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Mozilla has patched 12 vulnerabilities in the popular Firefox browser today, including an updated patch for the highly publicized "binary planting" issue that was initially patched last year.

8 of the vulnerabilities were rated "critical," meaning the bugs could be used to hijack a system. After the critical ones there were two "high," one "moderate" and finally a single "low."

PCAdvisor explains that the 'binary planting' vulnerability has also been called 'DLL load hijacking'.

Says the site: "Regardless of the term, the flaw existed in Windows applications that do not call DLLs (dynamic linked libraries) or executable files using a full path name. Instead, they rely on the filename alone. The latter can be exploited by attackers, who can trick the program into loading a malicious file with the same title as a required DLL or executable. If attackers can con users into visiting malicious websites or remote shared folders, or get them to plug in a USB drive, they can compromise a computer and infect it with malware."

Earlier today during the "Back to Mac" event, Apple unveiled its upcoming Mac App Store, an applications store based on the store available to owners of iOS devices.

The Mac App Store will give Mac owners a chance to download Mac applications with one-click.

Additionally, the store will provide auto-updates and a license to use the software on all Macs you may own.

For developers, Apple takes 30 percent of revenue, similar to the cut the company takes for iOS apps.

To access the store you will need Mac OSX Snow Leopard or the upcoming Lion.

Developers can begin submitting applications next week and the Mac App Store will open in 90 days.

Swedish source TheLocal has reported this week that a lucky professor at the Umeå University in northern Sweden has had his data returned to him anonymously after a thief stole his notebook.

On the way to the laundry room, the professor dropped his backpack behind a door in the nearest stairwell, knowing he would be back within five minutes.

That was all it took for a thief to take the bag, which held his computer, calender, keys and other documents. The professor said he was most saddened by the loss of his calender: "It is my life. I have documented everything in it that has happened in the last 10 years and beyond."

The professor then called the police to report the incident and cancelled his credit cards. Much to his surprise, however, he returned to the stairwell a couple of hours later and found the backpack returned, with everything in it except for his notebook and a library card.

One week later, the story gets even more interesting as the professor returned home from class to find an envelope waiting in his mailbox that had a USB flash drive in it. The drive was full of all of the professor's data from the notebook.

Electronic Arts will purchase Chillingo, the publisher behind the blockbuster game "Angry Birds" in an effort to boost their mobile gaming catalog.

The software company will pay around $19 million for Chillingo.

EA has confirmed, however, that they will not get the intellectual property rights to "Angry Birds," which was developed by the Finnish company Rovio Mobile.

One analyst was surprised by the purchase because it lacked the IP for Angry Birds: "I'm kind of wondering what they bought," says Todd Mitchell, a Kaufman Bros analyst, via Reuters. "But in light of EA not getting the IP, they're buying the development platform to put their own IP on it in hopes of driving social networking and customers back to their own properties."

Chillingo's other popular game is "iDracula," a shooter available for iOS devices.

Concludes EA: "By acquiring Chillingo, EA Mobile is increasing its market leadership on the Apple platform as well as reaffirming its position as the world's leading wireless entertainment publisher."

Verizon has announced that it will charge $600 for the Samsung Galaxy Tab beginning on November 11th, pricing the tablet high because you do not need to sign up for a two-year contract to access 3G data.

Customers will pay monthly to use the 3G data, with the cheapest price being $20 for 1GB. After that comes 3GB for $35, 5GB for $50 and 10GB for $80.

Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney says the no-contract plans will remain unique to tablets (including the iPad).

"Verizon Wireless has always been committed to providing customers with the latest technology, and the latest announcements reflect that commitment to a relatively new entrant into the mobile arena -- tablets," adds Raney, via CW. "The data plan pricing for the tablets are reflective of how people use these multi-purpose devices, and because they are 3G and Wi-Fi enabled, customers have a choice in how, when and where they use them."

The carrier is offering the 16GB model, but it has a memory card slot which allows for expansion of 32GB.

