The Microsoft Security Response Center reported on Sunday that a patch for Internet Explorer 8 and below would be hitting Windows Update at 10 a.m. PST today. The company said that only a few users have been affected by the issue, but encourage all Windows users to download the update. Of course, those who are using Internet Explorer 9 and 10 need not worry as those browsers have better built-in security protections that prevented this latest attack.

Microsoft also says that those who downloaded the quick fix released earlier this month will want to download this latest patch. In good news, however, you won’t have to uninstall the fix to apply the latest patch.

The zero-day exploit that hit Internet Explorer was just the beginning to an already eventful 2013 in malware and Web exploits. Java was recently hit yet again with a zero-day exploit that Oracle has just fixed. It followed a report from AVG that said 2013 was going to be another big year for Web-based exploits with Java and Internet Explorer both cited as major security risks.

Those who want to know more about the exploit and how Microsoft fixed it, the company’s security team will be holding a live Webcast later today at 1 p.m. PST. You can register for it here.

Capcom detailed a patch hitting Resident Evil 6 in December that adds a number of new features and even some new and expanded content. The major addition, of course, is that Ada Wong’s campaign can now be played from the start without having to play through the other three campaigns first. Players will also get a little help in Ada’s campaign as a new co-op partner has been added.

The game will also be receiving a field of view update to allows players to take in more of the environment. It will be incredibly helpful for those who want to see more than just what’s immediately in front of them. The new FOV settings are still being developed, however, and Capcom says they may change before the update is released.

The other major update is a new “No Hope” difficulty setting for those who found the game to be too easy even on professional. It should help extend the replay value for those who have already beaten the game multiple times.

Capcom will continue to monitor feedback and implement changes as they see fit. It won’t change the game’s lack of atmosphere, but it should make it more enjoyable to play. As for the PC version, Joystiq reports that a release date is still up in the air.

Oracle issued a security alert today that addresses the three vulnerabilities that were discovered in Java back in April by Security Explorations. The vulnerability, if exploited, would allow a hacker to take control over a user’s computer and steal confidential information. It also had the potential to add any number of PCs to a botnet for other illegal actions.

Oracle’s security alert does give us a bit more information in regards to what versions of Java are affected. The previous reports said that it was only Java 7 that was affected, but Oracle says that Java 6 update 34 and before are also affected by the exploit.

Oracle has released updated versions of Java for developers and end users that patches the security holes. Developers can hit up Oracle’s developer site for the latest versions of the Java SDK and JRE 7/6 releases. End users can either download the newest version from Java’s Web site or just get it through automatic updates on the Windows platform.

It’s a relief that Oracle fixed this latest exploit so quickly. I, like a lot of other people, was concerned that Oracle would hold on updating Java until October. It’s pretty much a given, but everybody should go download the Java fix as soon as they can. System administrators should be especially hasty in applying the patch lest their entire network falls victim to an attack.

Although Patch has yet to return a profit for AOL, the platform started showing signs of life last month by setting a new record in both traffic and revenue. Now, Armstrong appears to be taking the rebuke of Starboard’s attempted insurrection of the company’s board of directors as a license to continue developing the online local news service. “There are only two people in the U.S. investing in local news and information: me and Warren Buffett,” Armstrong told The New York Post.

While Patch is expected to have its best year yet in 2012 by generating $40 to $50 million in revenue, Armstrong expects that the platform will finally be producing a profit by the end of 2013. He said two key components to turning Patch into a source of profit involve increasing consumer engagement as well as developing new ways to monetize the expected growth in traffic.

Meanwhile, Starboard took a break from licking its wounds after yesterday’s vote and sold off more than 425,000 shares of AOL in the aftermath, sending the company’s stock falling 5.7%. Way to lose with dignity, guys.

Patch, AOL’s local news dispensary, served 11.7 million users in May, marking a 14% increase in users from April when the platform had 10.3 million users. Last month’s record is also an 11% increase over Patch’s previous traffic record, which was recorded in August 2011 with 10.6 million users. In month-to-month growth, Patch saw a 12% increase in visits per unique visitor in May.

