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Recently, there were concerns that a Gmail exploit may allow attackers to forward e-mail.
A proof of concept was posted online but Google has now denied there’s any evidence of a Gmail vulnerability.

Google security engineer Chris Evans explained in a blog post that Google "mounted an immediate investigation" after the recent speculation but "results indicate no evidence of a Gmail vulnerability". With help from Gmail users Google has determined that the cause was a phishing scheme, a common method used by malicious actors to trick people into sharing their sensitive information.

Evans explains "Attackers sent customized e-mails encouraging web domain owners to visit fraudulent websites such as "google-hosts.com" that they set up purely to harvest usernames and passwords. These fake sites had no affiliation with Google, and the ones we’ve seen are now offline. Once attackers gained the user credentials, they were free to modify the affected accounts as they desired. In this case, the attacker set up mail filters specifically designed to forward messages from web domain providers."

Phishing attacks are becoming increasingly popular and security researchers believe social networking sites like Facebook are ideal for phishing.

Gmail owners, Google, wanted "to go beyond simple color customization" and have announced 30 new themes.

There’s many new themes to fit your style, a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time and even a weather theme that can rain on your mailbox. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) to geek up your mailbox.
Google have also done some work to Gmail’s default look to make it "crisper and cleaner".

To customise your inbox, go to the Themes tab under Settings. Google say they will be rolling out themes to everyone over the next couple of days, so you may not see the themes just yet.
Gmail users have been building up custom themes using third-party tools like Greasemonkey or custom user stylesheets for quite some time. Officially, Gmail previously offered the mobile, classic HTML or their normal views only. Google also uses themes in products like their personalised homepage iGoogle or Google Reader’s shared items page. The new Gmail themes will certainly be a welcomed addition for many.

Here’s an overview of some of the themes to give you an idea of just how far you can customise your Gmail look.

YouTube has quietly started testing out real HD quality videos on a smattering of its content, a development that is getting attention from viewers in message boards and blog forums this week. The new format could be a big move for YouTube, as the video size is over 80MB, which means that they are probably the same H.264 encoded mp4 files available in the iTunes store.

Getting premium quality video available on the site is integral for YouTube’s success as the company struggles to turn a profit from its vast array of content available online.

The new formats have been available on a few videos for a few months now, and a small hack can upgrade any video taped at a high enough quality. YouTube confirms this is part of their efforts to test out different video formats.

The new format seems like real HD 720p video and looks clean and professional in the widescreen format. As we’ve noted in our Watch Higher Quality YouTube Videos wiki, it is possible to make YouTube’s high quality video the default on the site, but formerly it was only possible to watch at a 480×360 resolution.

Formerly, viewers who wanted to watch 480×260 videos could do so by adding "&fmt=18" to the end of a YouTube video’s url. To access the 720p format, the new appendage is "&fmt=22."

Japanese website Google Mania claims that there is also an option to download video as an MP4, which would be big news as YouTube users have long desired that option, but the download link does not seem to appear on any of the U.S. versions.

While these videos will result in slower loading and require powerful PCs for smooth playback, HD quality videos are a step in the right direction for YouTube. Now if they can just work on getting a larger inventory of high quality content people want to watch on there, their ad model will be in business.

If you’d like to see the difference for yourself, here is an HD embed, followed by the standard video quality on YouTube:

Check also:

Source: Wired

Disagree with Google’s search results? You’ll be able to do something about it with a change the company plans to release starting Thursday.

Google’s SearchWiki is a feature that lets people elevate, delete, add, and annotate search results. Google remembers the changes a person made to search results, so repeat searches will show the same customizations and notes.

Google has been offering SearchWiki as an experimental feature to some people for months, but starting Thursday it will become available to anybody who’s searching while logged in with a Google account.

"This is a search feature that gets a user more control over their search results," said Cedric Dupont, Google’s SearchWiki product manager.

Read more @ News CNet

Google (NSDQ:GOOG)’s Gmail has quickly become one of the most popular Web-based e-mail applications available — and it just added video and voice chat capabilities.

Gmail has become popular because of its aggressive spam filters and embedded chat capabilities, making it a Web page that most users stay active in all day, every day. Today, the Gmail team at Google has expanded its capabilities by including video and voice chat. On the Gmail blog Justin Uberti, software engineer for Google, writes, "[T]oday we’re launching voice and video chat — right inside Gmail. We’ve tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video — all for free."

In order to access Gmail Video and Voice Chat, users have to install the voice and video plug-in, and, as the Uberti states it, Google "takes care of the rest."

Gmail Voice and Video Chat was designed using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP and H.264, making the Google program able to interact with separate, third-party applications, assuming those separate voice and video applications decide to allow Gmail’s offering to interact with them.

