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The threat hasn’t kept Wright awake at night, although the coffee does, he said in an interview with CNET News.com at 2:30 Wednesday morning Sydney time.

Eventually “you’ll be able to turn on your oven with your mobile phone” and a malicious hacker could wind up burning the house down, Wright said.

Wright posted the information on the vulnerabilities, and the fact that there is no patch available yet, to the BugTraq security e-mail list on Tuesday.

Craig Wright, a risk advisory services manager at professional services firm BDO,replica watches, found several security holes, including a buffer overflow in the Internet Connection software that links his Jura F90 coffee maker to his PC.

A U.S.-based public relations representative for the coffee maker said she would try to reach spokespeople in the Switzerland headquarters for comment.

“I don’t know if many people would target this particular vulnerability because there probably are not a lot of coffee makers at the moment that are Internet-connected, and in my case it’s behind a firewall,” he said.

However, Internet-connected appliances are the wave of the future. There is already an Internet-connected refrigerator, at least one prototype of a Web-enabled oven, and pilot tests for dryers and water heaters.

An Australian man has discovered security vulnerabilities in his Internet-connected coffee maker that could allow a remote attacker to not only take over his Windows XP-based PC but also make his coffee too weak.

This $2,Cubic Zirconia jewelry,000 Jura F90 coffee maker can be connected to the Internet for remote control of the settings. But it also can open up your PC to remote attacks,Louis vuitton Watches, a security expert says.

(Credit:
Jura)
Once connected to the Internet, the high-end coffee maker, which retails for nearly US$2,000 on Amazon, lets you do things like set the strength of your coffee and get remote diagnostic help over the Internet without having to send the appliance in for service.

Actually, the economy being as rotten as it is, some companies are going against the economic grain by offering compelling open-source alternatives to traditional, proprietary software, as reported Wednesday. And it’s intriguing to watch companies like Lockheed Martin get into open source as a way to shift costs and improve development of their software.

That’s OK. According to Forrester analyst Jeffrey Hammond, open source is “infiltrating the enterprise” on a grand scale now. What starts out as an interest in penny pinching turns into something much more, he says.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

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Yes, there are still open-source holdouts like Orange UK which has allegedly banned Firefox and anything more modern than Internet Explorer 6 from its call centers. The company is still accepting smoke signals as a form of communication, so we’re trying to get the message through that open source can drive down costs and improve productivity.

At least, not according to a survey of 200 IT executives by Computer Economics, which finds:

About 49 percent of the IT executives surveyed plan to make further budget cuts in 2009.
Almost 50 percent will spend less than what is allocated in their IT operational budget.

Forrester and Gartner are duking it out to see who can be gloomiest in their assessment of 2009 IT spending, as Baseline reports. Gartner sees global IT spending dropping 6 percent from 2008, while Forrester one-ups Gartner with a projected 10.6 percent decline. (Forrester had earlier projected a 3 percent dip for 2009.)

Not good, right? Well, it gets worse…

The market is clearly racing toward a bottom when we start looking to Monty Python for business advice and the most lucid (if profane) analysis of Google’s announced open-source operating system, Chrome OS, comes from Fake Steve Jobs.

However fast we may be “racing,” however, we’re not there yet.

So, while I’m not cheering for ever-gloomier forecasts of IT spending, I will admit that I like the result: more open-source adoption.

The “Simply Everything” plan will give customers unlimited data and messaging on the Internet-centric handset. Night and weekend minutes will be unlimited as well, but anytime calls will be capped at 450 minutes.

Last week we told you that the highly-anticipated Samsung Instinct would goes on sale on Friday, June 20. Though the exact price of the Instinct is still unknown–Sprint is promising that it will cost less than $300–today the carrier announced that the slick touch-screen phone will require a $70 per month voice and data plan.

