MS creates academic search siteXhead = MS creates academic search site

Microsoft is courting researchers and other academics with a specialised Web search service, its latest effort to catch up to market leader Google, says Seattle PI.

Windows Live Academic Search was launched in preliminary form last night. It lets researchers search the contents of academic journals to find abstracts and, if they subscribe to the journals, get the documents from the publishers` sites.

The service, which for now focuses on computer science, electrical engineering and physics, includes tools for researchers, such as the ability to quickly extract information for citations. But it`s also open to the public, and some library systems give patrons access to the journals included in the index.

Microsoft released a "critical" Internet Explorer (IE) update that fixes 10 vulnerabilities in the Web browser yesterday, including a high-profile bug that is already being used in cyber attacks, reports CNet.

The software giant sent out the IE megafix as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday cycle of bulletins. In addition, Microsoft delivered two bulletins for "critical" Windows flaws, one for an "important" vulnerability in Outlook Express and one for a "moderate" bug in a component of FrontPage and SharePoint.

Eight of the 10 vulnerabilities repaired by the IE update could be abused to gain complete control over a Windows computer running vulnerable versions of the Web browser. In all instances, an attacker would have to create a malicious Web site and trick people into visiting that site to hook into a PC.

News Corporation has named the security chief that will oversee child safety measures on its MySpace.com social networking Web site, reports Australian IT.

Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam, former director of consumer security outreach and child safe computing at Microsoft, will head safety, education, privacy and law enforcement oversight programmes for MySpace and other Fox Web properties owned by News Corporation.