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Patches 42 security holes Oracle has released a major security update for the version of Java programming language that runs inside Web browsers. The patch fixes 42 vulnerabilities within Java, including "the vast majority" of those that have been rated as the most critical. Oracle Executive Vice President Hasan Rizvisaid that a series of big security flaws in the Java plug-in for browsers have been uncovered in the past year by researchers and hackers, and some have been used by criminal groups. One hacking campaign infected computers using Microsoft Windows and Apple software inside hundreds of companies.Earlier this year the US Department...

Over the course of the last two years, Oracle's Java has been exploited time and again as hackers eviscerate the technology, seemingly at will.As each exploit emerges against Java, Oracle typically responds within a short period of time with a security update, only to have the update exploited within days. While Oracle has pledged with its successive releases that it is improving Java security, the company has not publicly spoken out about the string of exploitation that has crippled confidence in Java in recent months. That is until now."As many of you are keenly aware, there has been a...

New Java exploit can be yours for $5,000 Unpatched Java installations may have helped spread the malware responsible for the recently uncovered "Red October" cyber-spying campaign, researchers at Seculert have revealed. Kaspersky Labs first disclosed the existence of Red October on Monday, claiming that the program had been responsible for attacks on systems in Eastern European countries, former Soviet republics, and Central Asian nations over the last five years. The primary vectors used to install the malware were emails containing attached documents that exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word and Excel. Recipients who opened the documents became unwitting participants in the...

[No quote due to Reuters source. Title is accurate representation of article. Please see link.]

Apple tries to kill its own Java on most Macs Pushes users to deal with Oracle, which maintains Java 7 for OS X By Gregg Keizer October 18, 2012 03:01 PM ET Computerworld - Apple yesterday started scrubbing most Macs of older Java browser plug-ins, a move that will force users to download the software from Oracle. The company also patched Java for OS X, the second time Apple synchronized its Java security update with Oracle's, releasing its patches for OS X the same day as the Java software maker. Along with the Java patches, Apple beefed by OS X...

Judge Rules in Favour of HP in Litigation with Oracle Concerning Support of Itanium SoftwareA California state judge ruled on Wednesday that Oracle will have to continue supporting and releasing new versions of its software designed for Intel Itanium-based servers sold by Hewlett-Packard. The judge said that an agreement between HP and Oracle regarding release of software compatible with Itanium did exist and that Oracle is obliged to follow it. The latter will appeal the decision. "Today’s proposed ruling is a tremendous win for HP and its customers. The superior court of the state of California, Santa Clara County, has...

Column Oracle won't win this case against Google IT SEEMS that Oracle's lawsuit against Google over its use of Java in Android has fallen apart. Although the trial is still ongoing, and the judge has yet to hand down an important copyright ruling while the jury has yet to return its verdicts on patents and damages, if any - it's already apparent that Oracle is unlikely to win billions or even millions of dollars from Google, and it's possible that Oracle might lose entirely. This lawsuit is rather important, however, if only because it has raised the spectre that software...

One month into the Oracle v Google trial, Judge William Alsup has revealed that he has, and still does, write code. Will this affect the outcome? So far all that Oracle has managed to prove is that Google copied nine lines of Java code, that are incorporated into Android operating system and eight test files that are not part of the production code. And yesterday, in a hearing about "infringer profits" Judge Alsup challenged Oracle's lawyer David Boies for trying to pin so much on the rangeCheck infringement. U.S. District Judge William Alsup, Northern District of California (Image: Hillary Jones-Mixon/The...

Summary: There were no winners in Oracle vs. Google. Only losers, including all programmers, and perhaps everyone else as well.Not counting the APIs, here's how much code Google was found to have copied from Java.On the surface, it may look like Oracle won the first round of its intellectual property (IP) lawsuit with Google. Look again. No one’s won anything and that includes Oracle.While we wait to see what the jury has to say about the two remaining patents, let’s take a closer look at what the jury decided. They said that Google’s Android mobile platform infringed on part of...

Open-source Java: Part One Open source Java has a long and torrid history, rife with corporate rivalry, very public fallings-out, and ideological misgivings. But has all the effort and rumpus that went into creating an officially sanctioned open JDK been worth it? Java co-creator James Gosling certainly thinks so - although he didn't seem entirely open to the idea in the early days. Gosling told The Reg that putting Java under the GPL has helped unify what was a fractured community while making the code freely available has helped uptake from a grassroots up. "In general, I'd say that it's...