Installation is easy and only takes a few seconds to download the plug-in. Once the browser is restarted, a "Video and more" menu will appear at the bottom of the Gmail page. Go to the menu and select "start video chat." It will take a few moments for the video call to connect with your friend of co-worker.

Source: CRN

Hackers have found a way to circumvent controls in the Google Android operating system used on T-Mobile’s G1 mobile phone, allowing them to get around restrictions created by the phone’s designers.

The hack gives G1 users a way to read data on parts of the phone that are normally walled off and could be used to install new programs, or even a new operating system, on the mobile phone. Currently, programs for the open source Android operating system must be written in Java, rather than other popular programming languages such as C or C++.

Federal regulators have approved a plan to use currently unlicensed parts of the US TV airwaves, known as white spaces, to deliver broadband services.

For more than two years this proposal has pitted new media against old.
Companies, including Google, HP and Microsoft, say opening up the spectrum would improve internet access for Americans, especially in rural areas.

But opponents, from TV networks to Broadway producers, say it could disrupt their over-the-air signals.

The unanimous 5-0 vote by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being seen as a major victory for the big technology companies that lobbied long and hard to open up the white spaces, which are the empty airwaves between television channels.

They have said the plan would encourage innovation and investment in much the same way the spread of Wi-Fi technology has and this would lead to the creation of internet-connected wireless gadgets.

Read more @ BBC News

You can now send SMS text messages to anyone in your Gmail address book right from the Gmail website.

Go to your Gmail Labs settings and enable the "Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat" feature. The facility is currently available only for US phone numbers.

You can send (and receive) text messages via the embedded chat in Gmail website but not from the standalone Google Talk client. Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Messenger and AOL AIM service have had the SMS messaging feature for quite some time now.

Source: Digital Inspiration

oogle has begun distributing a patch to its Android mobile phone operating system, an early test for how nimbly the company can respond and how well the infrastructure works to distribute and install updates.

For the Android test phone I’m using, a T-Mobile G1, the update was smoother than the process by which the software problem came to light publicly on October 24.

The handset I’m testing gave me a message Saturday afternoon: "A system update is available," and a choice to update now or later. When I clicked the button to begin the update, it downloaded new software, which took a few minutes, then installed it, then resumed working with no hitches.

The patch fixes the highly publicized security problem with Android’s Web browser and makes a few other minor changes, according to a Google spokesman quoted in IT World on Friday.

Read more @ Cnet news

On the SunSpider JavaScript peformance test, the new Google Chrome beta edges closer to TraceMonkey-enhanced Firefox. But the cutting-edge ‘Minefield’ version of Firefox edges ahead, too.

(Credit: CNET News)

Google began updating Chrome users with the new beta version, and my performance tests show the company has ratcheted the browser’s speed up another notch.

Google Chrome’s latest version, 0.3.154.9, shows a 37 percent JavaScript performance improvement over the initial beta released two months ago.

JavaScript is a programming language used to add some pizazz to innumerable Web pages, but more importantly from Google’s perspective, to power sophisticated Web applications such as Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Gmail. JavaScript is also up against Adobe Systems’ Flash and Flex, Microsoft’s Silverlight, and HTML 5, in the competition for what’s the best foundation for Web applications.

Using Google’s JavaScript benchmark I pitted the newest Chrome beta, version 0.3.154.9, against both the initial beta from September and the more raw 0.3.154.3 developer release from mid-October. A higher number is better on this test, and the first beta scored 1,851, the 0.3.154.3 developer release 2,265, and the new 0.3.154.9 beta 2,546.

Google’s tests aren’t the only game in town; many use the SunSpider test. Here, too, the new Chrome got a notch faster, getting the test done in 2,546 milliseconds compared with 2,904 milliseconds for 0.3.154.3. (We couldn’t test the first version because the testing site was down at the time.)

The new Chrome score catches closer to the 2,250 millisecond score of Firefox 3.1 beta 1 with its new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine enabled. (Tech-Recipes has useful instructions on how to enable TraceMonkey.)

On blogger Matt Asay’s advice, I tested Minefield, the cutting-edge version of Firefox that’s updated daily. (Minefield is downloadable from Mozilla’s FTP site for those willing to use very untested software).

It had the best SunSpider score so far on my machine, 2,147 milliseconds. However, Firefox still lags on Google’s speed test. Chrome’s latest score of 2,546 is miles ahead of the 215 score from Minefield.

The latest beta version of Google Chrome is a notch faster on Google’s JavaScript speed tests, where a larger number is better. The cutting-edge ‘Minefield’ version of Firefox takes a step back from the the 3.1 beta 1 of Firefox, without the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine enabled. All the Firefox versions trail Chrome on this test significantly.

(Credit: CNET News)

Continue reading @ news.cnet.com