The Wall Street Journal and Reuters say Oracle is developing new online software products in what could signal a shift in focus from traditional software to software as a service.

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Conficker spread via PCs that weren’t updated with security patches, and not wanting to be at fault for worldwide infections, Microsoft is going to supply security updates to pirated copies of Windows 7. [Maximum PC]

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CEO Barry Diller says Yahoo’s site would augment IAC’s Match.com business.

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Have you ever found yourself furiously typing in the dead of night wishing your keyboard had its own personal light? Well, Mr. Brightside is here to help. This little guy is a USB keyboard light sure to take away your extremely minor lighting gripes, and it’ll look good doing it. Mr. Brightside comes in lime green, pink, black and blue for the many shades of your moods. They’re available now for $20.22.

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

Mr. Brightside USB keyboard light illuminates your keys, taste in music originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cnet says that hundreds of critical hospital devices across the U.S. have been infected by the Conficker worm. The number of hospitals affected wasn’t disclosed, but the problem isn’t thought to be widespread.

Cybersecurity expert Marcus Sachs broke the news at a security conference in San Francisco, raising the question of what would happen if this were to happen to millions of machines in the medical industry. According to sachs, the devices affected were hospital computers and devices used to control critical equipment, such as heart monitors and MRI machines.

No one is quite sure how the computers acquired the worms to begin with, but most of the Windows 2000/NT machines were to old to benefit from Microsoft’s October patch which fixed many of the vulnerabilities Conficker preyed on. [Cnet via Slashdot]

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That’s right: Scientists will achieve mind control. By shining laser beams. Directly at cells in your brain. Which have been intentionally infected. By a blue-light sensitive virus. That they made in a lab. From algae.

According to Wired, you can really do some fancy stuff inside the mind by injecting an engineered virus into cells then shining a blue laser beam at them. The point is to pinpoint neurons that aren’t doing what they should, and using this very pinpointy process to kick start them without playing havoc on the rest of the brain.

To what end? We’re not at Cybermen just yet, but one of the proposed uses is actually prosthesis controlled by optics instead of electrodes as they are now. If this isn’t at all scaring you yet, check this bit of Wired’s story out:

Crucial to the technique is that the virus is only injected into a very small part of the brain, and only a certain class of neurons, once infected, actually turn the channel on.

Or what? Please tell me, or what?

Turns out, it’s… Or else the treatment would resemble the kind of clumsier brain teasers, like drugs and electrodes. MIT neuroscientists Ed Boyden and Xue Han have already done it with primates, which, as everyone but Mike Huckabee knows, are close relatives to the human. Prior to that, fish, flies and rodents were all lasered up, with successful mind-control results. I am so happy I live in the present day, and not some quaint, almost cute past where all I had to worry about were influenza viruses and low-flying aeroplanes. [Wired]

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We’re not sure if Microsoft is winding down its Laptop Hunter campaign, or just decided to step off the class warfare a bit, but this latest ad is pretty hate free. Shelia, a filmmaker with a $2,000 budget, asks the hard questions like “is this graphics card going to be powerful?” and walks out with an HP HDX 16t (an upgraded version of Giampaulo’s kit of choice). The MacBook Pro’s mere 2GB of RAM at that pricepoint just didn’t fly, though we have to wonder which self-professed video editor hasn’t already picked a side in the age-old Avid vs. Final Cut Pro debate — which could’ve helped cut down on the soul searching. Video is after the break.

Continue reading Sheila the Laptop Hunter picks a PC, keeps it civil

Filed under: Laptops

Sheila the Laptop Hunter picks a PC, keeps it civil originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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His wife drops on all fours. He calls the hospital. There are no midwives available. So naval engineer Marc Stephens has to rely on a couple of YouTube videos he’s just watched.

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We see plenty of semi-yawn-inducing MIDs around the office here, and concepts are certainly a dime a dozen in this racket, but Jan Rytir’s concept gave us pause. The hyper-hip look of the design makes it startling in a field not generally known for its sexiness, and the bottom rainbow colored tabs are just icing on that sexy, sexy cake. In this rendering, the whole package would measure 180 x 80 x 20mm, have a trackball on the right of the QWERTY slide out keyboard, and boast an Atom CPU, two USB ports and an SD card reader. Can somebody build this? Please? We promise: ravers everywhere will thank you.

[Via Slashgear]

Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

Drool-worthy MID concept stops us in our tracks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is funny because a) it’s ultra-realistic and b) it is precisely one of the main uses of the iPhone in many clubs all around the world. And you gotta love their on-your-face sales pitch:

Be the envy of in-crowd. Get ejected from nightclubs. Shock and amaze your so-called friends. Get oral sex from Z-list celebrities.

Cocaine in a paragraph, boys and girls. Yours for five British pounds ($7.40) and a jailbreak. [iSnort]

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