nVidia-Based Handset Spotted in HTC's Roadmap

HTC's plans for the ongoing year have made it to the headlines quite a few times before, and now it is time for some more info to go down the pipe. The latest leak regarding the company's roadmap for 2009 shows a little more pieces of information than previous ones did, while also confirming some of the devices that were suggested to be in the works at the moment.

Among them, one of the most interesting handsets that can be spotted is the SuperStar, an nVidia-powered one, built around the nVidia AP16 and featuring 512MB of ROM and 256MB of RAM. In addition, the product also includes a whopping 3.7-inch WVGA display, with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution, which should go very well with the 600MHz chipset it sports inside.

The handset isn't expected to come to the surface anytime soon, given the fact that it should be running under Windows Mobile 6.5, which we all know is due for release sometime in the second half of the year. Another similar device would be the HTC Star, also featuring WonMo 6.5, only that it would include a smaller screen, of only 3.6 inches.

As anyone would expect, the mobile phone maker will also come to the market this year with a nice series of Qualcomm-powered mobile phones, which will also boast Windows Mobile 6.5. In addition, phones that will run under Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system are also expected, and the company previously announced that users would be able to upgrade the platform as soon as the 6.5 version was out of the Redmond gates.

Other products that should come from the Taiwanese company this year include the HTC Chief and HTC Captain, both handsets powered by WM 6.1, including a Qualcomm chipset and showing off a 2.4-inch display. Hopefully, the mobile phone maker will confirm at least some of the devices spotted here, and we hope that SuperStar and Star are among them.

Softpedia Mac Freeware Picks of the Week – 20.03.2009

Congratulations, you've arrived to the place where paid apps are a no-no, while freelance developers' efforts are lauded. Care to grab yourself a free Mac app? Surely one of the trio listed below will suit your needs, so I encourage you to read on.



Lock Poker – a great way to play poker

Developer Lock Poker has created a Mac-based poker client bearing the same name, which, as simple as it sounds, allows you to “play quality poker.” Whether your game is Texas Holdem, Omaha, or Stud, Lock Poker offers a full range of Low to High Stakes, including No Limit, Pot Limit and Fixed Limit table action.

The poker client offers the same great features and gameplay as the PC version with Play and Real money games, including ring games, Satellites, MTT's and Sit 'n Go's. Players can also enjoy player-to-player chat, table resizing, and multi-table play, all the great customizable options that poker players are used to. Lock Poker allows poker players to experience the innovative software without a third-party application for more reliability and stability.

Needless to point out, Texas Holdem is the most exciting and popular poker game in which players aim to win the pot by betting within five rounds. In addition to being one of the easiest games to learn, it is perfect for players who have a passion for strategy. Omaha, on the other hand, offers a much wider range of hand possibilities that escalate the excitement, as well as the size of the pot, although it is a variation of Texas Holdem in itself. In 7 Card Stud, or Stud, players have to build the pot to play the hand. Stud continues to be a favorite for home tables around the world and is one of the oldest poker games centered around the concept of "If you wanna play you gotta pay."

Note: Lock Poker needs between 2 to 5 minutes to load the first time you launch the application.

Windows 7 Wallpapers – Builds 7000, 7048 and 7057

Microsoft has a new label for the imagery designed to personalize Windows 7. “A desktop background, formerly called wallpaper, is a picture on the desktop that provides a backdrop to your open windows,” the company revealed on a webpage in the Windows 7 online hotspot dedicated to personalization. The next iteration of the Windows client ships, even as early as pre-Beta builds, with a collection of content on the same model as Windows Vista. Build by build, Windows 7 is growing into its own, with an incontestable evolution from Beta built 7000 to Release Candidate.

Of course, the Milestone 1, 2 and 3 releases, including, for example, Milestone 3 – labeled pre-Beta Build 6081, including the pre-Beta version that was delivered to participants at the Professional Developers Conference 2008 in Los Angeles and then at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2008, failed to really bring anything new compared to Windows Vista in terms of the default wallpapers. In fact, changes to the collection of backgrounds shipping with Windows 7 only started being contoured as the next version of the Windows client when it was approaching the Beta stage.

Microsoft thinking “in-the-box” with Windows 7

With the release of Windows Vista, the Redmond company attempted to offer extra flavor on top of the operating system with the introduction of the Ultimate Extras for the high-end edition of the platform. At that time, the Ultimate Extras website was applauding the initiative as thinking outside-the-box. One of the elements that contributed to the Ultimate Extras fiasco was DreamScene and the associated animated background. The inconsistencies, and inconsistencies is, by all means, a euphemism, that plagued DreamScene made the feature virtually unusable, even for the most stubborn Vista Ultimate users.

There will be no more animated or video desktops for Windows 7. In fact, even upgrading from Windows Vista Ultimate to a pre-release version of Windows 7 Ultimate kills removes the Ultimate Extras installed. But Microsoft has undoubtedly done the right thing, having been unable to get DreamScene to a consistent standard of quality, to kill it altogether.

