Flash player

What's Apple's problem with Flash? Three years after the introduction of the iPhone, Apple's refusal to include Flash on its soon-to-be-released iPad has sparked another kerfuffle between Apple and Flash maker Adobe Systems.

Dear Action Line: How do I keep track of all the computer software vulnerabilities floating around the Internet? I can't really trust the sellers to keep me informed of their latest glitches and don't see it in the newspaper or on TV. -- H.E., Tulsa.

Two sources of "cyber security news" are US-CERT and Help Net Security.

Tablets are front and center at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and Nvidia wants to be the power behind the trendy devices. Nvidia launched its next-generation Tegra processor on Thursday, marketing it as the first processor for the mobile web and specifically designed for the high-resolution needs of tablets.

The pace of interactive multimedia continues to evolve with the release Tuesday of Adobe Systems' beta versions of its AIR 2 and Flash Player 10.1 software. The updates are available for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. The 10.1 player is also available for x86-based netbooks and, at some point in 2010, for smartphones and other mobile devices.

Adobe Systems' Flash technology is ubiquitous on desktop and laptop computers, but its availability on smartphones and other mobile devices is spotty. Adobe is now looking to change that, with its announcement Monday of a public developer beta of Flash Player 10.1 for "smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices." One device left off the list: Apple's iPhone.

Safe surfing on the Internet means more than just a good anti-virus program and a firewall. The browser needs to be safeguarded against attacks from the Internet as well.

Many Web sites require the use of small JavaScript programs to display their content. JavaScript can open security holes in a browser, however, which means that hackers frequently use the software as the starting point for an attack, reports Hanover-based computer magazine c't.

TVs that blend video, 3-D animation, graphics and interactivity. That vision of the future of television was described by Intel Thursday during its unveiling of the Atom CE4100 media processor. The announcement was made at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The CE4100, also known by the code name Sodaville, is the company's newest system on chip. Intel executive Eric Kim said the chip provides the processing power that is "the center of the TV evolution," featuring high performance and high-resolution graphics capabilities.

Adobe's Flash technology, omnipresent in virtually every computer and rapidly moving throughout mobile devices, is now rolling into digital home devices, including televisions and set-top boxes.