New digital media software released

Advertiser Staff and News Services

• If you're fed up with media players warring on your computer, you may want to try the test version of QuickTime 6 that Apple Computer released last week. This Macintosh and Windows program supports a new format called MPEG-4, which is an open standard. If all Web video broadcasters adopted this, it wouldn't matter what media program you installed.

www.apple.com/quicktime/preview/quicktime6

• A new virus threatens to strike one of the Internet's most common and useful activities: sharing photos. The malicious program is the first to infect picture files, though it is not yet attacking computers.

Called "Perrun," it worries researchers because it is the first to be able to cross from infecting a program to infecting data files, long considered safe from such threats.

As with any computer threat, the best way to protect a computer is to have updated antivirus software. To keep abreast of the newest viruses:

vil.nai.com/VIL/newly-discovered-viruses.asp