MEN OF HONOR Apparently, if you want to cheat on your wife or spurn the mother of your unborn child, cover up and easily settle your institution's criminal efforts to help Americans avoid paying their federal income taxes, or just avoid paying your own fair share, the place to be is on President Barack Obama's economic-recovery advisory board. Because that's where Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS Group Americas, the U.S. arm of one of Switzerland's largest banks, UBS AG, sits, as do Charles E. Phillips, President of Oracle Corporation, Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management of...

This is the second of three consecutive posts on information gleaned from last night's filings in Oracle v. Google. I previously blogged about Sun's proposal to create a Red Hat-style Android distribution with open source Java.While patents are the most important part of Oracle's lawsuit against Google, the copyright infringement part shouldn't be underestimated. Google is currently trying to get rid of it on summary judgment, but Oracle defends its related claims.Judge Alsup denied the filing of various interesting documents under seal, so they entered the public record last night. Also, documents that were heavily-redacted are now much less redacted...

It's been a tough week for Oracle Corp. and its lawyers. Oracle sued SAP alleging copyright infringement. A judge said the evidence didnt' support the penalty. On Thursday, the judge in a high-profile copyright case Oracle brought against rival SAP AG threw out a $1.3 billion jury verdict against the German software company. The ruling is expected to result in a new trial to set damages, unless Oracle accepts the judge's suggested figure of $272 million. The court ruling is the second bit of unwelcome news for Oracle this week. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. authorities...

In what would be Larry Ellison‘s crowning achievement if he could pull it off, the market is buzzing over the idea that Oracle could make a run at Hewlett-Packard. This idea stems from a New York Post story Sunday, which asserts that the sell-off in the stock last week has “put the world’s largest tech company in a vulnerable position and may make it an Oracle takeover target.” The piece says that “one source close to the situation” thinks Ellison is ready to pounce, and that a deal is “inevitable” if HP’s share price keeps dropping. The source told the...

Warren Buffett was in the New York Times today bragging about his low effective tax rate and saying how he would like to be paying more. Fellow Forbes contributor Tim Worstall weighed in quibbling about Mr. Buffet not factoring in the corporate taxes on Berkshire Hathaway's earnings. I'm just a simple CPA, whose firm won't even let him sign audit reports anymore. (That's true of all tax partners here by the way. I don't take it personally). I don't want to quibble with a quibble but apparently economists have a hard time figuring out the incidence of the corporate income...

Google Chief Executive Larry Page has been ordered to testify before the court as part of an ongoing lawsuit in which Oracle has accused the search giant of infringing on its patents for Java. Google CEO Larry Page(Credit: Google) The order yesterday by Judge Donna Ryu of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California states that "Oracle may depose Mr. Page for a maximum of two hours, excluding breaks, solely on topics relevant to the willfulness of Defendant's alleged patent infringement, and the value of Android to Defendant," according to a blog published today by FOSS Patents'...

The earnings rainy season has come and gone. For the next several weeks, it’s a virtual desert for corporate results. But on Thursday, thirsty investors can find an oasis of tech earnings. Best Buy (BBY) reports before the opening bell, and Oracle (ORCL), Research In Motion (RIMM) and Accenture (ACN) release results after the market close. These giants, some of them lumbering, will provide insight into current and future consumer and business tech spending via their various industries. Many may offer some sense of how Japan’s earthquake and tsunami will affect operations or sales.

The White House has released the list of tech leaders meeting with President Obama this evening in San Francisco: • John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers • Carol Bartz, President and CEO, Yahoo! • John Chambers, CEO and Chairman, Cisco Systems • Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter • Larry Ellison, Co-Founder and CEO, Oracle • Reed Hastings, CEO, NetFlix • John Hennessy, President, Stanford University • Steve Jobs, Chairman and CEO, Apple • Art Levinson, Chairman and former CEO, Genentech • Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO, Google • Steve Westly, Managing Partner and Founder, The Westly Group • Mark...

Florian Mueller has been killing it these past few months with his analysis of various tech patent suits on his FOSSpatents blog, and today he's unearthed a pretty major bombshell: at least 43 Android source files that appear to have been directly copied from Java. That's a big deal, seeing as Oracle is currently suing Google for patent and copyright infringement in Android -- which isn't a hard case to prove when you've got 37 Android source files marked "PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL" and "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" by Oracle / Sun and at least six more files in Froyo and Gingerbread...

Proprietary deal falls through A cunning plan by the big names in proprietary software to snap up Novell's patents has fallen through leaving the future of the patents in doubt. Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and EMC had planned to create a consortium to acquire hundreds of Novell patents but now they have decided not to press ahead with it as it could get them into all sorts of anti-trust hotwater. CPTN Holdings was to jointly acquire 882 Novell patents for $442 million. The rest of Novell was to be sold to Attachmate for $2.2 billion, with that sale being conditioned upon...

