Google Video Store live

The Google Video Store went online on Monday, and judging from first impressions, Blockbuster Video and NetFlix may not have much to worry about yet, reports CNet.

The store was accessible at the top of the main Google Video page with four rotating featured videos. A drop-down menu lets people browse selections of NBA basketball games, movies and music videos, as well as television shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The main Google Video page also has rotating feature videos categorised under "popular" and "random" sections. Samples of those include the notorious Tom Cruise appearance on Oprah Winfrey and the 9/11 terrorists attacks.

Sun Microsystems and Oracle will continue their partnership. According to The Register, Sun chief Scott McNealy and Oracle boss Larry Ellison announced the companies will continue to work closely for at least the next 10 years, during a press conference at Oracle`s headquarters.

Oracle signed its second 10-year Java licence and Sun unveiled a programme that bundles Oracle`s enterprise edition database on its UltraSPARC-based servers at no cost to customers.

Sun has teamed with Oracle to create server/database bundles meant to undercut the pricing of rivals IBM and HP.

Almost half of the victims of the hurricanes that struck the US last year applied for aid online, say officials. The BBC reports that at a conference in Las Vegas, a senior executive from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said 45% of requests for relief had come via its Web site, up from 10% in 2004.

Fema has faced criticism as its site initially only worked with the latest version of Microsoft`s browser. A Fema official said the priority had been to set up the service quickly.

Fema`s CIO, Barry West, revealed the figures while attending a conference looking into the role of technology in government, taking place as part of the huge technology expo, the Consumer Electronics Show.

The release of QuickTime 7.0.4 comes months after researchers warned that attackers could rig QuickTime files to execute arbitrary code on Windows and Mac machines, reports eWeek. In all, the update provides patches for five different buffer overflow vulnerabilities affecting users of Mac OS X v10.3.9 and later, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Apple warned that a maliciously crafted QuickTime Image File Format image may result in arbitrary code execution. The new software version will perform additional validation of the images to thwart potential exploits.

The update also performs additional validation of TGA images to correct a flaw that can lead to denial-of-service or arbitrary code execution attacks and fixes a bug in the way QuickTime reads TIFF and GIF images. A fifth vulnerability, in the way QuickTime processes rigged media files, can lead to a buffer overflow and code execution, the company warned.