“We are extremely gratified to see these measures of the traction we have gained in our communities and in our business since our launch just over 3 years ago,” commented Jon Brod, CEO & Co-Founder of Patch, said in a statement. “We are laser-focused on continuing to serve our users and advertisers with high-quality content and impactful products, and building upon our success to date in innovative and engaging ways.”

Patch’s revenue also hit a new high water mark in May, besting the previous record set in November of last year. The platform’s total revenue for May was 14% higher than the previous record and 17% higher than April’s revenue.

AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong, who founded and later sold Patch to AOL after he’d joined AOL, expects that Patch will generate between $40 and $50 million in revenue this year, a projection likely based on the fact that Patch has already booked for 2012 130% of its total 2011 revenue.

While AOL didn’t release any actual money numbers associated with Patch’s good month o’ May, Patch might need to do a little better than $50 million to finally be considered a success. Bloomberg cites the aforementioned group of disgruntled investors, Starboard, who estimated that Patch lost $147 million last year with only $15,000 coming from each of Patch’s 800-plus news sites. While the prospective $50 million that Patch hopes to generate this year would offset another fiscal year loss, it remains to be seen if the hyper-local news service can inch closer to actually producing a profit in the future.

Still, in this world of the so-called global village, those who are invested the most in their communities are highly reliant on their local newspapers. However, it’s no secret that print publication is on life-support. Paul Gillin, who runs the aptly named Newspaper Death Watch, predicts that the online news industry will effectively kill off 95% of all major metropolitan newspapers in the United States. The Council of Economic Advisers, in collaboration with LinkedIn, recently released a study that shows that newspapers are the fastest shrinking industry in America.

In all, this is a terrible diagnosis for newspapers of any locale or distribution.

If you’re local newspaper went under, how do you think you’d find out about community-relevant news? Do you think exclusively online access would affect the way you seek out news for your city or neighborhood? Feel free to tells us how the change would affect you in the comments below.

A new study released today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet reveals that while the print industry might be suffering fatal financial problems, most Americans still heavily rely on those sources. Of the 2,251 adults who participated in the survey, which took place in January 2011, 32% said the disappearance of their local newspaper would have a major impact on them.

The availability of local newspapers is a key component with how people stay in touch with their community. Further, the Pew survey found that the local news enthusiasts are more likely to be invested in the development of their community and strive to improve the quality of their neighborhoods and cities.

Curiously, the groups of people that tend to gravitate towards their local newspaper as a means for staying in touch with their community reflects demographic groups that have historically had strong community ties: women, older people, African-Americans, and regular church-goers. What’s more, those that follow the local news are also the consummate news consumer as they actively follow national and international news vigorously, as well. 63% of people say they keep up with news from around the world “a lot” and 78% say they follow the national news regularly, whereas only 35% of other adults say the same.

As we become a society with dual community lives – one in the three-dimensional, physical world and one online – the demise of newspapers could very well emphasize the importance of community blogs and online social networks. As of yet, though, blogs, Twitter accounts, and websites of local newspapers and news stations are relatively used much less than the traditional methods of tuning in to the 6 o’clock news or buying a paper from your local news stand.

The slow success of local news to online sources certainly isn’t for lack of an audience because local news enthusiasts aren’t some community troglodytes. Just go log into your Facebook account and take a look at your friends who live in your community and you’re likely to see that they pass along links and comment on articles about their community just like anybody else although, as with most technology trends, that behavior seems to taper off with older generations. The Pew survey found that, in general, Americans haven’t opted for one medium or another but, instead, integrated technology alongside traditional mediums like newspapers in order to stay informed about local news. With so many of us now enmeshed within some kind of online social network, be it Twitter or Facebook or some other similar service, you could argue we’re more disembodied from our communities than ever before and yet we have a reliable inventory of tools that can keep us in touch with our community as a whole better than ever.

The use of technology like the Internet and smartphones isn’t all that different among those that follow the news closely and those that don’t. However, the study points out that “the connectedness of [local news enthusiasts] is driven largely by younger” consumers who, as you would expect are generally more tech savvy than older enthusiasts.

