Too smart to bear

If you have never encountered Security Sphere 2012, then you are up for an unpleasant surprise because here comes Smart Protection 2012 that is an improved version of a previously mentioned rogue. Removing Smart Protection 2012 from your computer is the first thing you must do once you confirm the infection. This rogue antispyware application behaves like a legitimate antivirus product, but that is only a despicable act common to all the rogues. The rogue plays this theatre because it wants your money, and unfortunately, a lot of users fall for its act, because it is simply that believable. However, spending your money on this product would be the same as flushing it all down the drain.

You have to be smarter than that. First of all, you need to realize that Smart Protection 2012 usually makes use of other computer threats in order to settle down in your system and thus we can infer that if you are infected with Smart Protection 2012, you are bound to have other parasites in your system. When this rogue enters your computer it creates a randomly named folder at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data for Windows XP or at C:\ProgramData for Windows 7 and Vista. Once it settles down, it performs a fake system check, “detecting” numerous parasites.

Facebook going public

Facebook is going to file papers to the United States financial watchdog on February 1st in order to become a publicly-listed company. According to the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal the social networking site will be valued between $75bn and $100bn. It has also been reported that later on this year the flotation (or the moment when the Facebook shares will be available for the public) would raise around $10bn.

When Google went public in 2004 it raised $1.9bn, but if the estimations regarding Facebook are true, then the start of Facebook’s share sales would definitely leave Google in the shadow. However, that would not be the biggest raise in the Wall Street, because the carmaker General Motors raised $20bn in November 2010.

System Check – another rouge to ruin your day

Rogue antispyware applications are probably the most annoying type of malware in the world. System Check is one of them. Perhaps you have heard of something called System Fix before? If so, here’s a news flash for you – System Check is a direct clone of System Fix, and it is just as cunning as its forerunner. I can hear you sigh in frustration already, but don’t let this rogue get the better of you! Remove System Check from your computer in the first stages of the infection to avoid devastating consequences.

However, even in the first stages of the System Check’s infection it might seem as though this rogue has taken a full control of your computer. The reason for that is that System Check has the ability to hide your files. For example, when you are infected and you click the Start button to open some program, you might be unpleasantly surprised that none of your program shortcuts are there. The most important thing then is not to panic – System Check DOES NOT have the ability to permanently remove your files or programs. It merely hides the files in a temporary storage, so you mustn’t remove any Temp files while trying to get rid of the rogue, because you might remove your shortcuts by accident as well.

App frenzy in December

According to the analytics firm Flurry, 1.2 billion apps were downloaded during the last week in December. Such number is recorded for the first time, as never in a history more than a billion applications were downloaded in just a single week. The sudden onslaught of downloads could be explained by the fact, that a lot of users received new devices for Christmas, and various firms offered discounts for their applications during the holiday season. Almost half of all the application downloads occurs in the United States. China and the United Kingdom were respectively second and third according to the numbers of downloads. The chart for the top download countries is as follows:
1)    USA – 509 million
2)    China – 99 million
3)    UK – 81 million
4)    Canada – 41 million
5)    Germany – 40 million
6)    France – 40 million

Home Security Solutions brings nothing but destruction

If you take your computer system seriously you should know something about rogue antispyware applications such as Home Security Solutions. This rogue is exceptionally dangerous so you have to remove Home Security Solutions at once if you happen to be infected. Even though the name of this program is very promising, it is a malicious application that should not be trusted. The sad thing about this rogue is that a lot of users get tricked by it not only because it has an alluring name, but also because it copies the appearance of a known security program and thus it makes unsuspecting users unconditionally trust Home Security Solutions.

Unfortunately, there is nothing good about this program, because as a rogue antispyware Home Security Solutions comes forth only because it wants your money. It slows down your computer and then makes it seem as if there are a lot of viruses in your system, and you must terminate them with Home Security Solutions. This rogue tries to convince you that you are infected using two basic methods – fake security notifications and fake system scan. The scan “results” are usually followed by this message:

21st century mammoth?

