Thfire.com – iNews

Mac OS, developed by Apple, was thus far, a more secured OS due to very low security threats or no threats at all since its launch.

The freedom of low Virus activity enjoyed by MAC OS users is no more, as Users have started complaining of a new fake Security threats they encountered in Mac OS.

A software in the name of  MACDefender and sometimes in the name of Mac Security has infected MAC OS users causing them to redirect to 1000′s of po*nographic sites.

Holy cow! This is a serious threat.  Kids are not safe. Apple must fix this asap.

Fake Security Threat Origin

The MACDefender software was supposedly started infecting users starting this may.

It is reported that , Apple Forums are crowded by more number of  Mac users continually posting their concerns and questions to remove the threat.

How the Fake Software “MACDefender” spread?

As encountered in Windows machine, the fake program urges people to install software that then pretends to scan a machine for security problems. It then fabricates a list of threats it has found and asks for cash before it will fix these non-existent problems.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said the scareware’s creators had turned to search engines to get the program in front of potential victims by linking it with innocuous phrases such as “Mother’s Day”.

“You search for something on Google Images, and when you click on an image you are taken to a webpage which serves up the attack – regardless of whether you are running Mac OS X or Windows,” he said.

Mr Cluley said the vast majority of malware that Sophos and other security firms see is aimed at Windows users. About 100,000 novel malicious programs for Windows are detected every day, he said.

“Although there is much less malware in existence for Mac OS X than there is for Windows, that’s no reason to put your head in the sand and think that there are no Mac threats out there,” he said.

This has been the biggest since Google. LinkedIn IPO was listed today and its price instantly skyrocketed, it increased by 96%.  Starting at $45 it exploded to $88 within a few hours.

But all this has started raising concerns, is this is the start of a new tech bubble ??

At 12:32 pm EDT, LinkedIn shares are up 141% to $108

As of 12:02 pm EDT, LinkedIn shares are up 127% to $102.40, taking a slight dip from a peak at $115 at 11:50 am.

LinkedIn has exploded out of the gate and as of 10:53 am EDT, its share price is up 96% to over $88, after starting off the morning at $45, for an implied market cap of some $8 billion. LinkedIn stock didn’t even begin trading until more than half an hour after the NYSE opened as officials scrambled to match supply with demand.

It’s little wonder why: LinkedIn is the first major U.S.-based social network to go public, and the ballooning demand for LinkedIn stock is spelling out huge possibilities for the long-dreamed-of IPOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Groupon. If the report from SecondMarket, an online marketplace for alternative investments, is any indication, those IPOs are sure to explode with a fiery vengeance. Of the top ten most watched companies on SecondMarket, social media dominates the top five—starting with (you guessed it) Facebook. Twitter comes in at number two, while Groupon comes in third, LinkedIn fourth, and Zynga fifth.

As of March 2011, LinkedIn had 102 million members, which was 12 million more than it had just three months earlier in December 2010. In year-over-year metrics, the base of registered members grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 76% between 2008 and 2010.

In addition to its growing member base, LinkedIn also reported growing revenues. In 2010, the company net revenue more than doubled to $243.1 million from $120.1 million in 2009. Even more surprising, net income rose sharply to $15.4 million from -$3.9 million in 2009.

All of this leads to some mouth-watering fantasies for the day Facebook goes public. With some 600 million members, Facebook has a user base six times larger than LinkedIn’s–not to mention a valuation some 7.5 times higher than LinkedIn’s current $8 billion.

And then there’s Twitter, which has some 300 million registered users–which is triple that of LinkedIn–with some 460,000 new accounts being added each week. And of course, there was Twitter’s recent speculated (and highly controversial) valuation of some $7-$10 billion (even though its yearly revenue is only $100 million–fifty times less than a $7 billion valuation).

Or one can look at Groupon, which is rumored to be considering an IPO this year at a $20 billion valuation. As of March 2011, Groupon had some 70 million subscribers, which is obviously 32 million less than LinkedIn, but Groupon’s growth has been a force to reckon with. The company is no longer sharing its metrics, but my guess is that Groupon is up to 90 million subscribers today.

So what does all of this mean? Of course there’s the ominous “tech bubble” talk, which LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner brushed off when a CNBC reporter brought it up this morning. ”At the end of the day, it’s not about the share price — it’s about our continuing to execute,” he said.

Earlier this week, LinkedIn surprised many by raising its IPO share price from between $32 and $35 to between $42 and $45. But the outlook appeared somewhat dim given the recent flop of Renren (RENN), which debuted on Wednesday, May 4, at $19.50, and by the end of the day, it was down $18.01. As of 10:48 EDT today—just two weeks after debuting on the market—Renren is down to $13.92. Although it’s worth noting that that is a slight uptick from its share price yesterday, which closed at $12.84.

Facebook has accepted the fact that it has been raising anti-Google campaign.

As reported via BBC, Facebook has confirmed that it used Burson-Marsteller to expose things which Google was doing that “raised privacy concerns”, but denied that it had authorised a smear campaign.

“Instead, we wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles — just as Facebook did not approve of use or collection for this purpose,” the company said.

Who is Burson- Marsteller? What is it all about?

Burson- Marsteller is a PR Firm. The PR Firm approached bloggers to write anti google stories in their blog in exchange for some ransom amount.

The dealing continued until one blogger disagreed with the firm.