As the print industry lurches onward into what appears to be its inevitable demise, it’s possible that online social networks will not only be the way in which newspapers can best serve their community but also the best way in which community residents can best stay in touch with what’s going on in their neck of the woods. A Facebook timeline for your local newspaper? Don’t laugh just yet, as that’s where this could all be heading

Previous attempts to aggregate local news into one online source have had, at best, tepid success. Most notably, AOL’s Patch was supposed to revolutionize the online distribution of local news but that venture has been plagued with business problems as it reportedly lost around $100 million last year.

It’s hard to say how people will get their local news once – not if – the newspaper industry coughs up its last breath. Online is definitely where we’re going and as options like Google’s localized search results likely become the norm, the Internet will be the only source left. And the Internet, despite how personalized Google wants to make your searches, is a vast and confusing and impersonal abyss that, try as it might, will never truly be a newspaper substitute – it just aims to take its place.

Are you already making the switch to online news sources as opposed to traditional print news to keep a thumb on your community’s pulse? What’s working for you so far? Blogs, RSS readers, simple Facebook pass-arounds? Let us know how you’ve been finding your local news online.

I love Patch, and I plan on staying very connected as an active alum, most specifically as a member of the advisory board we’re continuing to build.

Farnham then went on to explain his general disdain for all of the ‘haters’ of Patch and AOL, and shed some light on how it affected him personally, as an employee of the company:

Allow me this indulgence of a paragraph: I’ve never worked for a company that has been as scrutinized, criticized, and coal-raked as this one. As Jon likes to say, you’d think we were creating toxic waste, instead of, you know, free useful information. We have critics on Wall Street, critics in the media, local critics, national critics, the business press, the journalism reviews, bloggers, etc. There are so many that I’ve come to think of them as a single large, screechy, off-key band called BI and the Haters. It’s music to kill yourself by.

Dang.

AOL has struggled since it delved into media. Patch, AOL’s “community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities,” lost roughly $160 million in 2011. And Farnham’s departure just adds to the trend of AOL executives leaving the company. With AOL’s Techcrunch snafu, which prompted the departure of Heather Harde, it has seemingly become a cool thing to quit AOL – The company has also lost Tim Dierks, Alex Gounares, Tim Castelli, Brad Garlinghouse and Kiersten Hollars.

According to VentureBeat, Patch recently hired Rachel Feddersen as the chief content officer.

Farnham blogged that he’ll be moving on to other startup opportunities, after taking a break:

Taking leave of Patch ain’t easy, but let me try to boil down why I’m doing so: it turns out I really love creating things from scratch, and while Patch is in a continual process of truly fascinating evolution and only a toddler of a company, it has definitely left “scratch” in the dust. So I’m heading off to explore some other startup opportunities. But not before I take a good, long nap.

Over on the Bethesda blog, they tell us that 1.5 is officially available on Xbox LIVE. As of Thursday morning, it’s not quite ready to go on PS3 – but they say that it should be available later in the day.

The Skyrim 1.5 update fixes over two dozen bugs and adds a few fun new features. The most important is probably the addition of some new kill cams and animations. For the first time, your kills with your bow and your magic will often prompt the awesome slow-mo kill cameras that until now, only melee weapon kills have enjoyed. And if anyone is sick and tired of the melee kill animations, you’re getting some more of those as well. Along with those two new features, your Smithing skill increases now factor in the value of the items you create.

Check out the new kill cams below (you know, if you’re at work and can’t yet download the update and see them live):

Bethesda also announced a fun little factoid: As of right now, the average Skyrim play time is 85 hours and almost a third of those players have played the game over 100 hours.

