Ryan Naraine

Online shoppers using PayPal to pay for goods on eBay will now get up to $1,000 of coverage for non-delivery of items, thanks to an expansion of the company’s buyer protection program. PayPal, which is owned by eBay, doubled the coverage from $500 for qualified transactions on the auction site. The expansion takes effect on […]

The growth of RSS usage as a platform to syndicate content to feed readers and aggregators has led to a dramatic increase in bandwidth consumption for publishers. Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher believes his six-employee firm has come up with a solution to the bandwidth bugbear. Employees at the server-side RSS aggregator have released a set […]

Digital media delivery firm RealNetworks has issued a critical update to fix multiple security flaws in its media player software. The flaws, described by Secunia as “highly critical,” could allow malicious hackers access to manipulate data or hijack a vulnerable system. Affected software includes the RealOne Player, RealPlayer and Helix Player. RealNetworks said in an […]

Security researchers are seeing the first signs of a large-scale virus attack taking advantage of a known flaw in the way JPEG images are processed in Microsoft Windows products. Just days after warning that proof-of-concept exploits were circulating, the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC) said it had received reports that a “GDIplus.dll” exploit embedded on […]

Yahoo’s public embrace of the RSS content syndication format took a major leap forward with the release of a revamped My Yahoo portal seeking to introduce the technology to mainstream consumers. The mega portal on Monday released a sneak peek into a site overhaul that promises to take RSS to the masses by simplifying the […]

Online superstore Amazon.com has teamed up with Microsoft to sue a Canadian spamming ring that allegedly spoofed Hotmail and Amazon.com e-mail addresses to trick consumers. The joint federal suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Seattle, accused Gold Disk Canada of forging the MSN Hotmail service and the Amazon.com name to send millions of […]

Microsoft reportedly plans to push for a negotiated settlement of its antitrust dispute with the European Union (EU), even if it means deleting the Windows Media Player (WMP) from its operating system. According to weekend media reports out of Brussels, where Microsoft’s lead attorney Brad Smith met with reporters, the software giant is willing to […]

Analysis — Could Google be on the verge of creating its own Web browser, or is the guessing game about the company’s post-IPO plans spinning out of control? Once news broke that everyone’s favorite search engine had registered the “gbrowser.com” domain and hired a handful of former Microsoft developers who were involved with Internet Explorer, […]

With security experts predicting a large-scale worm attack is only a matter of days away, Microsoft has released a scanning tool to help users identify vulnerable versions of the GDI libraries that handle JPEG processing. The Microsoft GDI+ Detection Tool (available for download here) helps detect the presence of non-Windows Microsoft products that contain the […]

Just eight days after Microsoft released a fix for a “critical” flaw in the way JPEG files are processed, researchers have discovered proof-of-concept exploit code that is targeting unpatched machines. The SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC), which tracks malicious Internet activity, said several exploits taking advantage of the JPEG flaw are circulating and warned that […]

For the third time this year, RealNetworks has reshuffled its management deck. The latest restructuring sees the departure of Sean Ryan, vice president of music services, who joined RealNetworks as part of the $36 million Listen.com acquisition. RealNetworks said Ryan is leaving to pursue other business opportunities. The digital media delivery firm announced plans to […]

Instant messaging software firm Jabber Inc. has announced plans to release a plug-and-play IM appliance designed for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The new appliance is scheduled to ship in the first quarter of next year and will run on the Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP). Jabber, which is working on an XMPP-to-SIP Gateway […]