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Russian researcher gets nice payday from vulnerability he found in Chrome.

Sergey Glazunov, who is familiar with Chrome bug hunting, uncovered a remote code execution vulnerability in Google's Chrome web browser. He demonstrated how he could use this vulnerability to escape the Chrome sandbox and run unauthorized code on a full-patched Windows 7 system.

His award comes as part of the Google Pwnium competition. The search giant has put $1,000,000 on the line for breaches of its browser's security.

"Congrats to long-time Chromium contributor Sergey Glazunov who just submitted our first Pwnium entry. Looks like it qualifies as a ?Full Chrome? exploit, qualifying for a $60k reward. We?re working fast on a fix that we?ll push via auto-update. This is exciting; we launched Pwnium this year to encourage the security community to submit exploits for us to help make the web safer. We look forward to any additional submissions to make Chrome even stronger for our users."
- Sundar Pichai, a senior vice-president at Google

As time of writing, the remaining prize fund is $940,000. The Pwmium webpage reports that there have been two successful exploits of Chrome, the other being the reported VUPEN breach of the browser at this year's Pwn2Own contest. The vulnerability used by Glazunov is reported to already be patched, though of course, Google has no idea what VUPEN did to break its browser security.

GDC panel gives indication of PlayStation Move popularity.

Sony's Field Developer Support Engineer, Gabe Ahn, revealed during a GDC panel that Sony shipped 10.5 million PlayStation Move controllers to retailers. The firm typically does not give figures on units actually sold to consumers.

The 10.5 million figure is also made up of shipments of both PlayStation Move controllers and Navigation Controllers combined, which does water it down somewhat considering the Navigation Controllers rely on the PlayStation Move controllers.

Ahn's claim that PlayStation Move's attach rate works out to be about one in every six PlayStation 3 consoles also doesn't quite add up, for the above reason.

He did comment that the company is happy with how Move is doing so far, and is continuing to explore what it is capable of.

PayPal threatened to cut off payments for certain types of erotic content.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, CA), American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Authors Guild and the National Coalition Against Censorship were among groups that sent a joint-letter to PayPal over a new policy the service is enacting relating to certain types of erotic literature.

Specifically, PayPal threatened to cut off payments to accounts of online publishers who marketed books featuring incest, rape or bestiality. While the topics may not be appealing to most people, the EFF and others argue that PayPal has no right to abuse its position in order to enforce censorship.

"As scholars and booksellers can attest, these are themes prevalent in many forms of literature, from Grecian myths to the Bible," an EFF post on the matter reads.

The digital rights group said it is not the first time a payment service has attempted to interfere with access to lawful speech, citing the decision by Mastercard, Visa and PayPal to block donations to WikiLeaks. "Financial service providers are an important part of the chain of intermediaries upon which online communication depends."

Where are the benchmarks?

Yesterday, Apple Inc. unveiled a new iPad with 4G (for the United States and Canada only), a new Retina Display screen and a new A5X chip with quad-core graphics. It went on to claim that the A5X delivers 4x the performance of Nvidia's Tegra 3 chip.

Immediately there was some chatter online about how Apple had shown no proof of this claim. The slide which showed a simple chart putting the A5X chip at 4x the performance of the Tegra 3 completely lacked any footnotes or information on benchmark testing at all, and the Apple staff didn't offer up an explanation either.

"We don't have the benchmark information," said Ken Brown, a spokesman for Nvidia. "We have to understand what the application was that was used. Was it one or a variety of applications? What drivers were used? There are so many issues to get into with benchmark."

Brown said that Nvidia will get its hands on a new iPad and put the A5X to the test against other tablet PCs.

Justice Department warns that it is preparing to file a lawsuit.

Apple Inc. and five book publishers are in the sights of U.S. antitrust regulators over alleged anti-competitive price fixing practices in the electronic books market. The five publishers involved are Simon & Schuster Inc. (CBS Corp.), Hachette Book Group (Lagardere SCA), Penguin Group (Pearson PLC), Macmillan and HarperCollins Publishers Inc. (News Corp.)