CPTN Holdings LLC (acquirer of 882 Novell patents): Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle are the partners according to German antitrust notification Breaking news: Twitter user @VM_gville (whose account has meanwhile disappeared) pointed me to the website of the German federal antitrust authority ("Bundeskartellamt"), which discloses a merger (or more precisely, joint venture) notification filed a week ago (on 09 December 2010), according to which the four companies behind CPTN Holdings LLC -- the acquirer of 882 Novell patents -- are Microsoft, Apple, EMC, and Oracle. The product market in which the newly formed company plans to operate is defined as...

InformationWeek Analytics, the leading service for peer-based IT research and analysis, today announced the release of its "Research: 2010 State of Database Technology" report. More than 750 business technology professionals weigh in on their database strategies. Report author Richard Winter is founder and president of WinterCorp, an independent consulting firm that specializes in the performance and scalability of data management systems. Research Summary: Our first InformationWeek Analytics State of Database Technology Survey reveals serious fault lines beneath the critically important enterprise database and data warehousing markets. The 755 business technology professionals taking part in our poll express discontent with rising...

Oracle, now the keeper of the Java flame through its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, has decided that Google has sullied Java through its modifications for the Android platform. For that, Google must pay, and it must pay Oracle. At least that's the way Oracle sees things. Microsoft must be laughing at this turn of events. Recall that Sun went after Microsoft in the 1990s for similar transgressions against the purity of Java. Sun's catch phrase of the hour was "Write Once, Run Anywhere". The changes Microsoft made in the Java VM allowed Java apps to access Windows-specific functionality if they...

Oracle has responded to HP's lawsuit against new hire Mark Hurd. In short, Larry Ellison is ready to fight! Here's the statement: “Oracle has long viewed HP as an important partner,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the HP board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees. The HP Board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace."

It took Hewlett-Packard less than a day to file a lawsuit against its former chief executive, Mark V. Hurd, over his decision to join its rival and partner Oracle as a co-president. H.P. filed its lawsuit on Tuesday in the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara, claiming that Mr. Hurd had breached his contract with the company. The lawsuit said that Mr. Hurd could use his intimate knowledge of H.P. and its trade secrets to aid Oracle and harm H.P. The two companies compete in the market for computer servers, storage systems and business software. Mr. Hurd resigned from...

Oracle hires HP's former chief Mark Hurd Credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser/Files By Megan Davies and Ritsuko Ando NEW YORK | Tue Sep 7, 2010 9:32am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Silicon Valley technology giant Oracle Corp has hired Mark Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co who resigned amid a scandal, as president. Hurd, a close friend of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will replace Charles Phillips, who has resigned, Oracle said in a statement on Monday. Phillips was co-president alongside Safra Catz, who remains in her role. Ellison had slammed HP's decision to oust Hurd, calling the actions of HP's...

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux, says Oracle's move is "going to be a significant setback for their relationship with the broader open source community." Before it was purchased by Oracle, Sun Microsystems enjoyed a strong relationship with the open source community, particularly for its Java programming language, which the company evolved over time to adapt to an open source framework. But last week Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) surprised the open source community with a patent infringement suit against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), over the search giant's use of Java in Android, its open source mobile operating system. Datamation reports on...

Two Silicon Valley heavyweights are about to reenact the Java wars: this time, in a court room. Oracle issued a press release late Thursday saying it has filed suit against Google for infringing on copyrights and patents related to Java, which Oracle acquired along with Sun Microsystems earlier this year. The terse release claimed Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property." A copy of the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, says that "Android (including without limitation the Dalvik VM and the Android software development kit) and devices...

BERLIN - Some Germans are calling for a public roasting of the oracle octopus who correctly picked the winner of all six of their national soccer team's World Cup matches -- including a bitter defeat to Spain on Wednesday. Paul, a two-year-old octopus in a German aquarium, turned into a global celebrity for his uncanny ability to predict the winner of all Germany's matches -- even a group stage defeat to Serbia and an ousting by Spain in the semi-finals.... Not an ordinarily superstitious people, Germans became believers in Paul's possible psychic powers. The country was shocked and distraught when...

Just a day after several media sites, including this one, had Larry Ellison minutes away from a microphone to announce he was going to buy the Golden State Warriors-- came the news that the deal is off. Instead, Comcast Sports Net, the Bay Area News Group, and CNBC are reporting that Joe Lacob, managing partner at private equity firm Kleiner Perkins, and Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment and producer of "Batman," have won the bid for the team. Their winning bid, according to CNBC, was a record $450 million. That was apparently enough cash to cause Ellison to fold...

