bugging

Google has updated the Chrome browser for most of its multiple versions on all platforms in the past few days, although most of the updates have been minor. However, high-priority security fixes have been made to the stable version of Chrome.

Five security fixes labeled "high" have been applied to the stable Windows version of Chrome, including a fix for a bug that was discovered by Sergey Glazunov. He has received the first $1,337 Chromium Security Reward for the discovery. The security fixes include plugging holes in tab sandboxing, memory errors occurring with malformed SVG images, integer … Read more

A bug in Thursday's update to the development build of Google Chrome renders it incompatible with Gmail offline. Users who've had Gmail and Chrome configured for offline use will find that Chrome crashes as soon as you log in to Gmail. The problem affects all development versions of the browser.

Right now there are only two ways around the bug. You can disable offline mode in Chrome by going to Options/Under the Hood and clearing out the Gmail-related entries under ''Change Gears settings''. This will delete all offline data from Gmail that you've saved on your … Read more

Reports are still scattered, but after testing our own PS3, it appears the global 8001050F error that left most non-Slim PS3 consoles essentially unplayable seems to be fixed. We're guessing this issue was corrected on the server side of things, as there was no update or download required; our console just worked.

Even better, all trophy and game save data remains intact, so worries about corrupted information can be put to rest.

We still don't have an official word from Sony, but it looks like the worst is behind us. That said, we'd still recommend waiting for … Read more

It seems that a major worldwide firmware bug has affected most PlayStation 3s, preventing the consoles from connecting to the PlayStation Network and in many cases (including our own) not allowing for offline game play. The problem, whatever it is, comprises all PS3 consoles aside from the newer PS3 Slim.

We've been keeping an eye on the official PlayStation Twitter feed and blog that claims Sony has narrowed down the issue, though 12 hours after the bug (error 8001050F) was first reported most systems remain paralyzed. At first it seemed the crisis centralized around trophy support, while other reports … Read more

Critical security fixes and improvements to the upgrade path from Thunderbird 2 are the key changes in Thunderbird 3.0.2, released today for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Three security fixes, all listed as critical, address an integer overflow that caused crashes in the libtheora video library, a memory safety issue in the liboggplay media library, and crashes caused by memory corruption.

There were also changes made to the in-house upgrade from Thunderbird 2. Thunderbird 3 was released last December, but many users encountered problems including data loss and functionality bugs when upgrading. This fix released today addresses Mac users … Read more

To entice security researchers to look for holes in the Chrome browser, Google has announced it will pay $500 for bugs found in the code. But several experts say that's not enough money to motivate skilled vulnerability researchers.

"I think it's ridiculous," Charlie Miller, a senior security researcher at Independent Security Evaluators, said when asked Monday for his opinion of Google's new bug bounty program. "It's insulting. It's so low."

Under Google's new "experimental" incentive program, announced last week, people will get paid $500 for select interesting and … Read more

LAS VEGAS--I can tell you from experience that there's nothing quite like riding down a mountain with your own personal soundtrack. I'm sure cyclists feel the same way, particularly when it comes to long-haul biking.

The problem is safety: these activities already involve a fair amount of risk, and that shoots up when you impair your ability to hear what's going on in your surroundings. (In fact, in some places it's illegal to ride with two earphones in.) Luckily, we have this great thing called technology, which allows for innovations such as TuneBug's Shake.

In … Read more

Since Apple introduced iTunes 9 several months ago, we've received a fair number of complaints about two particular bugs. So far no one, not even the first and second levels of Applecare support, has been able to resolve them.

iTunes password-saving problem

Previous versions of iTunes allowed you to save your iTunes Store password on your desktop by checking the box as shown in the adjacent picture. Now, iTunes 9 teases us with a dialog box offering this option, but when you attempt to save the password by checking the box, iTunes fails to remember the password. Although there … Read more

Microsoft says it has a fix for a bug that was keeping Office 2003 users from being able to access some rights-managed files.

The bug, which cropped up on Friday, meant that users of Office 2003 were unable to access files protected using Microsoft's rights management service (RMS) technology.

Microsoft posted a software download known as a "hotfix" on Saturday that it says resolves the issue.

"The issue of the inability to open Office 2003 documents protected with RMS has now been resolved with a hotfix," Microsoft said in a short statement on its Office … Read more