Walmart has launched a secret in-store specials website for this holiday season. The website shows what will be going on sale soon. The website will be updated throughout the holiday season with new in-store specials. At present the website is showing Friday November 2nd 8 a.m. specials, $98.87 for Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player, $14.96 for HD DVD’s, $348 for Acer Laptop, $998 for Sanyo 50” Plasma HDTV and $144.72 for Fisher-Price NASCAR Ride-On. Keep checking this website for latest information about what is going on sale at your local Walmart.
Walmart In-Store Specials

The Trojan appears to be originating from several pornography sites. On the website that have the Trojan, when you click to view a video, you are led to a page with the following prompt:
Quicktime Player is unable to play movie file.
Please click here to download new version of codec.
If you click the link browser starts to download a DMG file. Browser will warn you that its a DMG file containing an application and ask you to click continue or cancel. If you click continue even after browser warning the DMG file will be executed and the Trojan will ask you to provide the admin password to install. If after these warnings you still type in your admin password the Trojan will install and allow external Root level access. The most important thing to know is that you shouldn’t download DMG file without knowing the source or eligibility of the website.

Apple has quietly updated the Macbook to Santa Rosa platform. Now the White model is available with 2.0 and 2.2 GHz processor and the black model is available with 2.2GHz processor. All the models have 1GB RAM, 4MB L2 cache, 13.3” 1280 X 800 resolution screen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (b/g/n) and built-in iSight camera. The biggest improvement is addition of Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor that has 144MB shared memory and will definitely improve graphics performance of the Macbook. The 2.0GHz white Macbook pried at $1099 comes with 80GB hard drive and combo drive (CD writer). The 2.2GHz white Macbook priced at $1299 comes with 120GB hard drive and double layer Superdrive (DVD writer). As always you will be paying a $200 premium for the black Macbook, that has a 160GB hard drive.

The most talked about gadget of the year is also Time’s “Invention of the Year”. iPhone topped many other creations like environmentally friendly technology, molecular science and robotics. Lev Grossman, a Time staff writer who covers technology said “ Intel’s 45-nanometer (CPU chip)- that’s a serious deal, but it’s a lot less glamorous than the iPhone even though it’s important.” Grossman further said “The wide-ranging impact of the iPhone - on the cell phone industry and how it will evolve into an ever more useful handheld computer - is only beginning.”  iPhone’s design, features and functionality has shake the mobile phone industry by its roots and after almost 11months since it was announced in January no mobile phone manufacturer has a answer for the iPhone.

[Via Mercury News]

Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Google is expected to announce software and services enabling handset makers to launch mobile phones based on Google operating system. Today WSJ and Reuters reported that Google is in serious talks with Verizon wireless and Sprint Nextel to put its mobile Operating system on cellphones offered by the carriers. Deals with major wireless carriers in US will be a great boast for Google’s mobile phone plans. It is believed that T-mobile has already signed on with Google.
According to WSJ’s post Google plans to make the software open source enabling software developers to build additional applications for the Gphone. But it is a well-known fact that Verizon loves to live in its own walled garden. So what is Google trying to sell to Verizon?

AT&T today released Pantech Duo smartphone and Samsung SGH-A737 Slider. The new Pantech Duo is a dual slide smartphone based on Windows Mobile 6. Pantech duo comes with a microSD card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, 1.3megapixel camera, QVGA display and Bluetooth. The phone supports 3G HSDPA and all four major GSM bands. It is available now at AT&T stores for $199.99 with two years contract. The second Samsung A737 is a thin slider phone, which comes with microSD card slot, 3G HSDPA, GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and Bluetooth with A2DP support. The phone is available in four colors red, blue, orange and line for $49.99 with a two years contract.

According to Jeff Zucker CEO NBC Universal, Apple has destroyed the music business. Now let see the problem with this statement is, its music industry that should be blamed. In late 1990s and early 2000 I use to buy around 3 CDs every month and out of those 3 CDs I use to like or regularly listen to about 8-10 songs. So in a given year I liked or use to regularly listen to about 120 new songs. Last year I just bought 54 songs from iTunes and the truth is that the number of CDs or songs I bought have been decreasing since 2001. Its not that the amount of time I give to music everyday has decreased, so the problem definitely lies in quality of music.
Now Zucker wasn’t troubled by what Apple did to music industry but his main problem was with Apple not increasing the price of Universal shows offered on iTunes and Apple not sharing revenues which it makes by selling iPods. NBC wanted to take one show and experiment and sell it for $2.99 but Apple said no. The demands that NBC is making are definitely not consumer friendly and it’s a good thing that Apple didn’t change the price. The entertainment industry is becoming the most anti-consumer industry. They should make it easy for the consumer to get show, movies and music without many restrictions. The second demand NBC had was revenue sharing on the hardware Apple sells, does NBC get revenue from the TVs or DVD players sold by Sony, Samsung or any other company. When they don’t get revenue from Sony or Samsung than why should Apple pay anything? My suggestion to Jeff Zucker is if you are trying to make your company more anti-consumer then you shouldn’t announce it in public, it gives a bad name to your company.

Apple today announced that it has sold more than 2 million copies of Mac OS X Leopard in first 48 hours of its release. Leopard was released at 6pm on Friday and Apple had estimated that around 20-25 million computers sold by Apple could be upgraded to the new operating system. Microsoft has an install base of about 800 million and according Netapplications by end of September 2007 Windows Vista had 7.38% of OS market share. It took Mac OS X Leopard just two days to achieve what Windows Vista has not achieved after 10 months. These numbers definitely show Mac’s very strong brand loyalty and Mac users strong belief in quality of new product released by Apple.