"One more thing..."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just announced that the new rumored MacBook Air is a reality.

Jobs asked the crowd: "What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?" "This is the result. One of the most amazing things we ever created. We think this is the future of notebooks."

The updated MacBook Air weighs 2.9 pounds, has a unibody construction, uses flash storage instead of a hard drive and promises 7 hours of battery life with standard use.

As rumored, there will be an 11.6-inch version as well as a 13.3-inch version.

Each model is 0.68 inches at its thickest point and 0.11 inches at its thinnest.

Resolution is 1440x900 or 1366x768, the computers use Core 2 Duo processors and use GeForce 320m video cards.

The 11.6-inch model comes with 64GB flash and costs $999. The 13.3-inch comes with 128GB flash memory and will cost $1299. A high-end 250GB model will cost $1600.

(Pic via RWW)

According to figures from Cowen & Company, Activision's blockbuster series Guitar Hero continues to see sales declines, despite new additions to the franchise.

The latest game, "Warriors of Rock," saw only 86,000 sales in its first week, well below the average for the franchise.

In 2007, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock sold 1.5 million copies in five days, in 2008 GH: World Tour sold 500,000 copies in its first week and last year's Guitar Hero 5 sold 499,000 copies in the same time frame.

Says analyst Doug Creutz: "Guitar Hero III likely attracted a lot of one-time buyers (that have not returned for subsequent franchise instalments) due to its 'it-game' status at the time."

Rival Harmonix, the company behind Rock Band said this of the genre as a whole: "I absolutely do not believe that rhythm-action gaming has reached its peak."

Apple's recently released quarterly earnings revealed that the company sold 250,000 Apple TV set-top devices as of the end of September, three weeks after its launch.

Says CEO Steve Jobs: "We’re happy with how it’s turned out." 

Jobs says he expects sales to pick up with the release of iOS 4.2, which will allow owners to stream their own content in addition to the content they downloaded from iTunes.

Available for $99, the updated Apple TV drops the hard drive of its predecessor and is now small enough to fit in your hand.

The device streams movies from the Web or from smartphones/tablets directly to your HDTV.

Additionally, the second-generation device streams movies from Netflix's ever expanding "Watch Instantly" catalog and HD movies purchased through iTunes.

The Apple TV has built-in Wi-Fi and an HDMI output.

Hector Martin aka marcan42 has just posted to his blog the launch of AsbestOS, a way to run Linux on your jailbroken PS3 without OtherOS. Martin has been working on AsbestOS for over a month.

"Other OS" was disabled by firmware version 3.21, and the latest Sony firmware update is version 3.50. Therefore, only owners of "fat" PS3 consoles running firmwares 3.15 or under can still use the OtherOS feature of their console.

Users running firmware 3.41 or under can "jailbreak" their console using a USB Development Board or a number of items like the DualShock 3 controller, TI-84 calculators, an iPod or other media players.

Says Martin:

"AsbestOS (a mineral, and meaning “inextinguishable” in Greek) is a bootloader to run PS3 Linux without OtherOS. It runs using the USB GameOS exploit (on PS3 version 3.41) from any compatible device, and any reprogrammable devices currently running the PS3 exploit can be used as long as they have enough free internal or external storage (40kB or so) to hold the loader. It is general enough that it should be useful to boot Linux given any other GameOS exploit in the future.

Microsoft has unveiled their Kinect motion control system's launch titles this week, with the highest touted game being "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 1 The Videogame."

Kinect is set to launch early next month.

Says Microsoft directly of the Harry Potter title: "Playing as Harry, you are on the run from the opening sequence, fighting for survival on a desperate and dangerous quest to locate and destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes."

There are 22 moves within the game that require the Kinect system, allowing users to control the action with hands-free motion controllers.

The other games to be released at launch are Kinectimals, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, Kinect Sports, Kinect Joy Ride and Dance Central.

Kinectimals allows users to interact with zoo animals, Fitness Evolved is a fitness game, Sports is (you guessed it) a sports game, Joyride is a racing game, and Dance Central is a game that lets you "hone your dance skills" to pop hits.