The blogger who was planting anti-Google stories could not continue writing such stories, and this was the moment he decided to post the emails which he received from the PR firm to expose the Firm.

Earlier rumors spread out that it must have been Microsoft or Apple that would have hired the firm.

But when US-based news website, the Daily Beast uncovered the truth. It just shocked every one, including me.

Never saw this coming from Facebook.

What do you think on the whole story? Are you disappointed that Facebook has gone with such low act? Share with us your views via comments

Yet an another sale from Yahoo! Yahoo services shut down which has become a common news today has more to add to it. After the recent closing of Yahoo Services such as Yahoo Buzz, Mybloglog , Yahoo has gone on to sell its service Delicious to You tube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

Reader should note that, Youtube was started by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim in 2005. Later on October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.

Yahoo emailed its users ( including us) on the sale. The emails continues below

Google Headquarters California

Google, has once again showed its continual interest towards the carbon free atmosphere by planning to purchase energy from the wind farm that is planned near Oklahoma.

By this deal, Google will be able to own 100 mega watt power through the deal and more importantly it will be an eco friendly. The readers should note that Google’s headquarters located on Mountain valley, California already runs on Solar energy which is the sign of  Google vision on future Earth.

In a blog post, Gary Demasi from Google’s infrastructure team said that Google has been able to reduce its energy usage by over 50 percent with efficient data centers. But investing in renewable energy projects directly and purchasing offsets is the only way to reach the corporate goal of being carbon neutral, he said.

“As a company we hope that purchases like these, plus the additional $350 million we’ve invested in renewable energy projects, support the market and drive down the cost of clean energy. This will enable even more companies to invest in sustainable energy solutions,” Demasi wrote.

The deal follows Google’s investment in two large renewable energy projects this month, including a huge 825 megawatt wind farm in Oregon and the Ivanpah solar thermal power plant in southern California, both of which are under construction. Those investments were equity stakes in the actual projects, rather than agreements to buy the power output from those plants.

Google said its power purchase agreement with the Oklahoma wind farm will result in the project being built. Google’s power to its Mayes County, Oklahoma data center is expected to be operating later this year.

iPhone 5 rumors are surging online indicating a possible earlier release of the product with a faster processor and a similar look to the iPhone 4.

The new Apple rumors contradict previous assertions the so-called iPhone 5 wouldn’t start production until September for a launch during the holidays or early 2012. Instead, the next iteration of Apple’s iPhone would go into production in the summer around June or July to get ready for the big launch in the fall, according to three anonymous sources who spoke to Reuters.

It’s not clear what kind of a faster processor the iPhone 5 would have, but most observers expect Apple to use the dual-core A5 chip that debuted in the iPad 2.

Little else is known about the next iPhone, as most speculation has been about when the new smartphone would launch and not what new features the device would offer.

Since the iPhone first launched in 2007, Apple has introduced a new version every year in June during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. But most speculation suggests a 2011 iPhone launch would happen later than usual due, at least in part, to Apple’s launch of a CDMA version of the iPhone 4 on Verizon in early 2011.

Apple at WWDC 2011 plans to offer a preview of the next iterations of iOS and Mac OS X (Lion). Current rumors suggest a new iOS, dubbed iOS 5, would include cloud-based features such as online storage, free Mobile Me access for e-mail, calendar and contacts syncing, and possibly new location-based social features. Apple’s iOS 5 may also have an improved graphics engine.

There is also some debate about whether the iPhone 5 would have a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip. NFC technology would allow you to turn your phone into a virtual wallet that lets you pay at shops, restaurants and subway stations with just a wave of your phone in front of an NFC reader. Google announced the feature for Android devices in late 2010 and Microsoft is said to be prepping Windows Phone 7 with NFC functionality.

The September Debate

Apple typically uses September to launch new iPods and other music products, but the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch have made Apple’s other multimedia devices increasingly irrelevant. There’s only so much interest you can muster every year over a revamped iPod Nano or Shuffle and a new version of iTunes. Also, if Apple releases a new version of iOS in the summer and then waits for the fall for a new iPhone, it gives third-party developers more time to get their apps ready for the new device.

Whatever the reason for Apple’s rumored launch changeup, without a new iPhone coming in June it will be interesting to see if the company has any other surprises cooking for this year’s WWDC.

Free WordPress themes:  Where can i get a free wordpress theme? If this is your query then i say i can refer you to them.

WordPress theme, a template that every website owner wishes to purchase for their site, is again a search tag buzz as always in Google.

What i will do is  I will just refer you to the official WordPress website where you can get Free WordPress themes.

Some of the Free WordPress design include

Platform:

Platform is an drag-and-drop theme-design framework for WordPress and HTML5. It will help you do amazing things with your site, faster & easier than ever before. Designed and developed by PageLines in California. Twitter @pagelines

Evolve:

EvoLve is a premium WordPress theme with advanced features including lots of options. It features a modern design with up to 14 color variants, fully customizable layout, post excerpts with thumbnails, post boxes, author gravatar support, up to 10 subscribe/social customizable buttons, custom logo, header widgets, recent posts slideshow, footer widgets, custom footer, customizable font styles, custom CSS, ads spaces. The EvoLve theme also comes with custom Menus support and other cool features. Translated in Spanish, German, Swedish, Dutch, French, Russian, Turkish. Tested with WP 3.1 and major browsers – Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Chrome.

Visit here and get your free wordpress theme