Seems like there’s a fair chance that we might be seeing past right in front of our own eyes as Russian and Japanese scientists are undertaking an experiment trying to bring the woolly mammoth back. The scientists will try to clone a mammoth from a thigh bone that was found in August. According to the scientists the newly found bone has a very well preserved marrow cells that can become the starting point for the experiment. The team of scientists claims that the cloning can be completed in the next five years.

Experimental cloning with intention to bring extinct animals to life has occurred before as it has been reported in 2009 that the extinct Pyrenean ibex was cloned using 10-year-old DNA from the animal’s skin. However, the cloned ibex had breathing difficulties and it died only minutes after it had been born. The scientists from the Siberian mammoth museum and Japan’s Kinki University are planning to insert the nucleus from the mammoth’s bone marrow into the egg of an African elephant.

Not the best kind of Protection

Once again, we meet a bad guy that pretends to be a good one. It’s a classic case of rogue antispyware infection, and the method is the same, but it carries a new name. AV Protection 2012 is yet another rogue that has been created to rip you off, so beware. You might think it will never happen to you, but everyone has this conviction until eventually one day they get infected.  Remove AV Protection 2012 from your computer if you happen to have this rogue, and shut the door of your system right in the face of this threat.

It is not the first time that a rogue from this family tries to turn innocent users’ days into hell. AV Protection 2012 is a direct descendent of such rogue antispyware applications as OpenCloud Security, AV Security 2012, Guard Online and many others. Just like its predecessors, AV Protection 2012 might come across as a state-of-the-art security program, but it cannot remove the issues that it has caused itself, so when you see AV Protection 2012 perform a full system scan, keep in mind that it is not real. The rogue will also spam you with numerous fake security messages, such as for example:

Old Newspapers Online

Whoever said the Brits were stuck in the mud? Judging from their latest endeavor, they are far from being ignorant of modern technologies. What is more, it seems that the British surely know how to combine the old and the new. We can say that, because 4 million pages of the 18th and 19th century newspapers are now available online by the British Library. Almost 200 newspapers from Britain and Ireland can now be read by the public, because the Library scanned and uploaded the contents to its official webpage.

According to Ed King who is the head of the British Library, the newspaper collection has been opened up for the public “as never before”. He said that “Rather than having to view the items on site at the Library, turning each page, people across the UK and around the world will be able to explore for themselves the goldmine of stories and information contained in these pages. The ability to search across millions of articles will yield results for each user that might previously have been the work of weeks or months, in a matter of seconds and the click of a mouse”.

Definitely not a Cloud No. 9

With the rise of Cloud technologies wherein you can store your data on the internet for indefinite period of time, there also comes a wave of dangerous computer threats that makes use of the “cloud” popularity just to get into your computer. Cloud AV 2012 sounds like a computer security program that is supposed to keep your data and your computer safe, but the reality is that this program is a rogue antispyware and you must remove Cloud AV 2012 from your computer at once.

It is true that Cloud AV 2012 tries to come across as a reliable program, but you should not pay attention to whatever it does even if it says that your computer is infected with dangerous viruses. You see, the main thing Cloud AV 2012 does is performing a fake system scan, during which it supposedly finds such malware threats as Trojan.JBS.Ghost, Trojan-Download.JS.Remora, Trojan.Downloader.JS.Agent and many more. It is quite obvious that these Trojans are not there in your computer, because Cloud AV 2012 generates the results itself with intention to scare you into believing that only Cloud AV 2012 can help you with this.

Google opens an online music store

Google has launched an online music store in the US. The new music store supports devices that run on Google’s Android software, and anyone who has an Android device can buy, store and stream MP3 files form the new Google music store. Currently the store has over 13 million songs and the content is provided by such major labels as Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI. In addition, 23 independent labels also provide their production for the store. Yet, it should be noted that Warner Music Group has decided not to participate in this venture.

As currently the online music store section in the US is dominated by Apple’s iTunes store, which was opened in 2003, the new service is supposed to pose challenge to the Apple’s store. Currently the sales of iTunes are driven by the popularity of the iPod maker’s mobile devices. However, according to a new study more than 60 million smartphones, sold between July and September, are running on Android. In contrast, Apple’s iOS handsets accounted for only 15% of the devices sold during the past summer.