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Starting June 7, AT&T is dropping its unlimited data plan for new iPhones. AT&T is replacing the $30 month plan, with 2 new plans that will cap data usage before charging additional fees. The DataPlus plan will cap usage at 200Mb/month for $15, with each additional 200Mb costing another $15. The DataPlan Pro caps usage to 2Gb/month for $25, with each additional 1Gb costing $10. The move is expected to improve AT&T’s network performance, which has been a problem for iPhone users because of heavy data consumption.
Microsoft reported a vulnerability exists in the 64-bit version of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that can be used to hijack systems. The bug affects any machine with the “Aero” interface. If exploited it could cause the affected system to stop responding and restart. Microsoft is currently working on a patch, but a workaround in the meantime is to disable the Aero feature. The bug is in the Windows’ Canonical Display Driver. Attackers can exploit the vulnerability by tricking users into visiting malicious web sits that host a rigged image file.
HP announced this week it’s plans to buy mobile phone maker Palm for $1.2 billion. This move will bring HP into a market dominated by Apple, Research In Motion, HTC, Nokia, and Google. HP said it will increase $190 million on research and development, and fund additional sales and marketing for Palm. HP is also looking at opportunities to use Palm technology in its slate and tablet pcs instead of Windows.
The City of Los Angeles recently decided to make a move to purchase Google Apps over market leader MS Office. Los Angeles decided to go with Google Apps for three primary reasons: a high budget deficit, IT staff shortage, and dissatisfaction with the current office software system. The city’s CTO felt with a cash-strapped budget, and insufficient in-house support from the IT staff, they had to go with an application that would be relatively easy to implement and deploy to their more than 30,000 employees. Google Apps does not have all the features and applications found in MS Office, but it satisfies the basics for what most City of Los Angeles employees require at a much lower price stated their CTO.
Security company Trusteer warns that a security vulnerability in Adobe’s PDF format can be easily exploited to install financial malware on user’s computers. A PDF document containing malicious code must be launched by the user to work, and Adobe Reader and Acrobat will warn the user that the document contains executable code, but the researcher that discovered the bug said that the alert can be modified to trick the user into running the executable. Trusteer believes an attack from hackers is inevitable. Adobe has acknowledged the bug and has not yet stated when a patch will be available. In the meantime Adobe urges users to change Adobe Reader and Acrobat’s settings to disable the /Launch function.
