Qtrax’s troubles come at a time when ad-supported music sites are struggling to generate revenue. Two of them, SpiralFrog and Ruckus, were forced to shut down earlier this year.

Numerous attempts were made to collect the money from Qtrax, but the company never made good, Oracle claims. “Qtrax’s failure to pay the outstanding invoices constitutes a material breach of the software license,” Oracle’s attorney wrote. Meanwhile, Oracle asserted in the court documents that Qtrax co

* Avoid clicking on e-mail links that take you to Web sites you’re not familiar with (malware is often distributed through “drive-by downloads” from unreputable or infected sites).

Twitter has confirmed that its outage Thursday morning and subsequent intermittent problems were due to an ongoing denial-of-service attack. Facebook also “encountered network issues related to an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack, that resulted in degraded service for some users

Listen now:

Download today’s podcast

Listen to Larry Magid’s conversation with Microsoft’s Yusuf Medhi and Yahoo’s Hilary Schneider.

Barring any unlikely interference from regulators, the Microsoft-Yahoo relationship is a done deal. It’s a “comprehensive search deal” said Yahoo Executive Vice President Hilary Schneider in a recorded interview (listen below) that “provides an improved search experience for consumers,” taking the rich technol

The first vulnerability could let an attacker run arbitrary code on a person’s computer by sending specially crafted authentication information called certificate.

“We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release,” Mozilla said in a blog posting about the security issue.

Mozilla on Monday released two new versions of Firefox, 3.5.2 and 3.0.13, to patch two critical security holes. You can download the Wi

(Credit:
Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

After logging in, Simplify Photo for iPhone ($0.99) talks to the Simplify Media application on your desktop (download for Windows | Mac | Ubuntu). So long as you have the newest version installed (2.5), and the photo-sharing element selected (configure in the Options menu), you’ll be able to view the photos in your network. Networked images can include pictures from your multiple computers, and those that friends on your Simplify network have

In return for asking for this openness, though, Facebook is giving users something new and valuable: The capability to control who can see each individual post with incredible specificity. I especially like the feature that lets a user put up a post that’s open to their entire network (friends of friends) except for a specific person or people. It’s a great feature for gossips, or for someone who wants to communicate with everyone they know–except their mother.

With the new

And it understands you so well in these times of penury and desperation that it knows you have certain vulnerabilities that might be worth exploring: the vulnerabilities that lurk in the area around your pocket.

You see, if you’re a decision engine rather than a search engine, you have to aspire to higher goals. It really isn’t enough to produce an ad that might have been the work of JC Penney or KMart in one of their more awkward moments.

Still, you know that even w

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

I also didn’t really get a chance to use Apple’s iPhone 3GS much, at least beyond what my own personal iPhone 3G can do. I will say, however, that the 3GS is definitely much faster than the previous model, and if I wasn’t locked into my 3G, I would likely upgrade now.

Wrapping up
So now Road Trip 2009 draws to a close, and I will get back to my usual reporting on all things geek culture, mainly from my office in San Francisco. But my though

Four members of mineral trader Rio Tinto’s staff, namely Stern Hu, Wang Yong, Ge Minqiang, Liu Caikui, detained last year for stealing commercial secrets and taking bribes, will face trial next Monday, according to documents released by Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court yesterday.
Zhai Jian, Ge Minqiang’s counsel, confirmed that he and Ge have received the [...]

China is expected to strengthen its strategic partnership and enhance cooperation with Southeast Asia’s largest trade bloc during a weeklong visit starting Wednesday by a key official of the trade body, experts and officials told China Daily on Tuesday.
Pitsuwan Surin, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), is expected to officially kick-start his [...]