Your long, tightwad-ownership nightmare is reportedly over, Warriors fans. The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that software tycoon Larry Ellison has won the bidding process and will soon be announced as the new owner of the Golden State Warriors. KNBR and the Chronicle are both reporting the official announcement will come by the close of business today. The dollar amount of Ellison's winning bid is not yet public, but the Oakland Tribune reports that he beat out a $350 million offer from 24-Hour Fitness owner Mark Mastrov. Ellison has long been the Bay Area's favorite obnoxious and ruthless billionaire. His...

Spain worried about safety of new world star Paul the Octopus Posted : Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:42:23 GMT By : Wolfgang Dahlmann Oberhausen, Germany - Paul the Octopus has turned into a global superstar revolving around the 2010 World Cup, with top political leaders in Spain even worried about the oracle mussel-eater's safety. /snip Two glass cubes are baited with mussels and marked with flags of Germany and Uruguay. The mussel Paul chooses first is viewed by his handlers as his prediction. While Spanish football supporters are in heaven about La Roja reaching their first World Cup final, politicians...

A lot of people believe that Oracle last week left no doubt that it will wield MySQL as a potent weapon to fight Microsoft for database market share. The company announced several new MySQL products at a conference in California and reaffirmed its commitment to the open-source software it acquired from Sun Microsystems earlier this year. As reported by Reuters, "In a bid to woo customers from rival Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp will boost investment in the widely used MySQL open-source database." A ZDNet blogger said Oracle MySQL head honcho Edward Screven noted that "more customers deploy MySQL on Windows...

OpenOffice 3.2 is available for download. Improvements in the latest release of the open source office suite include faster start-ups, improved compatibility with other office programs, and several new features (with special attention to the Calc spreadsheet program.) At the same time, the OpenOffice.org team is celebrating its tenth anniversary and a claimed total 300 million downloads of the office software since its initial launch. They say that just over a year since its launch, OpenOffice 3 has logged over one third of those downloads from the central server alone. (Thanks in a large part to Germans, Czechs, and Poles,...

Click Link www.sun.com sigh....

Obama economic advisor and Oracle tech exec Charles Phillips allegedly lied to his mistress. When they starting dating in 2001, Phillips, 50, told YaVaughnie Wilkins he was separated. Two years later, he told her the divorce had been finalized. Making $20M a year, he whisked Wilkins around the world and in 2008 moved her into an $11M San Francisco mansion, near his wife's $6M spread. Jilted Wilkins had billboards erected near Times Square and Atlanta, displaying the two lovers, and directed onlookers to a Web site which chronicles their love affair.

Oracle president Charles Phillips' dirty laundry hung up in Times SquareBy Patrick May Updated: 01/23/2010 11:33:54 AM PST Their ill-fated romance seemed to cry out for a tabloid headline: TECH TITAN BURNED IN BIG APPLE BY JILTED GAL PAL After days of thickening innuendo across the Internet, Oracle co-president and Obama adviser Charles Phillips acknowledged Friday that he had had a long affair with the woman whose smiling mug was plastered beside his all week on New York City billboards. The one overlooking Times Square stretched three-stories high and featured the married former U.S. Marine captain with YaVaughnie Wilkins, a...

Reporting from San Francisco - A prominent Silicon Valley executive with ties to the Obama administration has admitted to an extramarital affair after his former mistress plastered romantic pictures of the two of them on giant billboards in three major cities. "I had an 8½-year serious relationship with YaVaughnie Wilkins," said Charles E. Phillips, co-president of Oracle Corp. and a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. "The relationship with Ms. Wilkins has since ended, and we both wish each other well." Wilkins, a writer and actress, this week had a three-story-tall sign put up near Times Square in...

On first glance, it could be the ultimate Valentine's Day card -- a gigantic billboard that towers over New York's Times Square, featuring a happy couple with the text: "You are my soulmate forever, Charles & YaVaughnie." But as every scorned lover knows, looks can be deceiving. This billboard -- which also has gone up in Atlanta and San Francisco -- is the ultimate act of revenge -- a very public retaliation by a dumped mistress aimed at a very wealthy, and married, businessman who is an adviser to President Obama. YaVaughnie Wilkins posted the signs after she learned that...

John Kerry, Orrin Hatch and 57 other senators have written to the European Commission accusing it of taking too long to approve Oracle's takeover of Sun in order to deliberately damage US business. In an open letter Senator John Kerry (Mass) said: "The EC is within its sovereign rights to set the rules for operation in its market [thanks John], but with our Department of Justice having made a compelling case that the merger does not pose a threat to competition, it is fair to ask the EC for the basis on which a delay on decision making is warranted...