Instead, Windows 7 brings to the table themes, collecting wallpapers, Aero UI configurations and sound settings into single packages, which can be used for personalizing the operating system across all aspects of the UX. Users can also customize the desktop in order to enjoy a plus of variation, by selecting a group of wallpapers that will be shuffled around on it at intervals specified by the end-users.

Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6956 and Beta Build 7000

Both releases were wrapped up at the end of 2008, even though, Beta Build 7000 was only released to the public on January 10, 2009. Windows 7 Build 6956, which was leaked to BitTorrent trackers worldwide, marked the debut of the Betta fish wallpaper, which had survived well past the actual Beta of the next iteration of the Windows client, and into the Release Candidate branch builds. But otherwise, when it comes down to the default imagery, Microsoft has not made any changes between 6956 and 7000.

Build 7000 of Windows 7 made it into the wild at the end of December 2008, weeks ahead of its official launch following CES 2009. Microsoft revealed that the Beta of Win 7 was downloaded by the millions, but failed to provide the specific numbers. However, interest for the release was extremely high, and it caused the company to postpone availability by a day in order to extend its server infrastructure to support the influx of users. It was Windows 7 Beta that put the Betta fish on millions of desktops worldwide.

Scareware Turns Ransomware

Security researchers from FireEye warn of a new dangerous technique employed by the Vundo trojan in order to push worthless system tools. A malicious component encrypts personal documents on the affected systems and the users are forced to pay for software that decrypts them.Vundo, also known as Virtumondo or Virtumonde, is a computer trojan whose main purpose, according to specialists from anti-virus vendor Sophos, is to serve as a malware-distribution service.

The same experts have recently warned that the trojan has got upgraded with worming capabilities through the help of an autorun-infecting component.There are various pieces of malware that get dumped onto Vundo-infected computers, including rogue anti-virus programs. These attempt to scare users into paying for unneeded licenses by displaying fake security alerts. Such invasive software is called "scareware" or "rogueware" by security professionals.It seems that new Vundo variants also exhibit a dangerous shift in paradigm.

The distribution of fake software through the trojan has become a lot more aggressive, changing from tricking users into making worthless payments to basically forcing them.A malicious component dropped by Vundo first scrambles documents with common extensions, such as .pdf, .doc, .jpg, etc. and renders them inaccessible. The trojan then advertises a program called FileFix Pro 2009, which is able to decrypt the files, after a license is acquired, of course. This basically transforms the concept of "scareware" into "ransomware."In addition, the same "server-side polymorphism" that characterizes Vundo is also used by the creators of FileFix Pro 2009.

This technique involves generating slightly different executables every time in order to subvert pattern-based anti-virus detection and, according to the FireEye analysts, it appears to be working. "The samples I fetched are currently 0/39 on VirusTotal. Yikes," Alex Lanstein, senior security researcher at FireEye Malware Intelligence Lab, cautions.However, there is also some good news. FireEye analyst Julia Wolf has reverse-engineered the fpfstb.dll component used by Vundo to encrypt the files and has coded a Perl script that is able to recover them without paying any money for FileFix Pro 2009. The script can be downloaded as a stand-alone file or used online to unscramble affected files. For the moment, this is a hassle, because it fixes one file at a time, but the release of a full application to recover all of them at once is planned for the upcoming days.

The domain used to distribute FileFix Pro 2009 is owned by a company in Ukraine, suggesting the threat's origins. Furthermore, this time, the researchers have been lucky, because the malware authors did not use a strong encryption algorithm, otherwise it would have been impossible to recover the files without paying up. Unfortunately, this might change in the future. "The level of egregiousness of the folks at FileFixerPro has me completely floored. I didn't think this day would be upon us so soon," Alex Lanstein notes.

Intel Core i7 975-950 Land on May 31

Santa Clara, California-based Intel is expected to update its lineup of Core i7 processors with the addition of two new models, both of which will be targeted at the high-end enthusiast market segment. The upcoming top high-end CPU model, dubbed Core i7 975, will become Intel's new flagship consumer CPU as it will boast a core speed of 3.33GHz.The lower-powered Core i7 950 will boost a core speed of 3.06GHz. Both models are expected to become available at the end of May.According to a recent update of the chip maker’s pricing list, the new CPUs should be out on May 31. The highly rumored Core i7 975 model will be priced at US$999, while the Core i7 950 will be available for US$562. The price difference between the two is significant but doesn't necessarily reflect the difference in clock speed. While the higher-end Core i7 975 will boast a core speed of 3.33GHz, the Core i7 950 will be featured at a frequency of 3.06GHz.The updated price list also hints at some other new Intel processors, part of the company's extensive lineup of Core 2 Quad CPUs. Before the launch of the company's new Nehalem-based processors, a couple of new mid-tied versions of the Core 2 Quad S models will be made available. On April 19, Intel will introduce the Core 2 Quad Q8400 and the Core 2 Quad Q8400S, both of which will be featured at a core speed of 2.66GHz. Price-wise, these new models will be offered for US$183 and US$245, respectively.On the same day as the new Core i7 processors, Intel will reveal the Core 2 Duo E7600, priced at US$133, the Pentium Dual-Core E6300 and the Celeron Dual-Core E1600, priced at US$84 and US$53, respectively.