Intrepid

Plus: NASA hunts rats for public health. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra. Link To Original Article

PlaysForSure was a Microsoft logo program, launched in 2004, that identified online music and video stores and devices (portable and networked) that worked with those stores. Essentially, the logo identified a store as using the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Media DRM scheme, and ensured that a device could ... Link To Original Article

AP - The legend of Conan the barbarian, the many-muscled pulp novel creation of Robert E. Howard, has been delivered in full gory glory with "Conan" the video game, a fantastic release thick with violence and gorgeous graphics. Link To Original Article

[/url]AP - As if the idea of having one robot to serve you wasn't unusual enough, Honda says its humanoids are now ready to work in pairs — and they can even serve drinks. Link To Original Article

[/url]AP - AT&T Inc. on Tuesday raised its dividend 12.7 percent, announced a share buyback and set a long-term target for its TV service, which is delivered over phone lines, saying it will be available to 30 million customers by 2010. Link To Original Article

[/url]AP - Despite a "dodgy" U.S. economy, holiday sales of electronics remain strong, Sony Corp.'s top executive said Tuesday as he reiterated the company's fiscal targets. Link To Original Article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Critical - This critical security update resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities. The most serious security impact could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. Link To Original Article

InfoWorld - Cisco will introduce next year its Entertainment Operating System (EOS), a platform for delivering multimedia content to online communities. Link To Original Article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Critical - This critical security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Media File Format. This vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a specially crafted file in Windows Media Format Runtime. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. Link To Original Article

USATODAY.com - For the modern nomadic worker, few things are more enjoyable than heading to a cafe, ordering a cappuccino and firing up the laptop to get some work done. As far as anyone you're e-mailing knows, you're at the office. Link To Original Article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Important - This important security update resolves one publicly disclosed vulnerability. A local elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the way that the Macrovision driver incorrectly handles configuration parameters. An attacker who successfully exploited t Link To Original Article

AP - Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson won European backing Wednesday to sell a 50 percent stake of software developer UI Holdings BV to its rival, Motorola Inc. Link To Original Article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Important - This important security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Windows kernel. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full administrative rights. Link To Original Article

InfoWorld - More and more open-source developers these days are employees of companies, paid to work on open-source projects, rather than independent programmers doing it for fun. The change raises issues for projects, programmers and employers alike. Link To Original Article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Important - This important security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) that could allow remote code execution in implementations on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, or elevation of privilege in implementations on Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP. An attacker must have valid logon credentials to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts. Link To Original Article

InfoWorld - The Open Solutions Alliance, a nonprofit group backed by a number of commercial open-source vendors, released a survey on Wednesday that found interoperability is a foremost concern among open-source-software customers. Link To Original Article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Critical - This critical security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft DirectX. These vulnerabilities could allow code execution if a user opened a specially crafted file used for streaming media in DirectX. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. Link To Original Article

InfoWorld - Emphasizing SOA, BEA Systems is unveiling upgrades to its enterprise service bus and legacy integration package on Wednesday, anchoring them to the Eclipse platform as a standard dashboard for controlling these products. Link To Original Article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Critical - This important security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Server Message Block Version 2 (SMBv2). The vulnerability could allow an attacker to tamper with data transferred via SMBv2, which could allow remote code execution in domain configurations communicating with SMBv2. Link To Original Article

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Reuters - "w00t," an expression of joy coined by online gamers, was crowned word of the year on Tuesday by the publisher of a leading U.S. dictionary. Link To Original Article

[/url]AP - Neil Kane and his staff had figured out how to rearrange methane gas to create industrial diamond, but their company couldn't afford to build the highly specialized lab needed to develop such nanotechnology. Link To Original Article

AP - Texas Instruments Inc., which makes the chips used in about half the world's cell phones, narrowed its fourth-quarter outlook Monday, saying it expects sales and profits toward the higher end of its previously announced range of expectations. Link To Original Article

AP - Microsoft Corp. said Monday it will provide online advertising for CNBC's financial news Web site. Link To Original Article

InfoWorld - Researchers at Google and the Georgia Institute of Technology are studying a virtually undetectable form of attack that quietly controls where victims go on the Internet. Link To Original Article