AT&T has said today that it will be giving away a free "Entertainment Pack" to buyers of Windows Phone 7 devices.

Included in the pack is a free month to U-Verse Mobile, the Xbox Live game ilomilo and a free one-month subscription for Zune Pass, the unlimited music streaming service.

Reads the press release:

The Entertainment Pack includes: 1) Xbox LIVE® game ilomilo, 2) 30 days free unlimited music service + 10 free songs to keep through one-month Zune® Pass trial, and 3) 30 days free to download and watch hit TV shows with U-verse® Mobile.

The Entertainment Pack is available (while supplies last) at no charge to consumers who purchase a Windows Phone device from AT&T between October 25, 2010, and December 31, 2010.

Redemption must be completed by December 31, 2010, by 11:59 p.m. PT. Consumers can redeem this offer by going to att.com/windowsphone and clicking on the Entertainment Pack offer, providing information to confirm their device purchase, and following the redemption instructions.

Redemption requires: a valid U.S. credit card, PC Internet access, Wi-Fi availability, ability to send and receive SMS messages.

Verizon Wireless will start their tiered data plans for smartphones next week, says the WSJ, following AT&T's decision in June to remove unlimited plans in favor of more restrictive, but cheaper subscriptions.

Subscribers will now have the chance to purchase 150MB a month for $15, or keep their unlimited plan for $30.

Both Verizon and AT&T have said in the past that 95 percent of users don't need unlimited plans as a good portion use under 100MB per monthly cycle.

Five percent of smartphone users use about 50 percent of all data bandwidth, added Verizon.

"It's designed to make data more affordable for entry-level users," added Roger Entner, an analyst for Nielsen. "There's a large number of people who simply can't afford $30 for data."

For now, the $15 plan is a "holiday promotion" but Verizon hopes to make it permanent if it's successful.

HP, who acquired Palm earlier this year for $1.6 billion has finally announced WebOS 2.0, the second-coming of Palm's popular mobile operating system.

Furthermore, the company announced the launch of the Palm Pre 2, which will first hit France this week and then Verizon in the United States in "a few months."

HP says WebOS 2.0 is "the most significant update" to the mobile OS since its inception in June of last year.

One of few of the new features is improved multitasking thanks to "Stacks." Stacks keep all related items together.

"Exhibitions" lets you see a slideshow of Facebook photos or view your calender when docked on the optional Palm Touchstone Charging Dock.

Notably, WebOS 2.0 will support a beta of Adobe Flash 10.1.

The Palm Pre 2 looks very much like its predecessor except HP has turned the display to glass, added an improved 5MP camera and a 1GHz processor.

Phandroid has posted a blurry pic this week of the Nexus One smartphone running Google's upcoming Android 3.0 Gingerbread, giving everyone an early look of the new features coming with the firmware update.

There are a number of cosmetic changes including the notification bar becoming a darker gray and the dialer and browser buttons becoming light green, the same color as the Android mascot.

Additionally, native voice and video calling will be made available through Google Talk, over both 3G and Wi-Fi.

The YouTube app will be completely re-done, as well, integrating it more into the OS.

Google Voice will be updated to allow users to receive calls to your Google Voice number over Wi-Fi and cellular data.

For now those are the only confirmed aspects of the upcoming Android update, which many believe Google will use to unify the platform, moving away from the fragmentation issues that have so far plagued Android. Expect Gingerbread by the end of the year.

Earlier this week, auction giant eBay expanded to three new countries including Finland, AfterDawn's home nation.

A few months ago, eBay opened sites in Russia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Denmark, Sweden and Norway as part of their broader eBay International Market program.

Adding Finland, Hungary and Portugal to the program will give 25 million people the chance to use a local eBay site (in their own native language) to make international purchases.

However, the company notes that auctions themselves, including titles and descriptions will not be translated into local languages.

Shoppers will be able to search for fixed-price items that are delivered to those nations and the prices are converted to local currency.