Safe Gadgets

It hasn't been too awfully long since Windows Vista SP1 hit the intertubes for real, but the Vista team is already talking up SP2. We all know Redmond is focused on moving beyond all of this Vista hoopla and forging ahead with Windows 7, but there's apparently still some work to do on the outfit's current OS.

Unfortunately, the latest update isn't exactly enthralling, as we're given no set time frame for launch and we're not shown any forthcoming changes that really get our juices flowing. For instance, Vista SP2 will add Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches, the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, ability to natively record data on Blu-ray media and Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify WiFi configuration. Waiting for your comments please........

Cnet has reviewed the 55-inch, plasma-killin' tri-color LED-backlit Bravia XBR8 we saw a couple months ago. Spoiler: Sony's setup didn't lie—it's the best LCD TV ever, falling just short of the best HDTV ever, nearly matching Pioneer's PDP-111FD (Cnet's best flat-panel period) in blacks, color accuracy and bright-room picture quality.

Here's what great: The black levels are near-Kuro deep. In dimly-lit scenes, blacks had "an inky depth in dark areas that lent superb punch and realism to the image, and easily outclassed the rest of the non-Pioneer sets." The only taint is that when bright areas are next to dark ones, it lightens up the bars a bit, so Pioneer wins here. The color accuracy "is nothing short of superb" and after calibration they're as "excellently balanced and still as saturated as on the Pioneer." Its de-juddering mode is also the best they've ever seen."

It's few weak points: Image quality fades when you look at it from an off angle, the previously mentioned blooming with high contrast images, and the dejuddering can produce some artifacts, especially with a standard-def picture. Oh, and it's $7000, the most expensive TV they've ever tested.

Blizzard has announced that StarCraft 2 "is probably going to get delayed again and split into three parts. Part 1, which features a Terran single player campaign, is still targeted to be out sometime in 2009."

You won't get to play Zerg or Protoss, though, since their single player campaigns have been plucked out and turned into expansion packs, which will be released one and two years respectively after part 1.

Game Trailers count down the top ten most anticipated games of the Tokyo Game Show 2008, which includes White Knight Chronicles, Resistance 2, and Resident Evil 5.

According to a Capcom representative, RE5's "online play is really just the game's story mode played either by one or two players."

TGS, Capcom will have a total of 50 playable kiosks split 25 to 25 between the Xbox 360 and PS3. This could rise as high as 70 when including demo units in the Sony and Microsoft booths.

An Israeli researcher Aviv Raff has gone public with security flaws in iPhone after what he terms two-and-a-half months of inaction from Apple.

Writes Raff on his blog:

I have disclosed the technical details to Apple few weeks before that post, in a hope to get those security issues fixed as soon as possible. Unfortunately, two and a half months later, and still there is no patch for those vulnerabilities. I've asked Apple several times for a schedule, but they have refused to provide the fix date.

The first is the URL display flaw in the iPhone's Mail that could allow an attacker to send a message containing a malicious URL that looks legitimate. "In most mail clients (example on your PC/Mac), you can just hover the link and get a tooltip which will tells you the actual URL that you are about to click," explains Raff in a blog post. "In iPhone it's a bit different. You need to click the link for a few seconds in order to get the tooltip. Now, because the iPhone screen is small, long URLs are automatically cut off in the middle."

This makes it possible for an attacker to create a long URL that displays a trusted domain while taking the user to another domain entirely, he explains. The user would only see the portion of the domain designed to look familiar and is more likely to click on the malicious link.

Opening the URL in the iPhone's Safari browser would not help as it too displays only a portion of the long URL.

The second bug according to Raff is in the iPhone's Mail application, which makes it easier for spammers to identify valid email accounts, and thus mark them for more spam.

Since iPhone automatically downloads all image attachments, and there is no way to disable this feature, it is easy for spammers to identify a working email account. "The spammer who controls the remote server will know that you have read the message and will mark your mail account as active in order to send you more spam," said Raff.

Raff recommends that since there is no way to disable auto-image download on the iPhone, users should refrain from using Mail until Apple patches the problem.

Raff calls this "a pretty dumb design flaw" which has already been fixed by most other mail clients ages ago.