The security of Oracle's Java software framework, installed on some three billion devices worldwide, is taking a turn for the worse, thanks to an uptick in attacks targeting vulnerabilities that will never be patched and increasingly sophisticated exploits, security researchers said.

The version, which Oracle stopped supporting in February, is still used by about half of the Java user base, he said.

Microsoft plans to raise the price of the Datacenter edition of the upcoming R2 release of Windows Server 2012 by 28 percent, adding to what analysts call a record number of price increases for enterprise software products from Redmond.

The increase caps off a year filled with a record number of price increases for Microsoft enterprise software, according to a Tweet yesterday from Microsoft software licensing analyst Paul DeGroot of Pica Communications.

Firefox at last follows the lead of Internet Explorer and Chrome, blocking mixed use of (non-secure) HTTP content from (secure) HTTPS pages.

Arguably on the other side of the security fence, Firefox 23 removes the ability to disable JavaScript in its preferences dialog. That's not to say that Firefox 23 can't disable JavaScript (the setting in about:config still exists and still works, and Firefox 24 will add a feature to the developer tools to disable JavaScript too), but the most easy and obvious way of disabling JavaScript is gone.

For the second time in a month, Hewlett-Packard has been forced to admit it built secret backdoors into its enterprise storage products. The admission, in a security bulletin posted July 9, confirms reports from the blogger Technion, who flagged the security issue in HP's StoreOnce systems in June, before finding more backdoors in other HP storage and SAN products.

The account also provides access to a factory-reset control that would allow intruders to destroy much of the data and configurations of a network of HP storage products. And it's not hard to find: 'Open up your favourite SSH client, key in the IP of an HP D2D unit. Enter in yourself the username HPSupport, and the password which has a SHA1 of 78a7ecf065324604540ad3c41c3bb8fe1d084c50.

The recent discovery that Apple's iOS hotspot passwords are readily crackable in under 50 seconds is part of a wider problem involving other smartphone platforms, claim researchers.

"Anyone who knows your WPA key and is around when you connect to your network can decrypt your traffic in real time," Ducklin warns. "And anyone who is around when you connect and can sniff your traffic can attempt to crack the password and decrypt your traffic later. Choose your own passphrase, and make it a good one, when using iOS's Personal Hotspot," he concludes.

Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process.

The update, which Microsoft is showing off in a preview today, remains touch-forward, while making more concessions to keyboard and mouse users.

The most fundamentally important new features are the revisions to Search and SkyDrive. The one that will get the most attention, however, is the Start button that now uses the Windows logo and remains visible at all times in the taskbar if you’re working in desktop mode.

1bir (1 Block Interactive Raycaster) is a simple ray casting engine implemented only in 254 bytes to run on a stock, unexpanded Commodore 64.

The source code in 6502 assembly is available, with extensive comments. A YouTube video showcases 1bir in a detailed manner with both kind of maps and more information, while a Vimeo video presents a shorter demonstration.

Adobe had been expected to demo Creative Suite 7 at its MAX conference down in smoky Los Angeles on Monday, but instead announced there'll be no more versions of its boxed software and that the Creative Suite brand will cease to exist.

The move to cloud runs the risk of alienating users who've been with the company for a long time and don't want or need a cloud service.

The founders of the original MySQL, the open-source database, are getting back together in a merger between Monty Program and SkySQL.

The merger will provide a stronger rival to MySQL, so reassuring users who are worried about Oracle’s future plans for the database. The acquisition of MySQL by Oracle was greeted with suspicion and suggestions that Oracle would weaken MySQL in favour of Oracle’s own database, and Widenius at one point suggested Oracle should sell off MySQL.