In comparison, the cheapest plan for the iPhone runs $60 per month. Though it also offers unlimited data and 450 anytime minutes, customers are limited to 200 text messages and 5,000 night and weekend minutes. It’s uncertain how the
iPhone plans will change when Apple announces the 3G iPhone, but it is clear that with the Instinct, Samsung and Sprint are trying to give Apple and AT&T some competition.

Yoshi’s Cookie (1992, NES, 500 Wii points): Nintendo really tried to cash in on the whole Tetris era by developing many Nintendo-branded spin-offs. In Yoshi’s Cookie, you’ll take on 100 stages of cookie-themed puzzle action.

Bases Loaded (1988, NES, 500 Wii points): A true classic, Bases Loaded brought arcade-style baseball into the home. Great gameplay combined with innovations, such as the first-ever view from the pitching mound, allow for this game to be fun even when played today.

Two classic NES games are available for download this week on the
Wii virtual console. Choose between a classic baseball-arcade sim and a puzzler inspired by everyone’s favorite dinosaur sidekick.

What games do you think are missing from the Wii virtual console? Sound off here!

Why Sony?

Right now, Microsoft is a major force in the US and Europe, but it’s practically nonexistent in Asia. On the other hand, Japan has always been a Playstation 3 stronghold and even now, it far outpaces the Xbox 360 on almost every measure of performance.

Undoubtedly some are wondering why I think Microsoft should acquire Sony and not the other way around. Well, Microsoft is the company with more money in the bank than Sony ever dreamed of having. On top of that, Sony is in no position to acquire a gaming division from a company that’s enjoying record profits with its online platform and has finally turned things around after years of losing money.

Lest we forget, the only thing stopping Microsoft from offering Blu-ray now is that Sony is behind it and it doesn’t want to pay off its competitors. But by acquiring the games division, it’s eliminating that competitor and offering Blu-ray seems like an even smarter move.

But I don’t think that’s a problem here at all. Microsoft would be more than happy to bring Blu-ray to its platform as long as people want to use it, and Sony would make out in the long-run anyway: both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 would undoubtedly offer Blu-ray drives, thus increasing its penetration rate.

Sony has blamed its gaming division’s financial problems on high manufacturing costs and slow sales, but it’s probably easier to blame it on poor management. Either way, it’s not in a position to acquire a small developer, let alone Microsoft’s gaming division, and to be honest, I’m not so sure Sony would mind doing just that.

Now is the prime moment for both of these companies to come together, strike a deal, and see Microsoft acquire Sony’s games division. Microsoft is not only capable of writing a check for the division, it’s fully aware that by acquiring Sony’s third-party agreements, Blu-ray capability, and its worldwide presence, it can become an incredibly powerful force in the video game industry and solidify itself as a feared player going forward.

The gaming division is still an important component in Sony’s broad strategy, but it’s simply not as important as it once was. With huge losses that may or may not turn to profits, Sony is in an awkward position. Should it simply wait and see what happens or should it go to Microsoft now and see if the company is interested?

Even though Sony enjoyed a small profit of about $51 million from its game division last quarter, it’s still far behind previous generations and is quickly becoming a thorn in the company’s side. Earlier this year, Sony announced that its games division posted a $276 million loss and over the course of its availability, things have been even worse.

But when we objectively consider the state of the industry, it becomes blatantly clear that Sony and Microsoft simply don’t have what it takes right now to compete and more consumers are more excited about Nintendo’s platform than anything Sony or Microsoft can dole out.

And why wouldn’t it be? By acquiring Sony’s games division, Microsoft effectively eliminates the major competitor in its space and can increase its presence overseas — a major sticking point for the company.

As I was thinking of something to discuss today, I peered beneath my HDTV and saw my
Wii sitting next to my Playstation 3 and
Xbox 360. And as soon as I looked at all three, it had me thinking: the Wii is a wildly successful platform, but the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are still limping along in the hope that they’ll compete with Nintendo’s platform at some time in the future.