The case stretches back to 2010 with the debut of the first iPad from Apple, which quickly became a competitor for Amazon's Kindle line of e-readers. Amazon had been charging low prices ($9.99 for new releases) in order to push up purchases of its electronic readers.

Publishers were concerned about Amazon selling e-books at such low prices (often sold for less than Amazon paid for them) because consumers might become accustomed to the lower prices. Also, publishers feared being in the same situation as record labels were when iTunes picked up stream, but Apple insisted on keeping single song costs at 99c, and that Amazon offering consistently steep discounts might discourage other traditional retail partners from offering e-books altogether.

Talks reportedly break down between web giants.

BusinessInsider is citing a source familiar with negotiations between Yahoo and Facebook. Talks have been ongoing between the two after Yahoo approached Facebook over alleged patent infringement. Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson now favors taking legal action against Facebook over the matter, according to the source.

The patent dispute comes down to aspects of Facebooks advertising and social networking services, which Yahoo claims to own patents related to.

"Yahoo! has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property. We have invested substantial resources into these innovations. Recognizing that, other major web and technology companies have already licensed some of these technologies. We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights."

BusinessInsider cites a second source, reporting that Yahoo will seek a percentage of Faceboook's revenue going forward.

The next step in an ongoing patent dispute that spans three continents, Samsung has sued Apple again in South Korea.

In their suit, Samsung claims that the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S infringe on three patents relating to user interface, SMS and display data.

Altogether, the two companies have 30 open patent disputes in 10 countries.

Apple started the war last April when it alleged that Samsung copied the iPhone and iPad with its Galaxy line of devices.

While neither company has been particularly successful in their suits, Apple did manage to get an injunction on the Galaxy Tab in Germany.

CORRECTED: Original article inaccurately stated that Chrome was the only browser that survived Pwn2Own 2011. Mozilla pointed out to us that Firefox had also remained secure at the Pwn2Own 2011 contest.

VUPEN defeats Chrome's sandbox.

The Google browser was first to fall victim at this year's Pwn2Own contest, despite not being hacked at the 2011 contest, along with Mozilla's Firefox browser.

VUPEN researchers used two zero-day flaws in its attack, which saw the Chrome browser defeated in less than five minutes. Chaouki Bekrar, head of research at VUPEN, said the pair of vulnerabilities got them complete control over a patched 64-bit Windows 7 machine.

"We had to use two vulnerabilities. The first one was to bypass DEP and ASLR on Windows and a second one to break out of the Chrome sandbox." Bekrar said.

He admitted that Chrome was the first to be targeted in order to send a message that no software is completely safe as long as there are people who are determined to find a way to exploit it. The exploit used by VUPEN was against the default installation of Google Chrome, which according to Bekrar, means that whether third party code was targeted or not is irrelevant.

Business Software Alliance calls on the U.S. government to take action.

India is one of the world's fastest growing economies and therefore provides one of the biggest opportunities for U.S. tech firms for exports. A new policy being enacted by the Indian government could hurt trade with the United States, trade associations have warned the Obama administration.

The Indian government plans to require that domestic electronic goods be given preferential treatment in its purchases, and to use its regulatory powers to force government licensees to follow suit with the policy. This plan is clearly in conflict with India's obligations under the World Trade Organization.

The BSA, and the Telecommunications Industry Association have written to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Commerce Secretary John Bryson with their concerns.

The warning will not fall on deaf ears either. The United States' trade deficits have reached appalling levels in recent years, and the trade gap in advanced technology was approaching $100 billion last year, according to Reuters.

Eurogamer reports on leaked Play.com image.

The leaked Play.com image, that you can see at Eurogamer, showed details on four new titles for Sony's new handheld console. The new titles were Monster Hunter Portable 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Nights, Tales Of Innocence R and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD.

Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) console got two titles from the Grand Theft Auto franchise during its lifetime; Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.

