango” Phone platform. That phone is rumored to be scheduled for a November debut.

The free apps will run on Symbian Belle smartphones announced in August; they’re designed to keep customers buying Nokia products while Nokia ramps up to Windows Phone smartphones.

The free apps for Symbian Belle phones will include: Microsoft PowerPoint Broadcast for broadcasting presentations from a desktop to a smartphone;Microsoft OneNote for taking notes with images by syncing with Microsoft SkyDrive;And Microsoft Document Connection, which provides a single view of documents stored on a smartphone including email attachments and documents on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 sites.

Early next year, Nokia said it will provide OneNote synchronization with SharePoint and will add Word, Excel and PowerPoint as native applications for the first time outside the Windows platform.

Some critics of Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft wonder how successful Windows Phone Mango (version 7.5) will be and said the addition of Microsoft apps to Nokia’s older Symbian line is a way for Nokia to hedge its bets if the Microsoft partnership doesn’t pay off quickly.

The free productivity apps could also be a way to introduce a large number of Symbian users to Microsoft software. There are many more Symbian users outside the U.S. than inside and Symbian until this year had been the world’s largest smartphone platform.

Making the free apps available on the Symbian Belle phones doesn’t cost either company much and the Belle phone users “get something to sweeten the deal to stay with symbian,” Gold said.

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HTC Is On A Buying Spree

Taiwanese handset maker HTC has been on a shopping spree to reshape its business, though it remains to be seen if the strategy will help it gain ground on rivals such as Apple, Samsung and Research In Motion.

HTC has bought or invested in at least six companies this year, many of which provide technologies to improve how users consume and share content on its devices. It’s a big change for the Taiwanese manufacturer, which focused for much of its existence on hardware, leaving software and content to its partners.

Times have changed, however, with rivals like Apple and Nokia building whole ecosystems around their products, including app stores and content delivery systems. HTC has shifted its focus before, moving from contract manufacturer for Microsoft’s smartphones to selling its own HTC-branded devices. It must now evolve once more.

“It is no longer enough to focus only on hardware innovations,” said Ryan Lee, an analyst with Taipei-based Topology Research Institute. HTC’s acquisitions, which include both technology and patents, “pave the way for HTC’s greater competitiveness,” he said.

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Shareholder Group Demands RIM Shake-up

An activist shareholder in Research In Motion said on Tuesday it wants the struggling BlackBerry maker to seriously ponder selling itself or spinning off its patent portfolio, sending RIM’s share price higher.

Jaguar Financial Corp said it wants the Canadian company’s board to take control from co-Chief Executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie and for up to five of RIM’s independent board members to explore options to maximize shareholder value.

RIM shares were up 1.3 percent at midday Tuesday at $30.52 on the Nasdaq and gained 2.3 percent to C$30.26 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Both markets were down sharply
overall. RIM shares have lost almost half their value since the start of the year.

“Our call is for (RIM’s board) to take action; no more study, take action. Take action now, before it’s too late,” Jaguar Chief Executive Vic Alboini said in an interview.

Alboini said Jaguar has talked to a select group of shareholders and received broadly positive feedback for its plan.

“We haven’t found one who wasn’t supportive,” he said. “We haven’t found any opposition.”

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