Episode 389 – Aussie Tech Heads Shownotes

posted in: Show Notes

GLENN’S SHOWNOTES 

 
A wave of targeted attacks against serious vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer expose the increased risk facing organisations and consumers facing  Windows XP users.
Microsoft issued a security advisory on Sunday, warning that every supported version of Internet Explorer is impacted by the vulnerabilities.
 
An analysis of the latest Microsoft zero-day threat conducted by FireEye showed that the attacks won’t work if Adobe Flash is not installed on systems. The criminals behind the campaign use a malicious Shockwave Flash file to carry out the attack. Removing Adobe Flash is not the answer, and  said an attack without the use of Flash may be possible.
 
All users, including those still running Windows XP, need to consider an alternate browser to effectively negate the specific attack
 

Apple has updated the MacBook Air, reducing the price and boosting performance
 
Locally, the entry-level model – 11in with 128GB of flash storage – remains the same price at AU$1099 inc GST. The top-end 13in, 256GB top-end model now costs AU$1399, a $50 reduction.
 
All four Macbook Air models now feature 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processors, compared to the last version’s 1.3GHz Core i5 chips.
 
The Macbook Air’s RAM remains the same, at 4GB across the board and its Intel HD Graphics 5000 chipset is also unchanged.
 

 
Zone Telecom has paid a $20,400 infringement notice for making telemarketing calls to numbers listed on the Do Not Call Register.
 
According to ACMA, despite “warning signs early in 2013” that the company lists might have had numbers from the register, Zone Telecom “chose to accept this risk” and continued with its telemarketing activities
 
Zone Telecom is based in Tarneit, Victoria and provides a landline phone and broadband packages.
 

 
Apple Inc has offered to replace faulty on-off buttons on the iPhone 5, a rare glitch that it said on Friday affected “a small percentage” of the previous-generation smartphones.
 
Apple said on its user-support page that “iPhone 5 models manufactured through March 2013 may be affected by this issue,” in which the button, also known as a sleep/wake mechanism, stops functioning or works only intermittently.
 
 
Owners can type in their iPhone serial numbers on Apple’s website to see if their phones qualify for a fix, then either take their gadgets to a store or mail them in to be repaired.
 

 
Those who watched on a “movie screen” would pay the most while those using smartphones would only pay a small fee, Jeffrey Katzenberg said.
This pricing model will be common in 10 years’ time, he told a US conference.
Mr Katzenberg – who runs a studio that has produced movies such as Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda – was speaking at the Milken Global Conference in California.
 
“Movies are not a growth business,” Mr Katzenberg told delegates.
 
“A movie will come out and you will have 17 days – that’s exactly three weekends, which is 95% of the revenue for 98% of movies.
“On the 18th day, these movies will be available everywhere ubiquitously and you will pay for the size,” he said.
The pricing model he suggested was $15 (£9) per film for a movie-sized screen, $4 (£2.40) for a 75in (190cm) TV and $1.99 (£1.20) for a smartphone.
Typically film studios have around three months to show a film in the cinema before it is released for distribution on other media channels.
“It will reinvent the enterprise of movies,” he said.
Katzenberg is 63
 

Some of the icons include a smiley face showing its middle finger and a woman’s legs wearing high heels.
The changes happened more than a month ago,according to TechCrunch.

Mills & Boon has caused a stir in the publishing industry by creating its own app for reading ebooks.
The ebook market is currently dominated by digital superstores run by the likes of Amazon, Kobo and Apple. They take a percentage of the profits each time a book is downloaded.
Mills & Boon has created its own app reader to streamline the process from publisher to reader. It is hoping that a rise in the number of people reading ebooks on smartphones and tablets – as opposed to dedicated e-readers like Kindle – will make their gamble pay off.

the tax bill is only 15 per cent of its Australian profits, which don’t count Google’s lucrative search business revenue.
Tax information shows that in 2013, Google Australia booked revenue of $357.7 million
 
Google Australia does not count revenues earned from its search business, which is estimated to generate $1 billion to $1.5 billion each year. For tax purposes, Google’s search business customers get billed in Singapore, not in Australia.
That means its corporate tax bill is a fraction of its overall sales.
France’s tax authorities have launched a 1 billion euro tax claim against Google, it was reported today.
 
Faced with huge debts, France is determined to clamp down on multinational companies who avoid having to hand over huge parts of their income to failing national governments.

COMMONWEALTH Bank customers will be able to withdraw cash from ATMs by using their smartphones and without a card from next month.
Withdrawals are limited to one transaction a day, up to $200, and customers must first have the CommBank app installed on their smartphones.
Customers who want to collect the cash themselves can select the amount to withdraw and the account via the app.
Two unique numbers will be issued — an 8-digit cash code and a 4-digit cash PIN.
At the ATM, customers select the ‘withdraw cardless cash’ option, enter both codes and the cash and receipt will be dispensed.
There’s also an option for someone else to collect the cash on a customer’s behalf.
Through the app customers can select the person from the phone contacts or enter someone’s mobile number, then determine the withdrawal amount and account.
The bank also unveiled ‘lock and limit’ for its credit card customers which can control security and spending through the app.
For example, it can block overseas transactions where the card isn’t present.
It also launched a small business app that can accept on-the-spot payments, create estimates and invoices immediately and help manage cash flow.
Westpac rushed its own cardless-ATM announcement on Wednesday.
It will allow its customers to withdraw money from ATMs with a smartphone app from September.

 
A DECADES-old urban legend has been put to rest as workers for a documentary film production company recovered ET Atari game cartridges from a heap of garbage buried deep in the New Mexico desert.
The Atari grave was, until that moment, a highly debated tale among gaming enthusiasts and other self-described geeks for 30 years. The story claimed that in its death throes, the video game company sent about a dozen truckloads of cartridges of what many call the worst video game ever to be forever hidden in a concrete-covered landfill in south-eastern New Mexico.
the demise of Atari will be featured in an upcoming documentary about the biggest video game company of the early ’80s.
 
As a backhoe scattered a huge scoop of 30-year-old trash and dirt over the sand, the film crew spotted boxes and booklets carrying the Atari logo. Soon after, a game cartridge turned up, then another and another.
 
About 200 residents and game enthusiasts gathered early Saturday at the old landfill in Alamogordo to watch crews search for up to a million discarded copies of E.T. The Extraterrestrial that the game’s maker wanted to hide forever.

former Atari manager who was invited by the production to the dig site. He says in 1983 the company tasked him with finding an inexpensive way to dispose of 728,000 cartridges they had in a warehouse in El Paso, Texas. After a few local kids ran into trouble for scavenging and the media started calling him about it, he decided to pour a layer of concrete over the games.

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