A potentially dangerous security hole in Apple’s range of MacBook battery micro-controllers’ firmware could be exploited to destroy the batteries inside the notebooks, according to security researcher Charlie Miller. When looking into batteries in MacBooks, MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs, Miller found that through using passwords hidden in a 2009 software update designed to fix MacBook batteries, a hijacker could take control of the battery micro-controllers and cause all sorts of havoc.

Miller himself managed to kill seven MacBook batteries through exploiting this security hole, but goes further to explain what someone might be able to do. He claims that you could alter the heat readout chip and cause the battery to explode or catch fire, but didn’t test it himself because “I wasn’t super inclined to cause an explosion [in my house].” He also suggests that you could load malicious software into the battery controller that is deployed when a computer is started, re-infecting the system countless times.

The hardest part of talking about computer security is getting everyone to agree on the nature of the problem. It’s especially frustrating when you’re trying to weigh the pros and cons of different strategies with someone whose view of the PC security landscape is outdated and inaccurate.

Case in point: What’s the best way to deal with malicious software on PCs and Macs?

You can’t answer that question—you can’t even start talking about it—until you know how malware gets installed in the first place. And there’s where the disconnect begins.

A startup called BlueStacks has developed an Android runtime environment for the Windows operating system. It will enable users to run Android applications alongside conventional Windows software on Microsoft's operating system. The technology impressed some major investors who have supplied $7.6 million in Series A funding so that BlueStacks can turn its software into a business.

A European researcher has created a rootkit that can evade detection in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 machines and reset user passwords.

The most fun game on the block at the moment is the Kinect - no, not a game that uses the Kinect, the Microsoft Kinect itself. This is a full 3D scanner that can be used to digitise a scene and recognise elements within it. It's great fun to play with and there are lots of applications. The only problem is that as Microsoft never intended you to use the Kinect with the PC, In this article I'm going to explain the basics of getting started with the Kinect - up to running some basic demos.

A mainstay of IT's working class, Microsoft's Process Explorer update is available, with even more PC troubleshooting tools

The author of this article seems to think Linux in the desktop is dead, with so many missed opportunities, especially during the failure of Windows Vista, they will never break into the market now that Win 7 is so successful.

In some ways I agree, but personally, I never thought Linux even had a chance with the average user on a home system. Being in IT, like most peeps in my field, I have become the "help desk" for family and friends; I really do not think the average user is ready for it. Add in the lack of applications and games that are available, it really did not stand a chance. I design and write software, the development costs these days are huge, and the money peeps want a good ROI to out weigh the risks, developing from scratch or even porting an existing app is just too risky.

On the business end, ever since the SOHO fiasco where they were threatening to sue any and all companies that were using Linux, many of my large clients, including a major international bank, dropped Linux as a server operating system faster then you could say Penguin. I remember sitting in a systems and architectural conference call at the bank, they had just spent the past month or two doing a risk assessment of the chances of being sued by SOHO; they considered it to be high as their Linux supplier was IBM. They then presented their operating costs of the data centers running Linux and data centers running Windows over the past few years, the costs and risks were lower for Windows; within 6 months all the servers were Windows.

On the other hand, the new Apple products are Linux based and are very successful, so with the right backing, the money to support and write applications, Linux could everything their supporters want it to be and I wish them luck.

Follow me @ http://www.buddhadude.net/