Sony’s gaming division is quickly becoming a drain on its financial stability and shareholder confidence, while Microsoft is chugging along at a pretty good clip even though it has little influence in Asia. And although neither company can beat Nintendo alone, don’t you think it’s entirely possible that Microsoft and Sony could become a powerhouse in the industry if the former acquires the latter, thus making it a valuable idea?

From Sony’s side, the deal is a no-brainer. Over the last few years, the company has presided over the worst degradation in value the games division has ever seen and it’s limping along trying desperately to turn things around. And now that its focus is squarely planted on Blu-ray above all else, why wouldn’t it take the hefty price Microsoft would be willing to pay, right its wrongs, and make Blu-ray available on two gaming platforms?

Surely some are thinking that the deal breaker here is Blu-ray. Sony relies on the Playstation 3 more because of its Blu-ray capability right now than anything else. The company is so inexorably tied to Blu-ray that if the Playstation 3 fails, the high-def format will as well.

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Realizing that, why wouldn’t Microsoft acquire Sony’s gaming division and consolidate its power and influence in the gaming space? I know, it may sound radical and at first glance you would think that Sony would never agree to such a deal, but keep an open mind for a minute and hear me out.

But by acquiring Sony’s games division, all those troubles are behind Microsoft. After the ink dries, it’ll have a full-fledged customer base in Asia and together with its US and Europe customers, it can expand its Xbox Live platform to more people than ever before and truly become a fearful competitor to Nintendo.

It may sound radical, but a consolidated video game industry would be best for two of the big three. And now, we wait to see if they agree.

One thing the horny one will call out is that Fox’s Jim Gianopolus is one entertainment industry executive who seems to “get it” (as far as that’s possible for entertainment industry executives). He hit on some key points the Macalope’s been hot on for a while: people want a one-stop shop that’s easy to use that lets them watch their media anywhere.

But it’s still a killer offering. All the major studios, HD content, download directly to an Apple TV, watch content on all your devices, iTunes versions on DVDs… These are notable for the stark contrasts they draw to what the music business had been doing. Now there’s a compelling solution.

It’s a solid follow-up to last year’s Keynote which was a tough act to follow. You can’t get a new iPhone every year, but the MacBook Air comes pretty darned close.

By now you’re surely read the big news — Time Capsule backup device, a strong
iPhone update, movie rentals with an accompanying Apple TV update and the ultra light MacBook Air — so the Macalope won’t rehash it.

Sure, you can quibble over the 24 hour time limit for viewing and you can bitch, bitch, bitch about only being able to watch a movie on one device at a time, and you can moan and whine and cry yourself to sleep over the price or whatever detail you want to gripe about.

(Credit:
Brad Bostic's Mobile Search and Technology Blog)

So ChaCha, which makes its money through Web-based ads and other means, hired festival scouts who sent information about Sundance celebrities, films and parties to some of its core 8,000 guides operating all around the country.

That was before, however, I found myself stuck in a traffic jam on a crowded shuttle bus, sans laptop and in dire need of a piece of scheduling information. What time was the U2 3D screening and where? That would tell me whether I had time to get off the bus and make it to a private John Legend concert to which my friend got me invited. ChaCha ching…I texted in my question to ChaCha and minutes later got my answer.

Bostic said ChaCha also has plans to assist information-seekers at South by Southwest in March as well as other future venues.

That’s apparently how, when I followed up my prior inquiry with, “will bono b there?” the guide responded: “I’m not finding that he will, but check it out. Robert De Niro and Bruce Willis are at Eccles.” (Bono was, in fact, there, as was the whole band.)

I’m sure I’m not the only one who, upon testing out the service, tried out some harder and more random questions on the guides. ChaCha had no clue, for example, about the John Legend performance. But I got an interesting and informative answer to my question about whether camels have eyelids. They do. “Camels are equipped too deal with harsh desert conditions such as flying sand,” the texted answer read.

For background, ChaCha launched publically in September 2006 as a social search site that trains “guides” to answer questions from visitors about anything. In January, it launched a free text-messaging service that lets you text any question to “242242″ (or “chacha”) and the answer is quickly texted back to you for free.

