Shareholders suit up for class action against AOL

Disgruntled shareholders filed a securities fraud suit against AOL yesterday, alleging the company artificially inflated its revenues for online advertising. The suit is likely to be made a class action that would allow shareholders of AOL common stock (from 19 July 1999) and of stock that was converted to AOL Time Warner (11 Jan to 17 July 2001) to become involved. It centres around 'unconventional' accounting practices, highlighted by a series of reports in the Washington Post, that gave the impression the company was bucking the downwards trend of online advertising revenues as it closed the biggest merger in US history. ...more

iTunes usage doubled in 2006

The number of unique users of Apple's iTunes software rose by 47.5 per cent in 2006, easily outstripping the growth of alternative media players such as RealPlayer and Windows Media Player (WMP). The figures, compiled by WebSiteOptimization with data from Nielsen//NetRatings, show that while iTunes installations almost doubled, Real Player usage grew by 9. ...more

Doomjuice infects more than 100,000

And a new variant has been discovered Doomjuice has infected more than 100,000 MyDoom-infected computers while a new variant has been discovered. Kaspersky Labs says more than 100,000 MyDoom-infected computers have been hit with the Doomjuice virus that slips in through the back door left open by the original infection. The Russian company says that it is likely the MyDoom and Doomjuice viruses were authored by the same hand, with the latter intended to cover the tracks of MyDoom - the most widespread virus ever and one perhaps drawing a lot more attention than the author would wish. ...more

Apple turns to embedded verse to warn off hackers

Apple has turned to light verse to help deter hackers. The company has embedded a stanza of poetry within the version of OS X built to run on Intel-based machines, which are the target of hackers looking to illegally 'port' the Apple platform to non-Apple PCs. The embedded poem reads: 'Your karma check for today: There once was a user that whined/his existing OS was so blind/he'd do better to pirate/an OS that ran great/but found his hardware declined. ...more

GFI releases freeware for Outlook texting

GFI, a messaging and network security software company, has released a freeware version of GFI FAXmaker for Exchange. This enables SMS messages to be sent and received via Microsoft Outlook. The idea is that business colleagues, for example, could be easily contacted or alerted. ...more