According to the Wall Street Journal, Google will be announcing its phone plans on Monday, hopefully putting a stop to the endless rumors floating out there regarding the GPhone. The announcement is expected to reveal a series of alliances with multiple handset makers and cellphone operators that are open to the idea of pushing Google phone applications. WSJ notes that the timing of the announcement could always change, but at this point Monday is looking good.

[Full article on WSJ]

Oh, how the PC users have longed for this day. With one of Apple’s marketing points being that Mac is practically virus free, many have held the view that this stems largely from Macs (and OS X) being less prominent on the market than Windows-based PCs. As a long time PC user, I cannot deny that I consider some of the applications in Windows a security train wreck (*cough* IE6 *cough*), but I do agree that the myth about Macs being immune to viruses is overrated to some degree.

Now, many reports (1) (2) (3) say that some pornography sites hold a Mac trojan pretending to be a video codec.

Granted, this is not the first Mac trojan nor the first Mac malware. But, this one seems to be particularly nasty.

Named OSX.RSPlug.A, it appears to Mac users as they’re lured into thinking they’re viewing a video, and acts as a necessary video codec. The computers of users who proceed with the installation will be infested by a DNSChanger that hijacks web requests sent to eBay, PayPal and several online banking websites. Not nice. Read the full scoop on this threat over at Intego.

One of the Biggest Changes to the Internet is on its way, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will launch an evaluation of Internationalized Domain Names next week that will allow Internet users to test top-level domains in 11 languages, including Arabic.

“This evaluation represents ICANN’s most important step so far towards the full implementation of Internationalized Domain Names. This will be one of the biggest changes to the Internet since it was created,” said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN’s President and CEO. “ICANN needs the assistance of users and application developers to make this evaluation a success. When the evaluation pages come online next week, we need everyone to get in there and see how the addresses display and see how links to IDNs work in their programs. In short, we need them to get in and push it to its limits.”

The evaluation is made possible by today’s insertion into the root of the 11 versions of .test, which means they are alongside other top-level domains like .net, .com, .info, .uk, and .de at the core of the Internet.

Next Monday, 15 October 2007, Internet users around the globe will be able to access wiki pages with the domain name example.test in 11 test languages — Arabic, Persian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil.

More information on the ICANN website.

From engadget.com:

we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com’s software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the US.

Read Full story Here. Also Apparently there’s a second iPhone software unlock promised tomorrow, Full story Here.

Good news for our hardcore Apple Fan friends