NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 2 February
02-02-2010
by Deirdre McArdle
E-banking users warned on passwords | Chrome gains market share
The Awards for Science and Maths Excellence 2010 were launched on Tuesday by Discover Science and Engineering (DSE). The awards recognise the efforts of primary school children and teachers who have shown an increased knowledge of science and maths, and are part of the Discover Primary Science programme. In 2009 some 500 schools won an award and this figure is expected to increase this year. For more information on the awards visit primaryscience.ie.
Sky Ireland has made its Sky Player facility available on Windows 7 in Ireland. Sky Player has 27 live streaming TV channels as well as an on-demand library which includes 500 movies from Sky Movies and Sky Box Office, and thousands of other entertainment, sport documentaries, kids and culture programmes. The facility can be used by both Sky TV customers and non-Sky TV customers, with costs ranging from free for Sky customers with Sky Multi-room, EUR15 per month for those without Sky Multi-room, and EUR18 per month for non-Sky TV customers. Users can access Sky Player on Windows 7 via the Windows Media Center feature.
Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of banking customers in the US and Europe re-use their online banking passwords to access other non-financial websites, according to a survey conducted by security firm Trusteer. The report also revealed that 47 percent of respondents re-use both their online banking passwords and usernames for other sites. Trusteer has warned that cyber criminals could harvest login credentials from less secure sources, such as webmail and social network websites, and then test these usernames and passwords on banking sites, enabling them in some cases to commit fraud. "Our findings were very surprising, and reveal that consumers are not aware, or are choosing to ignore, the security implications of reusing their banking credentials on multiple websites," said Amit Klein, CTO of Trusteer. The full report is available here.
Google's web browser, Chrome, gained in popularity during January, passing the 5 percent market share mark with 5.2 percent, according to Net Applications. In December Chrome overtook Apple's Safari to become the third most popular web browser after Internet Explorer and Firefox. The market share tallies are as follows: Internet Explorer with 62.18 percent, Firefox with 24.41 percent, Chrome with 5.2 percent and Safari with 4.51 percent.
In related news, Google has taken the unusual step -- for an online advertising giant -- of using traditional advertising methods to push its Chrome browser in Europe, reports Reuters. Google is using billboards in underground stations in London, Paris and Amsterdam to promote Chrome, as well as taking out a range of newspaper ads. The move comes ahead of the upcoming regulatory change in Europe that will see it become easier for consumers to switch web browsers. The so-called 'browser ballot' was proposed by Microsoft as part of a settlement of its European Union antitrust dispute.
The Wall Street Journal reports that although Apple saw iPhone shipments grow during the fourth quarter, the device actually lost market share, according to ABI Research. The iPhone had 16.6 percent of the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2009, down from 18.1 percent at the end of the previous quarter. The issue for Apple was that the overall smartphone market had a good quarter, growing 26 percent, thanks to new releases such as Motorola's Android-powered handsets. According to ABI Research, the last time the iPhone saw its market share decline was in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 