A new security advisory from Microsoft shines the light on a denial-of-service bug in Windows 7 and Server 2008 that could be hit to crash the system but not cause other harm.

The flaw in the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol only affects Windows 7 and Server 2008, and is unrelated to the previously fixed MS09-050 flaw affecting SMBv2, according to the Internet Storm Center. Microsoft says it does not yet know of any attacks against the flaw, but it has seen "public, detailed exploit code that would cause a system to stop functioning or become unreliable." A patch is not yet availabe.

The agency in charge of assigning domain names today began accepting applications for domain names written in non-Latin languages, and Egypt -- a country now drawing heated criticism from human rights advocates -- became the first to apply for a domain name in Arabic.

Microsoft has acknowledged the Windows 7 zero-day vulnerability reported last week with a Security Advisory. The advisory from Microsoft provides some additional details about the scope and nature of the threat, as well as some steps you can take immediately to protect vulnerable systems.

The Security Advisory explains that this vulnerability cannot be used by an attacker to gain control of a vulnerable system, or to install malicious software. It also notes that, while functional exploit code has been published, there are no reported incidents of this flaw being exploited in the wild at this time.

Four colored balls now tell parents their children are protected against adult content while searching on Google, the search giant said last week. The balls appear at the top right of the screen when "strict" SafeSearch in enabled.

While much has been made of Google's holiday "gift" of free airport Wi-Fi, this new feature is likely to provide even more popular with teachers and parents. In addition, it is a gift that goes on giving long after free Wi-Fi ends on Jan. 15.

Despite brave talk, the next six months seem likely to decide whether Palm will grow or fade back into obscurity.

Alas, I am voting for the sad outcome. It will be very difficult for Palm to prosper in the shadow of giants like Google and Apple.

From the breathless media coverage, the casual observer might think that Motorola's Droid handset and Google's Android operating system are the same. They are not.

Android is much bigger a phenomenon than any handset. The operating system is capable of running the same applications on phones, netbooks, and tablet PCs. It is also suitable for specialized devices, such as remote controls.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday called for a free and open Internet during a town hall meeting with Chinese university students in Shanghai.

Thomas Wensel wants to install Windows 7 while keeping his older version.

This is a great idea if you have enough spare hard drive space. It allows you to move to the new OS without burning your bridges.

Palm is working to steadily improve its Pre and Pixi smartphones with the release of WebOS 1.3.1. The free update weighs in at 126MB and brings with it dozens of tiny tweaks that improve the Palm experience. But if you were waiting for the resurrection of the Palm iTunes sync, you're out of luck: WebOS 1.3.1 does no such thing. Perhaps Palm decided to blink in the back-and-forth with Apple.

Modern Warfare 2 is no longer available in Russia for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners, it seems, despite the game hitting store shelves as scheduled early last week. Noticed by fan site Hellforge on Friday, Russian game site GotPS3 claims Russian officials had threatened to ban the game, prompting retailers to yank copies from store shelves and distributors to shut down the outflow of new stock.

Intel is reported to be gearing up to launch four Arrandale central processing units (CPU) in January of next year, truly pushing 32-nanometer technology into the mainstream.

We first got a glimpse of the Arrandale chips back in September, at Intel's IDF conference. Since then news on the new dual-core chips had been somewhat silent. Thankfully, word has now broke of the chipmaker's plans, courtesy of Chinese newspaper Digitimes, quoting various "notebook players" as its source.

Today's weather report for the Internet: increasing cloudiness with a chance of strong winds (of change). IBM and AT&T both announced new services to compete for a share of the projected $46.4 billion market--a market predicted to grow to over $150 billion over the next 4 years--in the progressively crowded arena of cloud computing.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Amazon should be very flattered. Amazon has more or less defined the market and has a relatively successful model for offering server capacity and storage space from the cloud. Both IBM and AT&T are closely following the Amazon blueprints to duplicate that success.