MS fast-tracks Word appeal

Microsoft has been granted the right to fast-track an appeal against the recent injunction forcing it to stop selling Word in the US after 10 October, states Computing.co.uk.

The request was granted by a panel of federal judges, who refused to acquiesce to Microsoft's other demand to nullify the injunction altogether. A Microsoft spokesperson said: "I can confirm that the court has set an expedited schedule for this appeal."

A federal judge ruled on 10 August that the software giant was guilty of infringing a patent held by i4i, a Canadian firm specialising in Word XML authoring software. Microsoft was slapped with a $290 million fine and a ban on selling Word in the US from October.

The search engine giant has added a traffic tool to the Web and mobile versions of its site that let drivers see how heavy traffic is in their area via a colour-coded chart, reports PCMag.

As you zoom in closer to a city, Google will highlight the main roads and code them red for heavy traffic, orange for medium traffic, and green for no traffic. A red/black colour means stop-and-go traffic.

How will Google get this information? From you. If using Google Maps for mobile with GPS enabled, you can enable Maps with My Location, and send bits of information to Google about how fast you're moving.

A cross-site scripting vulnerability affecting Twitter security is still open despite the microblogging service's attempt at a fix, a software developer says, reports eWeek.

If exploited, the bug could enable an attacker to take over a victim's Twitter account. The bug was first reported by techie James Slater. According to Slater, the vulnerability allows malicious JavaScript to be inserted into tweets by adding the code to a field of the API used by Twitter developers.

"Twitter made one of the most basic mistakes in developing the Web application: never blindly trust data that is provided from the outside world! Their form did no, or some very, very basic, checking on what you enter in the box," Slater wrote.

A federal court in California has upheld a $33.15 million penalty against a cyber-squatting domain aggregator that registered hundreds of Web sites mimicking Verizon's name and trademarks, reports The Register.

Verizon accused OnlineNIC of using an automated process to register Web sites such as verizononline.com, accountverizonwireless.com, and iphoneverizonplans.com. The phony Verizon sites hosted ad links and pop-under advertisements that resulted in revenue for OnlineNIC.

The cyber-squatter argued that damages of $33.15 million were vastly disproportionate to any actual harm suffered by Verizon or profit earned from the offending domain names. The company said it had only derived $1 468.60 in profit from the 663 infringing domain names.