ChaCha co-founder Brad Bostic

I’d stay away from asking ChaCha Magic 8-ball type questions, like “When will I find true love?” Answer: “I don’t know when that’ll happen to you–guides are not required to have psychic abilities! We’re here to answer ?s 24/7 tho!”

The idea of promoting the service as a venue-specific information source, like for Sundance, just seemed to make sense given the huge gathering of people with shared interests, said ChaCha co-founder Brad Bostic. “You’ve got 60,000 people who are extremely passionate about celebrities, film,” and the like all wanting to be in the know, he said.

ChaCha’s free service isn’t perfect, but it sure makes that $2.98 Verizon charged me last month for “411 Connect” seem ridiculous.

When I learned that a company called ChaCha had partnered with the Sundance Film Festival to answer festivalgoer questions via text messaging, I was a little skeptical. I wondered, what makes ChaCha the expert on all things Sundance, and who’s going to text in questions when there are festival volunteers, smartphones, laptops, and wireless everywhere?

Nonetheless, with the equally odd acquisition rumor floating Wednesday that Google could acquire the travel site Expedia (now watch them actually do this and make me look like a yutz) and the rumor a few weeks back that Google was looking to acquire my parent company CNET Networks, I thought it was time I owned up to my own talks with the search king.

I was reluctant to discuss this for obvious reasons. These talks could break down at any time and there is no clear indication when they’ll be concluded and the final price could change dramatically before negotiations have completed.

My discussions with Google to this point lead me to conclude that they are, in fact, kicking the tires on my 2003 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport. Google and its executives, who have invested in hybrid vehicles, lovely shuttle buses for employees, and a cool jet, recently discovered they also need four-wheel-drive vehicles that get decent gas mileage and can fit through a typically small garage door in San Francisco, where my vehicle has been housed since its acquisition from a Subaru dealership in Redwood City, Calif.

Google is hesitating for several issues: An unfortunate encounter with an automated car wash in 2004 left scratches on the front hood and my 4-year-old daughter’s penchant for grinding the remains of peanut butter-filled pretzels into the back seat upholstery has left little, dry sticky marks that won’t go away.

But sales price appears to be the biggest sticking point. The Blue Book value on my car is roughly $11,000 and Google is holding firm. But based on recent tech deals, such as Microsoft’s investment in Facebook, I believe a fair asking price is $3.42 million. Larry Page, with whom I’m negotiating directly, has so far balked at this price, but I think when he sees that the oil-changing and tire-rotation record on this vehicle is outstanding, he’ll at least meet halfway.

Stay tuned. I’ll have more on these talks as they unfold. And yes, I’m kidding. But I wish we were kidding about the Expedia rumor. By the way, Expedia shares were up 4.32 percent to close at $25.13 per share on Wednesday’s news.

I was surprised this has become public, but I suppose I should weigh in now that reports have filtered onto the blogosphere: It’s true. Google is in talks to buy my
car.

Sure, Google can buy a new Subaru. But my used Subaru is cheaper.

At the risk of impacting my talks with Google and drawing the ire of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, I’d like to point out what’s great about my Subaru: In addition to that decent gas mileage and ability to fit through a narrow garage door, it’s excellent in the snow and comes with a ski rack that can be modified to carry bicycles. It has a handy outside thermometer and is a perfect car for the typical Google employee who lives in the city but likes to do outdoorsy stuff on the weekends.

(Credit:
Subaru)

News.com Poll Day job for the iPhone
With Apple’s updates, will you now use the iPhone for work?

Right now, Research in Motion dominates the business smartphone market with over two-thirds of its 12 million customers coming from businesses and government. Large businesses bought in early to RIM’s push e-mail system, which requires large companies to have all their e-mail routed through RIM’s own servers. For the most part, RIM’s BlackBerry e-mail service has been a huge success. But there are signs that the company’s dominance could be vulnerable. In the past six months RIM has experienced at least two major outages where e-mails were not forwarding to BlackBerry devices in a timely manner.