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison commissioned the fabricators at Kirkham Motorsports to build the ultimate, cost-is-no-object roadster. After years of labor, they've completed the all-billet aluminum Cobra. Click "more" to see them build one of the most spectacular custom cars ever.

In recent quarters Oracle has been taking aim at Salesforce.com, noting that its Siebel On Demand was poaching customers. On Thursday it was Salesforce’s turn to return fire. Following Salesforce’s fiscal second quarter earnings, CEO Marc Benioff, as chatty as ever, took aim at his trash talking nemesis, Oracle chief Larry Ellison. Benioff said on a conference call: I am excited to welcome back Success Factors to the Salesforce.com family. Success Factors dropped Oracle On Demand after the application failed to deliver and sales reps pleaded to return to Salesforce. When sales teams are demanding your application to support their...

Sun Microsystems Inc. on Tuesday updated guidance for what looks to be its final quarter as an independent company and set the date when shareholders will vote on its sale to Oracle Corp. The Santa Clara computer company said it expects to lose between 24 cents and 34 cents in the quarter ended June 30 on revenue of between $2.6 billion and $2.7 billion. In the same quarter last year, Sun reported a loss of 12 cents a share on $3.8 billion in revenue. Adjusting for one-time events, Sun (NASDAQ:JAVA) said it expects a loss of between 6 cents and...

Oracle Corp reported quarterly earnings above expectations as the No. 3 software maker's profit margin hit a record thanks to robust growth in its maintenance business, sending shares up 2.7 percent. The company run by billionaire Larry Ellison also reported a smaller-than-expected drop in new software sales and said it grabbed market share from SAP in certain segments -- signs that Oracle may be weathering the downturn better than rivals. "We've been able to push through the economic situation rather well and I have to tell you that I still see the pipeline growing rather significantly," Oracle President Safra Catz...

Much to the industry’s surprise, Oracle has bought Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion following the breakdown in talks with IBM. Sun’s future appeared to be uncertain and few expected Oracle to be waiting patiently in the wings (although it does explain why Sun was prepared to walk away from IBM’s offer). There are several good reasons why Oracle wanted Sun… * Sun’s hardware and backup solutions could be good for Oracle’s software * the Java programming language * VirtualBox Virtual Machine software * OpenOffice * and MySQL - the world’s most popular open-source database. Whilst MySQL and Oracle are not...

LAST week's audacious $US7.4 billion ($10.2 billion) play by Oracle to acquire Sun Microsystems has drawn comparisons with General Motors' moves in the 1950s to consolidate the US car industry. Oracle has touted the bid as a game changer that will help establish it as the first company to sell software and hardware products end-to-end. Rivals are sceptical of the rhetoric and believe the real motive is to kill off Sun's competing software products, which they say has been a theme of Oracle's buying spree, which has reportedly cost $US34.5 billion since 2005. If approved, Oracle will acquire Sun's global...

While Oracle and Sun Microsystems are hailing Oracle's purchase of Sun [1] as a big boost for Java, others are not so sure, questioning what kind of control Oracle might try to exercise over the popular platform that has driven so many enterprise applications since it was first developed in 1995. Observers also expect Oracle to make a go of trying to make more money off of Java than Sun ever could. Sun has tried to leverage Java as a lead-in to selling services, but without much success. By contrast, Oracle is very disciplined about extracting money from its technologies....

Over the past 13 years, Sun Microsystems' Java language has become one of the computer industry's best known brands—and underappreciated assets. The tension wasn't lost on Sun's new owner, Oracle, which on Apr. 20 said it will purchase Silicon Valley pioneer Sun for $7.4 billion in cash. If Oracle has its way, Java will emerge not only as a strong revenue source but also a key component of plans to keep customers loyal for years to come. During a conference call with analysts Apr. 20, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison called Java "the single most important software asset we have ever...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/beyond_the_echo_chamber/ Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm Advice from "beyond the echo chamber" We just learned the economy lost another 600,000 jobs last month. It's a staggering number, and it underscores just how deep this crisis is – and, as the President pointed out this morning, it’s accelerating. That's why he created the Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to solicit ideas from "beyond the echo chamber of Washington, DC." "I’m not interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology," he said. "We’ve recruited...

Okay, I'll start: 1) Blagojevich walks scott free 2) My salary continues to remain stagnate 3) The bailout results in a massive debt to taxpayers with zero benefit to them 4) Iran aquires nuclear weapons and we (including Bush) failed to do anything about it 5) Jamie Gertz continue's to become even more attractive as she ages