operating

XP loses ground to Windows 7 but still top OS

Windows XP lost more users to Windows 7 last month, but the decade-old platform continues to hold on as the most popular operating system

Looking at OS stats for February, NetApplications found that XP's share of the market dipped to 45 percent from 47 percent in January. At the same time, Windows 7 grabbed 38 percent of all users, up from 36 percent the prior month.

The latest numbers show a trend in which XP has gradually lost share over time, while Windows 7 has picked up more customers. In February 2011, XP owned more than half of the … Read more

Windows 8 vs. OS X Mountain Lion: The debate begins

The Mountain Lion Developer Preview came out just a couple of weeks ago, and today's announcement for Windows 8 Consumer Preview now puts both of the major next-generation operating systems on display for all to see. CNET editors Seth Rosenblatt and Jason Parker went through and answered some key questions at this very early stage of the game. While neither operating system is close to finished, we put up some of the known features and examined reasons people might be enticed by one or the other.… Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: Mountain Lion and OS X's evolution

It's time for what's becoming the annual look at the Mac operating system, OS X. A week ago, Apple announced its latest update, Mountain Lion, and the announcement reveals how the operating system battle is evolving.

Two key trends: Smartphones are influencing desktop/laptop OS designs. And the cloud is becoming integral to the OS.

We're going to talk about Mountain Lion today and the future of the computer OS with two great experts:

Josh Lowensohn, the Apple reporter for CNET News Brian X Chen, a tech reporter for the New York Times, and author of " Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future--and Locked Us In" )

Subscribe to the Roundtable: iTunes: MP3 | 320x180 | 640x360 Podcast RSS: MP3 | 320x180 | 640x360

Mountain Lion features you might have missed

The Mountain Lion Developer Preview was released last week and Apple was particularly excited to show off 10 of the bigger new features in OS X. Check out our First Take of the Mountain Lion Developer Preview here. But what else is under the hood in Apple's latest OS?

Poking around in Mountain Lion, I came across a lot of smaller changes to the UI and some feature fixes that users of earlier Mac operating systems will appreciate.

UI and System tweaks The Dashboard is home to your widgets, and in Mountain Lion Apple has made a slight UI … Read more

The 404 995: Where the damage is done (podcast)

Leaked from 404 Podcast 995:

Apple Mac OS X 'Mountain Lion' takes more bites out of iOS. Get started with iMessage for OS X. Low Latency No. 10: Good artists copy, great artists steal. Apple PR maintains a blacklist of journalists that it refuses to talk to. Bathroom break video : Live television texting-while-walking fail.

Microsoft Bing page tips off new Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Microsoft has already cooked up a special Bing page tempting users to check out its upcoming Windows 8 "Consumer Preview."

The first clue is the video of a betta fish swimming from one edge of the screen to the other. Thought of as Microsoft's mascot for beta versions of new operating systems, that particular fish swam its way onto the desktop of the beta for Windows 7 in 2009.

But other more obvious clues are the hot spots and links scattered across the screen that refer specifically to Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Since the page is still … Read more

Feds seize illegal sports-streaming sites

Just a few days short of Super Bowl Sunday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced today it had seized 307 Web sites that either live-streamed sports or sold fake NFL paraphernalia.

The federal agents also arrested a Michigan man on criminal copyright infringement charges who allegedly operated nine of the streaming sites.

"While most people are focusing on whether the Patriots or Giants will win on Sunday, we at ICE have our sights on a different type of victory: defeating the international counterfeiting rings that illegally profit off of this event, the NFL, its players and sports … Read more

Windows XP still hanging on as dominant OS

Windows XP refuses to give up its top spot without a fight.

The decade-old OS has slowly been losing more users to Windows 7, but January marked a small resurgence in its grip on the market, according to stats out today from NetApplications.

For the month, Windows XP grabbed 47.19 percent of all OS users, inching up from 46.5 percent in December. At the same time, Windows 7 saw its market share dip to 36.4 percent from almost 37 percent the previous month.

Obviously, a fraction of a percentage point is nothing for XP to crow about, … Read more

Drain baskets as fast as you can

Arcade Hoops Basketball mimics the arcade quickshot basketball machines you might find at a pizza place or a fair, but with this app it's all about swiping your shots to the basket. Once you start the game, your job is to swipe upwards toward the basket and sink as many shots as you can in 45 seconds. The power of your shot is affected by how much you swipe so it takes a little bit of practice before you'll be hitting shots consistently.

Arcade Hoops Basketball comes with three game modes. The classic 45 second contest mentioned above, … Read more

Operation Ghost Click DNS servers to shut down in March

One of the more widespread malware efforts over the past few years was the DNSChanger scam, which installed a Trojan horse that would change the DNS server settings on affected computers to divert traffic to rogue servers.

The DNS system is essentially the Internet's phone book that allows your computer to resolve a URL to the IP address of the server that hosts its contents. By changing a computer so that it uses a rogue DNS server, the DNSChanger malware was thus able to redirect valid URLs (such as those for banking institutions) to malicious Web sites in order … Read more