The scandal is that giant enterprises are doing nothing to contribute to the development, testing and validation of the free software on which they depend. They are takers, pure and simple.

But rather than use the Heartbleed bug as a reason to indict open source as being unreliable, what really needs to happen is to use this as a wakeup call. All of those companies—from Yahoo to Dropbox—that used OpenSSL without doing anything to help create and improve the product are paying for that neglect now. Once they spend millions to fix the problem, perhaps they can spend a few thousand more to help fund development of this critical security library.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) also warned that the end of support for Office 2003, which also falls today, also creates the same ramping up of risk.

“Anyone using either of these two products must consider their options and ensure that personal data is not unduly placed at risk. Failure to do so will leave your organisation’s network increasingly vulnerable over time and increases the risk of a serious data breach that your actions could have prevented," he concluded.

AMD has migrated terabytes of information from an Oracle Database installation to an Apache Hadoop stack, claiming Oracle's pricey software was suffering from scaling issues.

Oracle is grappling with a shift in the data warehouse and analytics market: its core business is being squeezed by free and open-source on-premises software, and its cloud wing is facing off with Amazon Web Services and the like.

The most visible new addition in Firefox 29 Beta is the Australis interface, which is the most significant Firefox user interface change since the Firefox 4 release in March 2011. Mozilla developers have been talking about Australis since at least last June as a new design that will revitalize the browser, making it easier for users to get what they want from the Web.

The overall user interface now provides a more fluid look and feel and includes a rounded tab design. Tabs have also been improved to make it easier for users to clearly identify which tab they are on inside the browser.

Oracle today officially released Java 8, nearly two years after Java 7, and after much delay. The new release includes a number of critical new features, including Lambda expressions and the new Nashorn JavaScript engine. Java 8, however, is still missing at least one critical piece that Java developers have been asking for, for years.

Manufacturers will be charged $15 to license Windows 8.1 and preinstall it on devices that retail for less than $250, instead of the usual fee of $50, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public.

By offering incentives for PC makers to sell cheaper models, Microsoft may be able to increase its share of the growing $80 billion tablet market and stave off Chromebooks, notebooks that run Google’s operating system.

A deluge of copycats, ripoffs, parodies and tributes have sprung up in Flappy Bird‘s wake. Some from alternative Android app markets were found to be harboring malware. Others parodied the situation, swapping in memes or even Sesame Street characters in place of the original flying fish-bird-thing.

Called Directory Tiles, the initiative will use a combination of sponsored sites, popular sites based on geographic location, and Mozilla ecosystem items to fill in blank New Tab pages. Currently, the nine empty boxes on a new New Tab page fill in over time with sites culled from the user's browsing history, frequently visited sites, and bookmarks.

Once the user has browsed enough to satisfy the needs of the "frecency" algorithm, which combines the frequency and recency with which the user visits a Web site, the Directory Tiles will be automatically replaced with content more relevant to the user. Herman said that this period is generally between 30 and 45 days for most new users.

Until Friday, Feb. 7, the new Firefox Australis interface was only available in a Nightly branch for Firefox and has now moved into the alpha phase for what will become Firefox 29.

The tab design is more rounded, and the users have more interface customization options. A primary difference is the User Menu system, which moves to the right of the browser window in the Australis update.

The early build includes a number of changes that Microsoft is making to improve the keyboard and mouse experience in Windows 8.1. The most obvious change is a new title bar for Microsoft’s Windows 8-style apps, allowing you to close, minimize, and snap apps to appear side by side with a mouse.