Sony is due to host a PlayStation Vita web broadcast this Friday, where it will announce new titles for the PS Vita, adding some credibility to the "leaked image" initially.

However, the suggestion from readers and from other gaming sites is that the image may be a fake. I guess only Friday will tell, but check out Eurogamer regardless.

Deutsche Telekom sets new world record.

The German telecommunications giant announced that it achieved a usable bit rate of 400Gbps over a single channel of its fibre optic network. Each optical fibre can carry up to 48 channels, adding up to a potential throughput of 24.67Tbps.

The experiment - which transmitted data between Berlin and Hannover and then back again (734km) - achieved a maximum of 512Gbps. Reducing the data needed for error correction, Deutsche Telekom reported 400Gbps of usable data.

The previous record was set last year by researchers in the United States and Canada, and it achieved 186Gbps.

Much of the speed gained, according to Deutsche Telekom, was due to improvements to the software used for forward error correction. It said the improvements can now be made without having to dig up fibre optic lines and lay new cables.

"Whenever we can do something where the biggest part of the infrastructure remains untouched, it means great progress becomes possible," Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs manager Heinrich Arnold told BBC News.

Facebook apologizes for inconvenience caused.

The mega-popular social network was unreachable for European users for a couple of hours on Wednesday. The firm's smartphone and tablet apps were also unusable.

With over 850 million users worldwide, when Facebook goes down, a lot of people notice very quickly. On Twitter today, #facebookdown became a trending topic very quickly.

"Today we experienced technical difficulties causing the site to be unavailable for a number of users in Europe," the company said in a statement. "The issue has been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook. We apologise for any inconvenience."

Far from being just a minor inconvenience to Facebook addicts, the social network has other reasons to make sure it rarely ever goes down. Facebook Connect, for example, is a service which allows websites to enable users to login with their Facebook credentials instead of having to create new accounts. If users are unable to use Facebook's login service, it now affects thousands more websites than just Facebook itself.

Antisec group accuses Panda Security of assisting law enforcement.

A Panda Labs website which markets anti-malware products was defaced briefly on Wednesday, with the front page replaced with a message reading, "Love to Lulzsec/Antisec fallen friends".

The group behind it has accused Panda Security of assisting law enforcement in several arrests made last month. Panda Security said it was investigating the intrusion, but that no information of customers was ever at risk. It said an external server hosting some of Panda Lab's content had been targeted. It's official frontpage has since been restored.

"Pandasecurity.com... has earned money working with law enforcement to lurk and snitch on Anonymous activists. They helped to jail 25 Anonymous in different countries and they were actively participating in our IRC channels trying to dox [obtain personal information about] many others," a message left had read.

BBC News asked Panda Security's technical director, Luis Corrons, about involvement in last month's arrests. He denied that Panda Security was in any way involved.

"If I could have had the opportunity I would love to have collaborated with the law enforcement officers to arrest those people - but we didn't in this case," he said.

Google Play may be adding audiobooks to its inventory.

The platform, which was just unveiled yesterday as an umbrella for Google's Android Market, Google Music and Google Books services, could add an audiobook section sooner rather than later.

Evidence of the move comes via keen Google fans who found an empty page in the help section of the Google Play website labeled "Audio books."

Furthermore, in the ebook store section, there are two genres that make references to audio books.

While the following is speculation, Google has also been registering many domains for Google Play that imply an expansion into magazines and newspapers.

Apple posts colorful TV ad.

The new iPad was unveiled today by Apple Inc., touting support for 4G LTE networks. Under the hood its A5X chip with quad-core graphics powered some impressive demos of HD games and applications running on the new tablet, but Apple wanted to pay special attention to the screen.

The new screen features Retina Display as predicted, and 44 percent more color saturation compared to the iPad 2. This delivers great improvements in the picture quality, and the clarity of text.

Apple's first new television ad for the new iPad focuses on these qualities over the quad-core graphics or 4G capabilities.