Credit card scam Nets 10,000 users

An audacious online credit card scam succeeded in stealing the card numbers of 10,000 Brazilian surfers. The Associated Press reports that clients of a Brazilian Internet portal, Universal OnLine (UOL), received a fake e-mail from the company asking them to fill out a form to re-register. The form, on a bogus Web page, included credit-card details. ...more

Users back Windows SP 2 despite 'massive failings'

Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP 2) appears to have been a largely painless update for XP users, according to the first conclusive survey of the UK IT community. Two months and 106 million installations after its release, 5,000 PC Pro readers have given the update a cautious thumbs up, with 75 per cent of respondents experiencing 'no problems' when installing the software. But Microsoft said it was surprised at the results, and will officially comment in the next issue of PC Pro. ...more

CORRECTION: First Blu-ray players may not play movies on 50GB discs

Despite an article on The Digital Bits claiming Samsung's BD-P1000 could not play double-length 50GB discs, Samsung has assured us that the device does and always has been able to play these discs Early adopters of Blu-ray players may be about to discover that they cannot view the first movies to be released on 50GB discs, according to The Digital Bits. Citing multiple sources The Digital Bits' editor Bill Hunt said that Samsung's BD-P1000 as well as forthcoming players from Sony and Pioneer will not play the double-length discs, due, at least in part, to the fact that they were not available for testing when the players were being finalised. 'As you can imagine, there are a few studios that are anxious to get these 50GB BD-ROM discs to work properly, because there are a number of longer films waiting on them,' Hunt said. ...more

Tiger widget vulnerability highlighted

Apple's Dashboard technology - one of the high profile new features in Tiger - could leave users vulnerable to hacker attacks by allowing the installation of a malicious widget. The vulnerability was discovered by a widget developer, going by the name stephan.com. ...more

Microsoft Judge lays down the law

The new Judge in the Microsoft anti-trust hearing has held her first "status meeting" for the case and has cracked the whip. She is expecting both sides to reach a settlement, on the understanding that - should they fail - she will accept no limit on her ability to impose a "remedy", i.e. ...more