Apple has finally granted the wish of business users who have craved the coolness of the
iPhone but couldn’t live without their push work e-mail.

roundup
The iPhone opens up for business Click here for complete coverage of Apple’s iPhone SDK announcements, which give the hot-shot gadget its entree into Corporate America and even the gaming world.

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Blackberry’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie said a day after the last outage that he wasn’t too worried about the outage affecting its relationship with business customers. But as Apple makes it easier for corporate customers to get e-mail on the iPhone, he may reconsider.

The announcement is a huge deal for Apple, because it eliminates one of the barriers the company faced in addressing the business market. It also made the iPhone more appealing to a group known as prosumers, people who buy their own cell phones for personal use, but also access some business applications, such as corporate e-mail, on their phones.

Until now, iPhone users who wanted to get e-mail on their iPhones had to jump through a series of technical hoops. And as a result, a lot of business users, who would have otherwise bought the iPhone right away, have stood on the sidelines with their BlackBerrys or Windows Mobile phones drooling at the iPhone.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, demonstrated on stage how to activate and set up the Exchange function on an iPhone. The entire set up can be done over the air allowing e-mail, contacts, and calendar information to be automatically pushed to a device.

But now these business users will be able to get their work e-mail on an iPhone just as easily as they can on a Windows mobile phone or a BlackBerry. On Thursday, Apple announced at an event at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., that Apple has licensed the Microsoft ActiveSync protocol, which will make it much easier to do push e-mail and contacts with Exchange servers.

Yes
No

Downloaded videos don’t show up to those in your regular video library, and won’t sync up into iTunes the next time you plug in your phone, but they can be deleted one at a time just like regular video files in case you start running short on space.

The app has a search tool that lets you hunt for videos, and each one has the option to download the higher or lower quality version in case you feel like trying to save space. Downloads can be stacked up, although in its current release, having more than one video in the download queue seems to crash it.

MxTube IPhone Native App - Coming Soon - video powered by Metacafe

Speaking of crashes, the app is has a handful of bugs that make it a little volatile, including one that doesn’t let you exit playing videos unless you hit the home button. Otherwise it’s a fantastic tool for grabbing a ton of free video content without having to deal with the molasseslike speeds of EDGE or third-party ripping tools that require syncing with iTunes to transfer content.

MxTube is a fantastic new native application for jailbroken iPhones. If you’re one of the lucky few with a jailbroken handset and the installer app, you’ll find MxTube in the recent packages section as of last night. The app is fairly similar to the
iPhone’s native YouTube video viewer with the added benefit of being able to download entire clips and save them to your phone’s memory for offline viewing.

I’ve embedded a demo from the creator of the app after the break.

We’ll be doing our best here at CNET News.com to ferret out more product details, but we wouldn’t say no to some help. Whether you are at Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or somewhere else in searchland, feel free to send along your tidbits to ina dot fried at CNET dot com. There’s a lot to go through, and we’re bound to miss something. Plus, not all of Ray Ozzie’s thoughts get filed with the SEC.

Microsoft is planning a new release this spring of its Live search product, code-named Rome.

Also, I forgot to mention this, but CFO Chris Liddell noted at this morning’s financial analyst meeting that Microsoft would likely have to raise money–a first for the company–to finance its Yahoo purchase.

That tidbit was mentioned Friday as part of the software giant’s employee Webcast to discuss the Yahoo bid. Microsoft filed a transcript of the employee meeting on Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is just the first of many product tidbits one can expect as part of the regulatory filings being made in conjunction with the offer.

Microsoft said it is also planning its next update for Windows Live. The company began the second generation of the Internet services suite last July.

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t share much on what can be expected with Rome. Microsoft updated its search product last September, although the company has continued to remain a distant third to Google and Yahoo in the search market.

“We are now in vision phase for Windows Live wave 3, working to get that out later this year,” division President Kevin Johnson told employees during the Webcast.