Here’s a full rundown of everything inside 1.5:

UPDATE 1.5

NEW FEATURES

• New cinematic kill cameras for projectile weapons and spells
• New kill moves and animations for melee weapons
• Smithing skill increases now factor in the created item’s value
• Improved visual transition when going underwater
• Improved distance LOD transition for snowy landscapes

BUG FIXES

• General crash fixes and memory optimizations
• Fixed issue with Deflect Arrows perk not calculating properly
• In “A Cornered Rat,” the death of certain NPCs no longer blocks progression
• Fixed issue where Farkas would not give Companion’s quests properly
• Fixed crash when loading saves that rely on data that is no longer being loaded
• Followers sneak properly when player is sneaking
• Fixed issue with weapon racks not working properly in Proudspire Manor
• Arrows and other projectiles that were stuck in objects in the world now clean up properly
• Fixed issue where “Rescue Mission” was preventing “Taking Care of Business” from starting properly
• Fixed issue where certain NPCs would fail to become Thieves Guild fences
• Fixed issue in “Diplomatic Immunity” where killing all the guards in the Thalmor Embassy before starting the quest would break progress
• In “Hard Answers,” picking up the dwarven museum key after completing the quest, no longer restarts the quest
• Killing Viola before or after “Blood on the Ice” no longer blocks progression
• Fixed issue where Calixto would fail to die properly in “Blood on the Ice”
• In “Waking Nightmare” fixed occasional issue where Erandur would stop pathing properly
• Fixed issue where letters and notes with random encounters would appear blank
• Fixed rare issue where dialogue and shouts would improperly play
• Lydia will now offer marriage option after player purchases Breezehome in Whiterun
• Fixed issue where if player manually mined ore in Cidhna Mine, jail time would not be served
• Fixed rare issue with skills not increasing properly
• Fixed issue where the Headsman’s Axe did not gain proper buff from Barbarian perk
• In “A Night to Remember” it is no longer possible to kill Ysolda, Ennis or Senna before starting the quest
• Fixed issue with the ebony dagger having a weapon speed that was too slow
• Fixed issue with “The Wolf Queen Awakened” where backing out of a conversation with Styrr too soon would block progress
• The third level of the Limbsplitter perk now properly improves all battle axes
• Fixed a rare issue where Sanguine Rose would not work properly
• In “Tending the Flames” King Olaf’s Verse will no longer disappear from explosions
• Fixed issue with frequency of first person kill cameras
• Underwater effects now display properly
• Fixed issue where sun would not appear properly after fast travel

So go on – get to playing!

Today, we rolled out the big Spring game update for Battlefield 3 on PC! The focus of this massive package is to make the game more stable, fairer, and more balanced. You can find a comprehensive change list in this earlier post. The ~1.6GB update is available now. Below are some of the highlights.

New and improved commo rose

This update sees a number of improvements to the commo rose on PC, partially based on feedback from the community. Some of the tweaks we have made are detailed below:

New global call-outs

We have added a number of new commo rose call-outs that you can make to the entire team whenever you want. Where you previously had to look at a Support player to get the option to request ammo, you can now use the commo rose at any time to request ammo, health, or repairs. Using these requests will trigger appropriate icons on the minimap.

Moved orders to commo rose

We moved orders so that they are now exclusive to the commo rose. This means that you will no longer accidentally place an order when you in reality wanted to spot an enemy standing near a flag, for example.

Improved mouse handling

The mouse movement is now always tracked from the center of the commo rose, to make navigation more intuitive.

Quicker activation

You now activate a call-out simply by releasing Q, which should be snappier than the previous implementation.

Improved readability

We tweaked the layout and design of the commo rose to improve readability and give clearer and quicker confirmation of which call-out is currently highlighted. Look for these flashing icons on the mini map. They mean your team mates are trying to tell you something! The available call-outs in the commo rose is context sensitive and will change depending on what you are currently doing in the game – for example, vehicles and infantry each have separate call-outs. Each function should trigger appropriate voice messages as well as icons on the minimap for increased team play possibilities. Players should keep an eye on the minimap for these icons. If you see them flashing, a team mate is requesting aid via the commo rose.

Improved minimap

After listening to community feedback, we have implemented alternative new ways to display the minimap. You can now choose between Map, Satellite or Hybrid view mode.Map mode shows the most important tactical geometries such as buildings, objects, roads and water. Satellite mode displays a top-down photograph of the level for increased terrain detail. Hybrid mode combines the Satellite view with a Map overlay, offering a mix of quick tactical awareness and terrain detail. You can change the minimap mode on the fly by pressing [B] (this key is mappable). You can set your preferred default map mode in the Options menu, where you can also alter the opacity level for the satellite textures. See below for an example of how these map displays compare.

Select the minimap display that suits your map and play style.

Beep beep! We have horns!

Yes! We have added horns to all jeeps in the game! Nothing says “Get in and man the machine gun so we can take back the airfield!” like three short beeps of the horn. Just press [SPACE] to make your presence known to friendly forces. Warning: Beeping also heard by opposition. Suggest limiting beeping when in enemy territory to keep vehicle in working order. This feature is also present in the PlayStation 3 update that went live yesterday (activated by L1).

Giving all players IR flares

To balance the battlefield and give budding pilots a fighting chance from day 1, we are now giving IR flares to all players. These will be automatically available to you in all air vehicles in the game. So if you’ve had a hard time staying up in the air previously, it should be easier to dodge incoming threats from now on. We hope this small but significant change will mean more players take to the skies and mix up their play style. This feature is also present in the PlayStation 3 update that went live yesterday.

More awards for skillful heli flying

One of the balancing items we have done in this game update is to better reward skillful heli pilots. To do this, we have increased the pilot’s score for transporting passengers who make kills from the heli. The assist score for heli pilots is now 50 points/kill. In a fully loaded transport, four passengers who make 1 kill each will give the pilot a sum total of 200 points. This balancing change is also present in the PlayStation 3 update that went live yesterday.

Making the SOFLAM a passive income gadget

The Recon gadget SOFLAM (laser target painter) has been given a new feature. Now, when a Recon player places it and then leaves it, it will continue to paint targets entering its area of control, continuously giving the Recon player a passive points income. This means a Recon player can place a SOFLAM in a strategic position, then leave it to find a good sniping spot. Combined with fixing a few scoring error in the SOFLAM, it should now be a much more viable source of experience points for Recons. This balancing change is also present in the PlayStation 3 update that went live yesterday.

Suppressing is team play, too!

Another balancing change that reflects how we want every player to be able to contribute to the overall effort is the lowered threshold for achieving the Suppression Ribbon. From a previous requirement of 7, players now only need to perform 3 suppressions in a game to be rewarded the Suppression Ribbon. This means the Support Kit player can rack up scores by skillful use of his LMG. We’ve always know suppression helps – now we are more generously rewarding those team players who help disorient the enemy so we can move in for the kill. This balancing change is also present in the PlayStation 3 update that went live yesterday.

New to the game? Get a flying start with our new shortcut items

Today, we are also offering 10 different shortcut items for sale for Battlefield 3 on PC. If you’re new to the game, this is the perfect way to gain some ground on the veterans online. Or if you’d love to get your hands on those AA missiles for jets instantly, this is for you.

The 10 shortcut items are available now from Origin and include:

Kit Shortcut Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items unique to the four playable classes
Vehicle Shortcut Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items for all vehicles
The Ultimate Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items from all other available shortcut packs

We hope you enjoy the contents of this game update. As always , had to the Battlelog forums or discuss the update with us right here on the blog. See you on the battlefield!

Yesterday’s firings are the latest in a slew of job cuts that have taken place at AOL this month. Other U.S.-based AOLers who lost their jobs this month include salespeople and engineers from the Patch division, and 50 employees at the AIM unit.

A year ago, AOL shed more than a thousand jobs following the $315 million acquisition of The Huffington Post. Over 200 U.S-based jobs — primarily editorial staff positions — were eliminated, as well as more than 700 jobs in India. At the end of 2011, an AOL filing with the SEC claimed 5,660 workers. It’s not yet clear how many positions were lost in the recent firings, or if more are expected to come.

AOL, once an industry giant, has been in decline over the past several years. The company’s subscription revenue declined 22% from 2010 to 2011, according to fourth-quarter financial statements.